Can the Pakistani Supreme Court Ever Outlaw Religious Parties?

Combating theocracy: Bangladesh Supreme Court verdict

by Huzaima Bukhari

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh since 1971 have been facing problems in establishing democratic institutions. Bangladesh witnessed many military coups and countercoups, but luckily in politics, the junta kept a distance from the mullah. In Pakistan, the military-mullah onslaughts, using religion as a tool for Jihad in Afghanistan, Kashmir, etc have torn apart the very fabric of this society.

Facing perpetual crises of all sorts — the worst amongst them being bigotry and the increasing role of clergy in politics — Pakistan is now fighting a battle for survival. Economically in deep trouble and politically shaken, Pakistani leadership — both civil and military — should immediately sit together and look into the recent developments in Bangladesh. They specifically need to study the judgement of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, rejecting the use of religion by the political parties.

Our leadership has acted irresponsibly throughout history, culminating in what is today a country driven by hate. The wages of bigotry are now showing their ugliest results, where zealots are taking the lives of fellow citizens in the name of religion.

The fitna (mischief) and fisad-fil-ardh (disorder in the land), created by military-mullah alliance, has laid the grounds for sectarian and communal warfare all around.

According to many rightist thinkers, the two-nation theory, based on the foundation of religious divide of Hindus and Muslims, was the real motive behind the partition of sub-continent. The radical camp argues that economic interests of Muslim feudal class paved the way for establishment of Pakistan. While this debate will continue, the fact remains that proponents of two-nation theory received an irrecoverable setback when the Bengalis, maltreated by the ruling elite of West Pakistan, decided to part ways.

The division of Pakistan – in fact, the further subdivision of the Sub-continent – proved that economic interests have always played a decisive role in politics. Religion has been just one of the ploys used by vested interests to achieve political and economic gains. Abuse of religion by military dictators, vested interests and their cronies in the wake of the partition of the Subcontinent played havoc in both the eastern and western wings of Pakistan.

Dr Ajeet Jawed in Secular and Nationalist Jinnah has presented incontrovertible documents that Quaid-i-Azam never wanted to make Pakistan a theocratic state. Throughout his political career, Muhammad Ali Jinnah struggled against both Hindu and Muslim extremists.

After independence, the feudal class with the help of its cronies – bureaucrats, clergymen and men in khaki – managed to hijack the new state and for their vested interest, converted it into the so-called Islamic Republic – a mere nomenclature whereas all the systems remain un-Islamic. Islam does not permit feudalism, economic exploitation, theocracy and authoritarianism.

The ideas of the Quaid echoed in the decision of the Bangladesh Supreme Court last year. It barred the use of religion in politics and reaffirmed the ideology of the founder fathers. It has restored the original constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. In the wake of this verdict, the Election Commission of Bangladesh on January 26, 2010 asked the three Islamic parties – Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan and Tarikat Federation – to amend their charters being in conflict with the supreme law of the country.

Just as the Quaid was betrayed by the feudal class in his party, the founding father of Bangladesh met the same fate. Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League gave the nation its first constitution within one year of independence, based on four cardinal principles – secularism, nationalism, socialism and democracy. Bangladesh became the third major Muslim country to officially embrace secularism after Turkey and Tunis.

On August 15, 1975, Sheikh Mujib was assassinated along with his family. Luckily, Rehana and Hasina, his two daughters, residing outside Bangladesh, survived. In the wake of Sheikh Mujib’s assassination, the country unfortunately witnessed coups and countercoups within a very short span of time – from August 15 to November 7, 1975.

The successor of Sheikh Mujib, Moshtaque Khondkar, selected Chief Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem as President. Deriving power through martial law proclamations, he abolished secularism from the constitution by amending Article 38. The lifting of the ban on religion-based politics paved the way for theocratic parties to campaign in the name of religion. Abu Sadat transferred powers to Ziaur Rehman on November 26, 1976 after a deal that he would indemnify his illegal take-over, all actions taken between August 15, 1975 and April 9, 1979, passing of the Fifth Amendment that ratified martial law proclamations including the desecularisation of the constitution.

Ziaur Rehman was assassinated at the hands of junior army officers and General Ershad took over the control declaring martial law on March 24, 1982.

General Ershad, like the Pakistani General Ziaul Haq used religion for the perpetuation of his unlawful rule – Islam was made the state religion. In the wake of popular democratic movement, the military rule came to an end and democracy was restored in 1991.

In 1996, the Awami League once again won elections and abrogated all the unconstitutional amendments to sanction the trial of the assassins of the founding father. In 2005, the Fifth Amendment was struck down by the High Court. The Court emphasised secularism as the guiding state policy. The Court held that religious non-discrimination, protection for all faiths, even for non-believers, should be the main responsibility of the State. It explained that secularism means ensuring religious tolerance and freedom of faith without any favour or discrimination. The Court, in unequivocal terms, condemned the actions of the military junta to convert secular Bangladesh into a theocratic state.

The Court’s ruling was contested by Bangladesh National Party (BNP), led by the widow of Ziaur Rehman, Khalida Zia. The Court granted a stay order that was ultimately vacated on January 3, 2010. Resultantly, original Article 38 of the Constitution became operative barring the use of religion or communal connotations in politics. This has been termed as a major development not only in Bangladesh but in the entire Muslim world. Secularism requires that at the State level there should be no propagation of religion – it should be the personal matter of citizens. The clergy in Pakistan and elsewhere and many rightist thinkers not knowing the real import and historical evolution of word “secularism” dub it as kufar or ladeeniat.

Article 41 of the Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees freedom of religion. It says:

(1) Subject to law, public order and morality-

a. every citizen has the right to profess, practice or propagate any religion;

b. every religious community or denomination has the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions.

(2) No person attending any educational institution shall be required to receive religious instruction, or to take part in or to attend any religious ceremony or worship, if that instruction, ceremony or worship relates to a religion other than his own.

The same position prevails under Articles 20, 21 and 22 of 1973 Constitution of Pakistan that guarantees religious freedom for all, no taxation of a person for the propagation or maintenance of any religion other than his own and safeguards as to educational institutions in respect of religion.

In the presence of these Constitutionals provisions, there should be no room for religious-based politics and parties in Pakistan as the case in Bangladesh since January 2010.

The concept of the theocratic state is alien to Islam. The use of religion in politics only creates divisions, rather than achieving unity, which is the central message of the holy Quran.

Secularim Fundamentalism in France

For most of the 105 years it’s been in force, France’s secularity law has endeavored to segregate private religious belief from the strictly agnostic sphere of public life — usually without too much friction. But that relative harmony has given way to tension and conflict in recent years, as secularists have turned their attention to the spreading influence of Islam, now France’s second largest faith.

Whereas secularism — or laïcité — traditionally sought to create a wall between religious expression and the public domain, critics claim its defenders have become far more militant. In some cases, that’s creating a zero-sum showdown in which France’s secularists, who dominate public life and debate, exhibit a quasi-evangelical zeal in imposing the values of laïcité on the private observance of religious minorities.

The 1905 law establishing secularism describes it as a measure to protect individual citizens’ freedom of religion and faith by rendering the state totally neutral to — and disconnected from — religious matters.

Secularity was initially meant to reduce the Catholic Church’s influence on society by tasking the state with removing religious instruction from public schools as part of an effort to relegate faith to the private sphere. Now secularists frequently urge the state to intervene in the private religious affairs of people or organizations. Increasingly, secularity resembles what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called a ‘civil religion’: the values and dogma of a state that individual citizens must submit to — or be made to respect.

The most controversial example of secularism’s evolution is the pending French law to ban full-body coverings like the burqa and niqab that, after its final passage Sept. 14, 2010, is expected to come into force in early 2011. But that headline-grabbing measure (applicable to only an estimated 370 to 2,000 burqa-wearing women) was preceded by the 2004 prohibition of headscarves being worn by Muslims in public schools.

Islam seems to have taken the place of Catholicism as the main target of French secularist ire. Catholics initially decried early secularist measures as unfair and abusive. As segregation of private faith from public life became the norm, however, impassioned tussles between the state, institutional advocates of secularity and religious groups gave way to administrative formality and legal process.

In July, for example, the Conseil d’Etat — one of France’s highest legal bodies — heard a request by the France-based International Observatory of Secularism to strike down 2008 educational accords between the Foreign Ministry and the Vatican. The Conseil’s ruling upheld the bilateral agreement, under which France recognizes diplomas granted by Catholic universities operating outside the French educational system. But the Conseil’s decision also required that state colleges and institutions reject applicants who hold Vatican-sanctioned degrees that education authorities deem inferior to official French standards. Such is the studied, sober manner in which France tries to decide the limits of Catholicism’s reach.

At times, however, that approach is overtaken by more emotional — and some would argue irrational — secular sorties. When, in 2007, France’s then Urban Housing Minister Christine Boutin chose a Catholic priest as an adviser on policies to improve the nation’s troubled housing projects, the public let out cries of protest — ignoring the priest’s long history of social work in suburban ghettos.

In early 2010, a Jewish teacher in Nancy was suspended when authorities decided her history lessons on the Holocaust lacked “secular neutrality.”

And in July 2010, Green Party politicians in the northern Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois aired concern over the city’s decision to create meat-free menus in public-school cafeterias. The move was fine for vegetarians, critics claimed, but would look too much like acquiescence to Muslim parents who wanted halal meat in school lunches.

To some observers, such protests sound a lot like secular fundamentalism. As secularists become more militant, their arguments have begun to ring with the righteous conviction you usually associate with religious forces they oppose. Many attribute the trend to rising secularist concern about the spread of Islam’s influence. That feeling has led the French to recognize secularity as an alibi to express increasingly Islamophobic attitudes. Only time will tell whether France can establish with Islam the happy balance it generally maintains with other faiths — or whether laïcité will become synonymous with the state’s interference in how Muslims practice their faith.

Floridians Protest Against New Atheist Billboard

A new atheist billboard went up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in July 2009. The American Atheists (AA) affiliate, FLorida Atheists and Secular Humanists (FLASH), who put it up, wanted to let fellow area atheists know that they are not alone. The billboard, as seen above, seems innocent enough. But, local residents don’t see it that way.

Apparently the billboard went up in the middle of a religious area. The area is also predominantly African American. President of FLASH, told reporters that he would have thought they, as a group, would have been more understanding of what it is like to be discriminated against. After all, it was not long ago that they suffered under just such a thing.

He said that FLASH chose the billboard location not because of the neighborhood it is located in but because of the traffic that goes by. He figured they would get maximum exposure. Now, in light of the hoopla that is being generated over the billboard, he said that it turns out that it could have been the best neighborhood for it to be in.

If nothing else, this outcry exemplifies the intolerance and hatred that atheists face on a daily basis in this country in their own communities. And, on another note, it shows how easily and willingly adults breed intolerant children.

Indians are Different from Pakistanis

By Vir Sanghvi

 

Few things annoy me as much as the claim often advanced by well-meaning but woolly- headed (and usually Punjabi) liberals to the effect that when it comes to India and Pakistan , “We’re all the same people, yaar.”  This may have been true once upon a time. Before 1947, Pakistan was part of undivided India and you could claim that Punjabis from West Punjab (what is now Pakistan ) were as Indian as, say, Tamils from Madras .

 

But time has a way of moving on. And while the gap between our Punjabis (from east Punjab which is now the only Punjab left in India) and our Tamils may actually have narrowed, thanks to improved communications, shared popular culture and greater physical mobility, the gap between Indians and Pakistanis has now widened to the extent that we are no longer the same people in any significant sense.

 

This was brought home to me most clearly by two major events over the last few weeks.

The first of these was the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team on the streets of Lahore . In their defence, Pakistanis said that they were powerless to act against the terrorists because religious fanaticism was growing. Each day more misguided youngsters joined jihadi outfits and the law and order situation worsened.

 

Further, they added, things had got so bad that in the tribal areas the government of Pakistan had agreed to suspend the rule of law under pressure from the Taliban and had conceded that sharia law would reign instead. Interestingly, while most civilised liberals should have been appalled by this surrender to the forces of extremism, many Pakistanis defended this concession.

 

Imran Khan (Keble College, Oxford, 1973-76) even declared that sharia law would be better because justice would be dispensed more swiftly! (I know this is politically incorrect but the Loin of the Punjab ’s defence of sharia law reminded me of the famous Private Eye cover when his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith was announced. The Eye carried a picture of Khan speaking to Jemima’s father. “Can I have your daughter’s hand?” Imran was supposedly asking James Goldsmith. “Why? Has she been caught shoplifting?” Goldsmith replied. So much for sharia law.)

 

The second contrasting event was one that took place in Los Angeles but which was perhaps celebrated more in India than in any other country in the world. Three Indians won Oscars: A.R. Rahman, Resul Pookutty and Gulzar.

 

Their victory set off a frenzy of rejoicing. We were proud of our countrymen. We were pleased that India ’s entertainment industry and its veterans had been recognised at an international platform. And all three men became even bigger heroes than they already were.

But here’s the thing: Not one of them is a Hindu.

 

Can you imagine such a thing happening in Pakistan ? Can you even conceive of a situation where the whole country would celebrate the victory of three members of two religious minorities? For that matter, can you even imagine a situation where people from religious minorities would have got to the top of their fields and were, therefore, in the running for international awards?

 

On the one hand, you have Pakistan imposing sharia law, doing deals with the Taliban, teaching hatred in madrasas, declaring jihad on the world and trying to kill innocent Sri Lankan cricketers. On the other, you have the triumph of Indian secularism.

 

The same people?

Surely not.

We are defined by our nationality. They choose to define themselves by their religion.

But it gets even more complicated. As you probably know, Rahman was born Dilip Kumar. He converted to Islam when he was 21. His religious preferences made no difference to his prospects. Even now, his music cuts across all religious boundaries. He’s as much at home with Sufi music as he is with bhajans. Nor does he have any problem with saying ‘Vande Mataram’.

Now, think of a similar situation in Pakistan . Can you conceive of a Pakistani composer who converted to Hinduism at the age of 21 and still went on to become a national hero? Under sharia law, they’d probably have to execute him.

 

Resul Pookutty’s is an even more interesting case. Until you realise that Malayalis tend to put an ‘e’ where the rest of us would put an ‘a,’ ( Ravi becomes Revi and sometimes the Gulf becomes the Gelf), you cannot work out that his name derives from Rasool, a fairly obviously Islamic name.

 

But here’s the point: even when you point out to people that Pookutty is in fact a Muslim, they don’t really care. It makes no difference to them. He’s an authentic Indian hero, his religion is irrelevant.

 

Can you imagine Pakistan being indifferent to a man’s religion? Can you believe that Pakistanis would not know that one of their Oscar winners came from a religious minority? And would any Pakistani have dared bridge the religious divide in the manner Resul did by referring to the primeval power of Om in his acceptance speech?

 

The same people?

Surely not.

Most interesting of all is the case of Gulzar who many Indians believe is a Muslim. He is not. He is a Sikh. And his real name is Sampooran Singh Kalra.

So why does he have a Muslim name?

 

It’s a good story and he told it on my TV show some years ago. He was born in West Pakistan and came over the border during the bloody days of Partition. He had seen so much hatred and religious violence on both sides, he said, that he was determined never to lose himself to that kind of blind religious prejudice and fanaticism.

 

Rather than blame Muslims for the violence inflicted on his community — after all, Hindus and Sikhs behaved with equal ferocity — he adopted a Muslim pen name to remind himself that his identity was beyond religion. He still writes in Urdu and considers it irrelevant whether a person is a Sikh, a Muslim or a Hindu.

 

Let’s forget about political correctness and come clean: can you see such a thing happening in Pakistan ? Can you actually conceive of a famous Pakistani Muslim who adopts a Hindu or Sikh name out of choice to demonstrate the irrelevance of religion?

My point, exactly.

What all those misguided liberals who keep blathering on about us being the same people forget is that in the 60-odd years since Independence, our two nations have traversed very different paths.

 

Pakistan was founded on the basis of Islam. It still defines itself in terms of Islam. And over the next decade as it destroys itself, it will be because of Islamic extremism. India was founded on the basis that religion had no role in determining citizenship or nationhood. An Indian can belong to any religion in the world and face no discrimination in his rights as a citizen. It is nobody’s case that India is a perfect society or that Muslims face no discrimination. But only a fool would deny that in the last six decades, we have travelled a long way towards religious equality. In the early days of independent India , a Yusuf Khan had to call himself Dilip Kumar for fear of attracting religious prejudice.

 

In today’s India , a Dilip Kumar can change his name to A.R. Rahman and nobody really gives a damn either way.  So think back to the events of the last few weeks. To the murderous attack on innocent Sri Lankan cricketers by jihadi fanatics in a society that is being buried by Islamic extremism. And to the triumphs of Indian secularism.

 

Same people?

Don’t make me laugh.

 

Being Muslim in India Today

Not far from L18, in the posh part of Jamia Nagar, is a house on a tree-lined avenue that will always be home to me. But my life, with all its easy privileges, could not be more different from Atif and Sajid’s, the two young men shot as alleged terrorists at L18. I contain multitudes, Whitman so eloquently said. But we live in a time when even multitudes are forced to lay claim to a singular label. And so by writing this, perhaps, I will forever be labelled the voice of the liberal secular Muslim. A voice that is accused of not speaking up. Ironically, it is this very tyranny of labels that grants me this space in a mainstream national magazine.

As someone with a Muslim first name and a Hindu surname, I suppose I have always swung between labels – a poster girl for communal harmony or a confused, rootless individual, depending on who was doing the labelling. I went to a public school and have never worn a burkha. I might escape being thrown in the big cauldron with “Islamic Terrorists” but I will certainly be added to the one for “misguided intellectuals”. While there is no mistaking that it is zealous nationalists who seek to light the fire under the first cauldron, the other is a bone of contention between those who seek to define for me how to be Indian and those who seek to define for me how to be Muslim. My condemnation of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Imrana’s rape or the media circus around Gudiya will always be seen in the context of my privileged background, my gender, my religious identity. Perhaps, it can be no other way.

In this rhetoric of binaries of “us and them”, it is difficult to find the space to create a new paradigm of discussion. And so, in conversations that throw up Islamic terrorists, rigid religious beliefs, Pakistan and madrasas, the response is inevitably another set of questions – why is the Bajrang Dal not labelled a terrorist outfit, why is the growing public display of Hindu festivals like Navratras and Karva Chauth not considered rigid religious beliefs, why should Muslims in India be answerable for what goes on in Pakistan, what spaces other than madrasas are available for thousands of believing Muslims who choose to get educated and still retain their Muslim-ness. As a Muslim in India today, not only are you fighting to shrug off the label of fundamentalist- if not terrorist – but you are also succumbing to a paradigm of dialogue which has been set for homogenous communities with clear markers of identities.

But how does one fight that when shared cultural spaces, other than those created by the market, shrink? How does one speak of the diversity of being Indian when Diwali is celebrated in schools and Eid just in Muslim homes? How does one avoid a singular label for experiences that are diverse and yet have a common thread running through them – the experience of a tailor in Ahmedabad whose Hindu patrons have stopped giving work to, the butcher in Batla House who couldn’t get a bank loan, the software professional who will now have to watch every single byte that leaves his computer.

Being Muslim in India today means many things to many people. But how easy it is to forget that one fundamental reality. How easy it is to say, as someone said to me after the Delhi blasts – “These are all educated Muslims. Don’t they know that their bombs can also kill their own?” As if everyone with a Muslim name is a terrorist’s very “own”.

–
saminamishra@gmail.com

Christians in India Offend the Hindus

The Beam In Your Eye

M. V. Kamath.

I have often wondered whether Christians realise how much offence their missionaries give to non-Christians in India, mainly Hindus, by their activities. There are two kinds of Christianity. One is that of simple god-fearing people who go to church, say their prayers, do what little they can for lessening the suffering or ignorance of their fellow citizens, and be at peace with the world around them. They are respected, loved and honored.

The other is the ‘Institutional Christianity’, which came to India with the marauding Portuguese in the 16th century. It is this Christianity that has been causing trouble in India in recent times. The argument adduced by Institutional Christianity is that it is God’s command that his good word be spread all over the world. They insist on their ‘right’ to convert people becuase God ordained that people must be converted. Such an attitude is insulting to non-Christians.

Some time in late January, the South Asian correspondent of Le Figaro, France’s most popular newspaper, wrote a scathing peice against missionary activity in the Hindustan Times. Francois Gautier must have felt really incensed at the insensitivity of Indian Christians.

More recently, Jon Stock, New Delhi correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (a London paper) wrote a revelatory piece in the Spectator, another British journal, about the activities of missionaries in India. Put simply, Stock wrote, “The Indian subcontinent has become the principal target for a wide range of western Christian missions determined to
spread the Gospel to India’s ‘unreached’ people before the year 2000.” Christian missions in the US have become particularly nasty and offensive.

Stock quotes what the US-based Bethany World Prayer Centre has been writing about Hinduism. Any American who wants to pray for the Ho tribals of south Bihar and northern Orissa, for example, is given a photo, he says, a detailed map and a description of how tribals live and what they believe in, with the suggestion: “Pray against the spirits of
animism and Hinduism that have kept the Ho in spiritual darkness for centuries.” Stock comments: “Bethany’s exhortation to pray against animism and Hinduism is hardly a mark of respect.” He’s being kind. I call that a downright insult to Hinduism. But we are not supposed to protest.

Then Stock quotes ‘The Native Missionary Movement in India’ as saying about Orissa: “Satan has successfully camouflaged his grip on the people of Orissa with a thin veneer of religion.” Is Hinduism satanic? As for ‘AD 2000 and Beyond,’ it says that Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city, is full of temples dedicated to Shiva, “an idol whose symbol is a phallus. Many consider the city the very seat of Satan.” Why are our Indian
Bishops quiet in this matter?

But Stock goes further. He writes: “Hundreds and thousands of dollars are being channeled into India through well-organised US-based evangelica missions. The  meticulously researched ethnographic data they are compiling on the region ensures that funds (as well as prayers) are being directed with military precision ot the right places, even to specific PIN codes, in remote tribal districts.”

Stock quotes ‘AD 2000 and Beyond’ as saying: “God is allowing us to spy on the land that we might go in and claim both it and its inhabitants for Him.” The kind of language being used by US evangelical missions to describe Hinduism is appalling. But there is not a word of apology from our Christian bishops.

According to Suresh Kumar Unnithan, writing in the Observer (March 23), “A detailed strategy for massive conversion of tribals, Dalits and backward classes and large-scale church planting was formulated at a meeting of church and missionary leaders in Bhpal recently.”  Unnithan quotes a document prepared by one Dr. Victor Choudrie,
co-ordinator of ‘Harvest Consultant’ (a proselytisation programme of the Protestant Church) and present at the meeting, as saying that “the goal is to plant about 30,000 churches and reach over 10 million ‘unreached’ in the state by the year 2007.” According to the report “MP has 70 million people in 70,000 villages and only 70,000 Christian families. We should strive to have one church in every village by 2010.”

I call this Institutional Christianity and it seems to be hell bent on creating trouble in the name of religion. And the money for all these church-building activities comes from the USS, where Christianity hardly exists. Fro that matter, what sort of Christianity exists in Europe? In Ireland, Catholics and Protestants are at each others’ throats. Not one
of Christ’s preachings are practised anywhere. Germans sent god alone knows how millions Jews to death during the Nazi era. The French ravaged Vietnam and Nigeria. Italians almost destroyed Ethiopia. The record of the Spaniards is despicable as is that of the Portuguese. Americans almost levelled Vietnam – a small nation that had done them no harm – to dust.

Is this Christianity in action? And they have the cheek to come to India to instruct us in pacifist ways? Eurpoean Christianity is the ntithesis of Christianity. It is an insult to Christ. US evangelists dare not send money to support proselytisation in Muslim countries. Let
them try to do so in any Muslim country and they would know what would happen. In India we allow our religion to be trampled upon, our gods insulted – all in the name of secularism.

I would like to know what Sonia Gandhi thinks of all this and what her Indian National Congress Party’s veiws are on this matter.

The government needs to be warned in advance so there is not repetition of the Staines incident. The missionaries need to be told to cry a halt to their activities. And foreign church bodies should be told to lay off.

The point can be made that if non-resident Indians can support the International Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad or VHP) financially, why shouldn’t foreign Church bodies finance Indian churches?

The point is that these expatriates are not attempting to convert Christians. In any event, it is a matter of Indians supporting Indians. The people needing conversions are Europeans and Americans. We do not need US-style or European-style Christianity in India; thank you. We are quite happy and at peace with the local variety.

  Pastor

  unitedchurch@eml.cc