Dear Father Yuvon Ambroise: PLEASE “HOP, SKIP & TAKE A WALK” !!!

Dear Sir,

Reference the report – ” Church role in K-stir ‘moral’ ” –
(TNIE – 09 Mar).

The report stated : ” The Tamil Nadu Bishops’ Council on Thursday announced that they supported the protests against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) morally. Addressing journalists, Council treasurer and Bishop of Tuticorin, Dr Yvon Ambroise, said that he had to sympathise with the people.

“You cannot say I am inciting it. We are unable to understand why the government is implicating me personally and the Diocese as if we are the principal instigators. All religions are involved in it.

“It is a protest led by the people, for the people beyond religious lines and the issue is not just power generation on the whole.”

[http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/church-role-in-k-stir-%E2%80%98moral%E2%80%99/370871.html]
I must confess that after reading the report, I consumed a ‘bagful of salt’ !! And an old adage instantly came to mind: “Tell that to the Marines” !!

The fact of the matter that the ‘tricks’ and, ‘sleights of hand’ of the ‘Harvesters’ are now well chronicled. To take just one example, from many available . Dr. David Frawley, was born in the Mid-West, U.S.A. to Roman Catholic parents. However, in 1994, he became a Hindu of his ‘own free will’. He is now known as ‘Acharya Vamadeva Shastri’, and is currently the Director, American Institute of Vedic Studies, Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has written a number of  ‘very readable’ books as also numerous essays. One such essay, written in 2006 was entitled :

” ‘CHRISTIANS UNDER SIEGE’: A MISSIONARY PLOY “. This essay, dovetails ‘seamlessly’ to the ‘crying victim’ sydrome of the CBCSI, as seen from your report !! As the Acharya wrote:

” Missionaries in India are using their age-old tactic of posing as victims to camouflage their aggression “.

Says it all, doesn’t it, Sir ?

[https://groups.google.com/group/Hindu-Religion/browse_thread/thread/19e667d3041d8631/ce7c97463dacc5e6?hl=en] 

That apart, the statement : ” All religions are involved in it. We don’t understand why only the Christian community should  be targeted “, is, to put it mildly, ‘being economical with the Truth’ !! The reason can be had in your paper’s report of 29 Oct 2011, and entitled : ” Has church hijacked TN anti-nuclear stir? “. It was penned by Babu Jayakumar. It stated, among others:

” But many people in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu are raising a question over the leadership of the agitation and wondering if a communal dimension has also crept into the movement now.Though the poster boy of the agitation , S P Udayakumar, does not belong to the fisherman community and hails from Nagercoil, Balaprajathipathi Adigalar, the head priest of the Ayyavazhi cult in Kanyakumari district, feels that the church leaders have appropriated the protests.Even the people of Chettikulam village, 8 km away from Koodankulam, who are not part of the agitation, see the present protests engineered by the church leaders. They too feel that the fishermen community has appropriated the struggle. Latest developments elsewhere too suggest that it is the church that is at the forefront. The Bishops Council of Tamil Nadu has backed the protest and most of the people who took part in the rally organised at Nagercoil on October 24 were from the various Catholic parishes.Though they are not that forthcoming on the church hijacking the struggle all of a sudden, there are indications that they feel neglected.”

[http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/has-church-hijacked-tn-anti-nuclear-stir/327707.html] 
Anything further to be said, Sir ?

The other aspect is the CBCSI appears to be ignorant, or is it pretending, of the existence of a well researched book, by a Christian Professor Pradip Ninan Thomas. His research project was entitled:

” Strong Religion, Zealous Media : Christian Fundamentalism and Communication in India” (2008). Prof. Nina Thomas is Associate Professor at ‘The School of Journalism and Communications’ at the University of Queensland, Australia. The research focussed on Tamil Nadu in general and Chennai in Particular !!

As he put it :

” – – – Be that as it may, I argue that Christian fundamentalists, like their Islamic counterparts, belong to a global UMMA and harbour real and perhaps imagined, even delusional, longings directed towards making all of God’s people CHRISTIAN. – -. These Christian groups may not use real physical violence, though they are WELL VERSED IN USING THE MEDIA AND NON-MEDIA MEANS TO PROPOGATE ‘SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE’ that is often backed up by economic enticements to persuade or COERCE individuals and communities to become Christian”. (pp-xv).

Again. ” – – – I would argue, that in addition to harbouring such predispositions, militant Christian fundamentalists are ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN EITHER USING POLITICS IN ORDER TO LEGITIMISE THEIR NATIONAL AND GLOBAL PROJECTS RELATED TO SOCIAL CHANGE, or are involved in COVERT ACTSOF MISSION that, in the final analysis, are oriented towards the fulfilment of the goal of Christianising the world. I argue that militant Christian fundamentalists include those who are ACTIVELY AND PUBLICLY INVOLVED in the PROJECT OF GLOBAL EVANGELISM THROUGH FAIR MEANS OR FOUL – – -” (pp-18).

And, here is something to prove the Church in Tamil Nadu is political !!

” While the relationship between Christian leaders and an explicit politics is absent at the National level, at the State level, in the majority Christian, so called ‘tribal’ states in N.E. India and SOME OF THE STATES IN SOUTHERN INDIA, this relationship is both VISIBLE AND SOMETIMES EXPLICIT. – – –. It has also resulted in their becoming de facto spokespersons for Indian Christians and in their being featured on Capitol Hill, U.S.A., at the U.S.I.C.R.F. – – – And, have used their POLITICAL POWER to get the Government of Tamil Nadu to repeal the Bill against ‘forced conversions'” (pp-25)

Again. ” The relationship of these new churches with mainstream politics is public. At the ‘Every Tongue, Every Tribe’, organized in Chennai in January 2006, the Chief Guest was [then] Finance Minister P.Chidambaram, along with a HOST of politicians from the Congress Govt. THAT THIS CONVENTION WAS SPECIFICALLY CONVENED TO CELEBRATE THE ‘CONVERSION OF TRIBALS’ WAS ‘NOT AN ISSUE OF CONCERN’ TO THESE POLITICIANS”. (pp-26-27)

And, coming to the aspect of ‘Foreign Funding’ of Indian Churches.

” The Western Churches are now collaborating directly with smaller Churches providing financial support. ‘Only a few indigenous groups are totally free from foreign aid and foreign
control’ (writes) Dr. P.J. Titus evaluating the Pentacostal Churches in Andhra Pradesh. ‘PLENT OF FUNDS ARE DRAWN FROM THE WEST’. The dependency of these churches make the sustainability of such churches difficult”. (pp-72)

Again. ” One of the most accessible, informative texts on indigenous missions in India is the study by the Indian Christian artist and writer P.Solomon Raj.  – – – he does recognize that, in reality, very few of these missions are FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT OF FOREIGN MONEY OR ARE COMPLETELY RELIANT ON INDIAN LEADERSHIP. As he points out ‘many of the 73 missions – – – studied in the survey DO NOT FULLY QUALIFY TO BE CALLED INDIGENOUS OR INDEPENDENT BECAUSE MANY OF THEM GET MONEY FROM THE WEST AND DEPEND ON FOREIGN LEADERSHIP’.” (pp-72)

In the light of the foregoing, most respectfully, I ask Bishop of Tuticorin, Dr Yvon Ambroise, to ‘HOP, SKIP AND TAKE A WALK’!!

JAI HO !!

VANDE MATARAM

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