The Twain Meet

An interesting cross-cultural debate has been going on in the comments section of this blog recently, under India Ink. I think it is interesting enough that it should get a bit better billing, so I’m moving the current exchange up here as a new post.

Birdie:

"Freedom of religion is a right the people hold and which the government cannot infringe. It is not a right the government holds and which the people cannot infringe. Accordingly, freedom of religion means anyone is free to set any rules they want in their own religious institutions, be they schools, hospitals, or churches, and the government may not interfere. (Albeit many governments, illegitimately, do)."So you are saying once a hindu student joins a mission run school, his religious freedom becomes subordinate to the religious freedom of the school? Extending that logic, once one accepts aid from a mission, his religious freedom becomes subordinate to the missions! If you say a state can not make laws to force a mission to follow a particular path(which the state has not anyways) , then how can that mission make regulations to force students to follow their religious path? That means religious freedom really means religious freedom of you alone. This is the real face of you and your cause.


Od:

Hello, birdie!

Welcome to the party here at Od’s Blog!

That’s right. Once a Hindu student chooses to enter a Christian school, his religious freedom becomes subject to the rules of the school. Similarly, in Canada or in India, entering a mission for aid implies agreeing to follow the rules of the mission. He may be expected, for example, to listen to a Bible lesson, or to join in prayers. So long as his act in entering is voluntary and the religious aspect is made plain, his freedom is not violated. He has freely chosen this implied contractual relationship.

This is proper for the mission, and improper for the state, because involvement in the school or mission is voluntary; while involvement in the state is essentially involuntary.

Thanks for asking.



Trip:

Yes humor is not always so handy. The missions in India had not a modicum of it when it came to da vinci code movie. so that sort of thing happens in matters Indian. don't take it personally.I essentially agree with just abt everything you say abt religiuos freedom. I never even wanted to debate it. What i'm debating is the technicality of there being any persecution. first of all, no schools are being banned from doing ANY activities. No law says there can be no conversions. No law says you can't come to India or do charitable work. no law says you can't mention historical facts or preach to people. the so called 'anti conversion' laws are in place in some states for the last 38 years. 38 sir, and the latest ultra sensitive US report on religious freedom states categorically that there is no misuse of these laws. Then where is the persecution? the leader of india's ruling alliance and the most powerful politician is a roman catholic, the PM a sikh, the president muslim, the army chief a sikh, what persecution are you talking abt??? kindly reply to these and help me get back my sense of humor.when there is no persecution, and still a head of a state gives a sermon to another sovereign state, it's bound to recieve a retort. if you have any knowledge of protocol, this sort of thing DOES NOT happen in international relations.You ommitted the persecutions in Goa and you say the perpetrators are dead. Most nazis are dead or become pious now but we still call nazism bad don't we? Similarly, the casteism in India was banned sixty years ago and those who wrote the vedas are dead too, but missions still use this argument against Hinduism (Fact. check out the mission books). As far as blood libel goes, we in India don't have experience with such things. Even after conceding the authority on the subject to you, i'll tell you some facts - Jews have been living in India since the time before the destruction of the second temple. Not a single case of persecution ever reported. Zorashtrians are living in India for over a thousand years, not a single case of persecution. Same applies to jains and buddhists. Some missions in India work in most remote, poorest and lawless places where the the govt itself loses 100s of securitymen a month (Fact). So the govt can not give complete protection to missions in such parts. Even then there have been no cases of state persecution (there may have been criminal cases ( I don't know of any) but i hope you appreciate the difference). Basically this persecution war cry is hogwash. if you guys use spreadsheets, it will be interesting to compare the decible levels of this cry in a year and the increment in the money that comes into the country.Your comparison of schools with homes is weird. homes are not public institutions teaching state curricula and subject to states responsibility of what happens in them to the students. In any case, no school activity or church activity is banned by any law as you ignorantly claim and my having an opposite viewpoint is not persecution. I'm not impying malice, but i'm saying your views are based on misinformation. So prove what i said is factually incorrect or stop abusing my motherland.Many missions do lot of public service in India and they are given credit too. Mother teresa as an example. India had a three day state mourning after the pope's death recently even when its a secular state ( there has never been state mourning when Hindu shankaracharyas die). India is a tolerant and spiritually generous country and I have no idea what is being achieved by making Indians reconsider their stand.


Od:

Hi again, Trip:

To try to answer your points more or less in order:

The Da Vinci Code is not a comedy.

You say “no law [in India] says there can be no conversions.” That’s true, technically. What the law says is that requests to convert must be approved by the civil authorities, and can be denied. This is obviously not religious freedom; the state has no business telling you what religion you can be, believe and practice. But note that, also technically, you are wrong to say no law says you can’t come to India as a missionary. Unless my sources are wrong, India does not let people enter as missionaries: they must come as tourists, or they must have an employer in India and do their missionary work in their spare time.

Besides the Pope, Amnesty International has also protested a growing trend to religious violence in India (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGASA200031999). The latest report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, although it withdrew India from its list of countries of particular concern a year ago, states that it is still being “monitored closely,” and that "concerns about religious freedom in India remain, particularly indications that attacks on Christian churches and individuals persist - in some areas at alarmingly high levels - without adequate prosecution.”

You make a good point that the upper levels of the current Indian government show impressive diversity. Everyone agrees that the situation has improved since Congress replaced the BJP in the last national elections. It has been the BJP and some smaller parties, holding government in some states, which have continued to be a problem.

You say this sort of thing—a rebuke from one “head of state” to another--“DOES NOT happen in international relations” (emphasis yours). This is not so. The Pope criticized Muslim nations for religious intolerance in the same week he cited India. This sort of thing is common, even among sovereign states, and the Pope is only incidentally the head of a sovereign state. He is, quite obviously, speaking here not as the chief magistrate of Vatican City, but as leader of the world’s Catholics.

You miss the critical difference between condemning Nazis and persecuting Germans. We indeed still criticize Nazism. Yet we do not blame modern Germans for the acts of others in the past.

You are correct that the caste system is banned in India as a civil matter. But it is still a cultural and a religious concern, as the Indian government itself clearly concedes with its continuing “affirmative action” programs. As you note, many still consider the system justified by the Vedas. It is therefore perfectly legitimate to continue to comment on it and condemn it.

On the whole, India has had an admirable record of religious tolerance; but just as past wrongs do not justify present wrongs, neither do past rights.

It is also an exaggeration to say the Jews of India have never known persecution. They were driven from their homes and livelihoods in Kerala in 1524, by the ruler of Calicut. And the Indian record is somewhat marred by the death of around 500,000 people during the partition.

As to your claim that the escalating attacks on Christian churches and missionaries are the acts of private individuals, the Pope, Amnesty, and the US government all believe this has been with some government connivance. Pakistan claimed the same, remember, for the fedayeen who sought to seize Kashmir in 1947; it is a time-honored technique in other persecutions. Hitler used it too, in the 1930s.

You argue that homes are not public institutions, and schools are. But we are talking about private, not public, schools. Private schools are indeed private institutions.

Your charge that I have said that some particular activity is currently banned in Christian schools in India is false. Perhaps this is due to your difficulties with reading in a second language?

Pax. Et Lux.

Od