Preaching disharmony

Rajesh Ramachandran

And how can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds/ For the ashes of his fathers/ And the temples of his Gods. — Thomas Babington Macaulay

No Indian community has lived and thrived and died by this credo more than the Punjabis, particularly the proud Sikhs. And this very community is now anxious about its belief system being challenged. When its love for the land, its lush crops and its rivers got tested, it did not hesitate to bring down to the knees the mighty Union Government. It has an awesome community spirit that the RSS and the BJP haven’t learnt yet; this spirit, in turn, gets translated into votes against the politics of Hindu supremacy. Treat them with respect, honour the distinctive community, cherish the character — and there will be no greater citizenry or warriors for the Indian nation.

Proselytisation is an uncivilised exercise as all religions are pre-modern — then what is there to choose one religion over another?

Now, unfortunately, the Punjab peasantry and the intellectuals are equally appalled by the attack of a new locust of Biblical proportions — the menace of the mean missionary. A national magazine put the issue on its cover; it is getting widely condemned in the public discourse; yet The Tribune, as the conscience-keeper of Punjab, hesitated to go all out in its condemnation, lest it should trigger the emotionally charged majority community to target a minority group. But we would be erring in our duty if we dithered any further.

Proselytisation, by its very definition, is an uncivilised exercise. All religions are pre-modern, all clergies are (with honourable exceptions) corrupt, all rituals are mumbo-jumbo — then what is there to choose one over another? Why should a Christian priest go to a Punjab village and tell the peasants that Christianity is better than Sikhism? Can there be a greater cultural affront than a stranger telling someone: ‘You do not die for the ashes of your fathers and the temples of your gods, but for mine’? That is precisely why Macaulay’s ditty is the best touchstone to prove the hollowness of Churchillian oratory.

Indian Christianity is essentially colonial, however much Kerala’s Syrian Christian community tries to claim otherwise because even its liturgy was made intelligible only after Colonel John Munro, the East India Company’s Resident for Travancore and Cochin, and the Diwan of Travancore — a complete oddity, which helped conversions in Kerala — set up a seminary in 1815. All varieties of churches — protestant and Catholic — were established during the colonial period and they flourished with colonial patronage.

Now, with the established churches finding their riches within the native congregations and parishes, the overflowing foreign funds have found their way to unscrupulous faith healers peddling miracles and cures for cancer. They use the caste fault lines in Punjab to lure the weakest within the society with the promise of a better life, here and in the hereafter. Well, the love for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) lasts only until the church acquires a certain number of elite members.

In this context, it’s worth noting that the victim in the most ghastly ‘honour’ killing in recent times in Kerala was an SC boy, who had eloped with an ‘upper caste’ girl. Both were Christian. The Tamil Nadu churches are known to practise horrible casteism — there are allegations they have separate entrances and burial grounds for SCs. And instead of destroying this caste system, community leaders want Christian SC quotas, which will perpetuate untouchability within the churches. No wonder, then, that despite being a most trusted ally of the British and a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, Dr BR Ambedkar refused to convert to Christianity and instead chose Buddhism to mock Hindus and their gods.

The more disturbing aspect of proselytisation in Punjab is the funnelling of laundered money into the interior villages. Investigators of the income tax department claim to have unearthed huge stashes of cash from three self-styled pastors during their searches of the properties of Bajinder Singh, Harpreet Deol and Avtar Singh early this week. One of them was accused of murder and rape — not surprising in a state where a bishop stood trial for the rape of a nun. There is a potential Asaram in every clergyman. Worse, religion has become the easiest means to amass wealth, launder money, control the masses and create hysteria.

In Punjab’s case, the AAP government does not have to wait for the IT department’s long-winding processes to come to a logical conclusion. It can book many of these Bible-thumping crooks for cheating under various sections of the IPC. Can there be any greater attempt at dishonesty than faith healing, a more cruel way to cheat a terminally ill patient than to tell her that your Gurus will not cure you but Jesus Christ will? There is no need for a law against conversion in the case of these cheats; the existing laws would suffice. Else, let the courts say that it is legal to fool people in the name of miracles.

The derision that has so far been reserved solely for babas and bapus needs to be freely extended to all miracle workers and healers, regardless of their denomination — bishops and pastors included. For, the false equivalence of Christianity with modernity lies exposed every time a rapist or a murderer claims to cure cancer by touching the head of a patient, calling out to his god. Also, questions need to be asked about the old and new colonial forces sending money to Indian villages to build churches to tell the people that their gurus are false. Punjab, unfortunately, has to bear the brunt of all covert and overt actions to destabilise the country, and when the ‘roaring business’ of faith healing and miracles offers unseen prosperity in the countryside, the authorities must sit up and take note.

A small spark can lead to an unprecedented conflagration in Punjab. The land of the revered Gurus deserves better. As anyone who treads this hallowed land of the noble souls who personified the attributes of piety, charity and valour should do, I too offer my humble salutations: Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki fateh!

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