Francois Gautier: "It is
false to say that Jesus is the only atrue' god."
From: "jagbir singh" <adishakti_org@...>
Date: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:43 pm
Subject: Francois Gautier: "It is false to say that Jesus is
the only atrue' god."
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 12:13:29 +0530
From: devishakti_india
Subject: Fwd: [VaidikaVillage] A Must read article
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/dec/30franc.htm
Francois Gautier writes to Dr John Dayal, member, National
Integration Council, in response to the letter he wrote
Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh:
Dear John Dayal,
I am a Westerner and a born Christian. I was mainly brought
up in
Catholic schools, my uncle Father Guy Gautier a gem of a
man, was
the parish head of the beautiful Saint Jean de Montmartre
church in
Paris.My father Jacques Gautier, a famous artist in France,
and a
truly good person if there ever was one, was a fervent
Catholic all
his life, went to church nearly every day and lived by his
Christian
values.
There are certain concepts in Christianity I am proud of:
Charity for
others, the equality of social systems in many Western
countries,
Christ's message of love and compassion.
Yet, when I read your letter to Prime Minister Dr Manmohan
Singh,
apropos the inaugural meeting of the National Integration
Council, I
was a little uneasy.
First, you seem to assume that you are speaking for the
entire
Christian community in India. But I know many Christians in
this
country, and they never voice the grievances you so loudly
proclaim.
In fact, I have found that most Christians in India are not
only
happy to live in this country of traditional tolerance, but
that
they are also different from many Christians in the world:
More
multicultural and ecumenist in spirit, maybe.
Then, you speak of the marginalised Dalits. I agree that
there are
still unforgivable atrocities committed against Dalits,
although
very often they are done by backward castes themselves. I
remember
during the tsunami in Pondichery, how the Vanniars, an OBC
caste,
stopped the Dalits from a coastal hamlet from crossing the
Vanniars'
part of the village to bury their dead, as the Dalits'
cremation
ground had been submerged.
At the same time, my 30 years in India have taught me that
nowhere
in the world has there been so much effort to rectify a
wrong —
from 1947 onwards. This resulted in a Dalit, the late K R
Narayanan,
born in a poor village of Kerala, to be elected President of
India,
one of the highest posts in this nation.
Has a black man ever been President of the United States?
Reservations for Dalits have made it possible for them to
access
education and jobs regardless of their merits—and this is
a
unique feature of India today.
You continue by saying that 'the agenda draftsmen of papers
for NIC
seem to believe that forcible and fraudulent conversions (to
Christianity) are the main cause of civil unrest in tribal
and other
rural areas'. And you retort that athis is a malicious myth
propagated by obscurantist and fundamentalist—and often
violent —
political groups'. Meaning Hindu groups, of course.
I have to disagree with you on two points.
One, I have seen with my own eyes how conversions in India
are not
only highly unethical—that is, using unethical means of
conversion—but also that they threaten a whole way of
life,
erasing centuries of tradition, customs, wisdom, teaching
people to
despise their own religion and look Westwards to a culture
which is
alien to them, with disastrous results.
Look at what happened to countries like Hawaii, or to the
extraordinary Aztec culture in South America, after
Portuguese and
Spanish missionaries took over.
Look how the biggest drug problems in India are found in the
Northeast, or how Third World countries which have been
totally
Christianised have lost all moorings and bearing and are
drifting
away without nationalism and self-pride.
Second, I think people like you show very little gratitude
to that
Hindu ethos which has seeped into Indian Christian
consciousness. It
is because of that Hindu ethos, which accepts that god may
manifest
himself at different times in different names, that
Christians were
welcomed in India in the first century. Indeed, the Syrian
Christians
of Kerala constituted the first Christian community in the
world.
It is because of this inbred tolerance in Hinduism that
Christianity
and many other persecuted minorities in the world flourished
and
practiced their religion in peace in India throughout the
centuries.
But how do Christians thank the Hindus? When the Jesuits
arrived in
India with Vasco de Gama, they committed terrible
persecutions,
particularly in Goa, crucifying Brahmins, marrying local
girls
forcibly to Portuguese soldiers, razing temples to build
churches and
splitting the Kerala Christian community in two.
'Goa Inquisition was most merciless and cruel'
And today, people like you continue ranting against Hindus
and
promoting unethical conversions, using the massive power of
the
dollars donated by ignorant Westerners, who do not know that
their
money is used to lure innocent tribals and Dalits, who still
possess
that all encompassing acceptance of all gods, towards
another
religion. Furthermore, you use false statistics, saying for
instance
that nuns have been raped. You no doubt allude to the Jhabua
rape
case, when courts have shown that these nuns were not raped
by
Hindus, but by Christian tribals.
I know, I went there and interviewed these innocent souls.
And who has been hijacking of the educational system in
India? Not
the Hindus, as you accuse, but the Christians, who control
much of
the higher education in India and by subtle and not so
subtle means,
poison the minds of the students, teaching them to look down
on
their own culture and look up to whatever is Western—even
if it
has already failed in the West.
In how many schools and hospitals in India today, the Bible
is read
at the beginning of each day, each session? Would you
approve of the
Bhagavad Gita, the Bible of 850 million Hindus being read in
Christian schools in the West to Christian students and
nurses?
Finally, when you say: 'God bless you, you Government, and
God bless
India', which god are you talking about? Is it Jesus Christ?
But the
message of Christ was one of love, of respecting others'
cultures
and creed—not of utilising unethical means for converting
people.
It is false to say that Jesus is the only atrue' god. As
Hindus
rightly believe, the Divine has manifested himself
throughout the
ages under different names and identities, whether it is
Christ,
Buddha, Krishna or Mohammad.
Let this be the motto of the National Integration Council of
India.
Francois Gautier
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