Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Secularists and Hyderabad

[Sarath Davala]

The Franklin Graham Hyderabad Festival

 

 

The four-day Frank Graham Hyderabad Festival which began on 10^th November at Lal Bahadur Stadium concluded on Sunday. Two days before this festival was to begin, a protest rally was organized by Hinduvahini and Bajang Dal demanding stalling of the festival saying that it is detrimental to communal harmony. They submitted a memorandum to the Police Commissioner asking for an enquiry into what kind of visas were issued to Dr. Graham and his team. Do the visas allow them to attend, leave alone organize, a religious gathering?

 

The festival itself seems to have passed off peacefully. No untoward incident was reported. News paper reports say that on the first day about 50,000 people attended and about the same number on the second day. The organisers reported that the week-end had about 75000 each night bringing the combined attendance of 4 days to 2,45,000, by all means a large gathering. 

 

Franklin Graham is the son of Billy Graham, the legendary global evangelist of the sixties, seventies and the eighties. He was a household name in our community when we were growing up as active Sunday-school-going children in Hyderabad. Telugu translations of his sermons and devotionals used to be a common sight in every Christian household. I remember at some point my father also had translated one of Billy Grahams’ collection of sermons into Telugu. To my community, Franklin Graham represents Billy Graham and what he meant to the protestant Christians, particularly the Baptists.  

 

The Franklin Graham Festival began a few days after Bakrid. The intervening period seemed an opportune moment for the VHP to bring to town their own charismatic speaker, Dr. Praveen Togadia, to announce to the world, yet again, what they thought of Muslims and Christians. Togadia in his characteristic style and acid rhetoric alleged that 30,000 cows had been slaughtered on the occasion of Bakrid. And then, that foreign preachers like Frankllin Graham were invading the country to convert people. For both these sins – the alleged cow slaughter and forced religious conversions – his remedy was beheading. I am not so surprised by the noise generated by VHP and its new local extensions. It is their predictable and almost a routine process of demonizing other religious communities.

 

What really surprised me was the launch of a campaign by Andhra Jyoti, the so called progressive Telugu daily in Andhra Pradesh, two days preceding the Franklin Graham festival. The campaign is apparently against forced conversions. Though the writings are couched in the language of dubious journalistic value-neutrality, the campaign uses all the regular journalistic devices which at the end succeed in demonizing the Christian community. So far, five articles have been published, the first four coinciding with the Festival. There are more to come. Some said this campaign was to get at Jaganmohan Reddy with whom the Managing Director of Andhra Jyoti, Radha Krishna, has been having practically a street fight for some time now. The first four articles made no mention of Jagan or YSR. The Monday’s article however took the turn in the direction of attack on YSR; it detailed how YSR sanctioned over 2 crores from government funds for constructing churches in several villages. YSR’s motive apparently was to woo the Christian voters in coastal Andhra. 

 

Part of this campaign was also a talk show, on their news channel ABN, which brought together predictable stereotypes - a Hindu, an extreme Hindu, a counter-Hindu, and some Christians - ably anchored by the secular man.  

 

I am still not convinced that this 2000 words of venom spit on the Christian community every day - on the first and second pages of Andhra Jyoti - was just to take on Jagan’s family. There seems to be seething anger against the Christian community.

 

Where is this anger coming from?

 

How come a secular newspaper and Hindutva organizations, who are otherwise strange bedfellows, are speaking the same language?

 

Christian population in this country has never exceeded 3 percent, which makes it an insignificant and even a forgettable minority. The so called ‘forced conversions’ have been happening over the last 400 years, if not more. On the face of it, the accusation that the religious conversions are destroying the Hindu society does not hold much water. If the argument has any value, then we should have seen a modicum of what has happened in South Korea, in the last 30 years. Today Christians account for 30% of its population. Or, what happened in African continent last two decades, or for that matter, the growth of Christianity in China lately. By all accounts, India has remained stubbornly a Hindu nation for centuries.

 

In a massive gathering like Franklin Graham Festival, and more ordinarily in the local Revival Meetings, it is mostly the people from within the Christian community that respond to the Altar Call. In Protestant community, one may be born into a Christian family, but that doesn’t make one a Christian in the spiritual sense. One has to voluntarily and publicly make a statement of faith in Jesus Christ. This is what one calls ‘to be born again’. So, there is something called a conversion within the community. A very small percentage of the crowds that throng at the altar are rank non-Christians. Further, when we talk about exponential growth of any particular church or a denomination or an evangelical group, one should take into account the fact that there is a great deal of internal movement of Christians from one denomination to another, or from traditional-frontline churches to newer evangelical groups. Therefore, the allegation that foreign or Indian preachers conduct meetings only to convert Hindus needs qualification.

 

Further, what goes under the sweeping term ‘conversion’ need not necessarily mean closing of one register and opening a new register. We should not forget the fact that what we refer to as Hinduism is a polytheistic assemblage of gods and goddesses. Worshiping more than one god is a norm rather than exception. Often what happens is that when a Hindu is attracted to Christianity for whatever reason does not necessarily give up Hinduism. In fact, the so-called ‘giving up Hinduism’ is not as easy as it is made out to be. Telugu Christianity itself has grown on the fertile soil of Hindu culture. And that is evident in the Christian community, if one cares to see.

 

 

Why then this anger?

 

Are Christians seen by Hindus as having betrayed the Hindu society? And, therefore deserving punishment?

 

Why are ‘secular people’ angry with the Christian community?  Perhaps for this group religious life is something that should be done secretly in the private domain.

 

Perhaps both these groups are offended by the wild display – public spectacle – that Christians do in the name of evangelism. Not only that, they also have the audacity to invite the majority community to come into their fold.

Sarath Davala

Hyderabad 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[suneetha achyuta]

Thank you for this measured response to the AJ debate and bringing up new dimensions to it, Sarath. This was what I found missing in the ABN debate - an engagement with religion from inside. 

AJ reports assume the superiority of the Hindu religion and treat others as inferior in nature because they need propagation (and inducement) that require 'poaching' on Hinduism. It projects 'Hindus' as merely responding to such 'provocations' by these 'low-brow' religions. 

 

Even as one agrees with some of the dalit and feminist critiques Hinduism, an important issue that these critiques do not address adequately in such public controversies around 'conversion' is - the charge that the 'poor' Hindus 'convert' to Christianity and Islam only due to 'enticements', either with money, education or health benefits etc. This charge interprets the operative contexts of religious belief narrowly and reduces it to opportunism of the poor. (It is quite similar to elite (custodians of democracy) charge that poor voters sell their vote to the highest bidder). In a sense, it means the poor cannot and do not either understand or consciously and thoughtfully engage with 'religion' (or electoral democracy). 

Simply to point out that no religion is pure and that all religions are equally to blame for their practice of casteism and patriarchal values would not address this issue (though it disrupts the confident 'Hindu' narrative of speaking for all 'its' people). It tends to overlap with the Hindutva discourse that the 'poor' convert for instrumental reasons.  

I am not at all sure how this issue can be addressed though!

 

--
A.Suneetha
Senior Fellow and Coordinator
Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies
2-2-18/49 Durgabai Deshmukh Colony
Hyderabad 500 013
Phone: +91 40 27423690
Fax:     +91 40 27423168

[Uma Bhrugubanda]

Sarath, thanks so much for that insightful posting. I was hoping you would write something about the Andhra Jyothi tirade against "conversions" and I am glad you did. The context of the Franklin Graham Festival certainly adds a new angle to the newspaper's campaign.

Suneetha, you are quite right--conversions are rarely seen as critiques of the religion one leaves behind or modifies...

There are two points that I want to bring to this discussion--The first is in response to Sarath's question about why a progressive, secular newspaper like Andhra Jyothi and the right wing discourse have the same views about conversion. I am beginning to think that secularism in India is structurally very similar to majoritarianism. As many scholars have pointed out the secular arrangement in India has been forged by positing a constitutional and legal entity called Hinduism which includes the Dalits and therefore makes it a majority religion masking its many internal contradictions. It is also the only truly national/nationalist religion! It merely tolerates other religions as minority religions! Therefore, it is so easy to elide and obscure the difference between secular nationalist and Hindu nationalist. The public sphere is suffused with, and dominated by a majoritarian Hindu culture and thinking. Any other claims to that space are always viewed as a threat and a betrayal.  

And whenever dalits or other lower castes "convert" to Christianity, Buddhism or Islam, they once again reveal the fact that Hinduism has only nominally claimed them but continues to treat them as outsiders and untouchables..Hence those paradoxical efforts like Dalita Govindam that seek to re-convert Dalits to Hinduism even as they claim them to be always-already Hindus.   

   

The second point i want to make is something i have found quite curious and interesting, namely, YSR's Christian identity. Quite apart from (and even contrary to) the allegations that Andhra Jyothi makes about YSR, I always thought that YSR was somewhat reticent about projecting his Christian identity. First of all, his Reddy (caste) identity was invoked more overtly. Further, as CM of the state YSR followed the example of other "secular" CMs of the state in visiting the Tirupathi temple or appearing at the Bhadrachalam temple to present pearls and silk clothes to the idol on Rama Navami day. The latter is a custom that the "secular" state of Andhra Pradesh adopted from the Nizam's state of Hyderabad. Or much later appearing at Bonalu celebrations like all other political leaders did. Of course I even remember a huge flexiboard of YSR in Muslim topi greeting Haj pilgrims. All newspapers routinely carried these photographs of YSR at different temples in his capacity as Chief Minister. 

Apart from the occasional and somewhat underplayed report about his visit to Jerusalem or his sanctioning of a subsidy for the state Christians to visit Jerusalem (like the subsidy for Haj pilgrims), I have rarely come across YSR openly proclaiming his Christian identity. In fact, his campaign videos and even favourable newspaper reports invoked a standard "Hindu" language comparing him to the Sage Bhagiratha who brought the Ganga to earth, while describing the various irrigation projects he launched. Therefore, despite controversies surrounding his pastor son-in-law, Brother Anil, during his life-time YSR's Christian identity was not a widely acknowledged aspect. Why was this so? Does our majoritarian secularism disallow such claims if one wants to occupy the status of a widely accepted political representative? Will overtly claiming a minority religious identity ghettoize the person? Or does YSR's caste identity (upper caste Reddy identity) over-ride his Christian identity--that is--is he seen more as a Reddy rather than as a Christian? and hence more acceptable? In other words even if YSR wooed the Christian vote-bank, did he actively also try to downplay his religious identity in public? Was that merely a secular move expected of any political representative? perhaps not...

Just a few thoughts for us to collectively ruminate on...I would welcome responses...

Uma

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Sarath Davala <sarath...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Uma Maheswari Bhrugubanda
Department of Cultural Studies
The English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad 500 605, India

[Susie Tharu]

Thanks Sarath--and Suneetha and Uma.  This is a huge and critically important discussion. Sarath's information about the inner working of protestant evangelical movements is fascinating.  The opposition to conversions has a very long (and if you look at the status of the people involved) distinguished history.  My sense is that the Roman Catholic Church (houses far larger numbers) --and their charismatic movements are very important too.

 I have been surprised to find in the last two decades that upper caste Churches (e.g. Syrian Christians) appear to have become ambivalent about conversions.  Advani and MM Joshi have 'rewarded' this stance by declaring that Syrian Christianity is old and Indian (and of course upper caste). Their opposition is only to the new and forced/bribed conversions.  This caste bribe and offer of integration seems to have worked with Syrian Christians who are letting their missionary arms wither away..  But underlying the RSS gestures is also the knowledge that upper caste Christians are politically insignificant.  YSR is a Reddy.

So caste is a key factor in this. Venkat's Ph.D work suggests that the early C20 opposition had to do with making sure that the dalits were counted in the 1911 and 1921 censuses as Hindus. That was part of the battle to have India characterized and claimed not as multi-religious but as having a Hindu majority.  Yet I have heard it said by Christian groups that 99% of Andhra Dalits are Christian. Add to those Andhra/Telangana Muslims, and we begin to get a very different picture of this part of India.

Both Islam and Christianity have played very important roles in what we might think of as the history of the dalit movement in South India. Upper Caste Christians are powerful (Bishops, YSR etc) and dominate church administration, but they are not relevant when we consider the political importance of the church in India, which is a dalit church.  I am using the the term political as relating both to the psychic claim over sovereign subjectivity and the power of this group electorally.  My sense is that the political significance of the evangelical movements is this oppositional consolidation of dalit subjectivity--something that is furthered through education in Christan schools.  This is the competition taht the BJP/Bajrang Dal/ various Senas fear. With conversions to Islam also dalits have access to international connections and worlds in which caste is not a factor. I would like to learn more about this phenomenon.

A useful (later) contribution to AJ might be a piece that talks about how dalits have experienced (self respect, individuality, modernity, education, access to jobs) and now experience what are being maligned as forced conversions.

Susie

, Nov 15, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Sarath Davala <sarath...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Susie Tharu
A 27/2 , 1st Crescent Road, AFOCHS, Sanikpuri. Hyderabad 500 094

[R Srivatsan]

I am really thrilled at this discussion -- when I read Sarath's post, I thought, here is something that is so well put and inviting response.  

To tie a weak speculative thread connecting Suneetha, Uma and Susie.  It is almost as if a decision to adopt a religion is somehow of a lower value than the decision to renounce one (become secular) or to remain true to a faith (remain in effect a Hindu in refraining from proselytism).  (Almost as if) Given the hesitancy to offer to convert except in evangelical Christianity, which significantly addresses only Dalits, the assent to conversion is intrinsically of a low ethical value.  (As if ) being converted is something that marks a lower human being who is capable only of headlong opportunism, not of secular restraint.  (As if) the liberty to choose cannot apply to the right to convert.  Conversion does not belong in the domain of right and liberty -- i.e., civil society as a secular space.  On the one hand, the lack of secular legitimacy in undergoing a conversion seems to be a kind of reflection of a governmental anxiety that the domain of the personal is contested by another powerful force -- in other words, the sovereignty of access to the personal dimension of the subject is divided.  Islam's global threat is the comprehensiveness of its ability to generate willing compliance in the personal everyday in opposition to the might of Western liberal hedonism.  On the other hand, Hinduism's discomfort with conversion is also not insignificantly related to the challenge of its outright cultural hegemony posed by the self-respect of the converted.  It is possible for example  for a converted Madiga to find an at least semi-public community that will eat beef without flinching.    While Islam does not proselytize proposes an alternative value to the historical current of developing monogamy in Hindu life.  It is possible for a different religion to offer a different mode of community, celebration and joy than the ones Hinduism offers on the threat of pain as its finest.


Srvts

--
R Srivatsan
Senior Fellow

Anveshi Research Centre for Women's Studies
2-2-18/49 Durgabai Deshmukh Colony
Hyderabad 500 013
Phone: +91 40 27423690
Fax:     +91 40 27423168

Mobile: +91 94404 80762

[Sarath Davala]

Dear Suneetha, Uma, Susie and Srivats. Thanks for your responses. Have been on the road, and am just back. Shall participate in the discussion soon.

Sarath