The parents of the boy in question have alleged that the 150-year-old Doveton Corrie Group of Educational Institutions punished their son Kaushik Ram by asking him to stand in the centre of the playground for more than an hour for coming to school with mehendi on his hands, besides suspending him and imposing the fine on him.
The boy’s father R Ganesh Ram, a practicing advocate, and his mother G Prabhavathy, Additional City Public Prosecutor, claimed that the Doveton Matriculation Higher Secondary School principal.Petal Theodore abused them verbally using unparliamentary words in public view when they pleaded with her to revoke the suspension. Says Kaushik: ‘My class teacher Ann saw the mehendi on my hands and took me to the principal.
She (the principal) made me stand in the playground for an hour and sent me home with an Anna (brother).” The School Management, when contacted, insisted that mehendi was among the few things prohibited on the campus to ‘ensure discipline’.
Admitting that the child was asked to pay a fine of Rs 500, correspondent of the school said, ‘The principal suspended him for one-and-a half days, so that the mehendi could get washed off. She (the principal) is a salaried person who adheres to school rules. It is essential that children be disciplined at any cost. Our staff escorted the boy to his house when he was suspended.’
The school, according to him, had served suspension orders on several children on many occasions. The boy’s parents are not ready to buy this explanation. The interesting point to be noted is that the boy’s father Ganesh Ram is an old student of the very same school. He said: ‘We were ready to pay the fine.
But the principal abused me. She did not even have the courtesy to call me inside her room. She insulted me in front of other parents and staff members. The treatment meted out to my son reflects the manner in which the institution is behaving with children belonging to a different faith.’
In my view what has happened in Chennai to Kaushik Ram cannot be viewed as an isolated incident. I have made general enquiries in different parts of Chennai city and many Christian schools belonging to different Christian denominations are playing the same game with the diabolical intention of brow- beating Hindu students into a weak cultural submission. In one of the leading Christian Schools at Adyar, I have heard parents complain that their wards are being punished for speaking even in Tamil in school. English is being upheld as the only permissible spoken language during school hours!
In December 2006, another equally bizarre incident symbolic of ‘Christian compassion’ and ‘Christian Brotherhood’ took place in a school called St. Christ Church School in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. A Hindu student Sarvesh Yadav studying in the fifth standard in this school was allegedly beaten up by his Christian teacher for attending the school with kumkum on his forehead and wearing a mala (garland) round his neck. He had gone to the school after taking the ‘Ayappaswamy Diksha’. It is understood that he was also not allowed to appear for his examinations.
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To quote the words of Sita Ram Goel in this context: ‘High-sounding theological blah blah notwithstanding, the fact remains that the Christian dogma is no more than a subterfuge for forging and wielding an organisational weapon for mounting unprovoked aggression against other people. It is high time for Hindus to dismiss the dogma of Christianity with the contempt it deserves, and pay attention to the Christian Missionary apparatus planted in their midst.
The sole aim of this apparatus is to ruin Hindu society and culture and take over the Hindu homeland. It goes on devising strategies for every situation, favourable and unfavourable. It trains and employs a large number of intellectual criminals ready to prostitute their talents in the service of their paymasters, and adept at dressing up dark designs in high-sounding language. The fact that every design is advertised as a theology in the Indian context and every criminal euphemised as an Indian theologian, should not hoodwink Hindus about the real intentions of this gangster game.
Hindus are committing a grave mistake in regarding the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity as a dialogue between two religions. Christianity has never been a religion; it’s long history tells us that it has always been a predatory imperialism par excellence. The encounter, therefore, should be viewed as a battle between two totally opposed and mutually exclusive ways of thought and behaviour. In the language of the Bhagawat Gita, it is war between daivi (divine) and asuri (demonic) sampads (propensities). In the mundane context of history, it can also be described as war between the Vedic and the Biblical traditions.’
While most Christian Schools in South India are resorting to subtle, devious and other uncivilised methods to change the so called ‘barbarous’ cultural habits of the Indian heathens and pagans, the official Catholic Church and several Protestant Churches have been trying to use the time-honoured cultural practices of the Indian heathens and the pagans in their churches and other Institutions as part of what they have called ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’.
A Vatican document of 1990 called ‘Redemptoris Mission’ (The Redeemer’s Mission) clearly declares that ‘Dialogue’ is still a means of conversion rather than a meeting between equals. Winand Callewaert, a prominent Catholic indologist, summarised the message of ‘Redemptoris Missio’ (RM) thus: ‘The Church is by definition a missionary’.
For our subject, it is important to note that R M strongly emphasises the need of missionary activity in Asia. For this Mission ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’ are recommended as the best strategies. The challenge consists in tuning that dialogue to the primordial goal, viz. evangelisation. After all, {RM declares} the obvious road to salvation is the Church, which alone is entrusted with the fullness of the instruments of salvation’. RM continues to assert that Christ is the only redeemer of men, the only mediator between God and men.
As a paganish and heathenish practising Hindu, I am amused to see another recent news item relating to a Keerthanai Vizha sponsored by a CSI Church in Coimbatore on 18 August, 2007. Presbyter-in- Charge of the All Souls’ Church Rev Dr S Jeyaseelan said, ‘We are trying to take it forward in a big way with the help of younger generation.
The beats of tabla and strains of veena will soon fill the church air with to give our ceremonies a desi note. The festival is an attempt to revive singing Tamil lyrics. Secretary of the CSI Bishop Appasamy College described the programme as ‘an attempt to go back to our routes. It is true we are Christians and we have accepted Jesus Christ. On the same hand, we want to give importance to our traditional music and culture. There are many Keerthanas written by our poets which remain ignored till date. We want to revive and popularise them throughout South India.’
This process of switching over from westernised hymns to Tamil lyrics is being actively promoted by the church - both Catholic and Protestant - as an integral part of the ‘Programme of Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’. This diabolical process of conversion involves and even demands the giving up of musical instruments like keyboard and electric guitar of the liberated west for harmonium, tabla, mridangam and veena of the savagely paganish and heathenish untameable East.
It has been reported that the churches in India are turning to Indian culture and traditions, instead of looking westward, as has been the practice during the last 300 years. The traditional lamp or ‘kuthuvilaku’ has now firmly found its place in the altars of many Indian churches.
Also saffron is popular among many Christians who go on `Padyatra’ to pilgrim centres. Lately, many churches in South India are trying to shed their western outlook to become more indigenous for the ruthless implementation of the programme of Evangelisation and Conversion through the twin pincers of ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Inculturation’ referred to above.
The emerge of Catholic and Protestant Christian ashrams in several parts of the country is not an isolated development. These institutions are linked in a chain which known as the ‘Ashram Movement’ and which different denominations of Christianity are promoting in concert. This ‘Ashram Movement’, in turn, is known as Indigenisation or Inculturation and which has several planks.
The plan has already produced a mass of evangelical literature which is being continuously reviewed in conferences, seminars and spiritual workshops at regional, national and international levels. What strikes me most as I wade through the literature of indigenisation is the sense of failure from which Christianity is suffering in our country. Or, what seems more likely is that this literature is being produced with the express purpose of creating that impression.
What happened to a Hindu boy called Kaushik Ram in Doveton Matriculation Higher Secondary School; Chennai cannot be dismissed as an isolated miniscule incident. I earnestly hope that a proper fact-finding official enquiry would be ordered by the government to enquire into the ugly incident and that effective action would be taken to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in schools run by Christian Missionaries. No civilised government can concede the right of the minority to ride rough shod over the feelings, sentiments and emotions of the majority.
(to be continued)
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