The New Missionaries of Bharat

In an excellent report by Shri V. Sundaram  ‘Why not the sacred symbol OM on secular Indian Currency ?’ (HK,08/07/2010) we see once again the phenomenon of old wine in new bottles. The former colonial regime was mainly intent on the exploitation of Bharat’s wealth and labour to feed the industrial revolution and to build Britain’s power both at home and abroad. The colonization was accompanied by  changes imposed on Bharat’s educational and cultural life, one important component being the imposition of English and Western learning. This was the Macaulay project.Alongside of this was the old fashioned Christian propaganda and the concomittant attempt to convert the native population. That this last mentioned project did not fully succeed is a story for another day.

Bharat remains very much a Hindu nation.

The new missionaries led by an Italian Catholic and her acolytes will also not succeed, given both the resilience of Hinduism and the protest that accompanies all of the best laid plans of mice and men(women, in this case !).

Sonia Gandhi took Indian citizenship after 16 years of her marriage with Rajeev Gandhi. She was a reluctant Indian from the start, but circumstances forced her to stay on in India and after her husband’s death, she became the icon of the Congress party which looked for anything to mobilize their sinking political fortunes and who better than the widow of India’s prime minister ?

In time  she became a formidable political entity, running the show from 10 Janpath, and supported by a party that is no longer the inheritor of the once glorious freedom struggle. Sycophants and careerists abound in much greater measure than is good for Bharat’s polity. Her own ambitions surfaced. But after her unsuccessful bid to be the prime minister of the country she settled down for the safer choice, her son.

But it is important to realize something else which, in the opinion of the present writer, has an even more sinister significance. That is her seeming inner determination to carry out what the Pope had announced on his visit to Bharat, the harvesting of Hindu souls for Christ. Her son and daughter may wear the Hindu tilak during election time, but their allegiance is not to Hinduism, and it is also doubtful whether their allegiance is to Bharat either. This is the considered opinion of the present writer.

And they also wear their ‘secularism’ as an insurance, a charming façade, no doubt . . . . .

In the last 12 years or so since Sonia Gandhi’s rise as the eminence grise in the  Congress Party, the fortunes of the Hindus and their cultural and religious centres have come under attack.Readers are familiar with these details as reported diligently by HK.

But timely reminders are useful. And hence Mr. Sundaram’s careful analysis of the move to issue coins with the pictures of Catholic saints and to imprint a dubious symbol  on  Bharat’s currency has come in good time. Hopefully, protests will be launched without delay.

Both measures that Sonia has presumably advocated are not only geared towards the
Assembly polls in Kerala where the Christian community will vote en bloc for Sonia’s
Congress party, but towards the larger goal of the Christianisation of Bharat.

That this project will not succeed, is a forgone conclusion, and if Sonia is wise she will choose one or the other : political power for her son or the harvesting of souls for her religion.

Bharat’s history alone should convince her not to attempt the evangelical task and the
testing of the waters will surely impinge on the other project.

All Bharatiyas should read Mr. Sundaram’s article. In passing, the present writer would like to point out that the story of Thomas the Apostle arriving in Bharat in 52 A.D. has been considered an apocryphal story. It was first put out after the Nicene Council of 325 A.D. and received considerable embellishment by Christian orthodoxy in the succeeding centuries. It was embraced enthusiastically by the colonial government and its hacks.

One amusing example of the writing that created this legend is cited here:

“ It was to a land of dark people he was sent, to clothe them by Baptism in
   white robes. His grateful dawn dispelled India’s painful darkness. It was
   his mission to espouse India to the One-Begotten . . .Thomas is destined
   to baptize peoples perverse and steeped in darkness, and that in the land
   of India” (Hymns of St.Ephraem, edited by Lamy).

One aspect of this quote is entirely true. Bharat is a land of dark people. The Sanskrit peoples who created the Veda and the legacy of Hinduism were an indigenous people of Bharat. They did not arrive in Bharat from distant lands but had lived on the subcontinent in the prehistoric age.

For the rest, the spectacle of any arrival trying to clothe an ancient civilization in the white robe of baptism is too ludicrous to contemplate. Neverthless, an Italian Catholic is once again on that same ill fated path.

All Bharatiyas must once again unite in defence of the Punya Bhumi as they did since time immemorial and call for the symbol OM to be placed on Bharatiya currency, not some dubious invention of the dubious committee struck for the purpose of placing an identification symbol for the rupee.

Ya Devi sarve bhuteshu . . . . .

VANDE MATARAM !

( The writer is a Political Philosopher who taught at a Canadian university)

Responses