The US State Department released on September 9 its Annual Report
on International Religious Freedom for 1999 which, according to the "Frontline"
(October 8,1999- the weekly dates its journals two weeks in advance), the highly respected
weekly of Chennai, India, "sharply criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and other Hindu organisations for their attitude towards
religious conversion and non-Hindus."
The journal added: " While acknowledging that the
Constitution of India guarantees religious freedom, it specifically mentions that in 1998
and 1999, there was an unusual and serious outbreak of social violence against Christians,
apparently sparked by rumours of forced conversions. The report adds that efforts to
prevent such incidents from occurring and to prosecute those responsible at the state and
local levels were inadequate.
"The report gives various examples of the present
Government's culpability in spreading the communal virus. One, Union Human Resource
Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi's plan to Indianise and spiritualise government
school curriculum all over India and to make the study of Sanskrit compulsory from Class
III to Class X. The report describes the BJP as one of the off-shoots of the RSS, an
organisation that espouses a return to Hindu values and cultural norms. While the BJP at
the national level has downplayed its Hindu nationalist agenda, Christian groups have
noted the coincidence of its coming to power and an increase in complaints of
discrimination against minority religious communities."
It needs to be underlined here that the "Frontline's"
report is only a paraphrased version and not the text of the State Department's report.
Before drawing attention to the controversial background of Dr.
Robert A.Seiple, Ambassador-At-Large For International Religious Freedom at the US State
Department, who has authored this report, one should underline two aspects which, to an
Indian mind, calls into question the unbiased nature of the report and the motives of its
author.
First, Dr.Seiple has thought it fit to draw attention to the
allegations of Christian organisations that there has been a coincidence between the BJP
coming to power and the increase in anti-Christian violence, but, surprisingly, he has not
brought on record the allegations in India by Hindu leaders, not all of them belonging to
the BJP and the RSS, that there has been a coincidence between Mrs.Sonia Gandhi, a Roman
Catholic of Italian origin, taking over as the President of the Congress (I) in the
beginning of 1998, and the increase in what they perceive as the belligerent activities of
Christian missionaries and off-shore Christian organisations. Both allegations are
baseless, but Dr.Seiple has recorded only one of them because it suits his purpose and not
the other, which doesn't.
Second, though US official sources have maintained that the date
of the release of the report was mandated by the Congressional legislation on the subject
and has no connection to the election campaign in India, many in India have voiced the
suspicion that the timing was probably meant to influence the minds of the Indian voters
in favour of the Congress (I) and its leader, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, an Indian citizen of
Italian origin, whose aspirations to become the Prime Minister of India, have been
strongly questioned by the BJP and the RSS because of her foreign origin. Apparently
embarrassed by these suspicions, the Congress (I) itself has strongly criticised the
report.
The State Department's report has been mandated by the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. In their congressional testimonies of last
year, Mr.Stuart E.Eizenstat, Under Secretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural
Affairs, Mr.John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, and
Dr.Robert Seiple explained the purpose of the legislation as follows: "To promote
respect and enjoyment of universal human rights; and religious freedom is among the most
cherished of human rights."
Explaining the nature of his assignment, Dr.Seiple told the
Congressional hearing on the Bill as follows: "We will be promoting religious freedom
in its broadest scope, which is to say meeting, establishing relationships, continuing the
coalitions, continuing the work of monitoring, working with other folks in the State
Department, outside of government, inside of government. We will also be promoting
reconciliation where the issue of conflict has been implemented along religious lines---a
situation like Bosnia. And, obviously, we will also make sure that these kinds of things
are interwoven into the foreign policy of the US."
The bio-data released by the White House on January 6,1999, while
announcing the appointment of Dr.Seiple as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious
Freedom at the State Department, gave his background as follows:
Graduated in American Literature from the Brown University in
1965. Served in Vietnam as a US Marine pilot from 1966 to 1969.Was the President of World
Vision Inc, the largest privately funded ($ 350 million per annum) relief and development
agency in the world for 11 years till 1998.
Founded the Institute for Global Engagement, a strategic think
tank within the organisation for global advocacy. Was the President of the Easter College
and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1983-87 and was honoured as the
"Churchman of the Year" in 1994 by Religious Heritage, America.
Tributes paid by various US Christian leaders at the time of his
handing over as the President of World Vision last year stated that his most lasting
contribution was "his pushing the organisation beyond the first two steps of relief
and development into effective engagement of the deep-seated nationalistic conflicts that
have erupted around the globe in recent years."
World Vision, which was founded in 1950 after the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been created under the National Security Act of 1947, today
operates in 100 countries worldwide. It is believed to have a presence in Chennai, India.
Earlier on June 18,1998, President Clinton had invited 50
religious leaders to the White House for a gathering at which he had announced his
intention to appoint Dr.Seiple to this post. Mr. Clinton said that this post (the writer's
comment: which was created under pressure from the US National Association of
Evangelicals), was designed to make sure "that religious liberty concerns get high
and close attention in our foreign policy."
Dr.Donald Argue, former President of the National Association of
Evangelicals, hailed the selection of Dr.Seiple as "a victory of great
magnitude" for the evangelicals (read Christian missionaries) and as a great
statement of support "for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted for
their faith."
In his report, Dr.Seiple accuses Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi of
Indianising and spiritualising the govt. school curriculum. How would he categorise his
appointment to this post and the statements of Mr.Clinton and Dr.Argue? Don't they amount
to an attempt to Christianise and spiritualise US policy-making and to use the clout of
the US State to serve the interests of Christian missionary hawks?
If it is all right for the US National Association of
Evangelicals to work for a return to the original values of Christ with the assistance of
the US Administration, how is it wrong for the RSS to work for a return to the values of
Hindu religion and culture in a country, where the Hindus constitute the preponderant
majority and where Hinduism was born?
There have been, as yet unsubstantiated, allegations that as a US
Marine pilot Dr.Seiple flew clandestine missions for the CIA to supply the Meo tribes of
Indo-China who had been trained by the CIA for fighting against the Communists and that
after completing his tour of duty in Vietnam, he had served till 1971 in the CIA division
responsible for the use of US missionaries for the collection of intelligence abroad.
In February, 1998, a three-member delegation of US religious
leaders (two Christians and one Jewish, but no Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist) led by Dr.Donald
Argue, then President of the National Association of Evangelicals, had visited China for a
study of religious freedom. According to Chinese sources, when the delegation had called
on the Chinese President, Mr.Jiang Zemin, Dr.Argue explained that one of the purposes of
the visit was to remove any misunderstandings in the minds of the Chinese political
leadership and people about foreign Christian missionaries.
According to these sources, Mr.Jiang thereupon smiled and
said:" Foreign missionaries say that the Asian people suspect them because they don't
understand them well. But, we Asians suspect foreign missionaries because we understand
them only too well."
One of the issues reportedly taken up by the delegation in China
was the Chinese insistence on appointing the functionaries of the church in China and
refusal to recognise functionaries appointed by the Vatican and other off-shore church
organisations.
While Church organisations of the US and West Europe, including
the Holy See, have been criticising the Chinese on this issue, there was an interesting
controversy involving Dr.Seiple in a similar issue after he had taken over as the
Ambassador-At-Large earlier this year.
While addressing an inter-faith meeting at the Islamic Centre of
Southern California, Los Angeles, in June, 1999, Dr. Seiple referred to the Islamic
Supreme Council of America led by Sheikh Hisham Kabbani and expressed his regret that
large sections of the Muslims of the US were boycotting this organisation and the Sheikh
because of a perception that the Sheikh was too close to the State Department. He appealed
to them to end this "de facto boycott" and to begin "going the extra
mile" to rehabilitate the Council and its leaders.
This led to pandemonium in the audience with many questioning the
authority of Dr.Seiple to interfere in the affairs of the Muslim community and to suggest
to them which organisation was good for them and who should be their leader. The confusion
only subsided after Dr.Seiple apologised to the audience and said that he would raise this
issue with them at a more propitious time later.
In a subsequent statement titled "A Seiple Without
Disciples", the Muslim leaders of Southern California said: "Regardless of what
was said about Sheikh Kabbani, the perplexing question is why did the Ambassador ask
Muslims to rehabilitate ISCA? Why is the State Department so much interested in pushing
Sheikh Kabbani? Since when, the Muslim community's internal affairs will be guided by the
State Department? What Seiple did is unheard of among government officials. We never heard
the State Department ask either Christian or Jewish groups to forgive each other and work
together on theological issues. We never heard the State Department ask mainstream
Christian groups to accept Unitarian, Mormons or Jehovah Witness as full Christians. Why
will the State Department ask the Muslims to rehabilitate Sheikh Kabbani?" (The
writer's comment: Dr.Seiple was interested in his rehabilitation because the CIA and the
FBI were allegedly interested in it.)
To understand what President Jiang reportedly described as the
Asian suspicions of the foreign Christian missionaries, one has to study the use of these
missionaries by Western intelligence agencies before, during and after the second World
War.
After its creation in 1947, the CIA made extensive use of
American Baptist missionaries working amongst the tribals of Yunnan for intelligence
collection and for organising a resistance movement against communist rule. These
missionaries used to co-operate not only with the CIA, but also with the KMT Intelligence.
After the capture of Yunnan by the Communists, the KMT troops
crossed over into the Shan State of Myanmar. By taking advantage of the absence of
Myanmarese army control over Northern Myanmar, these troops, supplied by air by the CIA
from Thai bases, continued to organise raids on Chinese army posts in Yunnan.
In this, they received valuable help from the Lisu tribes, who
are found in Yunnan and in the Kachin State of Myanmar. American Baptist missionaries
played an active role in rallying these tribes in support of the KMT troops.
The PLA managed to defeat these KMT troops in 1967-68, after
which these missionaries moved over to the Kachin State. When the Myanmarese Army, worried
over their activities in its territory, tried to arrest them, they crossed over into the
Vijaynagar area in the Tirap District of Arunachal Pradesh in India and then went to the
Chiangmai area of Northern Thailand.
While these Baptist missionaries, who were already in their 70s
at that time, are now dead, many of their successors continue to operate from northern
Thailand and remain in touch with the tribal insurgent groups of Myanmar and India.
The use of US journalists and missionaries by the CIA for its
operations came to notice during the post-Watergate enquiries and President Carter banned
such use. While the ban was supposedly absolute in the case of American missionaries, the
CIA was enabled to use American journalists on a case by case basis after obtaining the
prior permission of the President, if there was no other way of protecting vital US
national interests.
In respect of Christian missionaries, the ban is only on the use
of US nationals. The CIA continues to use missionaries of foreign nationality.
Of the other intelligence agencies, those of the UK, France,
Portugal, Germany and Australia continue to use foreign Christian missionaries for their
overseas operations---whether for intelligence collection or for political
destabilisation.
There
have been unwarranted generalisations in the State Department report on the basis of some
unfortunate and deplorable incidents of recent months in India. These were isolated
incidents, which resulted from the anger of some individuals against Christian
missionaries. It is as absurd to generalise therefrom that there is violation of the
rights of Christians and danger to their lives in India as it would be to generalise from
the recent Texas incident in which an individual entered a church and killed seven
teenagers that there is violation of the rights of Christians in the US and danger to
their lives.
If Dr.Seiple had analysed the incidents in India, he would have
noticed that the reported incidents were confined to the tribal belt in Gujarat, Madhya
Pradesh,Bihar and Orissa and posed to himself the question as to why such anti-Christian
violence takes place more in the tribal belt of India than elsewhere.
The answer is that conversion drives by Christian missionaries,
foreign or Indian, are concentrated in the tribal belt.
The people are very poor and many of them are animists with no
organised religion. In return for material incentives such as cash, scholarships etc, they
are prepared to embrace Christianity even if they don't like the faith or understand the
implications of their actions.
Even though many of the tribals are animists, their social and
cultural traditions are similar to those of the Hindus---like the responsibility of the
son to look after the parents, perform their last rites when they die, find a husband for
the sister etc. In the tribal areas, the old people are reluctant to convert. So, the
missionaries focus on the youth. If in a family only the son is won over by the
missionaries and embraces Christianity, he refuses to look after his parents or perform
their last rites. They themselves do not want their last rites to be performed by their
son because he has become a Christian. Nobody would marry the daughter in the house.
The result: The activities of the missionaries have been playing
havoc with local cultural and social traditions and creating social tensions and leading
to the break-up of many families. Such tensions and anger result in occasional outbreaks
of wrath against the missionaries. This is deplorable, but the original cause has to be
understood in the proper perspective.
Moreover, the Christian missionaries, either deliberately or
unwittingly, create a feeling of separateness in the minds of converted tribals thereby
giving rise to feelings of alienation against the Indian society and State. This had
happened before in India's North-East and there is a fear that this could now happen in
the tribal belts of Central and East India.
In India, most of the conversion drives in the tribal areas were
organised by Baptist missionaries, allegedly of missionary organisations in the US and
funded by their money. India was for centuries under the British rule, but the
missionaries of the British Anglican Church rarely undertook conversion drives in the
tribal areas of the North-East. It is the Baptist organisations of US origin or links
which have practically converted the entire tribal community of the North-East.
India has many Catholics in Kerala, Goa and Pondicherry and many
Syrian Orthodox Christians in Kerala. There are many Protestants in the rest of India. The
Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant missionaries of the rest of India often admit in private
that in their excessive zeal for conversion the Baptist missionaries of US origin or nexus
have been bringing a bad name for Christian missionaries in India and creating ill-will
against them.
Ambassador Seiple's report reads more like the accusations of an
interested party with its own personal and organisational agenda and not like the
objective analysis of a professional of the US State Department. It reads more like a
series of fatwas issued by the Ayatollah of US Baptists against Governments of
non-Christian countries than a balanced study of the problem by a mind ready to see the
problems faced by other countries in their proper perspective. It is a mind which is not
prepared to understand the validity of the fears in non-Christian countries over the
social and cultural impact of the conversion drives funded by US church organisations.
In recent months, there has been justified concern in many
sections of the analytical community in the West and Russia over the social, religious and
cultural tensions caused by the spread of Wahabism in non-Islamic countries by Islamic
missionaries (Tablighis) with the help of Saudi money. Aren't the concerns in
non-Christian countries such as India over the implications of the similar zeal of the
Christian missionaries equally justified?
Dr.Seiple's report is unlikely to carry conviction with impartial
observers. The appointment to this sensitive post of a man with a partisan religious
background like that of Dr.Seiple would distort and ultimately destroy the purpose for
which this post was created.
The appointment of Dr.Seiple to this post was as unwise as would
have been the appointment of Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran as a UN Special Rapporteur to
monitor and report on the respect of the religious rights of Muslims in the US and other
Western countries.
B.RAMAN
(25-9-99)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,
Chennai. E-mail:corde@vsnl.com )
