It is probably due to cognitive dissonance. Finally listening, for once, to what they were saying, they must have had a revelation. It must have sounded so ridiculous that they must have thought of what they were smoking when they plunged head-on into the cult. Hey, heck no! They are not going to denounce everything. They had invested too much time, resources and life to give it away. The next best plan is to convince others. They would get the numbers. It cannot be so wrong if everybody buys their story. And they thought, while we are at it, let us monetise the whole concept!Hence, the worldwide inquisition started. Because they felt they had been told the inside story about the Creator and thought they knew the backstory of everything's creation, they walked around with a chip on their shoulders.
It is funny how overconfidence leads to aggression. It does not feel wrong to inflict all the pain, injustices and cruelty upon another being because it is viewed as carrying God's will here on Earth. Nobody actually saw the memo or had the guts to ask the same. They risk the label of a heretic.
Another group would take the Word of God and spread it as a religion of peace but with violence and ambush. As if to soothe the bleeding wounds, they would send in nuns and nurses who have dedicated their lives to saving lives. To make the natives useful idiots, schools would be built with the conquerer's belief systems. Servants of God would parachute down to spread the Word and plead with compassion and forgiveness as if trying to whitewash their previous misgivings.
Another method employed to subtly convert the next generation was through the boarding school systems. Horror tales of promising students uprooted from society with the promise of a better life, which ended with tragic ends of torture and death, are rampant in the Australian, Canadian and American aboriginal communities.
Just when you thought this was a footprint of colonial times, think again. Subversive religious conversion of adults and minors has always been ongoing below the radar. Much evangelism work was ongoing under the pretext of providing educational, medical and emotional support. Good for them.
Recently, a video flared up on social media of strategies for converting Malaysian secondary school students and keeping their religious conversion under wraps until they reach adulthood when they are free to profess their religion of choice.
Firdaus Wong is sharing advice on TikTok with teachers on converting their students to Islam without their parent's knowledge. F.B. pic; June 6, 2024.
This naturally created a lot of apprehension amongst parents who saw schools and other governmental institutions as hotbeds for religious activities. Murmurs about this had been in the people's consciousness all this while. Still, everyone naively believed that the Nation had adequate laws to protect people of different belief systems from professing their religion of choice. If formerly conversions were done at the end of the sword, now it is insinuated through subtle reasons like economic prosperity and rebel yells of the ignoramus.
For anyone to trust the legal system, laws must be carried out, and justice must be seen to be done. Over the years, as evidenced by the pile of cases taken up by NGOs against the State, citizens cannot be blamed if they were to think that there exists a sinister plan to subjugate one religion over the others.
P.S. As any other Indian mother would, Amma was apprehensive when her much-loved son had to spend two years training in a state in the Malay heartland. Her circle of friends constantly told her tales of many promising young Hindu men falling flat for the fauna and flora, fawning over females there, returning home with a different name and surname, spotting moustache-less beards, and refusing to partake in functions deemed necessary by their parents, i.e. final rites and ancestral worship. So, Amma saw a shaman to make an amulet to ward off evil spells. The only restriction to be observed while wearing the amulet was that it should not be worn in places considered unclean with negative energies. Well, what does the shaman expect in a hospital? Of course, there will be deaths, suicides, diseases and all the negativities that need correction! As a good son, yours truly did don the contraption. Expectedly, Amma had thought too highly of her offspring. He fell for the flora and fauna, but there was no inkling of fawning over or by someone!
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) Director: Michael Showalter
It is not only Islam that provokes the name of God to legitimise each and every one of their actions. In the late 70s, when the US economy was in the doldrums, and a plethora of social issues hogged the headlines, Ronald Reagon, despite his not so-Christian background, being a divorcee and his pro-abortion stance as Governor of California, decided to woo the Christian Conservatives and the Evangelists to his side.
This practice, having proved successful, continued through the campaign of a born-again candidate, GW Bush. And we know how that divided the world with a wide fissure - you are either with us or against us! (or should it US?)
In the zest to cow people into submission, to coax the herd in the intended direction, money was infused indiscriminately into megalomaniac projects that never materialised. A point to note in the Malaysian context. Over the past decade, many shady foundations were created with the zeal to imbibe Islamic values into the administrative system. They were managed by politicians of the ruling party and their cronies. Their transactions were classified as official state secrets. The million ringgit question is whether the intended target goals were met or the intended target group benefitted from them.
The change of Government saw a little light shining through to expose the foolhardy, but as quickly as the change, a backdoor coalition usurped power to cover everything up again.
This film shows a pair of high strung drop-outs of a Christian College with big ideas going out to the world to spread the word of God. Starting with nothing, their brand of televangelism admixed with puppetry, music, songs, and sermons drew the attention of a Christian TV channel. Pretty soon, they had their TV channel. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were rolling in money in torrents from sympathetic donors.
That is when everybody wanted a piece of the action. Everyone wanted to ride on their popularity. Even Ronald Reagan had Jim and Tammy help him win his re-election.
Marital issues started seeping in. Taxmen started querying their income and expenditure. The last straw was when Jim's gay partner exposed their affair. The party who was supposed to manage the company amidst the trials decided to take over management instead. Jim went to jail for tax charges. Thus ended their dream tale of rag to riches and then slip-sliding into oblivion as the number one enemy of the state.
A sucker is born every minute, they say. Probably what they meant was that the rooting reflex was innate in all babies. Stroke the cheek and the baby would automatically turn its head towards the stimulus and initiate a suckling reaction. It also could imply to the many who are suckered up to racketeering and daylight robberies.
Watching this movie was a sort of a deja vu experience for me. A close relative had discovered Jesus late in life, and she made it her raison d'être to spread His word. And along she went to all four corners of the country praying for the sick and the fallen. She would personally harbour drug addicts and vagabonds in her home to nurse them back to functionality.
I remember her style. To get her congregation interested in her sermon, out of the blue, she would blurt out 'Hallelujah' on top of her lungs to get approval what she was saying. And an often repeated phrase was that Jesus spoke to her in her dreams. How she would in her usual demonstrative form place her hand on the vertex of her client to pray desperately to chase off the devil that plagued them. She looked sincere and was utterly convinced that she was doing something good. At least it kept her sane.
Well, that is not what this film is trying to highlight. There are people out there who target people's weakness and make a living out cheating desperate people blind. Man created religion to give them a tuft of hope in facing day to day uncertainties of life. Religion is supposed to give them sanity when the storm on Earth becomes too overwhelming. It gives them the assurance that their actions of maintaining peace and order will be rewarded, in this life or after. It absorbs the guilt of the mistakes that he commits at the moment of inebriation. There is a fine line between faith giving peace of mind and it being the cause of lunacy. Extremism negates other points of views. There is a loss of mindfulness and the compulsion to cut off other people beliefs. The guilt of not sticking to the true tenets of religion can turn one into a raving lunatic.
It is beyond comprehension how some people are often lulled into submission by putting the fear of God. The world becomes too complicated for some to strive a living that they get suckered into the promise of divinity in negating all the miseries. And they fall prey to their myths. Rather than resorting to critical thinking, they are deluded with blind faith.
This Malayalam movie tells a tale, perhaps not unreal, of a motivational speaker, mired with a sad family history filled with mental illness and a recent suicide of his brother. He is pulled in by a group of businessmen who use religion to dupe the unsuspecting public into evangelical Christianity and faith healing. Viju Prasad is picked up by a talent corp to be given an intensive course on the Bible and is soon christened Pastor Joshua Carlton (JC, referring to Jesus Christ, of course). JC starts doing 'staged' healing that he himself begins to think that he may indeed have healing powers. His bosses are hot under the collar as JC behaves as if he is the brain behind the whole facade.
This film may be the anthesis of 'Mookuthi Amman'. If Mookuthi Amman pokes fun at Hindu godmen, 'Trance' hits up at the bogus media-savvy megalomaniac pastors who victimise desperate patients who are wit's end to find a cure for their advanced maladies. Fahadh Faasil gives a sterling performance as a doting elder brother and a confused healer who is himself at the brink of a mental breakdown.
Sathyathai Thedi (Seeking the Truth; @Asothoma Sathgamaya, 2013) First, it was Zakir Naik who was heard telling his congregants that the old Hindu scriptures did indeed quote of the arrival of a messenger of God. In his usual style, he went on ranting his references to the said inscriptions. Just that people are too set in their mindsets to accept that, he alleged. Now I hear the same pitch being repeated. This Christian evangelist film tries to sell the idea that the Ama Veda did hint of Prajapathi, the Lord of the Universe, being Jesus Christ himself. Somewhere in it, it was apparently mentioned of the Creator who needed to be sacrificed for atonement. In their eyes, it fits perfectly in their narrative that Jesus, who is God himself, had to be sacrificed to wash the sins of Man. The whole film can be described as a hermeneutical gymnastic as the protagonist goes on rattling verses after verses from the Veda, Upanishads and even Kural to drive home the message that the Bible is indeed version 2.0 of the ultimate Truth. Imagine the audacity... The alternative title of the film is Asotha Sathgama. As we know, it is an ancient mantra, also named Pavamana Mantra, is from the Upanishad. It is recited during offerings, and it encourages us to open our inner realisation to come out of our ignorance to embrace the transcendental reality. A fourth line of 'Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shantihi' is often added to emphasise us to be at peace with the Universe.
asato mā sad gamaya,tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor māmṛtaṃ gamaya
"from the unreal lead me to Truth, from the darkness lead me to the light, from death, lead me to immortality."
I gather that the makers of the film refer them to belong to a new denomination called 'Indian Christians'. Unlike the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches or Protestants who garnered knowledge from the respective areas that they prospered, these Indian Christian have no qualms in appropriating pearls of wisdom of the Hindu tradition. After all, Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Hindu, in ancient times, referred to the civilisation around the Indus Valley. 'Indians Christians' just cherry-pick the knowledge of their ancestors to seek their perceived ultimate Truth of their Maker.
St Thomas' arrival 53AD
The story revolves around a retired Brahmin Sanskrit scholar who comes out from being a closet Christian, much to the ire of his son with whom he is staying. His conversion soon becomes an embarrassment to his family and the members of the Brahmin community where he is respected. The scholar slowly teaches everyone in the community his own understanding of his new religion. Pretty soon, everyone in the community sees the light and embrace Christianity one by one, including the short-fused son. The filmmakers are hoping to connect to the segment of the population who see the practice of Hinduism as a ritual filled archaic meaningless practice. These ignoramuses, in the lowest ebb of their lives, when they are vulnerable and are looking for straws to clutch, see evangelists as their saviours. Unlike practitioners of the Hindu faith who are seekers of knowledge, these Christian soldiers are out in the field to attend to the nitty-gritty nut-and-bolt issues of daily life. With the threat of death or sickness, a hand in prayer goes a long way in gratitude and seeing things in a different light. This is how faithful lieutenants are made. All these do not make sense. We claim to respect each other's religion, but yet we are quick to run each other's faith down to proclaim that our's is superior. In reality, we are all groping in the dark trying to put two to two to paint a composite picture is what life, the journey and the reason for our existence are all about...
Breaking India - Western Interventions in Dravidian and Dalit Faultlines (2011) Authors: Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan
When Europeans reached the shores of India for the first time, they were mesmerised. It was the era of romanticism. The Europeans just could not have enough of India's exotic mysticism, wealth and knowledge. We all know what happened afterwards.
To become the masters to the hosts who welcomed them into their abode, they had to dig deep their bag of trick to break India up. They invented the now well-known 'divide and rule' strategy. Unfortunately, even 300 years later, these breaking India forces are still at it to create divisions amongst its people to push forward their self-serving agendas.
In the 1870s, as the British advanced deep into the periphery, they encountered resistance from the tribal people who were just protecting their land. The invaders quickly created a narrative about heartless local robbers who strangled their victims with kerchiefs. They were named Thuggees based on their diety. The British passed enactment to legalise tribal genocide. Long story short, they not only appropriated their lands but made 'thug' an English word.
The Europeans justified their atrocities on natives by revisiting the story of Noah and his sons. The white-skinned conquerers are the Descendents of Japheth, Shem's went to Asia and the Middle East while the dark-skinned cursed Ham's downlines were sent to Africa and probably to Southern part of India. Japheth's enlightened sons need to educate cursed Ham's people.
The scholars of the time also sold the idea of the existence of a big landmass named Lemuria or Kumari Kandam which connected Africa, India and Australia. Even though it was never proven, they claim that this land housed an advanced civilisation which spread as far as Persia. The advancing tribes of uncultured Aryans from the North pushed them down south. They also shoved Hinduism down their throats to make them subservient to the Aryan descendants.
In the late 19th century, pseudo-scientist delved into dubious experimentations and fashionable non-sciences to convince the people of South India and the tribal people that they were different from the rest of India. They were Dravidians, a great race suppressed by the Northerners and the evil Brahmins. The now-defunct 'Nasal Index' was used by Herbert Risley to prove his two-race theory and implementation of the caste system in Indian society. This was mentioned in Rig Veda, it seems. This 'discovery' was shown to support Max Muller's Aryan migration/ invasion theory. The Aryans from the Caucasus migrated down south to downgrade after marriages with the local while the wave of Aryans who went off to start the Greek and Germanic civilisations reached great heights. And the arrival of Europeans to the Indian shores is a time of reconnection.
See how this propagation of Aryan race created problems the world over. In Europe, it went on to Hitler, WW2 and devastation. In South India, it created the Dravidian movements that go on till today. In a way, it helped to flare the animosity between the Aryan-Buddhist-Singhalese and the Non-Aryan Jaffenese Tamils.
In Africa, the Hamitic mythology condones slavery and categorised communities to races which eventually spurred the genocide in Rwanda.
In 'God's Country'
One of Jesus' disciples, St Thomas, is said to have reached the Malabar shores in 52AD. Others attribute a Syrian, Thomas of Cana, to be the first evangelist. He was martyred during one of his conversion stints when he was speared by a local tribesman.
Robert Caldwell, a bishop and a grammarian, proposed a racial divide along with linguistics. The South Indian languages were etymologically different from Sanskrit, further sub classifying Indians by class, race and caste by profiling.
According to the authors, Christian missionaries have been active in the conversion ever since the first missionaries touched. They have found many ingenious ways to connect with the locals. They dress like them, live with them and be the first to be by their side when they are wronged or go through a calamity. They receive substantial international financial support from the Southern Baptist Churches in the US, the Lutheran Churches, many philanthropic foundations like The Ford Foundation, Pew Trust, Carnegie Trust and many more. Under the guise of humanitarian aid, they are active in the conversion of the members in the fringe of society. Through their scholarship programmes, they have created local firebrand leaders who have no qualms discrediting their motherland to serve their masters. They form the Fifth Column who subversively weaken the nation from within.
Many of the scholars have reinterpreted Hindu text and appropriated them to fit the Biblical events. Many historical dates had been altered to make it appear that Christianity predated Hindu philosophy. They try to impress the unassuming congregation that the earlier Tamil scriptures were actually inspired by Christianity and its teachings. They claim that the Kural written by Valluvar and Saiva Siddhanta is based on Christian teachings. It is claimed that idolatry is a Hinduism construct and that Dravidians were not idol worshippers. The bashing continues subtly through media and films.
John Allen Chau, an evangelist
Killed by Sentinelese tribe in North Sentinel, near Andaman.
It is said that the atheistic nature of Tamil Nadu politics was inspired by this Brahmin bashing trend that was prevailing in the mid 20th century when Periyar took Tamil Nadu out of the Congress Party. It continues to date.
The authors bring to light how seemingly opposing forces, as there are seen elsewhere, unite with the single aim to control India. Maoists, Marxists, Urban Naxalites, leftists, intellectuals, Communists, Jihadis aligned with Islam and Christian evangelists all have no qualms in setting aside their differences to fight their common enemy, the Hindutva movement, which has arisen to put back its forgotten history and facts in the right place.
As it stands today, India has to be wary against many internal centrifugal and external forces who are intertwined with each other to balkanise the country. They depict India as an opposed of freedom and a fascist state filled with horrors of Hindu savagery blurred between Islamic terrorism and violation by India against Muslims, Christians and Dalits. What is the purpose of all these? They are of two folds. One is for political control to obtain a chaotic country with cheap labour. Secondly, there is a dire theological need to pulverise the last pagan civilisation standing to replace it with a monotheistic religion.
