Millions of $ are spent on conversion efforts by evangelical, and other Christian/Islamic organizations in India. The funds mostly come from America/Europe.
What exactly are these people protesting about? sure there is some discrimination against dalits, but there is also heavy Pro-Dalit laws in India...for example Dalit students are allocated a huge % of university seats in India..seats they could get admitted to even if they perform much poorly on the exams than their counterparts. Funnily enough..a considerable number of Dalits are well off financially..yet they still enjoy the affirmative-action benefits due to their "Dalit" Status...all the while they could afford expensive tutors and whatnot. On the other hand, poor and non-dalit kids still have to get higher scores on exams than even their rich Dalit counterparts to gain access to the university. Some discrimination indeed!
Furthermore little do people know that the
Father of the Indian constitution is a Dalit (not a Catholic though..he was smart enough to be a Buddhist).Gandhi and Nehru...both so called "high caste Hindus" these Catholic's rant about, asked a Dalit to write India's constitution!
India has had Dalit presidents, Prime ministers...and has dozens of Dalit members of parliament. These voicing of support by Christian "leaders" is but a ploy to get more converts. They use any means to "save more souls" and reap a great "harvest in Asia".
In fact during the Tsunami time, Christian missionary organizations were trying to convert people who were victims of the tsunami....as they always do..descending on the grieving people like a pack of jackals..offering monetary and other comforts. (thanks to their Evangelical/catholic missionary org funded deep pockets)
When I entered one of the rows of temporary shelters built for tsunami victims in Pattancherry village in Nagapattinam, I witnessed a minor scuffle in a corner.
Some inmates had surrounded a Christian priest and two nuns, and a war of words was going on.
"We are Hindus and we want to live as Hindus. Why do you want to convert us?" some young men shouted at the missionaries.
The priest said, "We are not here to convert people. We were only offering prayers for your peace of mind."
But flashing some pamphlets distributed among them by the three, the inmates snorted, "What does this mean?"
The priest had no answer
more here
http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/24shoba.htmThis entire notion of somehow one version of "god" is superior to everything else in the world is anathema to Indian mind. Hinduism (and its sister philosophies like Buddhism/Jainism) posit that there cannot a single true way. How could there be only way true way when there are billions of different/unique humans out there? to claim that Christianity/Islam is the only way to god/salvation/whatnot is as stupid as claiming that everyone has to wear the same colored t-shirt..or they are wrong!...and will spend an eternity in hell :))
Even after nearly 400 years of concerted conversion attempts, only ~2% of Indians are Christian...and as more and more people get educated...and as the economy improves and people become more aware, the numbers of converts drops faster and faster. This explains the frantic efforts by Christian/Catholic missionaries to latch on to the calls for "rights" of whatever.
Its funny that they call for the "rights" of certain people while campaigning strongly against the rights of women to have an abortion...and the right of atheists to ensure the separation of church and state. Hypocrisy at its best!We Indian people have a civilization, culture and philosophy which is second to none...we never tried to push our religion down the throats of others...the countries of south-east Asia adopted Hinduism, and later Buddhism of their own will, compare it to the Catholic conquest of the Americas and the crusades...of the Islamic invasions....of child abuses by the church...and these people think they have the gall to talk about "rights". Such protesters should be ignored the way they are being ignored today. Good riddance I say! Let them make this last gasp to be heard before they fade away from history.
"Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another...But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood..... Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist... Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live....!"~ Vivekananda