The increasing involvement of Church and Clergy in the Indian democracy is now alarming. The recent involvement in politics by leaders from Church is indeed a reflection of the curbing of activities of “soul vultures” such as conversion and also foreign funded NGO money factory.
There is a tyranny of silence reflected on this issue in the Indian media, by political leaders and the public figures. Seldom are these thoughts brought out in public for the fear that one may be called out for being intolerant. The mere word intolerant should not deter one from calling out the bias in public space who regularly target Hindu leaders for their comments. This phenomenon of silencing logical arguments by name calling and shout downs has a long history not only in India but also in the western world. But instead of derailing the argument on the topic, it should ideally lead to a more focused discussion. And, the question is- why is the church and clergy interfering in Indian politics?
The most obvious and logical reasoning is that the Church aims at increasing the number of sheep in their herd or simply put acting as vultures of the soul. Any attempt to stop these unlawful conversions is met with an opposition from the church which uses its followers to stage protests, the same people whose soul they harvested driving them away from their native faiths creating a rift between them and their cultural attachment to not only their past but also their identity. The protests are organised against the government inculcating the idea that the government is against them while it is the Church trying to separate the men and women from the land of their ancestors and their traditional faith.
The Clergymen have somehow got the feeling that they would get away with almost anything claiming the minority card. This phenomenon is indeed scary, as in the past of the West, the separation of Church and state was done long back, here it appears to be heading in that direction. The Church now runs on a heady concoction of politics under the shield of a minority tag and is encouraging people to vote against a political party. The purpose being destabilising the government and their anger stemming from the fact that their targets for conversions are not being met, owing to the anti-conversion bill by the government. The conversion by lure has long been the policy and any action to curb the same is taken as an opposition to the free run they have had in the past by the clergy.
The Church based faith healing programs that appear on various media that one is exposed to put them exactly in the line of frauds. This type of soul harvesting has an effect not only on the gullible but also those who are indeed stricken by an incurable ailment costing their soul while destiny remains unchanged. These faith healings are now rumoured to be under close scrutiny by the Government and will be labelled as fraudulent activity, this would also mark another decreased opportunity for conversion.
Fear-mongering has long been the way of spreading of monotheistic religions, the slew of fake claims which appear and disappear when disproved are more common than ever. The clergy has openly opposed by means of letters to vote against the present government and somehow have managed to escape unscathed where the main stream media has given a rather insipid coverage, while they grill other leaders for their even most innocuous statements. It remains a mystery as to how they manage to remain above questioning.
Mizoram now represents another approach where a political party (PRISM) with the backing of the church has demanded to oust it’s governor claiming to be a Christian state and then goes on to appeal to the secular nature of Indian Constitution! While they appear to exalt secular values they speak quite the opposite when the party proclaims to Mizoram being a Christian state. This is a clear indicator of times to come as Church is now meddling on government turf by meddling in appointments, a clear indication of rise of Christian theocracy which must be curbed.
The atmosphere in the present nationalist government is that one indeed has freedom of speech and expression of discussion. The same are against the theocracy and hence the opposition. Times are tough for the present government being attacked from all sides, we hope that we are able to retain the freedom of speech, the right to question and demand an answer to these harvesters of the soul.
