Bastar prepares to stamps out 'foreign religion' i.e. Christianity. Only Hindu religion and its propagation allowed.

35 से अधिक गांवों में बाहरी धर्मो का प्रवेश प्रतिबंधित!

Foreign relegion restricted in more than 35 villages!

6/18/2014 8:59:00 PM

जगदलपुर। बस्तर की सिरिसगुड़ा ग्राम पंचायत ने आदिवासी संस्कृति और परंपरा के नाम पर अनूठा फैसला लिया। इस फैसले के चलते अब गांव में हिन्दू धर्म के अलावा किसी भी बाहरी धर्म का प्रवेश पूरी तरह प्रतिबंधित कर दिया गया है। साथ ही ग्राम पंचायत की अनुमति के बिना गांव में किसी भी धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण भी वर्जित रहेगा।

यह फैसला लेने वाला सिरिसगुड़ा एकमात्र गांव नहीं है, बल्कि बस्तर के 35 से अधिक गांव विशेष ग्राम सभाओं में ऎसा ही निर्णय कर चुके हैं। मंगलवार को बस्तर के तोकापाल जनपद पंचायत के अंतर्गत आने वाली सिरिसगुड़ा में भारी जनसमूह के बीच विशेष ग्राम सभा हुई।

छत्तीसगढ़ ग्राम पंचायत अधिनियम 129 (ग) के तहत विशेष ग्राम सभा बुलाई गई थी। इसका एजेंडा गांव की सांस्कृतिक एकता और रूढिगत परंपरा को संरक्षित रखना था। इसके लिए धारा 7 में चर्चा हुई।

ग्राम सभा की अध्यक्षता गांव के महादेव नामक व्यक्ति ने की। इस दौरान सरपंच-पंच व ग्रामीण उपस्थित रहे। विशेष ग्राम सभा के एजेंडा को देखते हुए यहां पुलिस तैनात रही। ग्राम सभा के फैसले की प्रति कलक्टर, तोकापाल के तहसीलदार और बड़ांजी थाना को दी गई है। विशेष ग्राम सभा के अंतर्गत इस निर्णय को लेकर पुलिस या प्रशासन कुछ भी बोलने को तैयार नही हैं।

धर्म परिवर्तन से जुड़ा है मामला

ग्राम सभा के फैसले को धर्म परिवर्तन मामले से जोड़कर देखा जा रहा है। सिरिसगुड़ा ग्राम पंचायत की ग्राम सभा के फैसले की प्रति विश्व हिन्दू परिषद की जगदलपुर इकाई को भी भेजी गई है। बस्तर में आदिवासियों के धर्म परिवर्तन के मामले आम हैं। इनको पुन: हिन्दू धर्म से जोड़ने के प्रयास भी होते रहते हैं। इस सब के बीच अब पंचायती राज अधिनियम के तहत सरगुजा और बस्तर को मिले विशेष ग्राम सभा के अधिकार के सहारे धर्म विशेष के अलावा अन्य प्रचारकों के गांव में प्रवेश पर पाबंदी लगाई है।

हर गांव के अपने देवी-देवता

ग्रामीणों की माने तो बस्तर के हर गांव के अपने देवी-देवता होते हैं। मेला मढ़ई में इनकी पूजा की जाती है। मां दंतेश्वरी मंदिर की मढ़ई और बस्तर के प्रसिद्ध दशहरा उत्सव में सभी देवी देवता जगदलपुर पहुंचते हैं।

क्यों लिया ऎसा फैसला

ग्राम पंचायत के अनुसार पिछले कुछ सालों में बाहरी प्रचारक गांव में आकर बहका रहे हैं। ग्राम देवताओं के लिए गलत शब्दों का प्रयोग करते हैं। इससे गांव की मान्य परंपराएं खंडित हो रही हैं। गांव के प्रचलित धार्मिक आयोजनों में असहयोग की स्थिति बन रही है। इसके चलते विशेष ग्राम सभा के अधिकार का इस्तेमाल करते हुए बाहरी धर्मो के गांव में प्रवेश पर रोक लगाई गई है।

ये हैं ग्राम सभा के फैसले

- ग्राम पंचायत में सांस्कृतिक एकता और रूढिगत परंपरा को संरक्षित रखा जाएगा।
- हिन्दू धर्म के अलावा बाहरी धर्म प्रचार, प्रार्थना सभा, धार्मिक उपदेश प्रतिबंधित होगा।
- पंचायत की बिना अनुमति के धार्मिक स्थल का निर्माण पूर्ण रूप से प्रतिबंधित होगा।
- पंचायत की अनुमति के बिना उक्त कृत्य करने वाला स्वयं दोषी माना जाएगा।

This is what is happening in Chhattisgarh where the state government machinery is working with Hindutva radicals to stop 'foreign religions'. The tribals and not Hindus historically but no attempt is being spared to Hinduize them and to so called re-convert the tribals who are now Christians. Just three days ago 52 Christian families were beaten up mercilessly and 10 people ended up in Hospital just because they raised their voice against the discrimination they were facing. For more than 2 months these 52 Christian families were barred from taking ration from the ration shops of the village by an order of the elected village council head who is an active Hindu fundamentalist himself.

Now the government machinery and Hindutva brigade have gotten together to stamp out Christianity from the district and their decision says that propagation of only Hindu religion will be allowed and all other religions have to be kept out of the district. Is this India we live in anymore where the constitution promising religious freedom is still in force?

Christian couple hacked to death in Bengal's Kalimpong

Siliguri: A Christian couple was hacked to death and their 12-year-old daughter's eye gouged out by masked assailants in Kalimpong sub division of West Bengal's Darjeeling district, police said Thursday.The incident at the Geetdubling slum in remote Budhwar area, about two hours drive from Kalimpong town, Tuesday-Wednesday midnight, has left the young girl fighting in a serious condition first at Kalimpong Hospital, and now at north Bengal Medical College and Hospital. Her left eye has been severely affected after being slashed with a sharp weapon.

The couple's four-year-old younger daughter escaped the assailants by fleeing from home.

One person has been detained in connection with the incident, said Darjeeling's Superintendent of Police Akhilesh Chaturvedi

Kalimpong Additional Superintendent of Police Anjali Singh said the husband Dominik Bhutia worked with a cable operator.

Locals saw the victims lying in a pool of blood in their house Thursday morning and informed police. The bodies have been sent for post mortem.

Chaturvedi said the Tibetan couple had converted to Christianity. He hoped the case would be solved soon.

Himalayan Buddhist Association general secretary and Tibetan Support Group's north east India core committee convenor Sonam Londrup Lama has condemned the incident and demaned exemplary punishment of the culprits.

Various other organisations in Kalimpong have also raised their voice against the attack.

IANS

 

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Christians discriminated, beaten up and hospitalized in Chhattisgarh

10 Christians were attacked and beaten mercilessly by a mob of 200 plus people in village Sirsiguda, Bastar District in Chhattisgarh state of India on 16^th June 2014.

The village has a long track record of discrimination against Christians and the attack was a retaliation to the complaint raised by the Christian community to that effect.

Eight men and two women, mostly from the Believers Church were beaten up including the Pastor, Ramdhar Mandavi. The beating was so severe that all of the Christians had to seek urgent medical help. One Christian Aitu Mandavi is still admitted in the nearby Jagdalpur hospital with serious injuries in the back and the head.

For some months the Christians in the village (50 plus families) had been denied ration from the government ration shop at the orders of the Sarpanch (Village council head). The Christians then approached the district food inspector and asked him to intervene and according to reports received, he and his colleague did speak to the village head and to the other villagers, which caused anger and a backlash against Christians.  The food inspector and his colleague were chased away from the village and the fundamentalist Hindus registered a false complaint in the local police station of Badanji, accusing Christians of beating up Hindus. The beating of the Christians followed this accusation and the ten were seriously injured.

The Christians had to wait for hours together before their complaint was entertained in the local police station on 18^th June 2014. Even medical facilities were denied initially to the injured Christians.

“At the moment one Christian, Aitu Mandavi, is still admitted in the hospital while the rest have been discharged even without proper treatment,” said a local Christian leader while speaking to us. 

It is reported that the women were also misbehaved with and beaten up. 

The pew research forum in its report on religious hostility ranks India on very top as far as social restrictions to religion is concerned and this is a stark example of that fact, where social restriction and backlash is provided protection and sanction by the authorities (in this case the village council head).

Developing students by indoctrinating them RSS style

Books published by the education wing of the RSS in Gujarat have made it to the curriculum of students studying in the 105-odd primary schools being run by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation

Books published by the education wing of the RSS in Gujarat have made it to the curriculum of students studying in the 105-odd primary schools being run by the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC). These books have been introduced for the first time for classes I to VIII during the current academic year.

The books, published by Vidyabharati Akhil Bhartiya Shiksha Sansthan, Gujarat Pradesh, aim to “foster a national education system to develop a young generation devoted to Hinduism, national unity with patriotism and pride for overall development…”

The books, titled Jivan Vikaspothi, carry chapters on yoga, physical training, socially constructive acts, culture, Vedic maths and music in eight different levels, beginning Class I.

The yoga chapters lay down a disciplinary daily schedule for students, right from physical yogasan to chanting Sanskrit shlokas. The Class I music chapters include bhajans to Goddess Saraswati, Lord Ganesha, Lord Krishna and songs in praise of Maharana Pratap, Chhatrapati Shivaji and Rani Lakshmi Bai.

The textbooks do not camouflage the promotion of Hindu nationalism, in line with the RSS ideology. The website of the publication, however, says its educational belief is to counter the “menace of conversion by Christian missionaries” through its educational programmes.

The website says, “The greatest menace of tribal areas is the exploitation of poor natives of forests by the Christian missionaries… Instead of blaming them, Vidya Bharati has extended its educational programmes to Vanvasi areas. The effort is to foster national unity, respect for all religions and faiths, patriotism and pride in Bharatiya dharma.”

A special focus is also on noted RSS founders K B Hedgewar and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, popularly called Pujaniya Guruji.

Officials said the subject is out of purview of evaluation. Keyur Rokadia, chairman of VMC Primary School Board, said it is only to promote “overall” development of students.

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Radical Hindus target Christian communities: murder and torture

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - "We killed your father because he refused to deny Jesus Christ." This is what one of the sons of Nimmaka Laxmaya was told by his father's killers, when he found the man's lifeless body near a village in Orissa. In fact, the group of Hindu radicals killed him by "mistake". The goal was just his young son, "guilty" of having received baptism. The incident occurred on May 25 last, but news of the murder only filtered through today. It was confirmed to AsiaNews by the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), which expresses "outrage for what happened" and demands justice for the "increasingly vulnerable" Christian minority.

On the morning of May 25 in the village of Dherubada, inhabited by tribal Kondho, Rev. Ben Christom officiated at a christening ceremony for 29 people, including the youngest son of Nimmaka. At the end of a meal consumed with the community, the man - 50 years - walked towards his home alone, carrying the clothes worn by his son during the ceremony. Along the way a group of fanatical Hindus attacked him, mistaking him for one of the newly baptized.
It later emerged that they had been ordered to find and kill the Christian, because he had just received baptism. Faced with the father's refusal to deny Jesus Christ, the mob bound him by the neck, dragging him like an animal. The split his head with a stone, to kill him, then dumped his body into a wooded area near the road.

Only moments later, the son discovered the tragedy: he was returning home and noticed fresh blood on the ground.  He followed the trail and found the assassins still close to his father's body. "If you come any nearer- they told him - we will kill you too". The terrified young man ran for help.  On returning with the Pastor and others, the mob had fled.
The community denounced the murder to the police who arrested the culprits. Since then, however, things have gotten worse: the supporters of the group continue to threaten Rev. Christom and Christians in the area with a similar fate if they still refuse to deny Christ.

A similar case occurred in another Indian state, Bihar, also on 25 May. In the village of Kaliyaganj a group of extremists brutally attacked a Christian family, "guilty" of having received the visit of Rev. P.G. Vergis, founder of a Protestant church in the area. The attackers did not spare anyone, after beating up the head of the family, Sadanandan Singh, they also violently attack his daughters and younger children. (NC)

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Nepal politicians called to ban religious conversions by India's BJP

The victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in India last month was followed by expressions of concern for Christians and other minorities because of the party's links to violent Hindu nationalism.

Those fears have been further compounded by fresh reports that the BJP's vice chairman told senior politicians in a recent unofficial visit to Nepal that religious conversions should be banned. 

According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), BJP vice chairman Bhagat Singh Koshiyari called for an immediate and complete legal ban on conversions during his visit to the country from 30 May to 1 June. 

He reportedly alleged that Western countries are assisting Nepal in converting Hindus to Christianity. 

Koshiyari made the comments during meetings with Prime Minister of Nepal, Sushil Koirala and Chairman of the Maoist party, Pushpa Kamal Dahal.

The timing of the call is sensitive as Nepal's Constituent Assembly is in the process of drafting a new constitution.  It follows Nepal's 2006 shift from being the world's only official Hindu state to becoming a secular republic. 

CSW says the parliament is under pressure from some political quarters to restore the Hindu monarchy.

But the human rights organisation is urging the country to make sure the constitution upholds human rights, including religious freedom.

"Mr Koshiyari's comments are of concern given that they appear to be an attempt to persuade Nepali leaders and political parties not to include freedom of religion or belief in the new constitution and laws of Nepal," said CSW's chief executive Mervyn Thomas.

He appealed to Nepal to remember its treat obligations, including Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects the right to change one's faith. 

He said the protection of this right was "an essential part of any constitution which adheres to international human rights principles".

"CSW continues to urge all political and religious leaders in Nepal to ensure that the new Constitution and Penal Code guarantee all citizens the right to express and share their beliefs, the right to choose and change their religion or belief, as well as the right not to believe in any religion," he concluded.

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Foreign-aided NGOs are actively stalling development, IB tells PMO in a report

As a first step to fast-tracking development high on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has submitted a classified document identifying several foreign-funded non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are “negatively impacting economic development”.

“A significant number of Indian NGOs (funded by some donors based in the US, the UK, Germany, The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries) have been noticed to be using people centric issues to create an environment which lends itself to stalling development projects,” says the IB report marked to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

“The negative impact on GDP growth is assessed to be 2-3 per cent per annum,” says the June 3 report, identifying seven sectors/ projects that got stalled because of NGO-created agitations against nuclear power plants, uranium mines, coal-fired power plants, farm biotechnology, mega industrial projects, hydroelectric plants and extractive industries.

While detailing what it calls “anti-development” activities by the NGOs during 2011-13, the 21-page report  highlights their plans for 2014 and the areas that would come under pressure. These include a campaign against palm oil imports from Indonesia and disposal of e-waste of Indian IT firms, organising construction workers in urban areas, protests against identified projects such as Gujarat’s Special Investment Regions, Par Tapi Narmada River Interlinking Project and the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.

The report says that while caste discrimination, human rights and big dams were earlier chosen by international organisations to discredit India at global forums, the recent shift in the choice of issues was to encourage “growth-retarding campaigns” focused on extractive industries, genetically-modified organisms and foods, climate change and anti-nuclear issues.

According to the report, the funding for such campaigns came from foreign donors under charitable garb for issues ranging from protection of human rights, violence against women, caste discrimination, religious freedom etc or to provide a “just deal” to the project-affected displaced persons or for protection of livelihood of indigenous people.

The NGOs become the central players in setting the agenda, drafting documents, writing in the media, highlighting scholars-turned-activists and lobbying diplomats and government, it says. “These foreign donors lead local NGOs to provide field reports which are used to build a record against India and serve as tools for the strategic foreign policy interests of the Western government,” adds the report.

“The strategy serves its purpose when the funded Indian NGOs provide reports, which are used to internationalise and publicise the alleged violations in international fora. All the above is used to build a record against a country or an individual in order to keep the entity under pressure and under a state of under-development,” says the IB report.

Four NGOs were put under the scanner in 2012 for allegedly fuelling protests against the Kudankulam nuclear project in Tamil Nadu. The accounts of several Indian NGOs were put in the watch list with regard to allegations of funds diversion, after a discreet probe by security agencies with the help of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and Central Economic Intelligence Bureau.

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Our take on the issue: 

In the garb of development, we may see many NGO's targeted that do not fall into this category of NGO's stalling development, if there is such a category at all. Many NGO's who have done proven good work but may belong to minorities or are against the interest of the industrial lobby may find the government clamping down on them using this "classified" report.

Christians ostrasized in Odhisa

In Kalchipudadihi, Deggarh district, alleged Hindu extremists mob excommunicated three tribal Christian families on 28 April.
According to our correspondent Advocate Ramakant Parichha, the extremists excommunicated and deprived three Christian families from enjoying common facilities of the village road, water and forest land because of their faith in Christ.
The extremists spoiled the water well of the Christians by putting dust and garbage. They further have forbidden the Christians to mix or talk to anybody, to take part in any social functions or walk on the main road.
The extremists also threatened to snatched away the Govt. land allotted to the Christians, to cancelled their BPL Cards and demolished their houses if they do not renounce Christ.
Kindly pray for the suffering Christians.

Source: EFINEWS

Chapels Damaged in Kerala

On 29 April, suspected Hindu extremists damaged three chapels in Irinjalakuda diocese allegedly as a fallout of the police action when they cleared the way for the "way of Cross' procession of the Saint Anthony's Catholic Church resulting in about 25 in custody.
Our correspondent, Rev Noel Kotian reported that on 11 April, the extremists blocked the procession of St Antony's Catholic Church and recited Hindu hymns. The police intervened and cleared the passage for the procession.
Church authorities said they had taken permission from the temple authorities to let the procession pass through the temple premises and that it was the practice for several years.
However, the extremists claimed that they had objected to the procession as they had the temple authorities' order for the same. However, the police said that they allowed the procession to pass through the temple premises on the strength of the order of the temple authorities.

Source: EFINEWS

Church Properties Damaged in Karnataka

On 18 May in Kundupur, properties of two churches were allegedly damaged by unidentified miscreants.
Our correspondent Rev. Noel Kotian reported that an ornamental pot at the entrance of the Holy Rosary church was found broken and a signpost leading to St. Antony Church in Koteshwar also was found uprooted.
The town police have registered cases in connection with both incidents.

Source: EFINEWS