Showing posts with label tribal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tribal. Show all posts
Wednesday 6 September 2023
Friday 4 August 2023
Are Universal Human Rights a form of Imperialism? Is the Chinese Communist Party right?
From The Economist
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 held out the promise that the world was about to enter a virtuous circle. Growing prosperity would foster freedom and tolerance, which in turn would create more prosperity. Unfortunately, that hope disappointed. Our analysis this week, based on the definitive global survey of social attitudes, shows just how naive it turned out to be.
Prosperity certainly rose. In the three decades to 2019, global output increased more than four-fold. Roughly 70% of the 2bn people living in extreme poverty escaped it.
Alas, individual freedom and tolerance evolved quite differently. Large numbers of people around the world continue to swear fealty to traditional beliefs, sometimes intolerant ones. And although they are much wealthier these days, they often have an us-and-them contempt for others. The idea that despots and dictators shun the universal values enshrined in the UN Charter should come as no surprise. The shock is that so many of their people seem to think their leaders are right.
The World Values Survey takes place every five years. The latest results, which go up to 2022, include interviews with almost 130,000 people in 90 countries. One sign that universal values are lagging behind is that countries that were once secular and ethno-nationalist, such as Russia and Georgia, are not becoming more tolerant as they grow, but more tightly bound to traditional religious values instead. They are increasingly joining an illiberal grouping that contains places like Egypt and Morocco. Another sign is that young people in Islamic and Orthodox countries are not much more individualistic or secular than their elders. By contrast, the young in northern Europe and America are racing ahead. The world is not becoming more similar as it gets richer. Instead, countries where burning the Koran is tolerated and those where it is an outrage look on each other with growing incomprehension.
On the face of it, all this seems to support the argument made by China’s Communist Party that universal values are bunkum. Under Xi Jinping, it has mounted a campaign to dismiss them as a racist form of neo-imperialism, in which white Western elites impose their own version of freedom and democracy on people who want security and stability instead.
In fact, the survey suggests something more subtle. And this leads to the conclusion that, contrary to the Chinese argument, universal values are more valuable than ever. Start with the subtlety.
The man behind the survey, Ron Inglehart, a professor at the University of Michigan who died in 2021, would have agreed with the Chinese observation that people want security. He thought the key to his work was to understand that a sense of threat drives people to seek refuge in family, racial or national groups, while at the same time tradition and organised religion offer them solace.
This is one way to see America’s doomed attempts to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the failure of the Arab spring. Whereas the emancipation of central and eastern Europe brought security, thanks partly to membership of the European Union and NATO, the overthrow of dictatorships in the Middle East and Afghanistan brought lawlessness and upheaval. As a result, people sought safety in their tribe or their sect; hoping that order would be restored, some welcomed the return of dictators. Because the Arab world’s fledgling democracies could not provide stability, they never took wing.
The subtlety the Chinese argument misses is the fact that cynical politicians sometimes set out to engineer insecurity because they know that frightened people yearn for strongman rule. That is what Bashar al-Assad did in Syria when he released murderous jihadists from his country’s jails at the start of the Arab spring. He bet that the threat of Sunni violence would cause Syrians from other sects to rally round him.
Something similar has happened in Russia. Having lived through a devastating economic collapse and jarring reforms in the 1990s, Russians thrived in the 2000s. Between 1999 and 2013, GDP per head increased 12-fold in dollar terms. Yet, that was not enough to dispel their accumulated sense of dread. As growth has slowed, President Vladimir Putin has played on ethno-nationalist insecurities, culminating in his disastrous invasion of Ukraine. Economically weakened and insecure, Russia will struggle to escape the trap.
Even in Western countries, some leaders seek to gain by inciting fear. In the past the World Values Survey recorded that the United States and much of Latin America combined individualism with strong religious conviction. Recently, however, they have become more secular–a change driven by the young. That has created a reaction among older, more conservative voters who reflect the values of decades past and feel bewildered and left behind.
Polarising politicians like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, the former presidents of America and Brazil, saw that they could exploit people’s anxieties to mobilise support. Accordingly, they set about warning that their political opponents wanted to destroy their supporters’ way of life and threatened the very survival of their countries. That has, in turn, spread alarm and hostility on the other side. Republicans’ sweeping dismissal of this week’s indictment of Mr Trump contains the threat that countries can slip back into intolerance and tribalism.
Even allowing for that, the Chinese claim that universal values are an imposition is upside down. From Chile to Japan, the World Values Survey provides examples showing that, when people feel secure, they really do become more tolerant and more eager to express their own individuality. Nothing suggests that Western countries are unique in that. The question is how to help people feel more secure.
China’s answer is based on creating order for a loyal, deferential majority that stays out of politics and avoids defying their rulers, at the expense of individual and minority rights. However, within that model lurks deep insecurity. It is a majoritarian system in which lines move, sometimes arbitrarily or without warning–especially when power passes unpredictably from one party chief to another. Anybody once deemed safe can suddenly end up in a precarious minority. Only inalienable rights and accountable government guarantee true security.
A better answer comes from sustained prosperity built on the rule of law. Wealthy countries have more to spend on dealing with disasters, such as pandemic disease. Likewise, confident in their savings and the social safety-net, the citizens of rich countries know that they are less vulnerable to the chance events that wreck lives elsewhere.
However, the deepest solution to insecurity lies in how countries cope with change. The years to come will bring a lot of upheaval, generated by long-term phenomena such as global warming, the spread of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the growing tensions between China and America. The countries that manage change well will be better at making society feel confident in the future. Those that manage it poorly will find that their people seek refuge in tradition and us-and-them hostility.
And that is where universal values come into their own. Classical liberalism—not the “ultraliberal” sort condemned by French commentators, or the progressive liberalism of the left—draws on tolerance, free expression and individual inquiry to tease out the costs and benefits of change. Conservatives resist change, revolutionaries impose it by force and dictatorships become trapped in one party’s–or, in China’s case, one man’s–vision of what it must be. By contrast, liberals seek to harness change through consensus forged by reasoned debate and constant reform. There is no better way to bring about progress.
Universal values are much more than a Western piety. They are a mechanism that fortifies societies against insecurity. What the World Values Survey shows is that they are also hard-won.
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 held out the promise that the world was about to enter a virtuous circle. Growing prosperity would foster freedom and tolerance, which in turn would create more prosperity. Unfortunately, that hope disappointed. Our analysis this week, based on the definitive global survey of social attitudes, shows just how naive it turned out to be.
Prosperity certainly rose. In the three decades to 2019, global output increased more than four-fold. Roughly 70% of the 2bn people living in extreme poverty escaped it.
Alas, individual freedom and tolerance evolved quite differently. Large numbers of people around the world continue to swear fealty to traditional beliefs, sometimes intolerant ones. And although they are much wealthier these days, they often have an us-and-them contempt for others. The idea that despots and dictators shun the universal values enshrined in the UN Charter should come as no surprise. The shock is that so many of their people seem to think their leaders are right.
The World Values Survey takes place every five years. The latest results, which go up to 2022, include interviews with almost 130,000 people in 90 countries. One sign that universal values are lagging behind is that countries that were once secular and ethno-nationalist, such as Russia and Georgia, are not becoming more tolerant as they grow, but more tightly bound to traditional religious values instead. They are increasingly joining an illiberal grouping that contains places like Egypt and Morocco. Another sign is that young people in Islamic and Orthodox countries are not much more individualistic or secular than their elders. By contrast, the young in northern Europe and America are racing ahead. The world is not becoming more similar as it gets richer. Instead, countries where burning the Koran is tolerated and those where it is an outrage look on each other with growing incomprehension.
On the face of it, all this seems to support the argument made by China’s Communist Party that universal values are bunkum. Under Xi Jinping, it has mounted a campaign to dismiss them as a racist form of neo-imperialism, in which white Western elites impose their own version of freedom and democracy on people who want security and stability instead.
In fact, the survey suggests something more subtle. And this leads to the conclusion that, contrary to the Chinese argument, universal values are more valuable than ever. Start with the subtlety.
The man behind the survey, Ron Inglehart, a professor at the University of Michigan who died in 2021, would have agreed with the Chinese observation that people want security. He thought the key to his work was to understand that a sense of threat drives people to seek refuge in family, racial or national groups, while at the same time tradition and organised religion offer them solace.
This is one way to see America’s doomed attempts to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the failure of the Arab spring. Whereas the emancipation of central and eastern Europe brought security, thanks partly to membership of the European Union and NATO, the overthrow of dictatorships in the Middle East and Afghanistan brought lawlessness and upheaval. As a result, people sought safety in their tribe or their sect; hoping that order would be restored, some welcomed the return of dictators. Because the Arab world’s fledgling democracies could not provide stability, they never took wing.
The subtlety the Chinese argument misses is the fact that cynical politicians sometimes set out to engineer insecurity because they know that frightened people yearn for strongman rule. That is what Bashar al-Assad did in Syria when he released murderous jihadists from his country’s jails at the start of the Arab spring. He bet that the threat of Sunni violence would cause Syrians from other sects to rally round him.
Something similar has happened in Russia. Having lived through a devastating economic collapse and jarring reforms in the 1990s, Russians thrived in the 2000s. Between 1999 and 2013, GDP per head increased 12-fold in dollar terms. Yet, that was not enough to dispel their accumulated sense of dread. As growth has slowed, President Vladimir Putin has played on ethno-nationalist insecurities, culminating in his disastrous invasion of Ukraine. Economically weakened and insecure, Russia will struggle to escape the trap.
Even in Western countries, some leaders seek to gain by inciting fear. In the past the World Values Survey recorded that the United States and much of Latin America combined individualism with strong religious conviction. Recently, however, they have become more secular–a change driven by the young. That has created a reaction among older, more conservative voters who reflect the values of decades past and feel bewildered and left behind.
Polarising politicians like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, the former presidents of America and Brazil, saw that they could exploit people’s anxieties to mobilise support. Accordingly, they set about warning that their political opponents wanted to destroy their supporters’ way of life and threatened the very survival of their countries. That has, in turn, spread alarm and hostility on the other side. Republicans’ sweeping dismissal of this week’s indictment of Mr Trump contains the threat that countries can slip back into intolerance and tribalism.
Even allowing for that, the Chinese claim that universal values are an imposition is upside down. From Chile to Japan, the World Values Survey provides examples showing that, when people feel secure, they really do become more tolerant and more eager to express their own individuality. Nothing suggests that Western countries are unique in that. The question is how to help people feel more secure.
China’s answer is based on creating order for a loyal, deferential majority that stays out of politics and avoids defying their rulers, at the expense of individual and minority rights. However, within that model lurks deep insecurity. It is a majoritarian system in which lines move, sometimes arbitrarily or without warning–especially when power passes unpredictably from one party chief to another. Anybody once deemed safe can suddenly end up in a precarious minority. Only inalienable rights and accountable government guarantee true security.
A better answer comes from sustained prosperity built on the rule of law. Wealthy countries have more to spend on dealing with disasters, such as pandemic disease. Likewise, confident in their savings and the social safety-net, the citizens of rich countries know that they are less vulnerable to the chance events that wreck lives elsewhere.
However, the deepest solution to insecurity lies in how countries cope with change. The years to come will bring a lot of upheaval, generated by long-term phenomena such as global warming, the spread of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the growing tensions between China and America. The countries that manage change well will be better at making society feel confident in the future. Those that manage it poorly will find that their people seek refuge in tradition and us-and-them hostility.
And that is where universal values come into their own. Classical liberalism—not the “ultraliberal” sort condemned by French commentators, or the progressive liberalism of the left—draws on tolerance, free expression and individual inquiry to tease out the costs and benefits of change. Conservatives resist change, revolutionaries impose it by force and dictatorships become trapped in one party’s–or, in China’s case, one man’s–vision of what it must be. By contrast, liberals seek to harness change through consensus forged by reasoned debate and constant reform. There is no better way to bring about progress.
Universal values are much more than a Western piety. They are a mechanism that fortifies societies against insecurity. What the World Values Survey shows is that they are also hard-won.
Sunday 2 April 2023
Sunday 18 July 2021
Marxist Jesuits are not for tribal welfare. India and Indian Catholics both must realise that
Jaithirth Rao in The Print
Representational image | A church in Tamenglong, Manipur | Simrin Sirur | ThePrint
The purpose of this article is not to go into the tragic circumstances around the recent death of Father Stan Swamy. While many columns have been written about the tribal rights activist, including one by retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro in ThePrint, I believe an attempt should be made to look at the larger issues surrounding the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuit order in the context of their extensive and intensive engagement with Adivasi communities in India.
Christian missionaries and schools are generally viewed positively by Indian society. In most Bollywood movies, the Christian (usually Catholic) padre is portrayed as a benign, helpful and healing figure. I certainly hope the image stays that way, and is not altered or tarnished. For that, it is important to examine the political ideology of Christian/Catholic Marxism.
It is a common belief in India that the Roman Catholic Church in general and the Jesuit order in particular are anti-Marxist. This belief is quite wrong. The so-called ‘liberation theology’ is very much a Roman Catholic product, absent from most Protestant Christian theological outpourings. Liberation theology is profoundly anti-capitalist, anti-markets and justifies violence, using selective quotations from the gospels. They like to talk about the reference in the gospels to Jesus throwing out money-changers from the temple; there is little if any reference to the parable of talents. The leading lights of liberation theology have been Latin American Jesuits who are completely opposed to a conservative strain in philosophical, theological and political matters. The influence of the Marxist Latin American liberation theologists has deeply permeated the Roman Church in India and has impacted the Jesuit order quite profoundly over the last few decades.
It is this ideological orientation among Jesuits that leads to many of them being well-disposed to Maoist insurgents, while publicly donning the robes of supporters, helpers and padrones of the supposedly helpless tribal people. This is pretty much what Catholic Marxists have endorsed in Central and South America also and is a classic “practice” of liberation theology.
In contrast with peaceful theology
My father and I both have been products of a leading Jesuit college in south India. I am personally a significant supporter of my alma mater. Every time I interact with older, kinder, more sober, more sensible Jesuits, they find it difficult to let their guard down. But directly or indirectly, they admit to me their frustration with the fact that the loudest and most active elements in their order today are Marxists. These Marxist Jesuits reject the earlier accommodative position of the Church and the order. They have also enthusiastically embraced ‘cultural Marxism,’ which in the West attacks white male dominance and in India has chosen to attack Hindu male dominance.
It is a part of liberation theology that such dominance cannot be addressed within peaceful, constitutional, parliamentary channels. A violent, revolutionary change is, therefore, considered necessary and desirable. They want to overthrow Indian society and specifically Hindu society, which, in the vocabulary of cultural Marxism, is seen as hegemonic, patriarchal, misogynistic, and casteist — a society that the Marxist Jesuits cannot and will not come to a peaceful engagement with. This is in complete contrast with the Jesuits of my college days who respected Hindu traditions and were votaries of an empathetic society.
Unfortunately, too many of today’s Roman Catholic and Jesuit priests take their inspiration not from Roberto de Nobili (a Sanskrit and Tamil scholar), Thomas Stephens (a Marathi scholar), Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (a Tamil scholar) and Anthony de Mello (a scholar of Vedanta, Buddhism and Sufism) but from Gustavo Gutierrez and Jon Sobrino (radical, even revolutionary Latin American Catholic scholars).
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who served as Pope Benedict XVI, was usually stuck between a rock and a hard place while heading the Vatican’s doctrinal office. He had to condemn de Mello’s fondness for Vedanta, Buddhism and Sufism as theologically not quite proper. At the same time, he had to emphatically oppose Gutierrez’ attempt to plant revolutionary Marxism into Catholic dogma. As early as 1984, Ratzinger’s office published a critical analysis where it was specifically mentioned that “Marxism and Catholic Theology are incompatible.” From my perspective, Ratzinger would have been better off supporting de Mello, who, after all, was engaging with traditions infused with the sacred and the spiritual, something that the founder of Christianity would have approved of.
Non-Christian double-talk
Only the most convoluted arguments can stretch the message of the Christian gospels to support violent materialism. Theologians like Gutierrez and Sobrino are looking for an alternative to market capitalism and reject the position that this economic system has in fact done the best job with respect to poverty reduction. They call for a dismantling of the “bourgeois State,” an old Marxist demand. Their influence extends well beyond Latin America and has found fertile soil in India. Marxist Catholic priests in India are no longer happy looking to the spiritual needs of their kinfolk and focusing on old-fashioned parish work. Instead, they want to move away from their home states and turn up in Tribal tracts, in order to work on the political consciousness of the people there and guide them towards the new Christian theology that resembles revolutionary Marxism, while emphasising some sentences from the gospels and ignoring others.
The idea that the Indian bourgeois State is an oppressor of tribals and that it needs radical transformation is frequently interspersed with positive references to the Indian Constitution. This kind of double-talk is taken straight from the tenets of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong and in its lack of respect for veracity, it is distinctly non-Christian. The ideas derived from more recent theories of cultural Marxism are even more aggressive and puzzling. These theories posit the existence of an endless irreconcilable set of contradictions between Hindu society and the tribals. Of course, these scholars do not bother to address that if there actually exists a chasm between Hindus and tribals, why would there not be a greater chasm between Indian tribals and Christianity, admittedly now channelled via a 19th century German philosopher?
Srisailam, Srikalahasti, Puri, Pandharpur, Jejuri, Dharmasthala, Dantewada, Sabarimala and so many other Hindu pilgrimage centres are intertwined with Adivasi traditions. Within the broad Indic tent, there seems to be more engagement, proximity and, may I suggest, unity in diversity. But, of course this narrative is anathema to cultural Marxists. They have to posit the existence of a wicked Hindu, male, hegemonic order that should be overthrown in the revolution that is just around the corner. In the meantime, at a minimum, it is important to keep the Adivasis worked up with real and imaginary grievances and challenging the Indian State as well as Hindu society.
Need for introspection
The Roman Catholic and Jesuit involvement with India’s tribal population is not a religious or spiritual one. It has, under the influence of Gutierrez and Sobrino, turned into a political one. Oddly enough, the tribals are denied subjective agency. They “require” the help of outside Marxist ideologues and we need to question if this so-called help is in fact a euphemism for manipulation. To manipulate tribals and set them up against a powerful State and against immediate neighbours may end up being the most cynical, sordid and dangerous of approaches.
As an external admirer of conservative traditions in the Catholic Church (the Latin Mass and Gregorian chants come to mind), I am deeply disturbed that a new generation of Marxist Catholics are willing to put at risk centuries of peaceful and cordial engagement between Indian society and Christianity of the Chaldean, Syriac, Roman or Anglican varieties. Opposing the Indian State and declaring war on Hindu society are, at a minimum, not smart. This of course certainly does not answer how Christianity, one of the most spiritually informed religious traditions of the world, can make friends with a violent, atheist, materialist cult.
I have already made a passing reference to my personal connections. Let me add. My brother is a product of a Christian Brothers school; my sister of Loretto and Presentation Convent schools. I am a strong supporter of my old Jesuit college. It is with great sadness and acute concern, therefore, that I view the unnecessary and destructive Marxist orientation of so many Roman Catholic priests, especially members of the Jesuit order.
I call for some serious introspection among my Indian Catholic friends. It is they who can best grapple with this thorny issue. Any non-Catholic speaking up will be accused of being non-secular and bigoted. Lay Catholics indulging in self-examination and confronting the imported Marxist rhetoric among their clergy are best placed to re-introduce spirituality and mutual accommodation into their faith and ensure that the forays into the political and materialistic spheres do not take a destructive turn.
Representational image | A church in Tamenglong, Manipur | Simrin Sirur | ThePrintThe purpose of this article is not to go into the tragic circumstances around the recent death of Father Stan Swamy. While many columns have been written about the tribal rights activist, including one by retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro in ThePrint, I believe an attempt should be made to look at the larger issues surrounding the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuit order in the context of their extensive and intensive engagement with Adivasi communities in India.
Christian missionaries and schools are generally viewed positively by Indian society. In most Bollywood movies, the Christian (usually Catholic) padre is portrayed as a benign, helpful and healing figure. I certainly hope the image stays that way, and is not altered or tarnished. For that, it is important to examine the political ideology of Christian/Catholic Marxism.
It is a common belief in India that the Roman Catholic Church in general and the Jesuit order in particular are anti-Marxist. This belief is quite wrong. The so-called ‘liberation theology’ is very much a Roman Catholic product, absent from most Protestant Christian theological outpourings. Liberation theology is profoundly anti-capitalist, anti-markets and justifies violence, using selective quotations from the gospels. They like to talk about the reference in the gospels to Jesus throwing out money-changers from the temple; there is little if any reference to the parable of talents. The leading lights of liberation theology have been Latin American Jesuits who are completely opposed to a conservative strain in philosophical, theological and political matters. The influence of the Marxist Latin American liberation theologists has deeply permeated the Roman Church in India and has impacted the Jesuit order quite profoundly over the last few decades.
It is this ideological orientation among Jesuits that leads to many of them being well-disposed to Maoist insurgents, while publicly donning the robes of supporters, helpers and padrones of the supposedly helpless tribal people. This is pretty much what Catholic Marxists have endorsed in Central and South America also and is a classic “practice” of liberation theology.
In contrast with peaceful theology
My father and I both have been products of a leading Jesuit college in south India. I am personally a significant supporter of my alma mater. Every time I interact with older, kinder, more sober, more sensible Jesuits, they find it difficult to let their guard down. But directly or indirectly, they admit to me their frustration with the fact that the loudest and most active elements in their order today are Marxists. These Marxist Jesuits reject the earlier accommodative position of the Church and the order. They have also enthusiastically embraced ‘cultural Marxism,’ which in the West attacks white male dominance and in India has chosen to attack Hindu male dominance.
It is a part of liberation theology that such dominance cannot be addressed within peaceful, constitutional, parliamentary channels. A violent, revolutionary change is, therefore, considered necessary and desirable. They want to overthrow Indian society and specifically Hindu society, which, in the vocabulary of cultural Marxism, is seen as hegemonic, patriarchal, misogynistic, and casteist — a society that the Marxist Jesuits cannot and will not come to a peaceful engagement with. This is in complete contrast with the Jesuits of my college days who respected Hindu traditions and were votaries of an empathetic society.
Unfortunately, too many of today’s Roman Catholic and Jesuit priests take their inspiration not from Roberto de Nobili (a Sanskrit and Tamil scholar), Thomas Stephens (a Marathi scholar), Costanzo Giuseppe Beschi (a Tamil scholar) and Anthony de Mello (a scholar of Vedanta, Buddhism and Sufism) but from Gustavo Gutierrez and Jon Sobrino (radical, even revolutionary Latin American Catholic scholars).
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who served as Pope Benedict XVI, was usually stuck between a rock and a hard place while heading the Vatican’s doctrinal office. He had to condemn de Mello’s fondness for Vedanta, Buddhism and Sufism as theologically not quite proper. At the same time, he had to emphatically oppose Gutierrez’ attempt to plant revolutionary Marxism into Catholic dogma. As early as 1984, Ratzinger’s office published a critical analysis where it was specifically mentioned that “Marxism and Catholic Theology are incompatible.” From my perspective, Ratzinger would have been better off supporting de Mello, who, after all, was engaging with traditions infused with the sacred and the spiritual, something that the founder of Christianity would have approved of.
Non-Christian double-talk
Only the most convoluted arguments can stretch the message of the Christian gospels to support violent materialism. Theologians like Gutierrez and Sobrino are looking for an alternative to market capitalism and reject the position that this economic system has in fact done the best job with respect to poverty reduction. They call for a dismantling of the “bourgeois State,” an old Marxist demand. Their influence extends well beyond Latin America and has found fertile soil in India. Marxist Catholic priests in India are no longer happy looking to the spiritual needs of their kinfolk and focusing on old-fashioned parish work. Instead, they want to move away from their home states and turn up in Tribal tracts, in order to work on the political consciousness of the people there and guide them towards the new Christian theology that resembles revolutionary Marxism, while emphasising some sentences from the gospels and ignoring others.
The idea that the Indian bourgeois State is an oppressor of tribals and that it needs radical transformation is frequently interspersed with positive references to the Indian Constitution. This kind of double-talk is taken straight from the tenets of Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong and in its lack of respect for veracity, it is distinctly non-Christian. The ideas derived from more recent theories of cultural Marxism are even more aggressive and puzzling. These theories posit the existence of an endless irreconcilable set of contradictions between Hindu society and the tribals. Of course, these scholars do not bother to address that if there actually exists a chasm between Hindus and tribals, why would there not be a greater chasm between Indian tribals and Christianity, admittedly now channelled via a 19th century German philosopher?
Srisailam, Srikalahasti, Puri, Pandharpur, Jejuri, Dharmasthala, Dantewada, Sabarimala and so many other Hindu pilgrimage centres are intertwined with Adivasi traditions. Within the broad Indic tent, there seems to be more engagement, proximity and, may I suggest, unity in diversity. But, of course this narrative is anathema to cultural Marxists. They have to posit the existence of a wicked Hindu, male, hegemonic order that should be overthrown in the revolution that is just around the corner. In the meantime, at a minimum, it is important to keep the Adivasis worked up with real and imaginary grievances and challenging the Indian State as well as Hindu society.
Need for introspection
The Roman Catholic and Jesuit involvement with India’s tribal population is not a religious or spiritual one. It has, under the influence of Gutierrez and Sobrino, turned into a political one. Oddly enough, the tribals are denied subjective agency. They “require” the help of outside Marxist ideologues and we need to question if this so-called help is in fact a euphemism for manipulation. To manipulate tribals and set them up against a powerful State and against immediate neighbours may end up being the most cynical, sordid and dangerous of approaches.
As an external admirer of conservative traditions in the Catholic Church (the Latin Mass and Gregorian chants come to mind), I am deeply disturbed that a new generation of Marxist Catholics are willing to put at risk centuries of peaceful and cordial engagement between Indian society and Christianity of the Chaldean, Syriac, Roman or Anglican varieties. Opposing the Indian State and declaring war on Hindu society are, at a minimum, not smart. This of course certainly does not answer how Christianity, one of the most spiritually informed religious traditions of the world, can make friends with a violent, atheist, materialist cult.
I have already made a passing reference to my personal connections. Let me add. My brother is a product of a Christian Brothers school; my sister of Loretto and Presentation Convent schools. I am a strong supporter of my old Jesuit college. It is with great sadness and acute concern, therefore, that I view the unnecessary and destructive Marxist orientation of so many Roman Catholic priests, especially members of the Jesuit order.
I call for some serious introspection among my Indian Catholic friends. It is they who can best grapple with this thorny issue. Any non-Catholic speaking up will be accused of being non-secular and bigoted. Lay Catholics indulging in self-examination and confronting the imported Marxist rhetoric among their clergy are best placed to re-introduce spirituality and mutual accommodation into their faith and ensure that the forays into the political and materialistic spheres do not take a destructive turn.
Saturday 1 May 2021
Saturday 26 November 2016
Thursday 25 February 2016
Chhattisgarh Government Strips Forest Community of Land Rights
Manon Verchot
In an unprecedented move, the Chhattisgarh government cancelled land rights of tribal communities in the Surguja district to make way for coal mining.
Land rights of people in the Ghatbarra village were written off after land was allocated to the Rajasthan Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited (RVUNL) and Adani Minerals Private Limited.
The Gram Sabha (village council) of Ghatbarra gained their land in 2013 as part of the Forest Rights Act. Under the act, the government can divert forest land use for different purposes with the consent of tribal groups. In 2014, Ghatbarra and 19 other villages opposed mining developments on their land, but the government overrode this opposition earlier this year. There are no provisions for the cancelling of the land rights, according to Nitin Sethi of Business Standard.
What is the Forest Rights Act?
In India, millions of people depend on forests as a source of livelihood, but most of this land belongs to the government. These communities are often victims of bonded labour and extortion, and are regularly evicted from their homes.
The Forest Rights Act (FRA) was established in 2006 to protect the rights of tribes and traditional forest dwellers. It grants forest communities the right to collect non-timber forest products, access to grazing grounds and water bodies, and the right to claim land.
The FRA provides for the diversion of forest land for non-forest use by obtaining free and prior informed consent from the communities who have a claim over the forest patch in question. It clearly lays down that such diversion should happen only at the Gram Sabha level – 3/4th of the members of the Gram Sabha should be present and 50% of them need to agree to the diversion. The specific process is clearly laid down in the Act and any other process is in contravention of the FRA and unconstitutional.Priya Pillai, Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace India
A villager transports fodder on his bullock cart on the outskirts of Raipur. This image is for representation purposes only. (Photo: Reuters)
What Are the Consequences of Cancelling Land Rights?
Forest communities are dependent on forests for their livelihood, but without any rights, they will lose access to the resources they depend on.
This development is very worrying because it is the first time rights have been taken away. It sets a very bad precedence. It is going to have huge implications all over the country.- Tushar Dash, Forest Rights Researcher, Vasundhara
According to Dash, there are around 150 million forest tribal people in India, and 1 lakh 77 thousand villages affected by forests in India. Government actions that deny the rights of these people would have repercussions that would ripple throughout the country.
In an unprecedented move, the Chhattisgarh government cancelled land rights of tribal communities in the Surguja district to make way for coal mining.
Land rights of people in the Ghatbarra village were written off after land was allocated to the Rajasthan Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited (RVUNL) and Adani Minerals Private Limited.
The Gram Sabha (village council) of Ghatbarra gained their land in 2013 as part of the Forest Rights Act. Under the act, the government can divert forest land use for different purposes with the consent of tribal groups. In 2014, Ghatbarra and 19 other villages opposed mining developments on their land, but the government overrode this opposition earlier this year. There are no provisions for the cancelling of the land rights, according to Nitin Sethi of Business Standard.
What is the Forest Rights Act?
In India, millions of people depend on forests as a source of livelihood, but most of this land belongs to the government. These communities are often victims of bonded labour and extortion, and are regularly evicted from their homes.
The Forest Rights Act (FRA) was established in 2006 to protect the rights of tribes and traditional forest dwellers. It grants forest communities the right to collect non-timber forest products, access to grazing grounds and water bodies, and the right to claim land.
The FRA provides for the diversion of forest land for non-forest use by obtaining free and prior informed consent from the communities who have a claim over the forest patch in question. It clearly lays down that such diversion should happen only at the Gram Sabha level – 3/4th of the members of the Gram Sabha should be present and 50% of them need to agree to the diversion. The specific process is clearly laid down in the Act and any other process is in contravention of the FRA and unconstitutional.Priya Pillai, Senior Campaigner, Greenpeace India
A villager transports fodder on his bullock cart on the outskirts of Raipur. This image is for representation purposes only. (Photo: Reuters)What Are the Consequences of Cancelling Land Rights?
Forest communities are dependent on forests for their livelihood, but without any rights, they will lose access to the resources they depend on.
This development is very worrying because it is the first time rights have been taken away. It sets a very bad precedence. It is going to have huge implications all over the country.- Tushar Dash, Forest Rights Researcher, Vasundhara
According to Dash, there are around 150 million forest tribal people in India, and 1 lakh 77 thousand villages affected by forests in India. Government actions that deny the rights of these people would have repercussions that would ripple throughout the country.
Wednesday 31 December 2014
Conversion: With targets & incentives, new breed of evangelical groups are like start-ups
T V Mohandas Pai in The Economic Times
The Rajya Sabha has been paralysed by the Opposition on the “Ghar Vapasi” programe of a few organisations from the right. However, if you follow the debate, it is clear that this is a political battle by the left and the left of centre parties to embarrass and discredit the right of centre party in power. Maybe even with the intent to show up the government as incapable of bringing in reforms and development. The so-called conversion debate was an excuse to paralyse the Rajya Sabha, and a great opportunity was missed to debate the issue of large-scale surreptitious conversions across India (which is the real problem).
There is no doubt that large scale conversions have been taking place across India, accelerating over the last 5 years led by evangelical groups from the West. The North East has been converted with Arunachal and Tripura being now targeted. Tribal belts across Odisha, Jharkhand, Gujarat and MP have seen large-scale conversions for several years now.
The new phenomenon over the last 5 years has been the huge increase in evangelical conversions in Chennai and Tamil Nadu, clearly visible via the vehement advertising on particular channels on TV. Andhra Pradesh, particularly the interiors, Hyderabad and the coastal regions, has been specifically targeted due to the red carpet laid by a now deceased Chief Minister whose son-in-law is a Pastor with his own outfit. The visible impact across this region to any observer shows clearly that a huge amount of money has come in and that there is targeted conversion going on. Some evangelical groups have claimed that 9-12% of undivided AP has been converted, and have sought special benefits from the State (which has been reported in the media).
There is a very sophisticated operation in place by the evangelical groups, with a clear target for souls, marketing campaigns, mass prayer and fraudulent healing meetings. Evidence is available in plenty on videos on YouTube, social media, press reports, and on the ground. Pastors have been openly tweeting about souls converted, and saving people from idol worshippers. Some pastors have tweeted with glee about converts reaching 60 million, declaring a target of 100 million, and have also requested for financial support for this openly. Violence in some areas due to this has vitiated the atmosphere. The traditional institutions of both denominations are losing out to the new age evangelicals with their sophisticated marketing, money and legion of supporters from the West. One can almost classify these groups as hyper-growth startups – with a cost per acquisition, a roadmap for acquiring followers, a fund-raising machine, and a gamified approach (with rewards and incentives) to “conquering” new markets.
Our Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion, which includes the right of the individual to choose her religion. This is not in question, and is a very important concept for a nation like ours. But this right is terribly constrained by religions, which severely punish apostasy. Our laws prohibit conversion due to inducement, allurement, undue influence, coercion, or use of supernatural threats. Every debate on TV misses this point -people argue on grounds of constitutional rights and abuse right wings groups who protest such conversion forgetting that these new age evangelicals are clearly breaking the law! They go to the desperate, and prey on their insecurities by offering education for their children, medical services for the sick, and abuse existing religious practices and traditions.
People also point to the approximate 2.3% share of this minority in the last 3 censuses to deny such conversions. Of course, the 2011 census figures on religion has strangely not been released and we need this data. However, the reason why inthe conversion numbers do not show up in the census is that conversions are happening in communities entitled to reservation benefits. It appears that they are clearly told not to reveal their conversion in the census or officially to prevent loss of benefits. Most conversions happen amongst the tribals and rural and urban poor, who are soft targets to inducements.
I have a personal experience of evangelical groups trying to convert members of my family. Two house maids who converted said that the school where their children went raised fees and due to their inability to pay, they were told they would waive it if they converted (which they were forced to do). Of course, the school was rabid in their evangelism with these children. I use a taxi company for travel over the last ten years. I have noticed over 30% of drivers have converted over the last 5 years.
When asked, inevitably they spoke about evangelicals groups that gave them free education for children and paid their medical bills, provided they converted.
It is obvious that large-scale conversion by illegal means is happening in many places and the impact is clearly visible to anybody who would choose to see openly. Some apologists ask – where are the complaints about inducement or coercion? The law needs enforcement by the police independent of complaints, as is happening when rightist groups proudly announce conversions. These rightist groups lack sophistication, but they have squarely focused attention on this large-scale conversion activity. Law enforcers need to act before this becomes a bigger flashpoint.
Reconversion to Hinduism - Challenges of Ghar Wapsi
Jug Suraiya in the Times of India
The ‘ghar wapsi’ campaign needs to rebuild the ‘ghar’ they want people to return to.
The RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha and other elements of the Sangh Parivar who want to turn India into a Hindu rashtra through mass conversions called ‘ghar wapsi’ have their work cut out for them, because they face a couple of serious obstacles in achieving their objective. And these obstacles are not their ideological opponents like Congress and Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. Nor is it the trifling matter of the Constitution, which clearly defines India as a secular republic.
No, the real problem with the so-called ‘ghar wapsi’ campaign is that many of those whom the Parivar is urging to come wapsi-ing back to their ghar didn’t belong to the ghar in the first place, which makes it difficult, semantically at least, for them to come back to it. For a lot of people being targeted for ‘reconversion’ by the Parivar belongs to tribal communities, which by and large were animists and did not belong to the Hindu fold. Indeed, as the story of Eklavya in the Mahabharata shows, tribals were given short shrift by mainstream Hinduism with its caste hierarchy: Eklavya, a tribal, is made to cut off his thumb and give it to Dronacharya as guru-dakshina because Dronacharya fears that his ‘low-born’ pupil will outdo the ‘high-born’ Arjuna in archery.
Tribals apart, many of those being ‘reconverted’ are dalits who, if anything, have been even more badly treated than tribals by casteist Hinduism, which looked down on them as being ‘untouchables’, literally and metaphorically. It was this enforced ‘untouchability’ which impelled many dalits to embrace religions like Buddhism. How can those who were considered outcasts – or ‘outcastes’- be brought back to a Hinduism which excluded them to begin with?
But perhaps the biggest problem faced by the ‘reconversionists’ is that, unlike Islam and Christianity, Hinduism has never been a proselytising religion. Before the Arya Samaj leader Swami Shraddhanand launched a programme of mass conversions in the 1920s, Hinduism never had a tradition of conversions, much less ‘reconversions’.
So before the Hindu brotherhood of the Sangh Parivar goes about converting, or ‘reconverting’, people to Hinduism it might have to do a bit of converting of Hinduism itself so as to bring proselytising within its purview. In order to bring in recruits to swell its ranks, Hinduism might have to convert, or reinvent, itself.
But should it do so, it might run a risk. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, recruits to Hinduism could well say that they did not want to join a religion which would have them as converted members.
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