India Ink

I see in several sources today that Indians are protesting Pope Benedict’s criticism of “signs of religious intolerance” in that country.

Interesting; why is this, and not the Pope’s original comment, the story? A news search on Google using the string “religious intolerance India” turns up an immediate 60 stories on the Indians’ protest, but, far down the page, just one story on the original charge. And this from Zenit, that Vatican’s own news agency.

This is dramatic evidence of an extreme anti-Catholic press bias worldwide, in which the Catholic voice is not heard, but any opposition to the Catholic Church is given wide play.

The substance of the Pope’s complaint, as given by Zenit, is this: “The disturbing signs of religious intolerance which have troubled some regions of the nation [India], including the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom, must be firmly rejected as not only unconstitutional, but also as contrary to the highest ideals of India's founding fathers, who believed in a nation of peaceful coexistence and mutual tolerance between different religions and ethnic groups.”

Indians themselves clearly understand this has to do with laws in several states which ban, in their words, “forced religious conversions.”

“Forced religious conversions”? This is purely a euphemism. After all, it is the state that has a monopoly on force. For a small religious minority lacking political power, “forced conversion” is be a physical impossibility.

No; what is really banned here is conversion per se. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s spokesman, giving examples of “forced conversion,” cited “using financial and educational lures.” I doubt that any Christian missionaries are offering such things as a quid pro quo; it seems more likely that the mere existence of Christian charity hospitals and schools is objected to here. But even were it so, this is not forced conversion. Any more than one is forced to buy something at the supermarket because it is being offered at a very good price.

BJP leader VK Malhoutra asks the Pope, rhetorically, “If conversion is a right, re-conversion is also a right. Will he agree to it?”

Well, yes. Why does the question even come up? Can Malhoutra point to a single Christian-run country where conversion to Hinduism is illegal? Quite the reverse, surely; not long ago, there were Hare Krishnas in every airport, and Transcendental Meditation Centres on every college campus. Government money is actually spent fairly liberally promoting meditation for cancer victims, say, or yoga for general health at community centres; yet these are specifically Hindu religious practices. There is no comparable government money going for the promotion of Christian prayer.

BJP spokesman Uday Singh objects to complaining about abuse of human rights “in a democratic country.”

This is pure non-sequitor. Hitler was democratically elected. The US South in the time of slavery or in the time of the civil rights struggles was also a democratic country. Democracy and respect for human rights are not related issues.

Others point out that there is not religious freedom in the Vatican.

But there is—because citizenship in the Vatican City is itself, unlike citizenship in other countries, purely voluntary.

I smell a bandicoot.

Which is to say, a very big Indian rat.