Are Christians converting poor people by allurement? RSS says so. But all the evidences point exactly in opposite direction. Excerpts from the Hindustan Times reports.
Sakshi Times had reported by citing National Commision for Minorities report that there is not a single case of conversion by inducement in Orissa.
On September 6, 2008, Sakshi Times had also reported by citing two studies of (1) Sabrang Communications & Publishing Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai, India, and The South Asia Citizens Web and (2) Awaaz — South Asia Watch Ltd that it is RSS who uses foreign donations for violence.
Some may have dismissed it as Christian bias to vindicate the evangelical community.
However on September15, 2008, one of the India’s reputed national newspaper The Hindustan Times reported the same with different set of evidences.
The article titled Faith accompli by Soumitro Das says this:
First, funding. Nobody seems to know exactly how much money the VHP receives from abroad. The only figure we have is $1.7 million from the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) that raises money from individuals and corporations in the United States (including Cisco and Sun Microsystems) to distribute them among a plethora of Sangh parivar agencies, some of whom work for ‘tribal welfare’.
On the Christian side, thanks to the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act, the Home Ministry is in possession of the Annual Report on Foreign Contributions for 2005-06. It lays out in minute detail the funds received by churches and Christian organisations in India. We know, for example, that the top donors are church-based or Christian-inspired organisations from the US, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. We also know that a greater part of the funds — Rs 7,785 crore — goes to mainly Christian and church-based organisations in India. According to the Home Ministry’s analysis, the major part of the fund are spent on disaster relief and establishment costs. Welfare of scheduled tribes gets only Rs 25 crore and welfare of scheduled Castes only Rs 9 crore. The rest of the money goes into social work — building of schools, colleges, hospitals, etc. Nowhere is the word proselytisation mentioned. There are also no records of mass conversions.
Read the entire article here: http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=d732f668-83c0-42e0-9366-9189528c90f7&ParentID=1fea2676-691c-494c-a158-93bde8b4be07&&Headline=Faith+accompli
Thanks Soumitro for stating the facts truthfully and bodly!!! Further, in an interesting article Karan Thapar had argued that VHP does not represent the large section of Hindus.
Moreover he also wrote: Let me start with the question of conversion — an issue that greatly exercises the VHP. I imagine there are hundreds of millions of Hindus who are peaceful, tolerant, devoted to their faith, but above all, happy to live alongside Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Jews. If any one of us were to change our faith how does it affect the next man or woman? And even if that happens with inducements, it can only prove that the forsaken faith had a tenuous and shallow hold. So why do the VHP and its unruly storm troopers, the Bajrang Dal, froth at the mouth if you, I or our neighbours convert? What is it to do with them?
Let me put it bluntly, even crudely. If I want to sell my soul — and trade in my present gods for a new lot — why shouldn’t I? Even if the act diminishes me in your eyes, it’s my right to do so. So if thousands or even millions of Dalits, who have been despised and ostracised for generations, choose to become Christian, Buddhist or Muslim, either to escape the discrimination of their Hindu faith or because some other has lured them with food and cash, it’s their right.
(Read the entire article here http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=&id=de847806-8ec0-4ed2-aff5-e9317f5539d3&&Headline=Who%E2%80%99s+the+real+Hindu%3F&strParent=strParentID)
Thanks Karan Thapar. We are waiting for saner voices like yours who can see through the issues.
While we at Sakshi Times are happy that our reports now stand confirmed, we praise God that Christian community as a whole stands vindicated against the lies of RSS.
