Faith and Religion

tahmedji, I do agree that Islam is a rose, and Murad bhai agrees too. :)

#58 eklavya bro: you can call it whatever. a rose by any name would smell as sweet. :-)

cheers!

Following is probably a poem coming out of pain and fear of the future where the abrahmic imperialism, slavery and consumerism (ideas, source of divinity, processed product mfged at distant places owned by few and consumed blindly by perpetually impoverished, psychologically enslaved "other" people/race) will wipe out organic local culture. I am not associated with these good folks.

Swami Laxmanananda: murder foretold
Shreerang Godbole
30 August 2008
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The gruesome murder of 84-year old Swami Laxmanananda in Kandhamal, Orissa, has exposed the ease with which evangelical groups can access guns, grenades, and other murderous weapons in the pursuit of their agenda to impose their own religion by annihilating local faiths and cultures everywhere.



No one takes seriously the administration claim that the murder is the handiwork of Maoists. It is another matter that in Kandhamal there is little to differentiate Christians and Maoists – the cadres reputedly overlap, and both share the common goal of uprooting Hindu dharma. Indian media followed the Western media in raising a hue and cry over the murder of evangelist Graham Staines, but did not show the same respect to the octogenarian Swami who devoted his life to the welfare of the most downtrodden tribal communities.



The media gave space to the asinine remarks of Australian evangelist Gladys Staines, who has no locus standi to comment on the internal affairs of India , and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was quick to give audience to well-organised Christian leaders after the Bishop of Rome expressed displeasure over native Hindu reaction to grave provocation. The Italian origin and Roman Catholic faith of Congress party president Sonia Gandhi cannot be overlooked in this context – it constitutes a sub-text to the Christian vociferousness, which seeks to drown out the fact that the Krishna Janmasthami murders in the ashram premises was an exceedingly well-organised and premeditated crime.



The tremendous and spontaneous Hindu reaction – paralleling the upsurge over the Amarnath yatra land issue in Jammu – has taken the nation by surprise. But the root causes of the Orissa unrest have been completely glossed over by the media.



Kandhamal is part of the erstwhile undivided district of Phulbani; it was carved into a separate district on 1 April 1994. It derives its name from the Kandh (Kondha) tribes who dominate the area, comprising approximately 51.96% of the 6.5 lakh population of the district. Kandhs are Hindus and enjoy Scheduled Tribe status.



The other community with a significant local presence is the Panas, a Scheduled Caste, who constitute about 16.89% of the district population. The Panas are overwhelmingly Christian and are educationally, economically and politically more advanced. They were the prime targets of the pioneering Christian missionaries who settled in Katingia village of Daringibadi block of Kandhamal in 1883. The Kandh tribe led by Chakara Bisoi, Dohara Bisoi, Dina Kondh and Lochana Kondh valiantly fought the British in 1857, and it was only in 1884 that the British finally managed to subdue this region with the help of converted Panas from present-day Ganjam and Nayagarh districts bordering Kandhamal.



Through untiring efforts spanning four decades, Swamiji succeeded in awakening the Kandhs. This in turn posed a major threat to the political and economic hegemony of the Church. The converted Panas are highly placed in Government and politics. Rajya Sabha MP Radha Kant Nayak is a converted Pana and a blue-eyed boy of the Congress president. He doubles up as chief of the local chapter of World Vision, a highly energetic Christian outfit. Nayak is also connected with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). He uses his MP’s fund to distribute largesse to converted Panas through his own NGO called ‘Nishwas’. His alleged role in the murderous attack on Swami Laxmanananda on 24 December 2007 has not been probed to the satisfaction of the local populace.



Christian bureaucrats like Issac Behera and retired IPS officer John Nayak, Lok Sabha MP Sugrib Singh, and former Steel and Mines Minister Padmanabh Behera are other heavyweights who are hand-in-glove with missionaries. The Church reportedly gets massive funds from USA , Italy , Australia and several European countries, and Swami Laxmanananda’s demand for an enquiry into the quantum of foreign funds flowing into the region and their utilization should in the fitness of things be accorded the status of the last testament.



There is a long-standing dispute between converted Panas and Hindu Kandh tribals. Under the law, Panas cannot own forest land as they are not Scheduled Tribes. Throwing legality to the winds, several converted Panas have illegally grabbed forest land. Kandhs who have been rendered landless are forced to work as farm labourers on lands illegally occupied by Panas. Seething discontent over this state of affairs first manifested in the 1994 Kandh-Pana clashes that left 50 persons dead.



Despite a High Court order to evict encroached land, Christians continue to illegally occupy the land. Being Scheduled Castes, Panas are legally not allowed reservation benefits after conversion. One way they get around this law is by concealing their conversion. Radha Kant Nayak, a 1962 batch IAS officer, is widely reputed to have gained entry into the IAS through Scheduled Caste quota by fraudulently concealing his convert status. The growing clamour for public scrutiny of such cases is said to be behind the setting up of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission, which expectedly recommended reservation benefits for all SC converts.



Another way to beat this law is by securing Scheduled Tribe status. This will enable Panas to enjoy reservation even after conversion, as an oversight in the Constitution did not deprive ST converts of reservation rights. Naturally, Church-inspired organizations such as the Phulbani Kui Jana Kalyan Sangh are clamouring for Scheduled Tribe status for Panas.



Moreover, the delimitation of constituencies has resulted in the reservation of the lone Lok Sabha and all Vidhan Sabha Assembly segments for Scheduled Tribes. The posts of President of the Zilla Parishad, Block Chairmen and majority of elected Zilla Parishad members and posts in Panchayati Raj institutions have also been reserved for Scheduled Tribes. The flip side of this is a loss of political and social relevance for the Christian Panas and the Church. Hence the sense of urgency in the demand for Scheduled Tribe status for Christian Panas.



The Kandhs speak the Kui dialect, which is also known to the majority of Panas. Disregarding the fact that ‘Kui’ is a dialect, not a community, Panas are falsely claiming to be Kuis and demanding ST status!



In 1981, the J.B. Patnaik government bowed to the Christian lobby and recommended that Kuis be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes. The Christian lobby won a major victory in 2002 when a Presidential order included Kuis in the list of STs. The Phulbani Kui Jana Kalyan Sangh promptly filed a writ petition in the High Court claiming that in Kandhamal district, Kuis were wrongly listed as a Scheduled Caste instead of Scheduled Tribe in land revenue records and consequently deprived of Constitutional concessions granted to STs.



Finally, the High Court asked the State Government to take a decision in the matter. Mercifully, the State Government submitted that as the Record of Rights of the Panas did not mention them as a Scheduled Tribe, their demand could not be met. The Orissa Government has consistently maintained that “this demand is not based on historical and anthropological facts.�



Kandh organizations such as Phulbani Kui Seva Samiti, Nikhil Utkal Kui Samaj, Kui Kul Samiti and Kui Sanskritik Parishad are struggling to stave off the Pana demand for Scheduled Tribe status. They have formed an umbrella organization called Kui Samanvaya Samiti to safeguard the rights of Kandhs.



More than anyone else, Swami Laxmanananda was a symbol of Kandh hopes and aspirations. The missionaries knew that the resurgent Kandh Hindus could force them to close shop. With Swamiji out of the way, the Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, Msgr. Raphael Cheenath could afford to indulge in some bluster. Speaking after Swamiji’s murder, Cheenath bragged that the roots of the Church in these parts were deep and that the Church would continue to provide light for generations to come.



In Jammu , Hindus have risen in the defence of Dharma, throwing up new leaders in the process. Orissa – land of Jagannath , Lingaraja, Kalinga-Jina – cannot lag behind. It owes this much to Swamiji.



Dr. Godbole is a Pune-based endocrinologist, social activist and author.

tahmedji, IMHO, Murad bhai is as good a follower of Islam as you - which is a great credit to him, but for some reason he chooses not to present himself as a Muslim.

Like you, he too believes that there is no priesthood in Islam, so opposition to priesthood in 'all religions' makes sense.

He also claimed that Muslims worship saints, and has lamented the opposition to this worship of Muslim saints.

Unless we get some clarification on those issues from him, or from those who support him, this seems to be all an excercise in futility.

I would so wish he would clarify what Islam this is - I would call it Muradi Islam for now.

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Eklavya bhai: I wasnt too sure what you meant. I therefore read Murad Baig's article - he seems to be saying something I can subscribe too, i.e. the hell with religious priesthoods (in all religions) and let us see religion as what it was when presented by the various founders.

Thus, e.g., jesus did not preach original sin or his own divinity. this bs came later. similarly for all religions.

I think he is on the mark when he writes this. And being on the mark, he is no doubt causing severe agony to the followers of priests and other hoodlums.

tahmedji, not only does Muradi Islam have the pope, the clergy, and 'distorts the original message of the its 'founder' - Prophet Muhammad', it also worships saints.

tahmedji, not only does Muradi Islam have the pope, the clergy, and 'distorts the original message of the its 'founder' - Prophet Muhammad', it also worships saints.

murad beg: since when is islam an "organized religion"? where is the pope, the clergy? no doubt mullahs would like to make it one - but that hasnt happened in 14 centuries and is not about to happen.

pinkuji,

the problem is with us. dharma needs to be organized so that it can fight with this abrahmic ghost sucking blood of humanity for last 1700 years. There is no point in discussing with Murarilal Lakhanpurkar aka ScumBaig. Here is what we need to do:

"Why not? Some say that Hindus don't have a "religious duty" to donate a.la "tithing" for Christians and Zakat for Muslims but can we not take the initiative to do that? I see tons of NRI gazillionaires and even regular "Oracle jockey" types who drive BMW 7-series to temples. If we as a community cannot open our hearts for a good cause, do we deserve to whine about other faith people who are more generous than us? I see old ladies dependent on medicare giving generously to churches. Why don't we do the same?

As a disclaimer, I was not a major donor until some recent family developments forced me to look at things a different way. While I agree that EJ funds need to be monitored on par with other security concern funds, we do need our society to open up and donate towards the development of downtrodden segments who want to stay within the Sanantan Dharma fold. I daresay that our funds can have a higher efficiency of "saving souls" than EJ funds because we are not buying to change status quo, we are just contributing to improve lives incrementally. In other words, if it takes Rs. 10 lakhs per person for an EJ to "buy a soul", I bet we can make 100 people to say no to EJ bribing for the same amount.

BTW, the first generation of EJ induced converts essentially remain Hindus for life. It's the next generation onwards that turn hostile to their parent faith."

To ignore Murarilal please write the responses on Faraz articles.

pinku#49:

There is no need to harass anyone; if Baig saheb does not want to respond to any comment or comments, either because he considers them as unworthy of response or he has no answer,it is his prerogative. This is an open forum where all comments and responses/non-responses are seen by everyone and people can make their own minds. People, including you and I, have strong identities which are not easily shaken by others' opinions and 'facts'.

Re #22 Posted by Regards

Regards,

I replied to your message earlier but it didn't get posted as Chowk blocked my messages for 24 hours after filtering out one of my messages.





Don't remembre exactly what i said there, but here is the essence (is much bigger than the original post:-)):



What Murad is doing is good in his context, your suggestion of historical plays will be good too. However, you are not aware of strength of Islamic conversion/propanganda machinery or what you are trying to achieve with Murad type history or your plays?? They churn out amazing number of lies and they are still capable of converting whites, africans and Indian low castes based on those lies.



You know the cost of openly leaving Islam?? So all these conversions are one way streets and identity of being muslim is then passed to next generation (though their parents got fooled). The next generations then become attached to ego "I am muslim, so anything

against Islam is against me". And then they are ready to help in propaganda.



The lies spread for Islam can not be controlled by anything other than creating some large scale truths that simply can not be denied. Truths Similar to earth revolves around Sun, that can not be challenged today.



TILL Islamic states understand human values,

till Islam in general doesn't say that their values are different from values of rest of humanity,

till their top end clerics feel shame in spreading utter lies,

till their MPs in secular countries (like in Tasleema Nasreen case in India) feel that people only need to respect truths and not lies,

till they don't be so hypocrite that their 100% Islamic states are not considered communal, their 100% Islamic political parties in secular states are not considered communal, though they consider parties somewhat working for any other religion to be communal (say BJP, you can say it is communal only when you don't have political Islam).



till educated muslims can openly say "no book is word of god" and can still call themselves muslims (or can safely question the lies and stand for his/her view point)

till well over 50% muslims believe in truths and not Islamic lies (reduce it to only 33% if you want)





TILL THEN, YOU DON'T NEED TO BALM GROUP EGO OF ISLAM. IT IS TOO EARLY.







One such truth that is opposed by both Christians and Islam is "no book is word of God". And again if you don't know what level of people support this then I can tell you. Tahir on this forum and many others won't accept it overtly though they will give you hints that they do understand it. If you survey an Islamic country you will be baffled to know how many people feel like that. Even in USA the numbers will be shocking to you.



At highest level of education and understanding, say for people here on chowk representing 0.00X percentage of muslims, you should first force the truths on them. See what they can or can not say, make them aligned with diluted version if they are already not.



For not so educated middle class, you will have to use the strong general truths those that are already accepted by most educated class almost unanimously, to dilute the religion in front of them.



For poors and those who are not at all educated, you don't need to do anything they are good people with no big egos, they will accept truths without even any plays once they are accepted by people with large egos.



Once you have created some large-scale strong truths that act as killers for lies spread by propaganda machinery, you can dilute any religion to whatever level you want. Still, you don't need to lie about history. Once people are no more Hindu, muslim, truths won't have to fight with their egos.



The greatness of Hinduism in comparison of Islam is one such truth that can be spread quite easily. There are many philosophers, scientists, historians and what not, who were not Hindu but who had to say that the ideas that Hinduism gave were the best that ever came from any religion. This is fact and muslims can not find anything denying it, you just have to point them to resources. No other religion can boast of such a life time and grand support from people who were not native to that religion.



It is perfect to dilute religion, it is perfect to leave them, but don't dilute the importance of Hinduism to help spread of Islamists and their lies.



Hindus were already the first to dilute religions by giving that elephnat and blind men tale in their Upanishads, but Islam and Christianity found it hard to digest. They oppose it very strongly (with very absurd reasoning) and keep repeating theirs is the only way to know the real God:-)



So when in doubt support the truth and not suppression of it even if it seems slightly against your modesty. So do say that Hinduism is great till we need to confront Islam, once we are done you can say only ideas are great and religion is not needed. I chose to say both alll the times.

Re #39 Posted by muradbaig,

Dost_mittart wrote a few things that show where your generalizations are wrong.

Let me tell you clearly (refer to reply from dost_mittar or I can give you other instances)

If your whole book is written on these lines, then it shows an attempt to dilute the badness of Islam by hinting more bad in Hinduism than it has.


So, in your case, you talk about sufism when you refer to cosmic nature ofGod, while sufism hardly has anything compared to Hinduism and what Hinduism has is also much more ancient.

Again you refer to Genghis Khan to show the idea that God can not be confined to a mosque/building, while Hinduism gives much more idea about why it is infinity or why it can't be confined to anything.

Remember, For Islam at present it is not important to save/balm the group ego, at present it is important to show where it is based on wrong premises. Saving and balming of this ego will only embolden those who churn out constant lies in spreading Islam.

Mr Baig, can I just say I read your auto articles as a teenager (along with Veeresh Mehta's!)because of my brother, who was a great fan of Indian Auto or Auto India or both (quite remarkable that all of you had such a devout following considering we hardly had anything to choose from)! I hope you still write for those magazines now that we have genuine choices, but I can see why you write about other things like this article. Good luck with your book, not that you need it, since so many revheads will be buying it!

Dear nb

Im glad the discussion is now mainly back onto the subject of the article. My reason to write this is because I have written a book (now going into a third edition with translations into Hindi)as some of you are aware on the history, mythology and religion of India (read Indian subcontinent)for which I tried to learn as much as I could about all religions.

I am therefore deeply pained by the many evils that men do in the name of religion and feel compelled to write about it in the hope that a better understanding of religion might make people more tolerant to others and slightly lower the velocity of hate and violence.

I, too , have a Muslim name and can not escape the fact that I was born and raised in a Muslim country. It is experience and the sense that 'something is not right' that makes u think outside the box. It's a blanky lonely place to be in. Once you dare to question the conventional wisdom and the traditional truth, threads start to loosen up and you end up realizing your unfortunate existence.

The Afghanistan that stood at the heart of Buddhist crossroads of trade and thoughts has been an Arab proxy for over a thousand years where 'man-imals' kill each other routinely over who was the better Arab.

It took one Zia-ul-Haq to bring Pakistan down to what it has become in the recent years. Afghanistan has been unfortunate enough to have one Zia after another and another.

When your faith/religion becomes more than just an issue of your personal belief, your life and the lives of those around you worsen to the bottom of human character and dignity. At least, Pakistan has been lucky to have had Faiz, Manto, Sahir, Jalib and Faraz.

Afghan Atheist