Leading Luminaries of the West Said About Christianity

Here is what Some of the leading luminaries of the west say about Christianity....

John Locke: "Freedom for all, except for the bloodthirsty Catholic sect."

Voltaire: "Christianity is the most absurd and bloodthirsty religion."

George Bernard Shaw: " The bible is full of fairy tales and anyone who believes in the bible is unfit 

to be a parent or vote . ... (It) is a false book, that must be burned and buried... 

Jehovah is no God, but a barbarous tribal idol. "

Nietzsche: "I call Christianity the one Great Curse."

Mark Twain: " I believe that the Old and New Testaments were imagined and written by man, and that no line 

in them was authorized by God, much less inspired by Him."

Colin Maine: "If we examine the Bible – both Old and New Testaments – we find that the Bible God is more a sadistic monster than a god of love.  If he were to appear on earth as a human being, he would most likely be incarcerated in a mental hospital as a dangerous psychopath."

Count Tolstoy: "Really no religion has preached things so evidently incompatible with contemporary 

knowledge or so immoral as the doctrines preached by Church Christianity".

Thomas Jefferson: "There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, 

money-grabbing and predatory as it is - in our country particularly, and in all other Christian 

countries in a somewhat modified degree... Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could 

swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt...The gospel history of Jesus consists 

of fabrications, superstitions and fanaticism... I consider the book of Revelation, the ravings of a 

maniac.... Due to Christianity, millions of innocent men, women and children have been burnt alive as 

witches... The day will come when the mystical  generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his 

father, in the womb of a Virgin, will be classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the 

brain of Jupiter".

James Madison: "Christianity causes superstition, bigotry and persecution."

H.G. Wells: "You can trust a devout catholic, less than a Nazi spy... The most evil thing in the world 

today is the Roman Catholic Church." Matilda Joslyn Gage: "The sale of daughters was practiced in 

England for seven hundred years after the introduction of Christianity.... In 1854, an objector to 

women's rights cried out, First prove women have a soul, both Church and State deny it."

Robert Ingersoll: " The real oppressor of the people is the Bible."

Bertrand Russell: "The clergy objected to giving pain killers to women during child birth, lest she 

escape pain ordered on Eve... The church opposed the abolition of slavery."

Charles Smith: "The doctrine of the Virgin Birth brands every natural mother as impure."

J.C.Baretto Miranda: "Every word of theirs was a sentence of death, and at their slightest nod, 

were moved to terror, the vast populations spread over the Asiatic regions whose lives fluctuated 

in their hands, and who, on the most frivolous pretext, could be clapped  for all time in the deepest 

dungeon, or strangled or offered as food to the pyre."

Charles Dickens: "Missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it."

Diderot: "The God of Christians is a father who cares much about his apples and very little about his children."

Freud (when in 1933 he was told that in Germany his books had been burned): "How can people say there 

is no advancement of progress? In the middle ages, they would have burned me,
 too!"

Gibbon: "(About the persecutions against Christians) we need to separate the few genuine facts from an 

indigestible mass of fables and mistakes... The complete disregard for truth and credibility in the presentation 

of these early martyrs was due to a very natural mistake. The Church writers in the 4th and 5th centuries 

gratified to the Roman magistrates the same dose of inflexible and unquenchable zeal that filled their 

bosoms against the heretics and idolaters of their times."

Claude Fauchet: "(The popes) have consecrated despotism and made God an accomplice of tyrants."

Fredrich Wilhelm, emperor of Prussia (from his last will to his heirs): "Regarding the Catholic religion, you must tolerate 

it in conformance to the Westfalia treatise. But do not allow any Jesuit in your states. They are diabolical beings, 

malefic and obnoxious creatures. Do not tolerate them for any reason if they try to sneak into your states."

Fredrich II of Prussia: "You have no idea of what kind of scoundrels these priests are: I have been extremely kind to them and they keep giving information to my enemies. ... The priests inspire (in a small prince) a deep veneration for priesthood, a sacred hatred against all other religions and finally, with the help of the terrors created by the devil, can bend him to their will."

Giuseppe Garibaldi: "A man who defiles himself with the contact of priests cannot be an honest person... The priest is the personification of deceit... Only in a state of madness or total ignorance can someone trust his soul to a descendent of Torquemada. ... The greatest enemy of Italy is the Pope... Jesus said, 'All men are brothers' and the priests have made nations into so many ferocious beasts who barbarously destroy each other."

Lord Harrington: "(The Jesuits' wickedness) eclipses Caligula, Erostratus, Nero and Domitian."

Heine: "When they can no longer burn us at the stake, the priests come to ask us for alms."

Victor Hugo (member of the international committee for the erection of a monument to a famous intellectual tortured and killed by the Inquisition): "Giordano Bruno is a noble victim who died for the sake of knowledge; I salute his memory with a deep emotion." (Other members of the committee were Renan, Spencer, Swinburne, Castelar, Büchner, Hamerling, Nordmann, Lambros, Bonghi, Bovio, Carducci, Cavallotti, Mariani Minghetti, Rapisardi, Saffi, Spaventa, Villari, Zanardelli.

Francis Herring: "(The Jesuit's politics) is the essence of Satan's politics, the peak of human wickedness and cruelty."

Hitler: "For 1500 years the Church has been repeating that Jews are noxious. I also have the same opinion, and thus I believe I am greatly pleasing the Church."

Farinacci: "If we (Fascists) have espoused anti-semitism, it is due to the teachings of the Catholic Church all along its history."

Leopardi: "When Napoleon wanted to eliminate the dacoits from a neighborhood in Paris, he sent there jugglers and comedians to attract the general people to fill the streets. A few months before, the pope wanted to eliminate the dacoits from the city of Sonnino, a place within his state on the border of Naples, where they had been hiding. So the pope ordered the complete destruction of that city. Napoleon's plan was a success, while the pope considered that the same result could be obtained only by total destruction of his own city."

Alessandro Manzoni: "The Church has always been the mother of all superstitions."

Giuseppe Mazzini: "One day in 17th century in Italy, in Rome, men who called themselves inquisitors, and claimed to have science and authority from God, assembled to decree that the Earth does not move. In front of them, they had a prisoner, his forehead shining with genius... who had revealed the secret of a world. That man was Galileo."

Milton: "How can there be a devil if God is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent?"

Montesquieu: "Rome is openly dominated by corruption, and crime rules shamelessly." 
Carlo Monticelli: "The power of the popes has been a terrible disaster for mankind, that still remains and will remain until the day when progress and science will uproot the last traces of prejudice and ignorance from the soul and the brain of men."

Morello: "If Italy could give a monetary value to all the damages caused by the popes in the centuries by calling foreign invasions, by wars, persecution and destructions of all kinds, an army of accountants would not be sufficient to calculate it."

Mussolini: "The Vatican is the cancer that devours the life of our country."

Napoleon: "I am surrounded by priests who repeat that their kingdom is not in this world, and who appropriate everything they can lay hands on... The popes have committed too  many stupid actions to be considered infallible... Dogmas are the bastion of stupid and fanatic people... Italy started to decline when priests wanted to govern finance, police and army."

Nietzsche: "The sacred history should rather be called bloody history."

Pettinato: "At the end of the 3rd century Commodian, the father of Christian poetry, was already pleading with the Goths to destroy Rome, so that the city proud of her eternity could cry eternally."

Popper: "In the name of tolerance, we should proclaim the right not to tolerate the intolerant – those who steal, kidnap or sell slaves."

Ezra Pound: "There is no greater criminal than the archbishop of Canterbury who, among the destitute in the slums of London, preaches, 'go and multiply'."

Saint Simon: "The base ignorance of the priests, their fanatical sentiments destroyed the noble morals and right knowledge of the famous Port Royal. Through people tied to the popes with an abject submission they gave the absolute merit to useless, ridiculous and narrow minded practices they imposed on the students entrusted to them."

Gaetano Salvemini: "I will dedicate up to the last minute of my life to fighting against the Catholic Church, if I am able to educate even one single Italian to see the Catholic Church as the systematic destroyer of human dignity, my life will not be in vain."

Luigi Settembrini: "National unity, freedom, emancipation of reason from faith, this is the substance of our civilization, everything else is barbarous power. The great enemy is the priest, we can't make peace with him."

Shelley: "Rome seems a city of dead people, or at least in the enthusiasm for her ancient greatness one does not notice the Romans."

David Strauss: "Even if Jesus existed, the gospels were not written before the 2nd century."

Tocqueville: "Some profess the Christian dogmas because they believe them, others because they are afraid they will be suspected of not believing them... A Catholic's consciousness only depends on the pope... his only motherland is the Church, in all political events he only sees what can profit or damage the Church. As long as the Church is free and prospers, what does he care about the rest... Such sentiments and ideas in people who educate children and costumes will naturally destroy the soul of a nation."

Contributed By: Sri Ravindra Koul

Mass Genocide of Mohawk Children by UK Queen and Vatican Uncovered in Canada

By Alfred Lambremont Webre, JD, MEd

Prisoners of Church

BRANTFORD, ON, CANADA - Mass graves of Mohawk children have been uncovered by ground-penetrating radar at the Mohawk Institute, a residential school for Mohawk operated by the Church of England and the Vatican before its closure in 1970.
According to Rev. Kevin Annett, Secretary of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (www.itccs.org), the Mohawk Institute was “set up by the Anglican Church of England in 1832 to imprison and destroy generations of Mohawk children. This very first Indian [First Nations] residential school in Canada lasted until 1970, and, like in most residential schools, more than half of the children imprisoned there never returned. Many of them are buried all around the school.”
Preliminary scanning by ground penetrating radar adjacent to the now closed main building Mohawk Institute has revealed that “between 15-20 feet of soil” was brought in and put over the mass graves just before the Mohawk Institute closed in 1970 in order to camouflage the mass graves of Mohawk Children and avoid prosecution for genocide and crimes against humanity under the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, and cooperating national courts.
International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) is expected to commence judicial proceedings starting in late October 2011 in Brussels, Belgium and Dublin, Ireland for child genocide crimes against humanity against defendants Elizabeth Windsor, head of state of Canada and head of the Church of England and Pope Joseph Ratzinger, both of whom knowingly participated in the planning and coverup of the child genocide, according to forensic evidence.
The Tribunal sessions were originally to have been held in London, U.K. However, The U.K. government has denied entrance to the Secretary and major jurists and staff of the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) without cause.
The discovery of the mass graves of Mohawk children, uncovered by ground-penetrating radar at the Mohawk Institute comes on the heels of videotaped evidence by eyewitness William Coombes, who in Oct. 1964 witnessed Elizabeth Windsor, as Head of State of Canada and Head of the Church of England, visit an aboriginal school in Kamloops, British Columbia, choose 10 young aboriginal children, made them kiss her feet, and allegedly took them from the school for a picnic at a lake.
The 10 aboriginal children were never seen again.  Mr. Coombes, who was to give evidence at the International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and States (ITCCS.org) of Elizabeth Windsor’s child genocide, was murdered in Feb. 2011.  Fortunately, Mr. Coombes’ testimony was videotaped before his death and is available for the Tribunal.
Rev. Kevin Annett states that instruments of torture such as a rack for torturing the Mohawk children in ritual torture have been found at the now closed Mohawk Institute.  Eyewitnesses from the Mohawk community have stated they witnessed priests in red robes torturing children in ritual torture.
Rev. Annett made these revelations in an exclusive Oct. 7, 2011 interview with Alfred Lambremont Webre. In the interview, Rev. Annett acknowledges the close parallels between the Oct. 1964 personal child genocide and possible ritual killings of 10 aboriginal children by Elizabeth Windsor, Head of State of Canada and Head of the Church of England, and the child genocides occurring during the same period at the Mohawk Institute.
These parallels suggest that Elizabeth Windsor, as Head of State and Head of the Church of England was personally aware of, ordered, and participated in this systematic program of genocide and ritual torture and killings at Church of England residential schools operated by the Church of England and the Vatican.
In his interview, Rev. Annett stated that the mainstream Canadian media, as well as the government of Canada, are maintaining a coverup and media blackout of the discoveries of Mohawk child genocide at the Mohawk Institute.
Listen to interview with Rev. Kevin Annett
Readers can listen to Alfred Lambremont Webre’s interview of Rev. Kevin Annett in the article above or at the following URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSn04oR0U4g
International Tribunal for Crimes of Church and State
http://www.itccs.org
Related articles
1. Indict Bilderberger, BC Attorney General, CFRO-FM: coverup for Elizabeth Windsor
http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/indict-bilderberger-bc-attorney-general-cfro-fm-coverup-for-elizabeth-windsor
2. Satanic priests in the Catholic Church?
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/139422.html

Continue reading on Examiner.com Mass genocide of Mohawk children by UK Queen and Vatican uncovered in Canada - Seattle exopolitics | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/exopolitics-in-seattle/mass-genocide-of-mohawk-children-by-uk-queen-and-vatican-uncovered-canada#ixzz1dgz25nFm

Courtesy:  http://www.examiner.com

The Challenge Before Modern Day Hinduism

Abstract

Hinduism, as an institution, offers very little to the poor and underprivileged within its fold. This is one of the prime reasons for voluntary conversion of Hindus from among its members. B.R. Ambedkar and A.R. Rahman provide poignant examples of how lack of education and health facilities for the underprivileged within its fold, respectively, led to their conversion. This can be countered by a movement to provide large-scale quality health [hospitals/PHCs] and educational [schools/colleges] facilities run by Hindu mission organisations spread over the cities and districts of India. A four point-four phase programmme is presented here to outline how this can be achieved. Those who have the genuine interests of Hinduism at heart will have to set such an agenda before them rather than strident and violent affirmations of its glories. One can understand the reasons for such stridency, but it is time it got converted into constructive affirmative action to keep the flock.

Introduction

I wish to do some straight talk in this communication. No beating about the bush, no offering illusory solace.

I write this on the Oscar win for the movie “Slumdog Millionaire.” While it is time for India to bask in the glory of two “Oscars” for A.R. Rahman–the music director–it is also time to raise some points for reflection by the followers of Hinduism in India (and abroad) today, and I count myself in that category.

You might ask what has an “Oscar” got to do with reflection by Hindus? Well, I will come to it presently.

 

Ambedkar and Rahman

A.R. Rahman was born A.S. Dileep Kumar. At a very young age of 9 he lost his father due to a “mysterious” illness. He was poor, having to run from pillar to post to make both ends meet for his family. Then, when he was 21, his sister fell “mysteriously” ill. He tried every medical means and nothing seemed to work. Ultimately, he came in contact with a Muslim pir, and the sister “miraculously” recovered.

Now, I do not have a record of the medical condition of his sister or father, and discussing it here is beside the point. The important point is that the young Dileep, with his whole family, converted to Islam; further, he is on record saying that earlier he suffered from an inferiority complex, but this conversion has brought about a dramatic change in him. And he has never looked back since.

It is also worth noting that he is extremely religious, and becomes transformed after prayer, and makes most of his musical compositions then.

A close parallel is what happened to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, or Babasaheb, as his followers fondly call him--the architect of the Indian Constitution. Deprived and isolated throughout his student life, and even later, he struggled against many odds, and finally succeeded. At no stage did his religion of birth, or his co-religionists, offer him any succour. He finally found refuge in Buddhism, not only for himself, but also for a large chunk of followers of erstwhile Hinduism. They pose a major question mark to traditional Hinduism even today, and are its greatest critics, besides nursing strong resentment and seething anger against atrocities committed by upper caste Hindus in the past, which continues in certain areas of India even today.

We can conveniently gloss over such realities, taking cover of the great banyan tree concept of Hinduism, which protects all, and gives shade even to those who wield an axe to cut its branches. And feel reassured with the greatness and profundity of its teachings.

While feeling reassured is good, the complacency and lack of soul searching that can follow thereby, is not.

 

The Important Question

What is common to the Ambedkar and the Rahman conversions? To understand this, we must ask another question:

What does Hinduism have to offer to the poor and the underprivileged from amongst its fold?

The karma theory? That you are in this pitiable condition due to wrong deeds in the past birth, and are undergoing redemption? That you pray at temples, and keep serving the upper castes, and keep getting exploited and seek petty favours at their hands?

Does traditional Hinduism offer anything more than this?

You will be forced to the sad conclusion that nothing more is possible in Hinduism as it is practiced today, and has been down the centuries. That is why hordes of the poor and underprivileged left it earlier, when they did so voluntarily (of course there also was a considerable condemnable forcible conversion, which is not at issue here). And those who realize this fault from among the upper caste and/or the privileged class also leave it, or do not at least practice it beyond following some rituals.

This is not to deride this great religion, whose manifold beliefs and practices offer immense succour to millions, and whose manifold interpretations offer intellectual solace to umpteen others. It is only to expose its soft underbelly so that some concrete steps can be taken to fortify it.

I will pose this question to you once again:

What does Hinduism have to offer to the poor and the underprivileged from among its fold?

Apart from a shocked silence, or some apologetic mumbo-jumbo, as a response, you will realize that it has nothing much to offer.

If you can reach this intellectually honest conclusion, you will be ready for the analysis and action that must follow this realization.

 

Why Do People Convert?

Why do people convert voluntarily? The common factor is the inability of the earlier religion to offer solace and help when it is most needed, and by the new one to do so when most needed. Had Ambedkar's genius been realized by the upper caste Hindus, and had he been promoted and helped to grow up from his childhood without persecution and discrimination because of his caste, he would hardly have decided to leave his parent religion. If Rahman had similarly found succour with some Hindu sadhu, or Hindu medical mission, he would hardly have left his religion.

What Hinduism seriously lacks is an organized structure to recognize and help its poor and deprived at critical stages in their life.

There are essentially two critical stages. First, when one is sick, and second, when one seeks education to improve one's socioeconomic condition. In other words, health and education. There is no organized movement in Hinduism, nor there ever was, to cater to these fundamental needs of its followers. While we waxed eloquent over its greatness, its deprived followers suffered depravity and penury, and were waiting to fall in the lap of anyone who offered succour.

What in essence did the Christian missions offer the ordinary Hindu convert? They just tapped this basic need of the Hindus from the deprived sections. They offered education through their wide network of Mission schools, and they offered medical help through their equally wide network of Mission hospitals. What was the game plan? Every town to have a hospital and school run by Christian missions. What did this ensure? The formative years of an individual, his childhood, were spent in a convent school. He was exposed at a tender age to the benefits of a quality education. A peculiar mix of discipline and compassion ensured that most alumni remained eternal champions of this form of education, and such institutions, and never could be convinced to support any movement against them, much as the more strident avatars of modern Hinduism, hindutva, may have wanted them to. Moreover, at other critical times in an individual's life, when he fell sick, and had little money to spend, he has a mission hospital to offer help, a haven where he could find solace and comfort.

In place of lack of education and next to nil medical help that the traditional Hindu society offered, here was a religious institution that offered both, and without compromising much on quality, or making the recipients feel like worms of the earth, which is what traditional Hindu society largely offered when it did give help, if at all it ever did. Large-scale conversions were only waiting to happen.

If we are bold enough to accept this analysis, we will be ready for the action plan and affirmative action that follows.

 

The Action Plan: Four Point-Four Phase Programme

Ambedkar and Rahman are two exemplars before modern Hinduism, if it decides to wake up, and not lose more from its fold. Ambedkar is an example of desertion due to lack of educational facilities for the poor and deprived from among its fold in traditional Hinduism. And Rahman is an example of desertion due to lack of medical facilities for the same group.

It is not that Hinduism does not value education or health. But it has no organized structure to take care of these needs in its followers, especially the poor and deprived. And not just do it out of pity or as doles to the underprivileged, but as quality institutions where the needs of the deprived can be largely fulfilled. And not only for the poor but where quality education and care is also offered to the middle and upper class individuals, so that the poor and deprived get an opportunity to mix, and compete, with the rest, on an equal footing.

Such an egalitarian mission movement in Hinduism is the supreme need of the moment. While we may need our Ramkrishna Missions and our mathas and our Birla temples, and our “vanavasi kalyan kendras,” what we cannot do without are quality schools/colleges and hospitals run by Hindu missions where mainly members of the Hindu society receive help, without of course depriving members from other religions to also seek help/admission when they need it, similar to what it is with Christian mission schools/colleges and hospitals everywhere.

There are enough philanthropists and moneyed followers of Hinduism around, but most of them are satisfied building temples and offering patronage to god men. No need to stop them. But what they need to do, and what the champions of modern day Hinduism need to ensure, is the following four point-four phase programme:

• Set up quality Hindu schools/colleges in every city and district across the length and breadth of this country. Each such institution must have a temple where its Hindu students can pray. (For those who are not aware, chapels are present in educational institutions in Oxford and Cambridge too, and are present in the premises of most convent schools in India). It must celebrate Hindu festivals regularly, and offer religious teaching in the temple on a regular basis. Students of other religions should be welcome to enter the temple, but not forced to pray there.
• Set up quality Hindu hospitals/primary health care centers where the health needs of Hindus are looked after. The others are not to be deprived of care, of course, but these are quality hospitals/primary health centers (PHCs, where hospitals are not possible) meant to look after the medical needs of Hindus. They should know that they have a center where quality medical care has been arranged for by their own co-religionists.
• Set up National Hindu Mission Trust(s), which takes this up as a primary task. One Central Trust is preferable to many, so as to carry out concerted action and express solidarity, as also to avoid duplication and potential strife between Trusts. Hindu philanthropists fund it, Hindu ideologues and religious leaders form its think tank, and Hindu activists form its functioning arm. (It is advisable that the ordinary Hindu also contributes, and I will discuss later how under “affirmative action.” They start with major cities and district places, and spread to every nook and corner to cater to the health and educational needs of their co-religionists. This is to be done as a four-phase programmme outlined below.
• The Four-phase programmme: The goal is to have one school/college/hospital/PHC per 1 lakh population of Hindus, that is, 8000 schools, 8000 colleges and 8000 Hospitals/PHCs built over a period of two decades. The whole programmme set in place in four phases lasting five decades:

• I) 
  First, giving around two years, 2009-2010, to organize and make people aware, set up the Trust, and start collecting the funds.
• II) 
  Second, set up the first 1000 schools, 1000 colleges and 1000 hospitals/PHCs in the first decade, that is, 2010-2020.
• III) 
  Third, set up the remaining 7000 schools, 7000 colleges and 7000 hospitals/PHCs in the next decade, that is, 2020-2030.
• IV) 
  Consolidate these centers and their reach over a period of next three decades, 2030-2060. These centers should establish a mark as quality institutions where the best of education and medical care is available at highly subsidised rates for the ordinary Hindu.

Those from other religions are not deprived of care and study here, for every such entrant carries back memories of efficiency, compassion and care experienced here, which helps cement interfaith goodwill. So essential in a multi-religious society like India.

A good half-century of solid constructive work on this four point-four phase programmme will have to be put in to make a visible impact in the life of the ordinary Hindu, and make them proud to belong where they do.

 

Institutionalised Compassion: Need of the Hour

Hinduism has a lack of institutionalised compassion. Christianity has it in ample, probably because Christ himself was its greatest propounder and exemplar. It is necessary to institutionalise compassion in Hinduism. This is one thing we can learn from Christianity, and should have no reserve in gratefully acknowledging.

The time to sing glories of the past is gone. The time to fight “westernization” and “decay of values” is, beyond a point, much wasted effort. The time to work to close knit its followers and make them its active proponents because they are its beneficiaries–by looking after their health and educational needs--that is the need of the hour. Such beneficiaries ultimately will become its greatest benefactors.

 

Shepherd your stock before they wither away

If any lessons are to be learnt from Ambedkar's conversion in the past, and Rahman's in the more recent one, that will be the greatest “Oscar” its followers will present to this great religion, Hinduism. A religion they wish to cherish and revere but do not know how to restructure and resurrect.

Let us stop fighting Christian missionaries, let us stop violent struggles with Muslims. Let us stop singing glories of ancient Hinduism. All these may appear justified means to herd the stock and affirm the faith. But that is a lot of societal energy used in expressing organized anger and/or feeling vindicated, which, beyond a point, is much useful energy going down the drain. Let us, rather, get involved in constructive affirmative action to hold our stock together by catering to their fundamental needs.

 

Time for Affirmative Action: Let's Start Here

How do we start?

Do you remember how the Vivekananda Rock Memorial was built? I remember going house to house in my childhood, collecting Re. 1 from each house for the cause. And not a single house we approached refused. In fact, they were pleased to donate, be they ever so humble. Each one of them felt involved that they had a role to play in building the memorial. And I myself cherish the experience.

That was more than 40 years ago.

Let each Hindu give Rs. 100 for the cause at hand. If there are 80 crore Hindus, a corpus of Rs. 8000 crore could be set up right away. There are people who would give much more. [Even people from other religion should be welcomed to donate, though not depended on.] Is it not enough to start to set up 1000 schools/colleges and 1000 hospitals/PHCs all over the country for the work of phase II we discussed earlier, for 2010-2020? The rest is bound to follow.

Let some such concrete step be taken for the followers of this great religion by its champions. And start concrete action on the four point-four phase programmme mentioned earlier. We can debate how to do it, and we can debate its nitty-gritty's, but let us not get paralysed into inaction after realising its urgent need.

Then, and then alone, will Hinduism have as bright a present, and as rosy a future, as it had a resplendent past.

Hindutva followers, are you listening?

 

Concluding Remarks

For those who value Hinduism, it is time to reset the agenda away from militancy/violent stridency to constructive affirmative action. Health and education are two prime areas to target. Setting up quality educational centers [schools and colleges], and health centers [hospitals/PHCs] by Hindu mission organisations is the need of the hour.

A good half-century should be dedicated to the four point-four phase programmme outlined above for this to bear fruit. One generation will have to devote a productive lifetime to achieve success.

Take Home Message

Health and education are the two key areas to target to keep the flock of Hinduism intact. Strident activism must reformulate as constructive action to help the poor and underprivileged from among its followers. A mass movement delineated as a four point-four phase programme to set up schools/colleges and hospitals/PHCs run by one or more National Hindu Mission Trusts is the path to follow.

 

 

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest: I am a follower of Hinduism and, as such, interested in preserving and promoting it

CITATION: Singh A. R., (2009), Straight Talk: The Challenge Before Modern Day Hinduism. In: Some Issues in Women's Studies, and Other Essays (A.R. Singh and S.A. Singh eds.), MSM, 7, Jan - Dec 2009, p189-196.

 

Articles from Mens Sana Monographs are provided here courtesy of
Medknow Publications

Read the original article here.