Debate In less than two weeks, BJP think tank convenor and Rajya Sabha Member Balbir K Punj attacks the Christian faith twice. The article titled Let Sleeping Gods Lie appeared in the Outlook India. Balbir K Punj accuses that “The Church's 'harvest of souls' policy has led us to this foul juncture”. Jerry Thomas does his second rebuttal to Balbir K Punj.

While reading Balbir K Punj’s second article in less than two weeks against the Christian faith, I was reminded of a few quotes attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it” and “Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.”

While there are doubts whether the first quote is actually said by Joseph Goebbels, there can be no doubt that Manuvadi ideologue Balbir K Punj truly believes in both and practices those faithfully. He recycles his refuted lies, this time by quoting popular names to gain some credibility.

However, a lie when shouted so loudly must be at least met with a whisper of truth. It is with this intention that I write my second rebuttal to Balbir K Punj though he has not responded to the first rebuttal despite sending it to him personally. For some of the recycled lies, I will only give reference to the first rebuttal.

Balbir K Punj’s hatred for the Christian faith has blinded his mind so much that he is not able to realize that his one paragraph contradicts the next paragraph. For example, he quotes Babasaheb Ambedkar’s article in one paragraph and in the next paragraph quotes Gandhi. Little does he realize that the Ambedkar’s article he is referring to is taken from the collections of essays in which Ambedkar refutes Gandhi’s baseless charges against conversion (charges which Balbir too uses in his article). Similarly in one paragraph Balbir K Punj accuses Christian missionaries of abusing Hindu gods and in the very next paragraph he would praise Swami Dayanand Sarawsati who abused the Puranic Hindu gods equally or even more than Christian missionaries. Further in one paragraph Balbir K Punj says Church has stopped overtly attacking Hindu gods in post-independent India and in the very next paragraph he will accuse Church of distributing pamphlets in post Independent India which are supposedly an overt attack on Hindu gods. Rarely has a writer contradicted himself so many times within the space of one article.

Balbir K Punj Charge 1:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

The recent violence involving the church and locals in Orissa and elsewhere has, it is said, sullied India's image abroad, put the Sangh parivar in a spot and evoked global sympathy for the "hapless Christians", the victims of those fascist Bajrang Dal goons.

The broad picture put out by the 'secular' media (Outlook included) mirrors the position of the Church: the missionaries only serve the underprivileged, they have no evangelical agenda. The Manuvadi vested interests cannot stand the emancipation of the hapless poor and hence resort to violence.

Also, conversion from indigenous faiths to Christianity through fraudulent means is a bogey raised by the parivar to cover its black deeds. In short, the church's motives are pious and those of its opponents devilish.

But what are the facts? Were relations between the church and locals all hunky-dory before the arrival of the Bajrang Dal a few decades back? Will the problem disappear if the Sangh is exiled from the country? Are the allegations against the church a Sangh concoction? Finally, is it church vs. parivar or church vs. locals?

My Response 1:

Is the Orissa Church Made of Non-Locals? Balbir K Punj begins his article with a masterly deception. He writes “The recent violence involving the church and locals in Orissa and elsewhere”. While reading this, one might think that Church in Orissa constitutes of foreign nationals and not of locals. Church in Orissa constitutes of Oriya people as much as Church elsewhere in India constitute of locals of those areas. More importantly, it was not ‘violence’ (which generally draws a picture of the involvement of both sides) but rather a one sided persecution of a few locals by another set of locals indoctrinated by the same ideology that Balbir K Punj holds onto.

Balbir Misrepresents the Church and Secular Media: Again, it must be noted that Balbir K Punj is neither reading what the Church says nor what the secular media writes. He is only constructing caricatures from his imagination so that he can easily attack them. Firstly, the Church never said that it does not have an evangelical agenda. Church always believed that conversion is ethically and legally right and said as much. In fact, any Church that abandons its mission of evangelization is not a Biblical Church at all. However, Church only said that it does not believe and practice conversion by allurement or force.  I had clarified this in my first rebuttal under the subtopic Blurring the Distinction Between Allurement and Charity- Confusion or Misrepresentation?

Second, most of the secular media (Outlook included) did not oppose conversion. In fact, many of them had articles and features presenting the correct view of conversion. If Balbir K Punj has not been aware of those articles, I would like to present a few of them for his pleasurable reading:

1. Conversion is Basic to One’s Spiritual Existence Fali S. Nariman, The Asian Age, October 2008.
2. The Convert Anand Mahadevan. Outlook India, October 27, 2008.
3. A Natural Process of Transformation M.S. Prabhakara The Hindu, November 7, 2008

I also want to point out the clever usage of “conversion from indigenous faiths to Christianity”. Note that he does not say Hinduism to Christianity but indigenous faiths to Christianity. This clever usage might be to escape from the well-documented fact that Hinduism has been destroying the tribal faiths and converting tribals to Hinduism (Read A Natural Process of Transformation M.S. Prabhakara The Hindu, November 7, 2008 for details). Balbir might want to read Sakshi E-book on Constitutional Validity of Anti-Conversion Laws to know the constitutional invalidity of such distinctions.

Balbir K Punj Charge 2:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

To find answers, we must go way back. Christianity came to India a few decades into its birth and remained undisturbed in the subcontinent till about 500 years back. It's the arrival of the missionaries—in the company of imperi

al forces—that shattered the peace. As Babasaheb Ambedkar writes: "The entry of the Catholic Church in the field of the spread of Christianity in India began in the year 1541 with the arrival of Francis Xavier.

The Syrian Christians shrank with dismay from the defiling touch of the Roman Catholics of Portugal. The inquisitors of Goa discovered they were heretics and like a wolf in the fold, down came the delegates of the Pope upon the Syrian Churches".

My Response 2:

Balbir Quotes Babasaheb Ambedkar from an Essay in which Ambedkar Asks people to Leave Hinduism: I am extremely delighted that Balbir K Punj quotes Babasaheb Ambedkar. Though Balbir K Punj has not given the reference for the quote, I am aware of the quote and know the reference too. In fact, these works are freely available in www.ambedkar.org. The quote is from Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability: Religious, Chapter 3: Christianizing the untouchables where Ambedkar criticizes Christians for entertaining pagan (Hindu) practices despite converting to Christian faith. Interestingly the first chapter is titled as Away from the Hindus, second as Caste and conversion, and fourth as The condition of the convert where he refutes Gandhi’s irresponsible statement against conversions to Christian faith.

It is ironical that Balbir K Punj quotes from such a work. He must be under the impression that Christian Mlecchas being primarily from Dalits are not well-read. While it is true that we are primarily from Dalits, unlike Hinduism which oppressed us, Christian faith has educated us!

I will be quoting from this work of Ambedkar in the later part of rebuttal too and hope Balbir K Punj would be as happy as I am now.

Portuguese Colonialism Cannot Be Generalized for British Colonialism:  The relationship of evangelicals with East India Company and later the British Empire was not always described as a close alliance. Allow me to quote from the same collection of Essays of Babasaheb Ambedkar.

In the fourth chapter, The condition of the convert Babasaheb Ambedkar writes: “The attempt to open the door to the Missionaries failed and the Missionary was shut out from India till 1813. Not only was he shut out but the Company's Government kept a strict vigil upon the activities of such stray missionaries who contrived to go to India without their license. In 1793 Dr. Carey went as an interloper without license. As he was not allowed to enter Calcutta being without license, he made Serampore, 14 miles away from Calcutta as his base of operation. Serampore was a Danish settlement and the Danes had placed no restrictions on missionaries or mission propaganda. On the contrary the Governor of Serampore actively helped them. Carey and his Mission was always suspect in the eyes of the Company's Government. ln 1798 the Serampore Mission decided to engage four missionaries who arrived in the year 1800. They went to reside in the Danish settlement of Serampore. As a matter of fact the Governor General had nothing to do with them.”

In fact, during this time Brahminical Hinduism and East India Company had better alliances. When missionaries like Carey were starving, Jagannath Temple in Puri was receiving huge amounts from the East India Company. Shall we discuss all these Balbir K Punj?

Why Balbir is Not Quoting the Holy Bible or the Hindu Scriptures? If we have to find the answer, we have to actually go to the Holy Bible and to the Hindu Scriptures. If a Christian acts contrary to the Holy Bible, then Christian faith cannot be held responsible for it. Goan Inquisition was contrary to the precepts of the Holy Bible and Christian faith cannot be held responsible for that. It might be because of this reason that Balbir K Punj never wants to read what the Holy Bible says. He may neither want to open the Hindu scriptures whose precepts against Dalits he can never defend.

Going Back 500 Years for Christian Faith, What About 200 or 100 years for Hinduism? If going back in the history for 500 years to pick an unbiblical act of the Church to know about Christian faith is justified, then going back 200 or even 100 years to know about the Hinduism might be more justified not only because of its nearness but also to the fact that some of its acts were fully backed by its scriptures.

Babasaheb Ambedkar writes in Manu and the Shudras “In South India Untouchables were expressly forbidden to cover the upper part of their body above the waist and in the case of women of the Untouchables they were compelled to go with the upper part of their bodies quite bare.”

http://www.narayanaguru.org/Book/chapt-5.html, a website of Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), primarily Ezhava community notes:

“The plight of the Avarnas or non-caste Hindus was the most pitiable. Not only economic deprivation but inhuman humiliations were heaped upon them. By the end of the seventeenth century, caste assumed a ferocious and barbarous form in Kerala and stiflingly oppressive to those in the lower rungs of the caste ladder.             . There were nearly three hundred compulsory taxes imposed on the Avarnas exclusively, some of which will look ridiculous and nonsensical to the modern mind. Here are some examples:

Tharivari             – tax on handlooms
Valayara            –   tax on fishing boats and nets
Chakkuvari         –   tax on oil press
Thalavari            –   tax to be paid by an Avarna for the hair on his head.
Mulakaram (breast tax)     –   tax on women to be paid depending on the size of their breasts.
Chetthukaram     –   tax to be paid by the worker for the number of palms he climbed in a day for extracting toddy.”
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Remember the humiliation one has to undergo while paying these taxes. This is quoted not only as a rebuttal for Balbir K Punj but also to provide a context of the Christian missionary work in the 18 and 19th century which Balbir K Punj will be referring in the next paragraphs.

Balbir K Punj Charge 3:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

What followed was even worse.

Till the end of British rule, the missionaries were brazen about their intent. Hindu gods were abused openly. Writing about his childhood in Rajkot, Gandhiji says in his autobiography, "In those days, Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their Gods." Decades later, Gandhiji recalled in Young India (March 4, 1926), "Though the preaching took place over forty years ago, the painful memory of it is still vivid before me." Obviously this practice was followed in the entire British India. If the "preaching" could leave such scars for so long on a person like Gandhiji, how do you expect a tribal to react to such humiliation?

Social ref

ormers, from Dayanand Saraswati to Vivekananda to Gandhiji, have questioned the Church's 'real intent' and its methods at one time or another. Gandhiji said, "I believe there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another in the accepted sense of the term…Christian missions will render true service to India if they can persuade themselves to confine their activities to humanitarian service without the ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated villagers to Christianity, and destroying their social superstructure" (Harijan, Sept 28, 1935). Note the words, "destroying the social superstructure".

My Response 3:

Balbir Denounces Christians who Criticized Hindu gods but Praises Swami Dayanand who also Criticized Hindu Puranic gods: Again it surprises me that Balbir K Punj can denounce Christian missionaries for criticizing Hindu gods and then praise Dayanad Saraswati in the same breath, who like the Christian missionaries had criticized Hindu gods. Either Balbir K Punj is a short-brained writer (a term by which he referred current day evangelicals) or he is so confident about the ignorance of his readers. Read my first rebuttal to Balbir K Punj and under the subtopic Rebuttal: Balbir vs. Reverend James and Swami Dayanand, I have quoted Swami Dayanand to show how he himself criticized Hindu gods.

Who Practices Double Standards? It can be reasonably argued that if we have to denounce an evil social system for example- caste, we have to denounce the gods (for example Sree Krishna) who claim that they were the creators of caste system. Who is more consistent? A Hindu who claims that he denounces caste and still considers the books (Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita for example) and worships the gods who supposedly gave those commandments or a Christian who denounces both? It can be easily shown that Hindu rejection of caste is one of convenience whereas the Christian rejection of caste is one of principals.

Gandhi’s Opposition to Conversion Answered by Babasaheb Ambedkar: Balbir K Punj quoted from Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Essays on Untouchables and Untouchability: Religious. Had Balbir K Punj completely read those collection of essays he would have been aware that those baseless charges were already refuted by Babasaheb Ambedkar. Since I have quoted that in my first rebuttal to Balbir K Punj, I will only ask the readers to read my first rebuttal which is published in www.sakshitimes.com

Balbir K Punj Charge 4:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

Post-Independence, the Church changed its methods. Open confrontation was dropped in favour of covert methods like inducements to target groups (the poor, illiterate sections). The new strategy, focused on specific areas, yielded a handsome harvest. A comparison between the census figures of 1991 and 2001 shows the growth rate of the Christian population was many times more that of Hindus in as many as 18 of the 25 states and UTs.

To carry out the sordid business of harvesting of souls, the Church now adopts a multi-layered strategy, full of prevarication and Janus-faced subterfuge.

The church tells the elite it worships the Lord through the service of the poor and has no conversion agenda. But at ground level, there are overt attacks on other faiths. (The trouble in Karnataka followed the publication of a booklet, Satyadarshini, in which Hindu gods were abused). Protests against such insults are termed as attacks on Christians. Again, the right to evangelize is defended and exercised. 'Help' to the needy and subsequent conversions are explained as a 'change of heart'.

My Response 4:

Census Again! I have already refuted Balbir K Punj in my first rebuttal citing that 2001 census of India shows only 2.341% of Christians in India. Now he has resorted to a comparative scale of rate of growth of Christian population versus Hindu population. For argument sake, let us assume this to be true. If the Hindu population is decreasing and Christian population is remaining static, then the growth rate of Christian population would be anyways more. Probably Hindus are becoming atheists or Buddhists or Muslims – any of those can be the reason as Christian population is static or in fact is decreasing according to the census.

Contradiction Again:  On one hand Balbir K Punj states that post independent “Open confrontation was dropped in favour of covert methods” and on the other hand he states “The trouble in Karnataka followed the publication of a booklet, Satyadarshini, in which Hindu gods were abused”. If Satyadarshini is not a typo error for Satyrath Prakash  of Swami Dayanand Saraswati in which also Hindu gods were ‘abused’, but Satyadarshini the booklet on whose pretext Balbir K Punj’s party vandalized Churches, then at least one thing is for sure- Balbir K Punj does not know how to think consistently. Unfortunately this intellectual inconsistency is itself inconsistent with a man of Balbir’s stature, unless it is a willful effort directed to misrepresent facts; a dangerous propaganda to malign the Christian community and demonize the church! Or maybe that his hate towards Christianity has blinded his mind and he does not realize that he is writing contradictions after contradictions after contradictions. Either ways his basic assumption is that all the readers are intellectually inept and emotionally vulnerable to his vitriolic charges and interpretations; at least he seems to prefer them that way.

What is An Abuse of Religion? If Satyadarshini is an abuse, then Hindus must refute it and show us that the charges in that book are false. If the charges are true, then by no means it is an abuse. Since Balbir K Punj seems to be unaware of what an abuse is, I would like to point one out from the writings of Guru Golwalkar- a leader whom Balbir K Punj’s party and its mother organization (RSS) venerates to the extent of worship.

Golwalkar wrote in his book Bunch of Thoughts, Chapter Internal Threats: Christians: “Even St. Paul, the great disciple of Christ, has said, as quoted by Lokamanya Tilak in his Gita Rahasya, "How can it be a sin if by uttering falsehood I add to Your (God's) Glory?" No wonder, the present Christian missionaries have made full use of that statement to further their nefarious designs. Truly has it been said, "There was but one true Christian, and he died on the Cross!"

This quote of Golwalkar (and Lokamanya Tilak) is an abuse of Christian faith. To prove this we only need to read the complete quote of Apostle Paul to know the meaning.

Romans 3:7-8 “For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, “Let us do evil that good may come”?—as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.”

As we see clearly from the complete quote, the apostle Paul meant exactly the opposite of what he is misrepresented to have said. . So Golwalkar and Tilak were abusing Christian faith by their lying tongues. That is an abuse which the Hindu leaders practiced against the Christian faith then, and such crafty misrepresentations are still perpetuated today by their ideological heirs.

Of course, when it comes

to Hindu leaders abusing other religions, theirs is only a scholarly criticism; whereas criticisms on Hinduism even if they are scholarly, are just abuses. Because the manuvadi cannot intellectually defend his worldview nor bring the exclusivist religions under its syncretistic umbrella, he moves around like a snake injecting his venomous ideology and at times raises his hood to strike with violence. Cunning and violence – those weapons of old through which he increased his tribe this side of the Indus.

Balbir K Punj Charge 5:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

This is by no means Bajrang Dal propaganda. It is the substance of a 1956 report by the Niyogi Committee, which was constituted by the Congress government of Madhya Pradesh. In response, four Congress-ruled states—MP, Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa and Himachal Pradesh (in '07)—brought out laws to check such unethical conversions and maintain social harmony.

My Response 5:

Niyogi Report Refuted: Quoting Niyogi committee report is not of any use any more. As Parvathi Menon writes: “Dr. Oscar Sevrin, the Bishop of Raigarh-Ambikapur, in his 'Annotations on the Niyogi Report Relating to Raigarh and Surguja' gave a paragraph by paragraph rebuttal of the report”. Similarly the bias of its questionnaire, the unfair way it conducted itself are also well-documented and refuted by Christian scholars. Balbir K Punj might want at least to read the report about this at An Old Debate in a New Context, Frontline Volume 16 – Issue 8, Apr. 10 – 23, 1999.

What About the Various Committee Reports on RSS? However, since a committee report has been cited, I would also ask about the eight independent commissions which indicted RSS for communal violence. Should not such an organization be banned? If Balbir is interested, he can read the article titled RSS Uses Foreign Donations for Charity to Spread Violence in Orissa: Read and Act Now published in www.sakshitimes.com

Balbir K Punj Charge 6:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

"The entire problem began because New Life was attracting poor people in distress and…offering money and property to convert," was how Father Austin Menezes of Mangalore described the work of the New Life Fellowship Trust whose actions sparked off the violence in the port city. ('Life As the Other', The Indian Express, Oct 23, '08). It's true that clashes between the Church and locals have become frequent and violent in the last few years. This was inevitable given the Church's plan to evangelize India in the 21st century. A Tehelka investigative report (Feb 7, '04) says "a new mood of aggressive evangelism has been emanating from America" and it has India as one of its key targets.

My Response 6:

Already Answered: I have already answered these charges in my first rebuttal and so will not spend much time on this now.

Balbir K Punj Charge 7:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

It is against this backdrop that one has to see recent events. The hapless Kandhamal tribals are under siege, fighting to preserve their culture, even their very existence. The Kandhs, once tribal kings, are now pariahs, hunted by the CRPF in their own land, painted as rapists/ murderers. Thousands have fled to the jungles. There is no one to speak for them. They don't interest our rent-a-cause NGOs and activists.

Arraigned against the Kandh tribals are the missionaries with their centuries of global experience in decimating local cultures. Backed with foreign funds, the Church is following its age-old divisive agenda of splitting local society into hostile factions. At immense human cost, it has reaped a rich harvest of souls. The share of Christians in the population of Kandhamal, just six per cent in 1971, had grown to 18 per cent by '01

Kandhamal has witnessed violence earlier too, in 1994 and in 2007. The recent blowout came after the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and his three associates. The Kandhs, 90 per cent of whom are Hindus, revered the aged swami. Over four decades, he had not only started schools and hospitals for them—in a sense, he helped them preserve their identity and ancient faith against alien onslaughts.

My Response 7:

Let us Take the Bigger Context: The current human pogrom in Orissa is more comparable to the human pogrom in Gujarat. The striking similarity between both is that is carried by out by Hindu terrorist groups backed by foreign funds.  One can read about this in the article titled RSS Uses Foreign Donations for Charity to Spread Violence in Orissa: Read and Act Now published in www.sakshitimes.com So the bigger context of communal violence in India will helps us to have the clearer picture.

Is not Hinduism also Alien to Tribals? The statement “ancient faith against alien onslaughts” is a biased and prejudiced statement. In fact this “ancient faith” (Hinduism) itself was alien to the tribals. Would that be called as onslaughts? If one wants to read on how Hinduism converted tribals elsewhere, one can read A Natural Process of Transformation M.S. Prabhakara The Hindu, November 7, 2008.

Is it Ok If Swami Starts Schools and Converts Tribals into Hinduism? It is interesting to note that when a Hindu swami starts schools and hospitals and converts tribals into Hinduism there is no problem with that, but when Christians start schools and hospitals and if anyone converts, Balbir and his party goons have problems with that. Is this not just hypocrisy?

Balbir K Punj Charge 8:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

Who killed the 84-year-old swami? Sabyasachi Panda, the Maoist leader who owned up to the killing, said the swami was eliminated for reviving Brahminism. Strangely, Panda turned a blind eye to evangelism. But he divulged an interesting fact—that the Christian Panas (an SC group) provides cadres to the Maoists in Orissa.

I for one don't know how to reconcile evangelism, which believes in the harve

sting of souls, with Maoism, which believes there's no soul. In Europe, wherever Communism succeeded, the Church had to go underground, if not disappear. But in Orissa, perhaps there is some kind of 'strategic alliance' happening. Did the Church outsource the swami's assassination?

My Response 8:

Does Maoist Corridor Establish a Strategic Connection With Hinduism? While it might be true that many of the Christian Panas have joined Maoist that is not enough to establish any strategic alliance between Church and Maoists. If this is how we establish strategic alliance, then how would Balbir K Punj explain the Maoist cadres spread across the Maoist corridor from Andhra Pradesh to Nepal (erstwhile Hindu Kingdom)?

Organiser Reported The Good Relation Between Swami Laxmanananda and Maoists: RSS Mouthpiece Organiser on September 07, 2008 published a report titled ‘Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati becomes a martyr for stopping conversion mission Christian outrage in Orissa’. The author Debasis Tripathy wrote: “It will not be out of place to mention here that in 2006, in an interview with this correspondent Swamiji had narrated about some true incidents how Naxals used to come to his reformation programmes and attend his religious, cultural programmes. Swamiji had no rivalry with Naxals. Hence the government’s Naxal attack plea is not at all believable.” (Emphasis added).

Balbir K Punj, please let me know how you reconcile Maoism with Hinduism when Maoist have dropped the word Hindu from the erstwhile Hindu Kingdom Nepal?

Balbir Charge 9:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

Now to the alleged rape of a nun in Kandhamal. Such 'Rape of nun by Hindu fascist' stories have turned out to be false in Jhabua, Jajjhar and Baripada in the past. Unfortunately, by then the 'hot story' had gone cold for the media. We are witnessing another edition of this in Kandhamal. The nun would not attend the identification parade, the SC ruled out a CBI inquiry, but the National Commission for Minorities still jumped into the fray. Is the nun a pawn in the church's game of chess?

My Response 9:

Balbir K Punj is Vilifying the Victim: India’s premier Media Watch website The Hoot carried an article on how the Orissa’s ruling party is vilifying the victims through its newspapers. In the article titled Scurrilous insinuations about raped nun Pramodini Pradhan of PUCL noted: “The Press Council of India has clear guidelines for the Press while reporting crime involving rape of women.  But none of these is being followed by these newspapers. By publishing such defamatory writings the publishers and editors of the concerned newspapers have clearly violated the norms of responsible journalism.”

It is clear that Balbir K Punj, though cleverly, is singing along with this chorus. The least one would expect from any civilized person is to leave an alleged rape victim for the court to find and establish the truth and not vilify the victim. Balbir K Punj’s craft and agenda may find it difficult to reconcile with civility and moral rectitude.

Balbir K Punj Charge 10:

The following is a verbatim reproduction from the article Let Sleeping Gods Lie by Balbir K Punj:

It's all a result of what Gandhiji called the destruction of the "social superstructure". India is steeped in a pluralistic ethos and believes God is one, irrespective of his numerous names and shapes. The Church has faith only in "one God". The rest, to it, are false. Wouldn't it be better if the church heeded Gandhiji's words and left people to their faith?

My Response 10:

Hinduism too Believes it: As I have already shown in my booklet- Pseudo Universalism of Hinduism, major sects of Hinduism such as Vaishnavism, Shivaism, or Shaktism also believes in only one god and considers rest as demi-gods or even false gods.  In fact, this makes more logical sense too.

LORD Jesus Christ, Gandhi and Ambedkar: The church would only heed to the head of the Church, Jesus Christ; anything that contradicts His commandments is a lying deception and is of the devil.

However, if Balbir K Punj wants to us to heed to some statement of a political leader, we will rather heed to Babasaheb Ambedkar than Gandhi. Babasaheb Ambedkar in no uncertain words said “Away from Hindus” and believed that conversion is the final solution for caste system. Balbir K Punj, otherwise an excellent writer, is blinded by his own hatred towards Christian faith which is overtly evident in his articles about the church. His malicious propaganda is venomous and is planned to be so. Wouldn’t it be better if Balbir heeded to the voice of his own conscience, exposited complete truths and left faith to the people?


But surely Balbir K Punj has mastered the art laid by Joseph Goebbels.

Source for Balbir K Punj’s article: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?sid=1&fodname=20081124&fname=Col+Balbir+Punj+(F)

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