The History of Christianity's Invasion of India

An important book written by Sitaram Goel, 'History of Hindu Christian Encounters' (A. D. 304 to 1996), was first published in 1986, with its second expanded edition published in 1996. After reading the book, Koenraad Elst met Goel in 1989 and offered his reaction, stating that the Hindu case against Islam and Christianity is extremely strong, but until now it has either not been presented at all, or presented in a very poor manner. This book is distinct in this regard, properly articulating all the unethical deeds committed by the missionaries. A well-known Gandhian thinker, J. C. Kumarappa, once remarked that Western nations have four arms—the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Church—through which they pursue their interests across the globe. It is necessary to mention here that Kumarappa was himself a Christian. In the present book, Goel has divided Hindu-Christian Encounters into five phases, which are as follows—

1. Christianity's First Strike

According to the Syrian writer Zenob, in the 2nd century BCE, in the upper reaches of the Euphrates, to the west of Lake Van in the Canton of Taron, there were two Hindu temples containing 18 and 22-foot idols. These idols were destroyed in 304 A.D. by Gregory, who was subsequently granted sainthood. It is not known whether the people in India were aware of Christianity's attack on Hindu dharma in the Roman Empire or not. However, in Syria, Christians began facing persecution from within their own co-religionists. And from the 4th century A.D., Christians came to be viewed with suspicion in Iran as well. Fleeing from this, they escaped to India and China. In India, they came to be called Syrian Christians. They integrated into Indian culture. However, in the 16th century, when Portuguese marauders arrived in Goa and unspeakable atrocities were committed against Hindus under the leadership of St. Francis Xavier, the true nature of these Syrian Christians came to light. They openly supported the atrocities committed by the Portuguese missionaries.

A detailed account of these atrocities committed against Hindus in Goa can be seen in British author Paul William Roberts' book Empire of the Soul-Some Journies in India (1997) and Stephen Knapp's book Crime Against India.

Despite so many atrocities by St. Xavier, the desired harvest of souls could not be reaped. Then the missionaries altered their strategy under the leadership of Robert de Nobili. And Nobili declared himself a Brahmin, intending to execute matantaran (religious conversion) through deception. His skin color posed an obstacle to this. Attempts were even made to find a lotion for this purpose, so that disguised as a Hindustani, he could carry out conversions through fraud. However, when such a dark lotion could not be found, a strategy was devised to train local missionaries.

Until the 17th century, there is no evidence of any mutual dialogue between Hindu dharma and Christianity. So far, only the monologue of the missionaries had continued. In the early 18th century, an aggressive evangelist, Ziegenbalg (Ziegenblag), opened mission offices near key Hindu centers of learning for his work. Prominent among these were Srirangam, Tanjore, Madurai, Kanchi, Chidambaram, and Tirupati. Ziegenbalg held 54 discussions with Brahmins and prepared a booklet titled Abominable Heathenism, which contained nothing but abuse directed at Hindu dharma. In the middle of the same century, an account of an encounter between Hindus and Christians is found in Pondicherry, which is mentioned in the diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai. With the help of Madame Dupleix, wife of the French Governor of Pondicherry, Dupleix, the Vedapuri Ishwaran temple was demolished.

2. The Second Hindu-Christian Dialogue

The second dialogue between Hindu dharma and Christianity takes place when the British Empire had established its roots in almost the entirety of India, except for Ranjit Singh's Sikh state across the Sutlej. This dialogue begins in Calcutta nearly 100 years after the dialogue conducted through Ziegenbalg, occurring between Raja Ram Mohan Roy and the Serampore missionaries in the year 1820. Bengal was familiar with the tyrannical deeds of the Portuguese missionaries. Some missionaries learned the Bengali language and continued preaching Christianity in Bengal. For example, Dom Antonio wrote a fictional dialogue in a book titled 'Brahmana-Roman Catholic Sambad'. However, all this had no significant impact on Bengal. This work gained momentum when William Carey (1761–1834) established the Baptist Mission in Serampore in the year 1800. It was through this that a Bengali Hindu named Krishna Chandra Pal was converted, becoming the first convert. Until then, the missionaries did not enjoy official British state support. However, after the decline of the Marathas, as a result of effective lobbying in favor of missionaries by William Wilberforce, the British government began supporting the work of missionaries.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy strongly criticized the Fourth Gospel, which relates to the life, crucifixion, and teachings of Jesus. Ram Mohan began publishing a periodical titled The Brahmanical Magazine in Bengali and English. In the periodical, he severely criticized missionary methods and the indirect assistance provided to missionaries by the British government, and he equated the Christian doctrine of the Trinity with Hindu polytheism. Mocking the doctrine of the Trinity, he also wrote an essay titled 'Padri Shishya Sambad' in 1823. Despite all this, Ram Mohan soon realized that the missionaries were an integral part of the British Empire itself, and this realization restrained him from being more outspoken. He refuted most doctrines of the Christian faith, yet he accorded respect to Jesus Christ, viewing him as a great moral preacher. Bestowing this respect upon Jesus proved quite costly. When the Brahmo Samaj came under the leadership of Keshub Chunder Sen, Sen's fascination with Jesus raised questions about the very foundation of the Brahmo Samaj, and this organization drifted further apart from Hindus.

During this same period, a Hindu-Christian dialogue also commenced in Maharashtra. This took place primarily between John Wilson and Morebhat Dandekar in February 1831. Consequently, Wilson wrote a book titled 'An Exposure of the Hindu Religion', which Dandekar countered in a book titled 'Shri Hindu Dharma Sthapana'. Wilson's second dialogue was with Narayan Rao. Similarly, John Muir engaged in dialogue with three Hindu pandits: Somanatha, Harchandra Tarka Panchanana, and Nilakantha Goreh. The greatest feature of this dialogue was that it took place in the Sanskrit language. Muir was so impressed by the Sanskrit language that he established a chair of Sanskrit language, literature, and philosophy at Edinburgh in 1862 and detached himself from conversion activities.

In 1875, 'Satyarth Prakash' written by Swami Dayananda Saraswati Ji was published. Dayananda described Jehovah as bloodthirsty, vengeful, and unjust, stating that only such a Jehovah could make a monster like Moses his prophet. The spread of Christianity in North India remained relatively slow, the credit for which goes to Maharishi Dayananda.

In South India, the establishment of the Theosophical Society also created obstacles to the spread of the Christian faith, because its founders, Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott, were well aware of all the evils of Christianity. Under rationalist and humanist scrutiny in Europe, Christianity had already been exposed; for them, the Bible was mere senseless ranting. Along similar lines, the Hindu Tract Society was established in 1887, the Advaita Sabha in 1895, and the Shaiva Siddhanta Sabha in 1896, which continued to resist Christian aggressiveness at their respective levels.
Alexander Duff firmly believed that Western education would alienate Hindus from their dharma and prepare the ground for conversion to Christianity. Duff converted K. C. Banerjee and M. L. Basak in 1839, and Lal Behari Dey and Madhusudan Dutt in 1843 to Christianity. However, Vivekananda shattered Duff's dreams.

Swami Vivekananda was a student of Duff's Scottish Church College. Initially, he had also joined the Brahmo Samaj and was among Keshub Chunder Sen's admirers. However, after meeting Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in the year 1880, the situation changed. His clear opinion was that since the days of Constantine, Christianity had spread solely with the help of the sword, and the Christian faith had always blocked the path of science and philosophy. Behind the prosperity of Western countries lies not Christianity, but the plunder and exploitation of people. Blood and the sword are not the mediums of Hindu dharma; rather, love is at its root. Unlike Christian and Islamic religions, Hindu dharma does not prescribe a single dogma for every individual. His address at the Parliament of Religions in October 1893 is well-known. Swami Vivekananda instilled that confidence in Hindus which was direly needed at the time. Christianity Christianity Christianity

3. The Third Phase of Discourse Between Hindu Dharma and Christianity

In the third phase of the discourse between Hindu dharma and Christianity, Goel discusses in detail across approximately 115 pages the dialogue that took place between Gandhiji and the missionaries. This discourse spans from Gandhi's departure to South Africa in 1893 up to December 1947. Gandhiji openly proclaimed that religious conversion is the root of unnecessary unrest, and if he were given the power to legislate, he would stop all conversion. However, Gandhiji made three blunders, the price of which the country is paying to this day. First, Gandhiji gave the slogan of sarvadharma-samabhava (equal respect for all dharmas) and erred in understanding that Semitic religions are like Hindu dharma, whereas Semitic religions are an expansionist political concept. Second, Gandhiji unnecessarily hyper-publicized the Sermon on the Mount. Third, Gandhiji suffered from the delusion that he could control the missionaries through his good nature and reasonable arguments.

4. The Fourth Encounter with Christianity

The fourth phase belongs to the period after the country gained independence. This stage is essentially the golden era for missionaries. Before the country's independence, missionaries were apprehensive about what their future would be post-independence. However, the missionaries' joy knew no bounds when they saw that instead of having their operations shut down, propagating religion—including carrying out conversions—was granted an exalted status as a 'fundamental right' in the Indian Constitution. Within just four to five years in independent India, missionary activities became completely unbridled in several regions.

Then in 1954, the government constituted a seven-member committee headed by Justice V. S. Niyogi to study this and suggest measures, which also included Christian members. The committee submitted its report in 1956, the findings of which were an eye-opener. In the course of its investigation, the Niyogi Committee visited seventy-seven locations across fourteen districts. It met with over 11,000 people. It collected nearly 400 written statements. In response to the questionnaire it prepared, 385 replies were received, of which 55 were from Christians and the rest from non-Christians. The people interviewed by the committee belonged to 700 different villages. The committee did not find a single convert who had accepted Christianity without the lure of money or coercion. In the committee's view, Christian missions were attempting to alienate India's Christian community from their own country. Christianity Christianity Christianity

It is noteworthy that no one raised a question mark regarding the committee's assessment, investigation of facts, or evidence being flawed. Instead, everyone maintained silence and quietly left it aside to gather dust. 43 years later, in 1999, the exact same thing happened with the Wadhwa Commission report, which had conducted a detailed investigation into the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines in Orissa. In a sense, it is surprising that Hindu resistance against missionary expansionism was strong in British India, whereas it grew weak in independent India.

5. The Fifth Phase

The fifth phase is that of the Hindu renaissance. This continues to this day. In September 1980, Ram Swarup's book The Word as Revelation: Names of God was published. Ram Swarup noted in his book that the various deities described in Hindu dharma do not possess an external existence, but are rather different higher levels of consciousness. Therefore, the knowledge of various devas (deities) is fundamentally different levels of self-knowledge. This level of knowledge varies from individual to individual. In essence, there is a unity of spiritual consciousness. This polytheism is a symbol of religious tolerance and freedom.

In the guise of a pseudo-Hindu, Robert de Nobili had run the Christian Ashram movement. In recent times, Father Bede Dayanand Griffith was running the Saccidananda Ashram as a Christian sannyasi (renunciate) at a place named Shantivanam in the Tiruchirappalli district of Tamil Nadu. However, the core objective was matantaran alone. A dialogue took place between Swami Devananda and the said alleged Christian sannyasi, in which Swami Devananda exposed his fraud. A detailed account of this is given in Sitaram Goel's book Catholic Ashrams: Adopting and Adapting Hindu Dharma, which was published in 1988. During this same period, concerning the refutation of the mischievous Thomas myth, Ishwar Sharan's book The Myth of Saint Thomas and Mylapore Shiva Temple was published in 1991. Nearly 18 books by Koenraad Elst were published. In addition to all this, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement also took place.

Rajiv Malhotra is welcome news for Indian society. Two decades ago, he abandoned his prosperous and extensive business to launch a mission to present the philosophical, theoretical, and practical distinctivenesses of Indian civilization before the world. In this context, it is necessary to mention Wendy Doniger. In America, Doniger's disciples and associates bestowed upon her the title 'Queen of Hinduism'. Wendy Doniger received prestige and encouragement not so much from American society as from India's own alleged secular and leftist propaganda machinery. The straightforward reason for this is that Wendy and her disciples provided a sex-centric interpretation of all Hindu dharma, which the anti-Hindu politics active in India finds extremely useful. It is thanks to the power of the internet that the insights of scholars like Koenraad Elst or Rajiv Malhotra gradually came before the world. Only in this background can the withdrawal of Doniger's book The Hindus: An Alternative History (2009) by Penguin be properly understood. It is also due to the intellectual campaigns of scholars like Rajiv Malhotra that the world's most influential publisher was forced to withdraw the book of the 'Queen of Hinduism' herself. They realized that this was not merely a matter of freedom of expression, where you can write or speak whatever you wish. Christianity Christianity

Now in the present day, the atmosphere is such that previously fabricated narratives are being challenged. Driven to frustration by this, they are whining about intolerance. In reality, a discourse is being created by breaking the monologue, which intellectuals steeped in arrogance are unable to accept.

- Shivpujan Tripathi, the author is a deep scholar and researcher of Indian history and culture
05/01/2018

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