Sunday, May 1, 2016

The USCIRF and its (Hindu)India-bashing
Tomorrow, May 2nd 2016, the U S Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is scheduled to release its annual report. In the context of the ‘Hindu Nationalist Government’ of India denying visa to USCIRF recently, and the IB stating that USCIRF reports were based on “half-truths, hearsay and standalone cases,” I have a premonition regarding what is coming!

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had in the past unleashed a torrent of invective directed at India, which in its strange wisdom, considers to be a country intolerant of religious minorities! The 2015 USCIRF Report was suffused with hypocrisy and double standards that the SundayGuardian editorially mocked it that were authors of it to ever get tasked to write a history of the subcontinent, they would affirm that it is not Pakistan but India where the share of minorities in the total population has fallen precipitously since 1947!

How do we counter portrayal of our country as a den of fanatics, with the ulterior motive of providing an excuse for the US administration to threaten sanctions and other punitive measures against India? The saddest part of it that the most active “informers” supplying the material against India are the evangelist Christian groups, particularly the CBCI! People who preach religious tolerance to India must ask themselves, does “respectful coexistence of diversity” mean that every Indian has to be a Christian to be SAVED and reach heaven or paradise or has to be either killed or converted to Islam, the one and only true faith?

Hindu Dharma, unlike Christianity and Islam doesn’t divide humanity into those chosen by God and those eternally damned. It requires regarding all as brothers and sisters! Not even the lunatic fringe among the Hindus, do not consider that India’s Constitutional promise of secularism, liberty, equality, and democracy to minorities was inappropriate, with the country’s huge diversity: half-a-dozen major religions, 14 official languages and hundreds of dialects, many scripts and literature. There is only an assertion about a common culture. Does that hurt the USCIRF to know that an 80+percent majority in India embrace the rest as brothers and sisters under an overlapping cultural umbrella; that the mother society feels for the children who have taken up different faiths for whatever reasons? Why is the USCIRF so mystifyingly blind as not to see that  the 3% Christians and the 14% or so Muslims in India, live as full citizens in political, social, cultural and the religious life of India, and  enjoy greater rights and freedoms in than any similar minorities in any other country including the United States?

But of course, the USCIRF cannot keep ordering India for a grovelling “outreach” to extremist Muslims and Christians! Hindus have been happy to live their lives without bothering about Faiths of others. Why are Christians, Muslims (and atheists too) waging war on beliefs that mean nothing to them Well, if it comes to a confrontation that USCIRF is attempting, why can’t we Hindus insist and maintain that we reject all religions that do not agree with Indian thought and values? Muslims attempt to wall off outside influences, permitting only an Islamic education for their children and disengaging from the wider non-Muslim community everywhere. Christians believe that Jesus said “"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” and "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me..."If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him." Isn’t that denying those who do not become Christians access to God?

And what do the HINDUS believe: They hold on to the Upanishadic philosophy "Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti" —"that which exists is One (God): sages call it by various names! Is there a more inclusive philosophy? The moderation of the majority, has ensured the safety of the minority, and those who ignore this fact are diverting attention from countries where religious persecution is the norm!

Other than the USCIR, the U.S. State Department too has its annual International Religious Freedom report, a country-by-country catalogue of the treatment of religious groups around the globe! It is actually international policing! How many of us remember enormous kleptocracy named the UPA, remote-controlled by an Italian Catholic lady, had made the unprecedented step of inviting UNCIRF to visit Gujarat and Orissa to study Muslim/Christian persecution by the respective State Governments run by BJP and ally to play politics unmindful of the reputation of the country? Has the US Congress been informed that when in the so called Christian countries churches are closing down in India churches are annually increasing in number?

Noted anthropologist France Boss has held that “if we wish to take over the direction of a society we must either guide it from within its cultural framework or else eradicate its culture and impose a new culture.” What the BJP is trying to do is to ‘guide India from within its cultural frame work’? America doesn’t have much of a culture, being in fact a “refugee settlement” of sorts! They maynot understand this! But if religious freedom is truly the “civilizing discourse of our time” India will participate in it holding its head high and proclaiming that, WE ARE PROUD OF OUR RECORD!



2 comments:

  1. Fantastic article exposing hypocrisy of USCIRF. Read 89 articles unmasking Religious Freedom lies: uscirf.blogspot.com

    “Christian ReligiousFreedom" = "Muslim Sharia"
    In USA, Several states like Indiana, Arkansan have tried to pass ReligiousFreedom aka Anti-Gay law. Gov. Bobby Jindal issued a religious-freedom executive order. As per ACLU, Bobby's order makes discrimination legal. Bobby’s order would allow a catholic hotelier to deny venue to gays or hindus because he believes only in catholic marriage blessed by a catholic priest.

    "Religious Freedom" is a cleverly crafted metaphor. It is about taking away others freedom in the name of religion. For all practical purpose, Religious Freedom is christian right to act as per cannon regardless of damage to equality. This is similar to Muslim demand for Sharia.

    This reminds of Humpty Dumpty quote: “When I use word religious-freedom, it means just what I choose it to mean". In Indiana, Religious-freedom means anti-gay. In Virginia, It is anti-atheist. Globally, It is pro-christian and a weapon to beat others.

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  2. I remember Pope John Paul II during visit to India went to Rajghat and wrote in the visitors' book a quote from Gandhiji himself: "A culture cannot survive if it attempts to be exclusive!"Look who was writing about Indian culture which with open arms had received religious philosophies like India Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and as a sovereign democratic republic gave religious, cultural, political and economic freedom to all citizens without any differentiation: and the Pope represents a culture which denies even a basic human right - access to God-- for those who do not believe in Christ! A religion that divides human beings into sinners and the saves, those chosen by God and those eternally damned! Pope's insinuation was a snub to the country that hosted him and the government led by the "Hindu Nationalist Party, BJP! He forgotthat this culture has survived for almost 10000 years, outliving many great ones in human history, the Hellenic, the Roman, the Chinese, and so on! Historically, India's Hindu Dharma allowed assimilation of religious faiths from outside without the horrors of genocide as was the case with Islam and Christianity. The ground reality here is that when Hindus willingly capitulated, yes bent over backwards to please and be "secular", to Islamic/Christian mores—in the name of tolerance, multiculturalism, political correctness, or just plain cowardice, they are becoming more emboldened, making more demands and threats! They also make bold to produce such rhetoric intended to cleaving and widening gulf, which at this point looks like, not between minorities and the majority, but between those who consider this land sacred and those who consider it just their transient abode!

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