Thousands of Hindus convert to Buddhism in India racism protest

by Rupan Bhattacharya (AP, September 9, 2001) 

LUCKNOW, India (September 9, 2001 10:28 a.m. EDT) - Protesting India's 
failure to address caste issues at the World Conference Against Racism, 
thousands of Dalits - often segregated as "untouchables" in the Hindu caste 
hierarchy - converted to Buddhism in a northern Indian city.

Leaders of the late-Saturday ritual by some 6,000 Dalits said they were 
protesting discrimination by upper caste people and their government's 
failure to raise caste issues at the racism conference in Durban, South 
Africa that concluded over the weekend.

In Kanpur, 240 miles southeast of India's capital, New Delhi, hundreds of 
monks in flowing robes arrived from Nepal, Japan and other countries to 
witness the ceremony, which was presided by a Japanese Buddhist priest.

Participants were distributed posters condemning Hinduism, the religion of 
India's overwhelming majority.

Several Dalit groups had met in the South African city to press for inclusion 
of caste-based discrimination in the U.N. World Conference on Racism. They 
said caste-based discrimination in India was as bad as racial discrimination 
in other parts of the world.

But Indian officials lobbied, and succeeded, in keeping it off the conference 
declaration. The New Delhi government said equating the caste system with 
racism would make India a racist country - a categorization it denies.

"The Government of India misguided all at the Durban meet," Dalit leader Ram 
Prasad Rashik told The Associated Press after the conversion ceremony in 
Kanpur.

Dalits occupy the lowest rank in India's 3,000-year-old caste system that 
discriminates against nearly a fourth of the country's billion-plus 
population.

Though India's Constitution, adopted in 1950, bars discrimination based on 
caste, the practice still pervades society. 

Religious persecution forcing Hindus to flee Pak[istan]
(Press Trust of India)

Jaipur, September 5: Religious persecution and violation of human rights are 
forcing Hindus in Pakistan to flee to India, a Pakistani migrants association 
said on Wednesday.

Every month groups of persecuted Hindus are coming to India from Pakistan in 
the hope of a better future but due to lack of a refugee policy they face a 
tough time, the Pak Visthapit Sangh said. 

There are 17,000 Hindus from Pakistan who have yet to get Indian citizenship, 
out of whom 5,000 live in Jodhpur alone. Many of those who arrived in India 
as refugees in 1965 have also not received citizenship, Convenor of the 
Sangh, Hindu Singh Sodha, said. 

Others are scattered in Barmer, Jaisalmer, Jalore and Pali districts, Sodha 
said after meeting Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. He demanded the 
Centre should amend the citizenship act and fix a time limit for granting 
citizenship. 

Sodha also said the government should review the rehabilitation policy 
prepared in 1978 for those living in camps after leaving Pakistan in 1965 and 
1971. 

Sodha said they were not able to purchase land as several families, living in 
clusters in camps, possessed only one ration card. At the time of allotment, 
property was given to only heads named in the cards leaving many families 
landless. 

Gehlot agreed to constitute a committee with migrant representation to look 
into the problems. 


 

Criticism of Indian Christians Raises Concerns of Violence

by T.C. Malhotra ("CNS News," September 4, 2001)

Crosswalk.com News Channel - A potentially explosive row is simmering here, 
after Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee criticized the activities of 
Christian missionaries in India.

Political parties and Christian missionaries have expressed concern over 
Vajpayee's weekend statement accusing some Christian missionaries of trying 
to force people to convert to their faith.

The All India Christian Council called the remark unfortunate, saying it 
would aggravate violence against minorities.

"Remarks such as these are seen as condoning the hate campaign and the 
canards, lies and half-truths that are being spread in many parts of the 
country. They encourage communal and extremist elements," the Council said in 
a statement.

The remarks also raised concerns in the political establishment, with the 
main opposition Congress Party accusing Vajpayee of "casting aspersions at 
the Christian community."

"The remarks have the potential of creating a sense of insecurity among the 
minority community," said Congress spokesman Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi.

Vajpayee made his comment at a function of a fundamentalist Hindu 
organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in which he served as a 
volunteer for many years.

While some Christian missionaries were engaged in good work, he said, others 
were converting Hindus.

Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoys mass support of Hindu voters, 
primarily marshaled by the RSS. In recent times, the government has been 
under fire from the RSS for its reformist economic policies.

Observers saw the prime minister's remarks as an attempt to reassure the RSS 
that the ruling party was not deviating from pro-Hindu policies.

The RSS welcomed Vajpayee's statement as an endorsement of its view that 
forcible Christian conversations were being carried out.

Hindu fundamentalists maintain that Christians are involved in "forced 
conversions" of poor Hindus, even though there are no independent figures to 
substantiate the claim. They charge that more than 200,000 of the 22.5 
million Christians are converts from Hindu.

Many missionaries run schools, dispensaries and old age homes in poor areas 
of India. Hindu organizations like the RSS and the World Hindu Council accuse 
some missionaries of luring poor Hindus into Christianity by offering them 
money, food, jobs and other incentives.

Christians fear the sentiment may result in more violence against their 
community. Among other incidents in recent years, an Australian missionary 
and his two sons, aged 7 and 10, were burnt to death five years ago while 
they slept in their vehicle in the eastern province of Orissa.

Right to religion is a fundamental right under the Indian constitution, which 
confers upon every citizen the right to practice his or her own religion.

However, the issue of conversion has been debated at length in India, with 
some quarters suggesting that it should be constitutionally banned.

RSS spokesman in New Delhi, M.G. Vaidya, said while the organization backed 
Vajpayee's statement, they did not believe it had been intended to cover all 
missionaries.

"It is wrong to say that the prime minister has tarred every missionary with 
the same brush. There are some missionaries who are doing sincere work, and 
they need not worry about the impact of his statement," Vaidya said.

 

Staines murder trial deferred till Sept 5

by Imran Khan ("Rediff," September 3, 2001)

The trial of Dara Singh, prime accused in the gruesome murder of the 
Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his two minor sons, was 
adjourned on Monday till September 5. 

The Khurda district sessions judge, Mahendra Nath Patnaik, announced the 
deferment due to absence of one of the co-accused in the case, Surat Nayak, 
who had reported sick in Bhubaneswar jail. 

The defence counsel said that Nayak was suffering from tuberculosis, and 
therefore could not attend the court. 

The defence counsel also wanted the court to direct the concerned authorities 
to provide proper treatment to Nayak. 

In response to the defence counsel's request the judge said he would ask the 
doctors of the Bhubaneswar jail and the superintendent of the Capital 
hospital to submit a report. 

The trial was scheduled to resume on Monday, after it was deferred last month 
due to absence of two other accused, including Nayak who was sick and 
suffering from viral fever and cough. 

It may be recalled that earlier too, the trial had been postponed due to 
sickness of three of the accused. Earlier, in view of the slow speed of the 
trial the court last month advised the defence counsel and the prosecution 
counsel to sit together and find out ways for the smooth conduct of the 
trial. 

Indian PM under fire over temple remarks
  
NEW DELHI, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee came 
under fire in parliament on Monday for saying he was confident that a bitter 
row over building a Hindu temple in northern India would be resolved by next 
March. 

Opposition lawmakers said Vajpayee appeared to have made the statement with 
an eye on provincial elections in the key state of Uttar Pradesh early next 
year where the disputed site is located. 

One deputy said Vajpayee's comments risked inflaming religious passions. 

Vajpayee told a news conference on Sunday that negotiations "were on to 
resolve the Ayodhya issue at different levels" and a solution would be found 
by next March, the deadline set by hardline Hindu groups to begin 
construction of the temple. 

Hindu hardliners have demanded the temple to the Hindu god-king Ram be built 
on a site in Ayodhya in northern India where a mob of Hindu fanatics razed a 
16th-century mosque in 1992, sparking India's bloodiest religious riots in 
five decades. 

"(Vajpayee's comments) were made with a view to incite communal riots in 
Uttar Pradesh and with the elections in mind," said Ramji Lal Suman of the 
opposition Samajwadi Party. 

Congress lawmaker Jaipal Reddy said the prime minister should clarify his 
statements and tell parliament with which groups he had held talks." 

"There's no possibility of the talks being successful," Reddy added. 

Hindu revivalists say Muslim Moghul emperor Babur tore down a temple at the 
place they believe was the birthplace of Ram. Muslims contest this and the 
fate of the site is caught in a legal tangle. 

Opposition deputies said the prime minister should not have commented on such 
an explosive issue outside parliament but Vajpayee told the lower house he 
had done nothing wrong. 

"I just said I hoped the issue of Ayodhya was sorted out before March. Talks 
are going on. It's not in the national interest to say at this stage with 
whom the talks are going on. When the solution emerges, we'll let the house 
know," he said. 

Vajpayee, widely seen as a moderate in the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata 
Party, triggered a political storm last year when he said efforts to build a 
temple at Ayodhya reflected national sentiment. 

 

Indian Hindus, Christians seek to end differences
  
NEW DELHI, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Leaders of India's Christian and Hindu 
communities held their first meeting in nearly three years to try to resolve 
differences over religious conversions that have left a trail of violence 
across the country. 

Christians, who make up just over two percent of India's mainly Hindu 
population, have faced a spate of attacks by suspected hardline Hindu groups 
who accuse missionaries of carrying out forced conversions. 

A spokesman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India said on Wednesday its 
talks with the powerful Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) 
were aimed at ending misunderstanding. 

"Christians feel that the RSS is wrongly accusing them of carrying out 
conversions either by force or through fraudulent means," Father Dominic 
Emmanuel, spokesman of the CBCI, said. 

Emmanuel told Reuters the RSS delegation, headed by General Secretary K. 
Sudarshan, in turn had said the organisation had been wrongly blamed for 
attacks on minorities. 

He quoted Sudarshan as saying at the meeting on Tuesday that Hinduism taught 
tolerance, and that India had accepted people belonging to different 
religions. 

The RSS, or the National Volunteers Corps, is widely seen as the ideological 
mentor of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party. 

The RSS denies any bias against minority Muslims or Christians. 

Vajpayee himself drew flak from political rivals and the church for saying 
last weekend that conversions appeared to be a motive for some missionaries 
engaged in social work across India. 

Tensions reached a peak in late 1998 and early 1999 when prayer halls were 
torched in the BJP-ruled western state of Gujarat and an Australian 
missionary and his two young sons were burnt to death in their car in the 
eastern state of Orissa. 

Emmanuel said community leaders had first met in 1998, but a subsequent 
outbreak of religious violence prevented any progress. 

"The dialogue has been re-started. We have agreed to meet again," he said. 

Criticism of Indian Christians Raises New Concerns about Violence

by T.C.Malhotra ("CNS News," August 22, 2001)

New Delhi (CNSNews.com) - A potentially explosive row is simmering here, 
after Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee criticized the activities of 
Christian missionaries in India.

Political parties and Christian missionaries have expressed concern over 
Vajpayee's weekend statement accusing some Christian missionaries of trying 
to force people to convert to their faith.

The All India Christian Council called the remark unfortunate, saying it 
would aggravate violence against minorities.

"Remarks such as these are seen as condoning the hate campaign and the 
canards, lies and half-truths that are being spread in many parts of the 
country. They encourage communal and extremist elements," the Council said in 
a statement.

The remarks also raised concerns in the political establishment, with the 
main opposition Congress Party accusing Vajpayee of "casting aspersions at 
the Christian community."

"The remarks have the potential of creating a sense of insecurity among the 
minority community," said Congress spokesman Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi.

Vajpayee made his comment at a function of a fundamentalist Hindu 
organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in which he served as a 
volunteer for many years.

While some Christian missionaries were engaged in good work, he said, others 
were converting Hindus.

Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoys mass support of Hindu voters, 
primarily marshaled by the RSS. In recent times, the government has been 
under fire from the RSS for its reformist economic policies.

Observers saw the prime minister's as an attempt to reassure the RSS that the 
ruling party was not deviating from pro-Hindu policies.

The RSS welcomed Vajpayee's statement as an endorsement of its view that 
forcible Christian conversations were being carried out.

Hindu fundamentalists maintain that Christians are involved in "forced 
conversions" of poor Hindus, even though there are no independent figures to 
substantiate the claim. They charge that more than 200,000 of the 22.5 
million Christians are converts from Hindu.

Many missionaries run schools, dispensaries and old age homes in poor areas 
of India. Hindu organizations like the RSS and the World Hindu Council accuse 
some missionaries of luring poor Hindus into Christianity by offering them 
money, food, jobs and other incentives.

Christians fear the sentiment may result in more violence against their 
community. Among other incidents in recent years, an Australian missionary 
and his two sons, aged 7 and 10, were burnt to death five years ago while 
they slept in their vehicle in the eastern province of Orissa.

Their killers doused the vehicle with petrol, lit it and then prevented a 
handful of locals from trying to rescue the trapped trio.

Until his death, Graham Staines had been working with leprosy patients for 32 
years.

Right to religion is a fundamental right under the Indian constitution, which 
confers upon every citizen the right to practice his or her own religion.

However, the issue of conversion has been a topic of lengthy public debate in 
India with some quarters suggesting that it should be constitutionally banned.

RSS spokesman in New Delhi, M.G. Vaidya, said while the organization backed 
Vajpayee's statement, they did not believe it had been intended to cover all 
missionaries.

"It is wrong to say that the prime minister has tarred every missionary with 
the same brush. There are some missionaries who are doing sincere work, and 
they need not worry about the impact of his statement," Vaidya said. 


 

Christian Converts Forced to Return to Hinduism in India

by Abhijeet Prabhu ("Compass Direct Service," August 22, 2001)

BANGALORE, India (Compass) -- Nineteen villagers who recently embraced 
Christianity have been forced to re-convert to Hinduism in the Korua village 
of Kendrapada district in India's Orissa state after undergoing sustained 
social ostracism from their fellow villagers. They are also facing 
prosecution by the district administration for violating provisions of the 
Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA). 

At the re-conversion ceremony, which took place on the evening of July 26, 
the villagers were forced to undergo the ritual of "shuddhikaran" (cleansing 
ceremony) and to pay obeisance to the village deity. The villagers have also 
been ordered to visit the shrine of Puri to fulfill added rituals necessary 
for returning to the Hindu religion, official sources said. 

While one of the converts earlier admitted that there was no other 
alternative but to return to Hinduism if they were to survive, others 
maintained that they took the step voluntarily with the help of their fellow 
villagers. 

Meanwhile, the Kendrapara district administration has started preparing a 
prosecution report against the 19 converts on charges of violating provisions 
of the OFRA, which makes it mandatory for people who want to change their 
religion to inform the district magistrate, who will then have the matter 
examined by police. 

While the police claim that the villagers failed to inform the authorities of 
their desire to convert to Christianity, the All India Christian Council 
(AICC) has maintained that the police were informed. 

The AICC statement alleges that the police have used the Freedom of Religion 
Act selectively against the Christians but not against the Hindu 
fundamentalists who forced them to re-convert. Ironically, conversion from 
Christianity to Hinduism is exempted from the bill. The AICC has also accused 
the district administration of tacitly supporting the re-conversions. 

In February, the Orissa police invoked the same act to prevent a family of 
six tribals from becoming Christians. The Rev. Rameswar Mundu, pastor of a 
local church, was asked by the police to desist from baptizing Karuna Singh 
and five members of his family in Jamabani village for allegedly not 
obtaining the required permit. 

The re-conversion incident took place not far from the area where Australian 
missionary Graham Staines and his family ministered. Staines and his two sons 
were burned alive by Hindu extremists in January 1999. 

Due to periodic delays, only 15 of the 117 witnesses have so far been 
examined in the murder trial of Dara Singh, the prime suspect in the Staines' 
murder. District Judge Mahendranath Patnaik, who is presiding over the case, 
says he cannot prevent the case from being delayed by "some pretext or the 
other." He adjourned the trial until September 3 after a lawyer for two of 
the accused said that they were sick, giving no explanation of their 
illnesses. 

Earlier the judge had said that "no fake illnesses" would be tolerated when 
he postponed the case in July because of the defendant's illnesses. However, 
when Prosecutor Sudhakar Rao urged the court to schedule more hearing days so 
the trial could continue speedily, the judge responded, "What can I do if the 
trial is not being allowed to proceed on some pretext or the other?"

Kashmir women given veil ultimatum

by Altaf Hussain ("BBC News," August 20, 2001)

A little-known militant group in Indian-administered Kashmir has issued a 
fresh warning to women to wear a full veil. 

Lashkar-e-Jabbar has threatened to take action against any woman found 
without a veil after 1 September. 

Most women don't wear the full burqa.

The warning comes despite the fact that other militant groups have condemned 
the use of force against women who do not conform to Islamic dress code. 

Earlier this month, Lashkar-e-Jabbar claimed responsibility for two incidents 
in which acid was thrown at women in downtown Srinagar who were not wearing a 
"burqa" or full veil. 

This brought strong criticism from religious leaders, including the head of 
Jamat-I-Islami, Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, who said Islam did not approve of 
coercion in matters of religion. 

Ordinary people felt relieved after prominent militant groups, including the 
Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toyeba dissociated themselves from the burqa 
campaign. 

Schools guarded 

But Lashkar-e-Jabbar appears to be defiant. It says it has evolved a new 
strategy to enforce the Islamic dress code among women, but has not given 
details. 

Police stepped up patrols after the acid attacks in Srinagar and dozens of 
armed women officers have been guarding girls' schools and colleges. 

On several occasions over the past decade, Muslim militants have used force 
to bring about changes in society. 

Girls wearing tight trousers were shot in the legs. Similar attacks were made 
on cable television operators. 

At one time, the militants also banned the wearing of jeans by men. 

But each time the impact of such campaigns has been short-lived. 

India, Pak violating religious freedom: US Commission

(Rediff, August 18, 2001)

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has dubbed India and 
Pakistan as countries where 'grave violations' of religious freedom persist 
necessitating close monitoring of events. 
In a letter to Secretary of State Collin Powell on Thursday, the commission 
said grave violations of religious freedom continued in India, Pakistan, 
Uzbekistan and Vietnam like the previous year and called upon the state 
department to closely monitor events in those countries. 

But unlike China and eight other countries, which were termed 'countries of 
particular concern', the commission did not specify reasons for labelling 
India in the slot. 

Citing increase in violations of religious freedom in China and Sudan during 
the past year, the commission dubbed them along with seven other countries as 
the 'world's worst religious freedom violators' for US action under the 
'international religious freedom act'. 

The commission criticised China for the crackdown on the Falun Gong group and 
the arrest of 35 members of the Roman Catholic church, while in Sudan it 
found that religion and religious freedom violations were intertwined with 
other human rights and humanitarian abuses. 

Bombay's missionary schools protest assault on priest

by Shiv Kumar ("Rediff," August 13, 2001)

Educational institutions run by the minority Catholic community in Bombay 
were shut on Monday in protest against the assault on a priest last week. 

Activists of the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad, are alleged to have staged the attack on Father Oscar Mendonca at 
Thane. 

Police said the miscreants beat up the priest after they mistook his church 
for a Baptist mission. 

The activists had earlier held a meeting to condemn the murder of four cadres 
of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to which the Bajrang Dal is affiliated, 
in the northeast two years ago. The RSS claims that its cadres were murdered 
at the behest of the Baptists. 

As ordered by Cardinal Ivan Dias, the spiritual head of the Catholics in the 
city, students assembled in their schools for a brief prayer of atonement and 
then dispersed without any classes being held. 

Individual Catholics were also advised to wear black badges at work on Monday 
to express solidarity with the assaulted priest. 

The Cardinal addressed a rally on Sunday evening at Thane's St John's Baptist 
Church where Mendonca was assaulted. He, however, cautioned Catholics against 
retaliating and urged the community to forgive the assailants. The Cardinal 
said the attack was not only aimed at disrupting communal harmony in the 
city, but was a grave violation of human rights. 

Kashmir violence surges before India anniversary

By Sheikh Mushtaq
  

SRINAGAR, India, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Grenade attacks and gun battles in 
disputed Kashmir were reported on Sunday to have killed 29 people before 
India's Independence Day this week. 

Pakistan-based guerrillas fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan territory 
said they had killed 18 Indian soldiers in a pre-dawn attack on an army camp 
in the north of the region. 

There was no Indian confirmation of Saturday's incident, which would be the 
deadliest guerrilla attack in the area since an incursion two years ago that 
brought nuclear-capable neighbours India and Pakistan to the brink of war. 

The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group said in a statement that dozens more Indian 
soldiers were wounded in the attack in the Bunial sector of the strategic 
Kargil heights region. 

In other violence, 11 people including seven rebels and an Indian soldier 
were killed. 

Thousands of Indian troops have thrown a tight security cordon across the 
Himalayan region before Independence Day on Wednesday, whose celebrations 
rebels have targeted in the past. 

An Indian soldier was killed and 15 people were wounded in a grenade 
explosion on Sunday near a crowded bus station at Kupwara town, some 90 km 
(55 miles) northwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. 

In separate gun battles Indian security forces shot dead four militants in 
north Kashmir, a police statement said. 

Elsewhere three militants and three civilians have been killed in different 
shootouts in the troubled region since Saturday night, the statement said. 

Security has also been tightened in New Delhi where police were quoted as 
saying that Kashmiri rebels could target government leaders including Prime 
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in suicide attacks around Independence Day. 

STRIKE ON INDEPENDENCE DAY 

Kashmir's main separatist alliance has called a general strike for Wednesday, 
when India marks the 54th anniversary of its independence from Britain. 

The All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference said the strike was meant as a 
reminder to the world of the Kashmir freedom struggle. 

"Those who have no regard for the aspirations of others, have no right to 
celebrate their freedom," a Hurriyat statement made available to Reuters on 
Sunday said. 

The Hurriyat bands nearly two dozen social, political and religious groups 
seeking self-determination for Muslim-majority Kashmir. 

Muslim rebels have condemned an acid attack on two women in Kashmir last week 
that was allegedly provoked by a breach of an Islamic dress code, newspapers 
in the turbulent region said. 

The separatists blamed the incident on Indian agents seeking to discredit 
their struggle. 

Police say Muslim guerrillas were behind the attack in which the women, who 
were not wearing veils, were sprayed with acid on a busy street in Srinagar. 
They have since left hospital. 

Newspapers in Srinagar on Sunday quoted three major militant groups -- Hizbul 
Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen -- denying involvement 
in the attack. 

More than 30,000 people have died since the revolt in Jammu and Kashmir, 
India's only Muslim-majority state, began in 1989. 

Pakistan denies Indian charges that it backs the revolt but seeks 
self-determination for the Kashmiri people. 

Violence has surged across the Kashmir Valley since a summit between the 
leaders of India and Pakistan last month failed to break the deadlock over 
the dispute. 

Sikh clergy fight aborting girl foetuses
  

CHANDIGARH, India, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Sikh priests launched a campaign on 
Saturday against the increasingly widespread practice in India of aborting 
girl babies in the womb. 

With modern medicine allowing parents to learn the sex of unborn children, 
some Indian families -- traditionally anxious for sons -- are resorting to 
abortion for female foetuses. This year's census showed a sharp drop in the 
number of girls born. 

Some 250 priests gathered at a Sikh shrine in Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab to 
raise awareness against the practice known as female foeticide. The northern 
states of Haryana and Punjab, heartland of the minority Sikh religion, have 
recorded particularly sharp declines in the proportion of female births. 

"We will use the services of priests at various gurudwaras to take the 
message against female foeticide to the grassroots," said Manjit Singh, the 
religious head of Anandpur Sahib temple where the Sikh religion was born. A 
gurudwara is a Sikh temple. 

India's population touched 1,027 million in the census ending in March. But 
for every 1,000 boys up to the age of six, the census showed only 927 girls, 
down from 945 10 years ago. 

Demographers say the use of modern ultrasound imagery techniques to detect 
the sex of unborn babies is behind a sharp drop in the number of girls being 
born in Punjab and Haryana, two of India's most prosperous agrarian states. 

A 1994 ban on using medical tests to determine the sex of foetuses has proved 
hard to enforce. 

In Fatehgarh Sahib where the Sikh priests were meeting, the number of females 
was just 750 per 1,000 males, which a local news agency said was the lowest 
in Punjab. 

India's patriarchal society has traditionally preferred sons to daughters and 
the preference continues to be strong in the country's rural and semi-urban 
areas. 

The Indian Medical Association estimated in January that about five million 
female foetuses were aborted each year purely on the grounds that the 
children would be of the wrong sex.  

Hindu group says proselytisers can expect attacks
  

BOMBAY, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A militant Hindu group said on Friday recent 
attacks on Christian clerics and institutions in India were a reaction to 
conversions of Hindus, and warned that there would be more. 

Police blamed two groups, including the Bajrang Dal, an organisation 
affiliated to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), for an attack on a Catholic priest near Bombay 
earlier this week. 

"Conversions are the root cause of violence," Milind Parande, National 
Co-Convener of Bajrang Dal, told reporters on Friday. 

"If this continues there will be violence... they should expect it," he said, 
adding that the Bajrang Dal was not itself responsible for Monday's attack. 

On the same day in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, a nun survived after 
being shot at point-blank range. 

Christians, who account for just 2.3 percent of India's mainly-Hindu 
population of one billion, and Hindu revivalist groups have been at odds over 
the question of conversions in recent years. 

Tension reached a peak in late 1998-early 1999 when prayer halls were torched 
in the BJP-ruled western state of Gujarat and an Australian missionary and 
his two young sons were burnt to death in their car in the eastern state of 
Orissa. 

"The federal and state government should immediately stop conversions. The 
Hindu society will not take this lying down," Parande said. 

Cardinal Ivan Dias, the Catholic Archbishop of Bombay, condemned the attack 
on the priest as "senseless and barbaric" and asked all Catholic Schools in 
the city's archdiocese to close on Monday as a mark of protest. 

In a statement the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India quoted its secretary 
general, Archbishop Oswald Gracias of Agra, as saying the latest incidents 
were cause for serious concern. 

"I was beginning to think that attacks on Christians were becoming a thing of 
the past, but these attacks on the same day in two different states have sent 
distressing signals to the Christian community in the country," he said. 

Kashmir group demands probe into massacre of Hindus

SRINAGAR, India, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Kashmir's main separatist alliance has 
demanded a probe by an international human rights group into Saturday's 
massacre of 17 Hindu villagers in the strife-torn Himalayan region. 

Indian authorities say suspected separatist Muslim guerrillas are believed to 
have killed 17 Hindu villagers on Saturday in the restive state's Doda 
district. 

The killers abducted 20 Hindus from the town of Atholi and took them to a 
remote area before shooting them. 

"We can not sleep over such unfortunate incidents. We have been demanding 
probe in various massacres by impartial international human rights groups. We 
demand similar probe in this incident," a statement of the All Parties 
Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference said. 

The statement was released late on Saturday evening. 

Indian officials say militants of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group 
could be behind the attack as they are active in the area. 

The Lashkar-e-Taiba issued a statement in the Pakistan-controlled side of 
Kashmir denying their involvement in the massacre. 

"It is the handiwork of criminals. We demand a probe through independent 
agency like Amnesty international. There is no scope for such misadventures 
in Islam," Syed Ali Shah Geelani said. 

Geelani is a former chairman of Hurriyat which bands nearly two dozen social, 
political and religious groups in Kashmir. 

Violence has escalated in the Himalayan region since a summit last month 
between India and Pakistan failed to produce concrete results. 

Nearly 150 people, mostly rebels, have been killed since the summit ended. 
India, which controls 45 percent of Kashmir, accuses Pakistan of arming and 
aiding Muslim separatists in the Muslim-majority state. 

Pakistan, which rules just over a third of the territory, denies this and 
says it gives them only moral and diplomatic support. 

Authorities say more than 30,000 people have been killed in the revolt 
against Indian rule which began in late 1989. 

Separatists put the toll closer to 80,000.  

Indian Spiritual Leader Visits N.Y.

By DUNSTAN PRIAL

The Associated Press (July 11)

NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of people lined up at a college auditorium to get a 

hug from an Indian spiritual leader whose followers say they feel uplifted 
when they embrace her. 

Mata Amritanandamayi, also known as ``Amma,'' or mother, has been known to 
spend as many as 20 hours hugging attendees at her services. 

She is appearing through Wednesday at Columbia University in upper Manhattan 
as part of a 10-week U.S. tour. 

The audience Monday night at Columbia included a broad mix: college students, 

young couples with small children in tow, and a smattering of older 

followers. 

``I can't explain whether it's her individual energy or an energy within the 

group,'' said Zack Kurland, 28, of New York. ``It's an uplifting feeling.'' 

Amritanandamayi was born in the Kerala state of India in 1953. She was 
removed from school at a young age to look after her family and soon began 
watching over others in her village. 

She began her spiritual endeavors as a young woman, encouraging others to 
social service and to express love for others. Later she started a program in 

which people could go to her and receive her blessing - a hug, or darshan. 

After two and a half hours of songs, chants and meditations on Monday, 
Amritanandamayi, seated in the center of a large stage, received her 
devotees. As they approached, the followers fell to their knees and patiently 
waited their turn. 

She greeted each with a warm smile and outstretched arms. Each darshan 
resembled an embrace between two old friends who hadn't seen each other in 
years. Most hugs included a kiss on the cheek, an encouraging whisper in the 
ear, and loving caresses on the back and arms. 

Devotees followed an honor system under which those who had never 
participated in a darshan were allowed to move to the front of the line. 

Organizers said more than 750 people received tokens that allowed them to 
climb on stage and receive a hug. 

In 1993, Amritanandamayi served as president of the Centenary Parliament of 
World Religions in Chicago. In 1995, she was a speaker at the United Nations' 
50th anniversary commemoration. 

Caroline Finnegan, 24, a New Yorker at her first Amritanandamayi service, 
said she was looking forward to what she had heard was a ``powerful and 
loving experience.'' 

``We don't really have too many of those in Manhattan,'' Finnegan said. 

On the Net: 

Ammachi: http://www.ammachi.org/ 

Hindu Minority Seeking Own Homeland

(AP, July 10, 2001)

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- Pinni Suri remembers the scene exactly though 11 
years have passed. Dawn had just broken when two teen-agers knocked on the 
front door of her home in the Kashmir Valley, where her Hindu ancestors had 
lived for centuries among the majority Muslims.

Two minutes later, one of the young men shot Suri's husband in the chest. The 
attackers disappeared into the narrow lanes of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer 
capital. Muslim neighbors, watching from their window, turned away as she 
begged for help.

``They shot dead my husband on Aug. 1, 1990, and I left Srinagar the same 
day. I haven't gone back since,'' said Suri. An uncle of her husband was 
killed weeks later.

It was a time of terrible fear among Kashmiri Pandits, Hindus indigenous to 
the beautiful Himalayan valley. They and Hindu settlers were being killed, 
kidnapped and robbed by Islamic militant groups demanding independence from 
India or to unite with Muslim-majority Pakistan. Between October 1989 and 
August 1990, some 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits fled and live mostly in squalid 
camps in Jammu, Kashmir's winter capital.

Now as India prepares for a three-day summit starting Friday between 
Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the 
Pandits are raising anew their demand for a homeland, which they say must be 
separate because of fears they will be targeted again.

``They wanted to Islamize Kashmir and they wanted us out. It was ethnic 
cleansing,'' said Ramesh Manavati, spokesman for Our Own Kashmir, an 
organization that says it represents more than 700,000 Kashmiri Pandits and 
demands an enclave in the Kashmir Valley.

Thousands of Kashmiri Pandits say they feel forsaken by their government, 
which failed to protect them and their property.

``We are the forgotten ones, refugees in our own country,'' Manavati said.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella group of Islamic and political 
parties that claims to speak for Kashmir, says the Pandits are welcome back, 
but a separate Pandit homeland is unacceptable. Kashmir is for all Kashmiris, 
says the group, which favors separation of the region from India.

``The Hurriyat is not in favor of division along communal (religious) 
lines,'' said Hurriyat spokesman Abdul Majid Banday.

The Hurriyat has outraged the Pandits by saying that the stories of killings 
and intimidation were exaggerated and that the Pandit exodus was part of a 
government strategy to show the separatist movement in a bad light.

Those who fled said the militants' method was to kill one and terrorize 
hundreds. Mosques blared warnings to Hindus, telling ``infidels'' to leave. 
Graffiti on walls said the valley was reserved for ``the faithful.''

Hindus who remained behind continue to live in fear. According to statistics 
compiled by The Associated Press, nearly 400 Hindus have been killed in 33 
separate attacks in the past eight years. Many have been pulled out of buses 
and shot at close range.

India accuses Islamic Pakistan of arming the Kashmir militants. Pakistan 
denies the charge, saying its support is only political. But most militant 
groups in Kashmir are based in Pakistan and run training camps for fighters 
under the eyes of Pakistan's government.

According to the latest census completed in February, Kashmir has 6.2 million 
Muslims and 3.4 million Hindus, including 500,000 Kashmiri Pandits, as well 
as 300,000 Sikhs and 100,000 Buddhists.

The displaced Hindus live safe but squalid lives in several large camps in 
Jammu, which is in the foothills of the Himalayas and has a Hindu majority. 
Extended families live in single rooms, with leaky roofs, poor ventilation 
and no toilets.

``What is here? Nothing. Mosquito bites and fear of snakes,'' said 
65-year-old Lakshmanjoo, who uses only one name. He has been sharing a room 
with 10 other family members since they fled 11 years ago.

``My valley is beautiful.''

"Hit List" Of Christian Evangelists On Hindu Extremist Website

(Compass Direct News Service, July 9, 2001)

INDIA - (Compass, July 9, 2001) - A militant Hindu hate website displaying 
the names of international evangelists, secular and Christian scholars from 
India, and other "enemies of Hinduism" on its "hit-list" was back on-line 
after it was salvaged by a radical Jewish organization in Brooklyn, New York. 
The website calls on militant Hindus to commit violence against the men and 
women listed.

Earlier in June, its service provider, Addr.com of Greenwood Village, 
Colorado, had pulled the plug on "hinduunity.org" after receiving complaints 
that it instigated violence and hatred towards Muslims and Christians.

The Hatikva Jewish Identity Center intervened and helped put the website back 
on the Internet. The Hindu website is advertised as the official site of the 
Bajrang Dal, the militant wing of the Sangh Parivar (Pro-Hindu Family) whose 
members have been accused of the gruesome January 1999 killing of Australian 
missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons in India. 

The website's hit-list page (hinduunity.org/hitlist.html) opens with an image 
of lynching and goes on to display a graphic of blood dripping below the 
caption, "Enemies of Hindutva Exposed." 

It then lists well-known evangelists like Benny Hinn, who is described as Òa 
Baptist evangelist who goes to countries around the world, especially those 
with large Hindu populations and preaches about "the evil of Hindus and 
Hinduism." It goes on to exhort all self-respecting Hindu soldiers "to stop 
his gathering by all means possible." 

Pat Robertson "cannot be forgiven nor can his speeches be forgotten. He is 
truly a devil out to destroy something as pure as Hinduism," the site says.

Even a highly respected secular Indian historian is not spared. Romila Thapar 
is mentioned for her "crime" of "distorting the true history of India." 

Fr. Vincent Kunudukulam's "crime," according to the site, is his doctoral 
dissertation from Paris's Sorbonne University:  ("What is RSS? Where is it headed?). 

This priest from the St. Thomas Pontifical Seminary in Kerala is called 

"scum of the earth (who) needs an attitude adjustment."

The Jewish extremists who resurrected the site are followers of Rabbi David 
Kahane, the assassinated Israeli politician whose teachings advocated the 
expulsion of all Arabs from Israel, most of whom are Muslim. Their 
headquarters in Brooklyn was raided in January by the FBI. The Kahane Jews 
believe that all Jews belong in Israel, making any Jew in the United States a 
temporary resident. 

Their website (kahane.org) also has hinduunity.org on its list of "Friendly 
Websites."

Meanwhile, there is growing concern over the alliance between the militant 
Hindus and radical Jews whose common hatred of Muslims bring them together. 
Some of the Hindus are reported to have marched alongside the radical Jews in 
the annual "Salute to Israel" parade on New York's Fifth Avenue in May. In 
June, the radical Jewish organization reciprocated by joining a protest 
outside the United Nations against the treatment of Hindus in Afghanistan.

Unhappy With the State They're In"
Across India, Separatist Groups Are Seeking New Governmental Units 

by Rama Lakshmi ("Washington Post," July 8, 2001) 

MUZAFFARNAGAR, India -- Brij Pal Choudhury, a muscular, 57-year-old farmer in 
the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,is proud of his shimmering green 
fields of sugar cane. This has been a good year for Choudhury -- in fact, a 
good decade. His crops are thriving and there is plenty of food for his 
family.

But despite the veneer of affluence, Choudhury joined about 50,000 farmers 
late last month for a protest rally near this village in western Uttar 
Pradesh. These farmers, who are among the most successful in this fertile 
region, say they no longer want to be part of a state that is poor and 
backward. They want a separate state of their own.

"We have done very well in agriculture, but we don't want to be lumped in 
with a poor state anymore," said Choudhury, perched on his tractor, its 
engine spewing diesel fumes. "We want our own state so that we are not 
dragged down by the other pockets of poverty."

Uttar Pradesh is not the only place where Indians are unhappy with the way 
their state boundaries have been drawn. As India struggles to manage the 
broad diversity and deep poverty of its 1 billion people, it seems to be 
imploding in many places. There are at least 10 revolts across the country to 
break existing states into smaller ones that better suit the ethnic and 
economic demands of the inhabitants.

India, with nearly four times as many people as the United States and at 
least 15 languages, has only 28 states. Soon after independence in 1947, 
India created 16 states along linguistic lines, and added more in the 1960s 
and '70s. Last year, three states -- Uttaranchal, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh 
-- were created in response to the demands from local people. 

"The door is now open for many more [new states]," said Sansuma 
Bwiswmuthiary, a member of Parliament and president of the Indian National 
Front for Smaller States. Bwiswmuthiary, an ethnic Bodo, wants a separate 
state, Bodoland, for his people in India's northeast.

"Widespread and simmering discontent among people about skewed development 
and inequity finds expression in different ways," said Zoya Hasan, a 
professor of politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "Asking 
for a separate state of their own is one. Some assert that they are a 
different ethnic group, and others say smaller states are easier to govern. 
But a deep sense of neglect and economic marginalization is at the heart of 
it all."

In at least 10 pockets across India, groups are asking for new states on the 
basis of their ethnic identity, economic neglect and underdevelopment, or the 
lack of efficient management in large states. For example, the southern state 
of Andhra Pradesh, known more for software development and its government's 
embrace of the Internet, is facing a revolt in the underdeveloped region of 
Telengana.

In Uttar Pradesh, the push for separatism comes from the other end of the 
economic spectrum. The prosperous farmers want a new state called Harit 
Pradesh, or Green Land, because they don't want to be burdened by less 
advanced neighbors. Uttar Pradesh, with more than 160 million people, is also 
seen as an administrative nightmare and may be chopped in three.

But not everybody agrees that Indian states must be endlessly broken down.

"Small is beautiful, but is it also viable?" asked Prithviraj Chavan, a 
politician from the western state of Maharashtra, which also faces a demand 
to be cut up. Chavan contends that some of the newly formed states are not 
self-sufficient and need a lot of propping up from the national government.

The new state of Uttaranchal is facing a fiscal crunch. In an already 
beleaguered economy, the cost of establishing a new judiciary, executive, 
bureaucracy and infrastructure is immense.

Creating a state does not always mean creating opportunities. In some cases, 
it merely replicates the old model of neglect and top-down governance on a 
smaller scale.

In Jharkhand, an eastern state rich in minerals, the euphoria of last year's 
victory for the indigenous tribal people has already given way to 
disillusionment among the leaders of what was a 40-year struggle for 
statehood.

"All the top jobs have been cornered by non-Jharkandis. This is what we 
fought against for so long," said Prabhakar Tirky, president of the All 
Jharkhand Students Union. "Our tribal languages have not been introduced in 
the school curriculum yet. There is no move to declare holidays for tribal 
festivals. Where is that pride we dreamt of?"

Critics fear that the constant clamor for new states, based on development 
needs or ethnic identity, is a slippery slope.

"Can we go on creating new states based on real or imaginary identities and 
grievances? It may be difficult to stop this process," said Hasan, the 
university professor.

But for the farmers of western Uttar Pradesh, the demand for Harit Pradesh is 
a battle cry.

"Without the new state, our future is in the dark," said local politician 
Ajit Singh. "We will redraw our state with the farmers' sweat and blood."

Orissa district tense over conversion of Dalits to Christianity

("India Express," July 8, 2001)

India's eastern Orissa state which lapped newspaper headlines with the 
shocking murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor 
sons, is again on broadsheet over reports of 18 Hindus converting to 
Christianity in the state's Kendrapara district last week.

This has set off the debate on conversions afresh even as tensions prevailed 
in Korua-Damasahi village after villagers heard about the incident, which was 
allegedly undertaken in two phases in the past week.

Top police and district officials rushed to the village to ascertain if it 
was a voluntary act or had occurred under duress.

The Kendrapara district Sub-collector Madan Mohan Deo who was probing the 
incident on Sunday however ruled out any compulsion, inducement or pressure 
behind the conversion of 18 Dalits (lower caste Hindus) to Christianity.

According to Mr. Deo, all the 18 converted Christians had told the 
investigating team that they had embraced Christianity voluntarily.

However they had failed to obtain prior permission of the district collector 
as required under the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, (OFRA) he said.

On being questioned by the probe panel as to why they had not sought the 
permission of the collector, the new converts revealed '' We were not aware 
of the law'', Mr. Deo stated.

The Sub-Collector said he had already submitted a report regarding this to 
the district collector and the latter would take a decision as per the law.

Under the provisions of the OFRA, It was the Collector's prerogative to grant 
permission for conversion if he was satisfied with the circumstances under 
which it was taking place. 

According to reports from the Kendrapara district about 18 Dalits (registered 
under Scheduled Castes) of the Korua-Damasahi village had converted to 
Christianity in two phases in the first week of June.

While 14 people embraced Christianity on July 1 at a church at Paradeep, four 
others changed their faith at a function held on July 4 at a church near 
Ghanagolia, close to the village, the Sub-collector said. 

1,000 lower-caste Hindus convert to Christianity in India

(AFP, June 30, 2001)

NEW DELHI, June 30 (AFP) - Around 1,000 lower-caste Hindus in southern India
have converted to Christianity after alleging ill-treatment at the hands of
upper castes, a news report said Saturday.

The group, comprising members of over 200 families from the state of Tamil
Nadu, said they had been "humiliated and harassed" by upper caste Hindus for
the past 10 years, the Press Trust of India reported.

They were not allowed to participate in temple ceremonies or other functions,
despite repeated representations to the local authorities, one of the new
converts said.

The conversions took place on Friday at a simple religious function organised
by a priest.

Indian pilgrims set off for Himalayas amid security
 
JAMMU, India (Reuters) - About 3,000 Hindu devotees set off on an annual
pilgrimage in the Kashmir Himalayas on Monday amid tight security because of
an upsurge of separatist violence in the region.

Last year, 22 pilgrims were killed by suspected Islamic guerrillas at the
base camp that leads to the Amarnath shrine.

Officials said more than 110,000 people had registered for the pilgrimage to
the Amarnath cave shrine, believed to be the abode of the Hindu god Shiva, or
the god of destruction and regeneration.

"We have taken all precautionary measures to ensure a smooth flow of pilgrims
in our region," the divisional commissioner of Jammu, Anil Goswami, told
Reuters.

Officials said security forces had been deployed at vantage points for the
pilgrimage which was flagged off by Sakina Itoo, junior minister of tourism
in Kashmir, amid the chanting of hymns and shouting of religious slogans.

Authorities are taking no chances this year because violence in the disputed
Himalayan region has increased since India called off a cease-fire in Kashmir
more than a month ago.

During the month-long pilgrimage, devout Hindus walk and ride ponies or
palanquins to the cave -- situated at an altitude of 13,500 feet -- where the
ice stalagmites which form each year are worshipped as a symbol of Shiva.

The pilgrims cross a 217-mile route that runs through forests and mountains
before reaching the cave. The route includes a slippery 29-mile trek from the
base camp at Pahalgam, which passes through streams swelled by monsoon rains,
glacier-fed lakes and snow-clad peaks.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only
Muslim-majority state, since the start of the rebellion nearly 11 years ago.

India frequently accuses Pakistan of backing Muslim guerrillas fighting New
Delhi's rule in the state. Islamabad denies the accusation, saying it only
provides moral and diplomatic support to the separatists.

Kashmir has been the cause of two of three wars between the nuclear-capable
neighbors since their independence from Britain in 1947.

The leaders of both countries are due to meet in Agra, India, later this
month for a summit at which Kashmir is expected to be the dominant theme.

Religious festival draws Hindus and Muslims

(BBC, June 28, 2001)

About a hundred thousand Hindus and Muslims have gathered for a week-long 
religious festival on the border between Pakistan and India. 
The pilgrims are celebrating the life of a holy man Baba Daleep Singh Manhas, 
who lived 300 years ago and is revered by both Hindus and Muslims. 

An Indian paramilitary force that organises the festival every year said many 
more people have gathered at the shrine at Baba Chamliyal than for some time. 

A BBC correspondent says the mood is especially jubilant this year with 
enthusiasm about the forthcoming summit meeting between India and Pakistan. 

Pakistanis have been crossing the border to visit the site since partition in 
1947, stopping only during the with India in 1965. 

Christian Churches In India's Northeast Seek Protection

(AP, May 31, 2001)

GAUHATI, India (AP)--Christian leaders in remote northeastern India Thursday 
sought government protection for the lives and property of religious 
minorities after mounting attacks by armed separatist rebels, church leaders 
said. 
"The Indian government must ensure a peaceful and secure environment by 
preserving the sanctity of all religious and educational institutions," the 
Nagaland Christian Forum, a church group, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister 
Atal Bihari Vajpayee. 

During the past week, more than 20,000 people participated in rallies across 
Nagaland state to protest the killing of three Roman Catholic priests by 
militants in neighboring Manipur state earlier this month. 

"Christians are under threat in India. The killings are a pointer to this," 
Father T. T. Joseph, a spokesman of the Don Bosco Society, a Christian 
organization, said by telephone from Kohima, Nagaland's capital. 

The Roman Catholic church in the region is considering closing several 
schools that it runs in Manipur following extortion threats by guerrilla 
groups. 

Separatist rebels have asked the Church to pay large sums of money as 
"taxes." The Church has turned down the demand, saying it doesn't have the 
money. 

Guerrillas in India's northeast commonly demand extortion money from tea 
garden owners, rich industrialists and reportedly even government officials. 

Separatist rebels in the northeast have killed at least six Christian 
missionaries, mostly teachers, over the last five years. 

"We cannot go on risking the lives of our priests and teachers," said George 
Plathottam, director of Don Bosco Communications in northeastern India. 

There are at least two dozen separatist guerrilla groups in northeastern 
India demanding greater autonomy or secession from India. They accuse the 
federal government of exploiting the region's rich oil and mineral resources 
while neglecting the local economy. 

Meanwhile, a leading Hindu monastic sect in the region has accused Christian 
missionaries of forcefully converting poor people to Christianity and aiding 
separatist insurgency in the region. 

"Christian missionaries are luring people to their fold with money. Some 
Church leaders are also responsible for aiding and abetting insurgency in 
northeastern India," said sect leader Naryandeba Goswami. 

The sect has created a fund of 10 million rupees ($1=INR47.00) to counter the 
efforts of the Christian missionaries to convert the poor, Goswami said. 

The Church denies charges of forceful conversions and aiding militancy. 

"We are as patriotic as anybody. We can never indulge in anything that can be 
detrimental to India's sovereignty and integrity," Plathottam said. 

India Says It Would Shelter Fleeing Afghan Minorities

(Reuters, May 28, 2001)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said Monday that it would provide shelter to 
minorities from Afghanistan if they fled from the austere vision of Islam 
being implemented by the country's Taliban rulers.

External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh told a news conference that India and 
the international community were ''deeply troubled'' by the Taliban's plan to 
force Hindus to wear identifying yellow badges.

The Taliban say they are attempting to protect the estimated 1,700 Hindus 
from the religious police, who impose rules on Muslim Afghans, such as 
herding them to the mosque for prayers.

Singh said India had accepted a large number of Afghan nationals over the 
years and stood ready to accept minorities who did not want to subscribe to 
Taliban decrees.

``India will certainly provide them full shelter,'' he said.

The minister said the creation of the Taliban was ``one of the most terrible 
legacies of the ending years of the Cold War.''

Afghan opposition outraged at Taliban over Hindus
  

ISLAMABAD, May 25 (Reuters) - The Afghan opposition alliance on Friday joined 
an international chorus of condemnation of the Islamic Taliban for ordering 
the country's Hindu minority to wear yellow badges to identify themselves. 

The Taliban's ruling, made earlier this week, has evoked memories of Nazi 
Germany when Jews were forced to wear yellow stars. 

"We protest against this and condemn it strongly. Islamic laws have given 
freedom to the religious minorities and that should be observed," Mohammad 
Asim Sohail, an anti-Taliban spokesman, said by a satellite phone from an 
opposition enclave in the northeast of the country. 

Sohail said the order was part of a move initiated by Taliban's supporter 
Pakistan in order to fan religious hatred and discord in Afghanistan and its 
arch-rival India where Hindus are a majority. 

"By such deeds through the Taliban, Pakistan wants to stir religious war 
between Hindus and Muslims living in India," Asim told reporters from 
northeastern Afghanistan, which is controlled by commander Ahmad Shah Masood, 
who was ousted by the Taliban in 1996. 

Sohail said the destruction of Buddha statues three months ago by the Taliban 
despite an international outcry was a similar attempt that inflamed the world 
and led to the burning of some copies of Koran in India, causing Hindu-Muslim 
tensions there. 

"Muslims and Hindus have lived for centuries in relative harmony in India and 
probably Islamabad wants to give a blow to its arch rival by such means for 
creating instability in India," he added. 

The Taliban say they are attempting to protect the estimated 1,700 Hindus -- 
by telling them to wear the yellow badges as an identity -- from its 
religious police which imposes rules on Muslim Afghans, such as herding them 
to the mosques for prayers. 

The Taliban have also termed the international outcry as an interference in 
the internal affairs of Afghanistan. 

Some Hindus living in Afghanistan have protested against the decision, but 
some others say they will follow the order and that the Taliban have not 
interfered in their religious rituals or traditions. 

Hindu representatives said on Friday they had not yet worn the badges and 
would discuss the issue with Taliban's religious police, the powerful Taliban 
organ which directly acts under the orders of its reclusive leader, Mullah 
Mohammad Omar. 

Hindu Temple Plan Sparks Anger

By ARCHANA MISHRA

The Associated Press (May 20)
  

BHUBANESWAR, India (AP) - A right-wing Hindu group said Sunday it would begin 
building a temple next year on the site of a mosque razed by zealots, defying 
government officials who oppose the plan. 

The World Hindu Council, an affiliate of Prime Minister Atal Bihari 
Vajpayee's party, said it would begin constructing a temple to Ram, 
Hinduism's leading deity, by early 2002. Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, 
also from Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party, said last week he would not let 
that happen. 

Advani is one of three Cabinet ministers accused of inciting the crowds that 
razed the ancient Babri mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya on Dec. 6, 
1992, leading to clashes between Hindus and Muslims in which 2,000 people 
died. 

The destruction was the climax of a campaign by Hindu nationalists who argued 
that the mosque was built in the 16th century by Mogul ruler Babur after 
destroying a Hindu temple. The site is the birthplace of one of Hinduism's 
most revered deities. 

India's supreme court is now hearing a string of petitions on the rival 
claims. A criminal court case over the mosque's destruction is still pending 
in Uttar Pradesh, 350 miles east of New Delhi. 

Giriraj Kishore, the Hindu group's vice president, said the construction 
material for the ground floor of the proposed temple was ready, and workmen 
were already making tiles and carvings for the other stories of the building. 

India's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the pro-Hindu 
movement insists that India is a Hindu nation. It has sought to outlaw 
conversions and Christian proselytizing, and has demanded the repeal of laws 
that protect Muslim marriage. 

Label Rule Saddens Afghan Hindus

By AMIR SHAH
The Associated Press (May 19)
  

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghan Hindus expressed dismay and sadness 
Wednesday at new requirements from the Taliban leadership that they wear a 
yellow piece of cloth on their shirt pockets to set them apart from Muslims. 

``Who knows who is close to God?'' asked Gandar, a 32-year-old Hindu pharmacy 
owner in the Afghan capital Kabul. ``We feel part of the same body, the same 
house, the same room, like a family ... Why should we have a mark?'' 

The Taliban, who control 95 percent of this drought-stricken, war-torn nation 
of 21 million people, defended their ruling Wednesday. They insisted it was 
meant to protect Hindus from religious police who patrol the streets 
enforcing the Taliban's version of Islamic law. 

``This is not any kind of discrimination,'' said Mohammed Suhail Shaheen, 
deputy head of the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan. ``They (the Hindus) can carry 
out their rituals as before ... They will enjoy full rights.'' 

Muslim men - required by the Taliban to keep their beards - sometimes claim 
they're Hindu if arrested for shaving, Shaheen said. Conversely, clean-shaven 
Hindus are sometimes arrested erroneously, he added. 

The new order also requires Hindu women for the first time to cover 
themselves head-to-toe in a garment called a burqa, just as Muslim women have 
been forced to do in Afghanistan. 

The plan - reminiscent of a Nazi policy in the 1930s and 40s that required 
European Jews to wear yellow Stars of David - has been criticized 
internationally as a human rights violation. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan appealed to the Taliban to reject the decision, his spokesman said. 

Hindus in Afghanistan have not been the target of persecution and have 
generally been allowed to practice their religion freely. However, over 
decades of war, the number of Hindus has dwindled from a high of about 50,000 
during the 1970s to 500 in the capital and small pockets elsewhere. 

The new restrictions make many Hindus feel dangerously singled out. 

``We don't feel safe with this,'' said Balbir, a Hindu spice dealer in Kabul. 
He said the mark could cause ``security problems'' for him when he travels to 
the countryside. 

``This is discrimination. We are Afghans. I was born in Afghanistan. We gave 
our sons to the army to fight. We prayed for the dead together with our 
Muslim brothers,'' said Balbir, who like many Afghans goes by one name. 

Moon Singh, 18-year-old Sikh shopowner, supported the new measure. 
``Sometimes the religious police beat them (the Hindus) and say 'Why aren't 
you in the mosque praying' because they look like Muslims,'' he said. 

Afghanistan's Sikhs and Hindus are closely linked, sharing temples in the 
capital. Sikh men are not subject to the new ruling because their style of 
turbans and beards makes them easily distinguishable from Muslims. 

The ruling was initially approved by Afghanistan's senior council of Islamic 
scholars, or ulema. 

The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which runs 
the religious police, then specified that the label should be a yellow cloth, 
said Abdul Annan Himat, head of the Taliban's Bakhtar news agency. 

The head of the religious police, Mohammed Wali, told the AP on Tuesday that 
the plan would be implemented soon. 

The decision outraged Hindu-dominated India. ``We believe such edicts have no 
place in civilized society,'' Raminder Jassal, an Indian Foreign Ministry 
spokesman, said Wednesday. 

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the requirement would be a ``grave violation 
of human rights and recall some of the most deplorable acts of discrimination 
in history.'' 

In Jerusalem, Israel legislator Michael Kleiner of the right-wing Herut party 
said Taliban's decision to force Hindus to wear yellow badges goes against 
freedom of religion and is reminiscent of Nazi discrimination in the 1930s. 
Kleiner does not belong to Ariel Sharon's government coalition. 

``The Israeli Knesset (parliament) must make its voice heard in protest and 
take steps in the United Nations to return sanity to the Muslim world,'' 
Kleiner said. ``The suffering of the Hindus in Afghanistan is an issue for 
all Jews and the whole world.'' 

U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the requirement ``the 
latest in a long list of outrageous oppressions'' by the Taliban. And 
Russia's Foreign Ministry said the ruling is ``contrary to recognized 
universal, including Islamic, values.'' 

Most of the Islamic world has differed with the Taliban's narrow 
interpretation of Islam and say the militia is tarnishing Islam's image. 

The Taliban provoked an international outcry in March by destroying Buddha 
statues they said were forbidden by Islam. Last week, members of the 
religious police closed down an Italian-funded hospital used for treating war 
victims and beat its staff, accusing it of violating Islamic law by allowing 
men and women to eat together. 

Catholic group may shut schools in India's Manipur
  

GUWAHATI, India, May 19 (Reuters) - A Christian organisation said on Saturday 
it was considering closing down its schools in India's northeastern Manipur 
state following killings and extortion threats from separatist rebels. 

"We don't rule out closing Catholic schools in Manipur," Father George 
Plathottam, director of Don Bosco Communications, told a news conference in 
Guwahati, one of the main cities in northeastern India. 

"The situation in Manipur is most critical and (we) just can't continue to 
risk our people to militant attacks," he said. 

Don Bosco organisation, which runs schools in Manipur, has lost five of its 
personnel in rebel attacks in the past six months. The last was on Wednesday 
when militants shot dead three Catholic priests. 

Police said the killings were because the priests had refused to pay 
extortion money and were unrelated to a spate of violence against the 
country's minority Christians in recent years. 

Christians, who account for barely two percent of India's billion-plus 
population, and Hindu activists have been at odds over the issue of religious 
conversions. 

India's Vajpayee defends ban on Muslim sect
  

TRIVANDRUM, India, May 7 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari 
Vajpayee on Monday defended his government's ban on the Muslim group Deendar 
Anjuman over its alleged harbouring of militants who bombed churches. 

Addressing a public meeting before provincial elections in Trivandrum, 
capital of the southern state of Kerala, Vajpayee did not name Deendar 
Anjuman but said the purpose of the Pakistan-based sect was to foment 
inter-religious violence. 

"It was clear that the aim was to engineer fighting between Christianity and 
other religions," Vajpayee said. 

The Indian government last week banned Deendar Anjuman, saying it was 
responsible for a spate of bomb blasts in churches in the south of India last 
year. 

Deendar Anjuman has termed the government decision "unilateral and unjust" 
and said it would challenge it "in an appropriate forum." 

Police in Hyderabad  sealed the main office of Deendar Anjuman in the 
southern Indian city after the ban was imposed. 

Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is accused by critics of 
links to right-wing Hindu organisations that preach against religious 
conversions by Christian missionaries. 

The Vajpayee government denies charges of religious bias and says all 
minorities are treated equally. 

Vajpayee said he wanted to assure minorities that they were safe under his 
coalition government. 

Indian Muslim group says to challenge govt ban
  

HYDERABAD, India, May 4 (Reuters) - An Indian Muslim sect held responsible 
for a spate of bomb blasts in Christian churches will challenge a government 
decision last week to ban the group, its secretary said on Friday. 

Deendar Anjuman, which is based in the southern city of Hyderabad, will 
challenge the ban "in an appropriate forum," Syed Siddique Hussain told 
Reuters, without elaborating. 

"The union (federal) government has taken a unilateral, unjust and hasty 
decision to impose a ban on our organisation. It is patently improper and 
unnecessary," Siddique said. 

He said the decision to ban the group had come abruptly and was one-sided as 
the trial of those charged with causing the bomb blasts had not begun. 

"We are peace-loving people and have nothing to do with anti-national 
elements. We consider dabbling in politics as a crime and raising a revolt 
against the country as the greatest sin," Siddique said. 

The Indian government said on Thursday it had issued orders last week banning 
Deendar Anjuman, held responsible for a spate of bomb blasts in churches in 
the south of India last year. 

The government had said that Deendar Anjuman was declared an "unlawful 
organisation," had links with Pakistan and was indulging in activities 
prejudicial to the security of the country. The outfit was also charged with 
attempting to incite hatred between Christians and Hindus and other 
communities. 

The Muslim group, which India says is headed by a Pakistani national, was 
blamed for 12 bomb blasts in southern India between May 21 and July 9, 
injuring 24 people. 

Deendar Anjuman denied involvement in the attacks. 

Conversion of 6 tribals to Christianity put off

 
("Times of India," Feb. 23, 2001)

BALASORE: In the first instance of its kind since the amendment to the Orissa 
Freedom of Religion Act in 1999, conversion of six tribals to Christianity 
was put off recently in Balasore district as police investigation into the 
causes leading to their conversion was yet to be completed, official sources 
said. 

Police had stopped Channa Singh, a tribal of Jamabani village, and five 
others of his family from embracing Christianity on the ground that the 
investigation into the causes leading to their conversion was not yet 
complete, the sources said. 

As per the amended law, a person intending to change his or her religious 
faith and the priest involved has to inform about it to the district 
collector in a prescribed form. 

The collector would then ask the police to investigate the matter and report 
to him. If he is satisfied with the reasons for which the person intended to 
convert, permission would be granted for it. 

The sources said the pastor of the Gel church at Kaptipada, Rev Rameswar 
Mundu and the six tribals had applied to the collector for permission to 
convert in the first week of this month. 

But when they decided to go ahead with the ceremony on February 20 in the 
village, the police intervened saying the investigation into the matter was 
not yet complete and asked them to postpone the function, they said. 

The pastor and the tribals heeded the police advice and cancelled the 
ceremony, they said.

Official sources said the balasore district units of the Viswa Hindu Parishad 
(VHP) and Bajrang Dal had filed a petition before the collector on February 1 
last requesting him not to accord permission to the proposed conversion of 
the tribals. 

The amendments made to the OFR Act of 1967 has been protested by Christians 
in the state with some of them challenging its validity in the Orissa High 
Court on the ground that it violated the spirit of the Constitution which 
allowed citizens to profess any faith which they wanted to embrace. 

The matter is presently pending before the court. 

The issue was also raised before the National Commission for Minorities, now 
on a tour of Orissa. The chairman of the commission, Justice Mohammed Shamim, 
said that they had drawn the attention of the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik 
to the amendment made to the clause. 

Prior to the amendment made to the act, a person was only required to inform 
the district administration about his or her intention to convert into 
another faith. 

The controversy over alleged conversion by Christian preachers and 
missionaries has been raging for quite some time in orissa which witnessed 
the macabre killing of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his 
two minor sons on January 22, 1999. (PTI)

VHP against relief work by missionaries

("The Tribune," February 22, 2001)

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) will not allow the Christian missionaries to 
distribute relief materials among the quake victims in Gujarat. If the 
missionaries want to help the needy they should contribute to the Prime 
Ministers Relief Fund rather than directly distributing the relief among 
those affected.

This was stated by Mr Vinayak Rao Deshmukh, organising secretary of the 
central committee of the VHP, while talking to mediapersons at Nangal 
yesterday evening. He was here to hold a meeting with the local units of the 
VHP.

Justifying the tough stand of the VHP, Mr Deshmukh alleged that Christian 
missionaries aim was to convert people in the guise of the relief work. 
Earlier, after carrying out the relief work in the quake hit areas of Latur 
the missionaries started distributing propaganda material among the people 
which led to the communal tensions. Thus, the VHP has now decided to stop 
missionaries from directly distributing the relief among the victims. The VHP 
was carrying out the relief operations on large scale and there was no need 
for help from the Christian missionaries, he said.

He also refuted the allegations that the VHP was neglecting certain 
communities during its relief operations in Gujarat. Answering a query on the 
Ram temple issue, he said that the decision regarding it had already been 
taken in the "dhram sansad" held on January 19-20. A phased programme has 
been formed to spread awareness and motivate the people for the construction 
of the temple. The government would also be pressurised to hand over the 70 
acres disputed land to the Ram Janmabhumi trust. If the government fails to 
do so the VHP would start the construction of the temple from March 2002, he 
said. He also told that the VHP was planning to expand its base throughout 
the country.

India's Hindu mega-festival turnout nears 100 mln
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Feb 21 (Reuters) -India's Maha Kumbh Mela Hindu festival, 
billed as the world's largest gathering, wound down on Wednesday, with the 
organisers saying almost 100 million pilgrims had taken dip in the holy 
Ganges river since it began. 

The figure, announced on the final day of the Grand Pitcher Festival as the 
sin-cleansing pilgrimage is also known, was more than the 70 million pilgrims 
expected when the event began on January 9. 

But even though an estimated one million pilgrims turned out to bathe early 
on Wednesday, parts of the site, particularly a sprawling tented township 
built specially to house pilgrims, looked deserted. 

"In all nearly 100 million people have bathed over the 42 days of the mela," 
Jeevesh Nandan, officer in charge of the ancient festival held once every 12 
years, told Reuters. 

The peak of the festival in the holy city of Allahabad at the confluence of 
the Ganges, the Yamuna and a mythical third river was on January 24 when an 
estimated 30 million pilgrims bathed in the river. 

Nandan said that a mere one million people filed into the Ganges to bathe 
early on Wednesday, which coincided with the Hindu festival of Shivratri. He 
expected the figure to rise to about three million by the end of the day. 

Hindus believe a dip at the Sangam or holy confluence absolves them of sin, 
ends a cycle of reincarnation and speeds the way to the afterlife. They also 
believe the Sangam is one of four places where the gods spilt a drop of the 
elixir of immortality. 

FOCUS OF FESTIVITIES SHIFTS 

Officials said the rush of pilgrims had eased because the focus of 
festivities had shifted to the holy town of Benares, which has one of the 
most sacred temples dedicated to the Hindu god, Shiva. 

"It is not unusual for crowds to thin toward the end of the mela, 
particularly after the 'shahi snans' (royal baths) are over and the 'akharas' 
(monastic orders) depart," said P.K. Asthana, a former government official 
who organised many past festivals. 

Most of the holy men -- including the ash-smeared naked Naga Babas who led a 
flood of pilgrims to the Sangam -- left the festival more than two weeks ago. 

The tented township, specially set up for the festival that some dubbed a 
spiritual Woodstock, was completely deserted on Wednesday except for the odd 
straggler. 

The festival's fervour began to fade after the last major bathing ceremony on 
February 8 which went off without any of the noisy and colourful processions 
of sadhus or wandering holy men that marked the five earlier auspicious days. 

Pilgrims who turned out on Wednesday said they chose to come at the end of 
the festival to avoid the milling crowds and the crush of security men in the 
area. 

"Initially, we were keen to come towards the begining of the mela," said 
Ramesh Lenka, a shopkeeper who travelled from the eastern state of Orissa 
with 45 people. 

"But soon we realised that it would be much better and more meaningful to 
take our dip in peace towards the end now." 

Several foreign tourists, who travelled to the site hoping to catch a glimpse 
of the festival's unique atmosphere, expressed disappointment. 

"If I had known this is what it would be like, I would not have come at this 
time. The mela is surely over and there is nothing much to see now," said an 
Italian named Antonio. 

Hindu Festival Ends in India

By LAURINDA KEYS
.(Associated Press, Feb. 21, 2001)
  

NEW DELHI, India (AP) - Hundreds of thousands of Hindus took a holy dip in 
the Ganges River on Wednesday on the last bathing day of the Kumbh Mela, the 
world's largest religious gathering that organizers said attracted more than 
100 million people. 

Confirming the figure is impossible, since there was no way to count the 
streams of people who came by foot, train, bus, ox cart or camel to the 
43-day festival. 

But it was easier to count the cash. Organizers say the festival pumped some 
$430 million into the economy of the city of Allahabad, 360 miles southeast 
of New Delhi. 

The festival began on Jan. 9 with 4.5 million people bathing in the waters at 
the confluence of the sacred Ganges and Yamuna Rivers and the Saraswati, a 
mythical river that Hindus believe flows through the site. 

The last of the six royal bathing days was held quietly Wednesday, with 
150,000 pilgrims bathing in the morning, according festival administrator 
Jivesh Nandan. He estimated the total for the day would be about 400,000, as 
preparations began to dismantle the makeshift 18-mile radius tent city. 

Throughout the year, Hindu devotees will continue to wade into the river, dip 
their hands and pour water over their heads as they pray and make offerings 
of flowers and fruit. 

But the six special days and the festival period were considered as the most 
auspicious for those seeking to wash away their sins and end the Hindu cycle 
of death and rebirth. 

The Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years at Allahabad, although smaller 
festivals are held every three years at other cities. Hindu astrologists had 
said this year's festival was even more blessed because of planetary 
alignments that occur only once every 12 years. 

This year's festival was peaceful. The festival organizers negotiated an 
agreement between bands of Hindu holy men who in the past had started 
stampedes by fighting to win the right to enter the water on the most 
auspicious days. 

This year there was no fighting as the naked monks marched with tridents, 
clubs and matted hair to the riverbanks, taking their turns jumping into the 
water. 

Controversy arose over the large number of photographers and television crews 
who came from around the world to report the event. After objections were 
raised over photographing the naked men, and women coming out of the water in 
wet saris, journalists were attacked by a mob as police stood by. 

Orders were issued to keep the photographers back. But reflecting the 
festival's growing modernity, some of the monks were seen with video cameras. 

The festival stems from the Hindu myth about gods and demons fighting over a 
pot of nectar that would give them immortality. 

One of the gods made off with the pot, spilling drops on 12 spots, four of 
them in India and the rest in the heavens, according to the myth. 

Concern Over Expulsion Order Against French Missionary In India

("The Catholic Report," February 19, 2001)

NEW DELHI, Feb. 19, 01 (CWNews.com) - Catholics in southern Karnataka state 
have been stunned by the decision of the Indian government to ask a 
79-year-old French missionary priest to leave India after he has spent 
two-thirds of his life in India serving the poor. 
Father Francois Marie Godset, belonging to the Paris Mission Society who came 
to India 55 years ago at the age of 24 years, got the shock of his life 
recently when the federal government refused to renew his resident permit. 
The missionary is now at his wits end as he has visited his home country only 
three times in half a century, and "is now asked to return to a place about 
which he has the least idea at the age of 79 years," said the Global Council 
of Indian Christians in an appeal on Saturday on behalf of the priest facing 
imminent expulsion from India. 

"In fact, the (Karnataka) state registration officer has recommended Father 
Godset's stay up to year 2005 but the central (federal) government wants him 
to return to France," pointed out the forum. The expulsion of the missionary, 
the statement said, is "clear demonstration of anti-Christian sentiments of 
the present government and also sheer indifference towards the services 
rendered by the 'good old man' who cared for the faceless and voiceless 
people of our country." 

Under the Indian immigration laws concerning foreigners, those who came to 
India before 1984 need not go back to their home countries to obtain fresh 
visa from the Indian embassy in their home country. 

4 Four Dead in Bangladesh Protests

 
(Associated Press, Feb. 6, 2001) 
  

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - At least four people were killed Tuesday during 
street protests in eastern Bangladesh against the arrest of Islamic clerics 
implicated in the weekend mob slaying of a policeman, domestic news agencies 
said. 

Supporters demanding the release of the clerics clashed with police in 
Brahmanbaria, the hometown of one of the main accused men. 

The deaths followed a call by the country's top opposition alliance for a 
nationwide general strike Wednesday to protest the arrests. 

The four-party alliance at a meeting Tuesday also demanded the immediate 
release of the 67 people implicated in the case, including two leaders of 
radical Islamic groups. 

Led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, the alliance blamed the government 
for using the officer's death Saturday to discredit the opposition. Islamic 
activists attacked a police patrol in Dhaka, dragged Badsha Mia into the 
nearby mosque and then beat him to death with wooden shoe racks. 

On Monday, governing Awami League politicians accused the clerics of using 
religion to create anarchy and said the opposition was supporting them. 

Hinduism lures Californian

by Janaki Bahadur Kremmer ("Washington Times," Jan. 30, 2001)

     ALLAHABAD, India   "She was a straight-A Stanford University graduate, 
grew up in Beverly Hills, Calif., and was a "totally content human being"” 
until she visited India. Top Stories 
     "When I arrived at the Ganges in 1996 for a holiday, I knew that I had 
come home. I was in pure ecstasy," said the fair-skinned, brunette 
29-year-old Phoebe Garfield, who now goes by the name of Sadhavi Bhagwati.
     Now she is a living Hindu saint and a leading figure of the Parmarth 
Niketan (Abode for the Welfare of All), one of the many Hindu religious 
organizations at the Kumbh Mela (Pitcher Festival).
     The 40-day festival, held every 12 years, draws millions of Hindus from 
the world over to the confluence of the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers with a 
third ”mythical” stream, the Saraswati. This year the festival is drawing 
an estimated 70 million people, making it the largest gathering anywhere in 
the world.
     Sadhavi Bhagwati, whose name means the Saint Goddess, said she called 
home during her life-altering trip in 1996: "I remember phoning my mother 
from India and telling her that I wanted to stay on."
     Her mother replied: "Just don't give them any money," she recalled.
     She returned home to California to complete her studies and built a 
little Hindu shrine in her apartment with wood blocks from Home Depot. She 
made offerings to the San Francisco Bay, pretending it was the Ganges.
     "I realized that I could have been fined $1,000 for littering that Bay 
with letters to God," she said.
     Hindus believe that a life lived bathing in the Ganges, which they 
consider to be their mother, is a life of purity and leads to moksha, or 
freedom from the cycle of rebirth.
     Miss Bhagwati got on a plane to come back to India the day she finished 
her final exams.
     She spends her time in meditation in the Himalayas, helping the needy 
and listening to the words of her leader, Swami Chidanand Saraswati, whom she 
believes is the reincarnation of God on Earth.
     After asking permission from the swami last year, Miss Bhagwati was 
allowed to take vows of celibacy, a prerequisite for becoming a saint.
     "You have to be pure of heart and the swami will decide whether you are 
fit for sainthood," she said.
     The particular vows she has taken fall short of a lifetime commitment 
and can be revoked.
     Miss Bhagwati said her parents have been supportive, but have made 
sporadic attempts to bring their daughter back to her previous self.
     "I remember one Christmas I went home and my mother asked me to wear a 
tight-fitting black dress. I just looked in the mirror and burst into tears," 
Miss Bhagwati said.
     Now they content themselves by sending cartons of protein bars from time 
to time and buying her thermal underwear.
     "I have renounced nothing. I still go to the synagogue when I am back 
home," said Miss Bhagwati, who was raised in the Jewish faith.
     "I go home three times a year on trips paid for by my parents," she 
said. "I come back laden with things for the community. If I did not get it 
from my parents, I would get it from my trust fund."
     Parmarth Niketan has an orphanage, health care and education programs. 
It thrives on substantial donations from different parts of the world.
     The flexible nature of Hinduism, which has been often described as a way 
of life rather than a religion, has attracted Westerners since the 1960s 
hippie movement.
     Some Westerners at this year's Kumbh Mela said they were there to be a 
part of the largest international religious experience ever, while others 
said they were there mostly for the hashish and opium that flows freely among 
many of the Indian holy men.
     "Who could ask for more?" said a young man from Holland, who gave his 
name as D.J.

Hindus turn down Christian quake aid

 
by Janaki Kremmer ("Washington Times," Jan. 29, 2001)

     AHMEDABAD, India  Tension between Hindus and Christians is interfering 
with relief efforts following India's devastating earthquake, according to a 
Roman Catholic priest who says he was driven away from a hospital when he 
arrived to help. Top Stories 
     "Hindu hotheads are trying to dominate the rescue effort," said Father 
Cedric Prakash, the bespectacled, middle-aged director of the Saint Xavier's 
Social Service Society, a nongovernmental charity.
     Father Prakash said he rushed to a hospital in Ahmedabad after Friday's 
catastrophic earthquake, hoping to help the overstretched staff cope with the 
flood of victims. Instead, the priest was shouted at by Hindu volunteers and 
pushed around until he left.
     "In a situation like this, there should be space for all people to 
serve. But obviously, there is not," Father Prakash said.
     Officials said yesterday that more than 6,000 bodies had been found 
since Friday's quake, which registered 7.9 on the Richter scale, and that the 
final toll would be much higher. Some estimates ranged as high as 16,000, and 
one official guessed it would reach 30,000 just in Bhuj, a city of 150,000 
where half the homes were reduced to rubble.
     In town after town, news agencies reported frantic scenes of people 
digging through rubble with everything from sophisticated equipment to their 
bare bands. In the town of Anjar, the Associated Press reported, a 3-year-old 
girl was chanting Arabic verses when rescuers pulled her out "totally 
unscathed."
     Foreign aid has poured in from countries such as Switzerland, the United 
Kingdom and Turkey ” the site of its own devastating quake less than two 
years ago” which sent 35 specialists yesterday to Ahmedabad, the commercial 
capital of Gujarat state and the main staging ground for the quake relief 
effort.
     On the streets of this city, which itself was badly shaken by the 
earthquake, the most visible volunteers are uniformly dressed in khaki shorts 
and white short-sleeved shirts, usually carrying sticks.
     They are members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the National 
Volunteers Corps, a Hindu nationalist organization that supports India's 
ruling party and is hostile to other religious faiths.
     In recent years, the group has been accused of burning churches and 
Bibles and beating Christian priests in the state. But since the earthquake, 
they have been directing traffic, cordoning off disaster areas, collecting 
relief funds, aiding the families of the bereaved and pulling survivors from 
the rubble.
     "Long live the RSS," shouted one earthquake victim, as he was carried on 
a stretcher to the operating theater of a suburban hospital.
     The son of another victim, Ajay Shah, whose 82-year old father was 
rescued from a toppled building, said: "We are so grateful to [the RSS]. 
Without them, my father would not be alive."
     Father Prakash suggested the rescue effort was turning into a 
competition. "It looks to me like a situation of who is in the limelight, and 
who is not," he said.
     A senior Indian official challenged that assessment.
     "I do not believe that this is happening. This tragedy is not about 
religion, it's about humanity," said Arun Jaitley, the federal minister for 
information and broadcasting.
     "If anyone wants to go in and do relief work, they are welcome. It's not 
the time or place to talk about these things," he said in an interview.
     "The devastation is so widespread that you don't need the government's 
permission to do relief work. If it's the RSS, then it's very good, and if 
it's the Christian groups, then it's good too."
     Officials said about 700 people have been killed by collapsing buildings 
in Ahmedabad, compared with the much higher numbers in Bhuj, 12 miles from 
the quake's epicenter. However, there are fewer RSS volunteers to be seen 
there.
     "Those outlying areas in a 60-mile radius of the epicenter are dominated 
by Muslims and lower-caste Hindus, and we know the RSS doesn't much care for 
either of them," Father Prakash said.
     One RSS volunteer helping a victim out of an ambulance rejected the 
criticism.
     "We're just doing our job, and we will go wherever we are told to go," 
said Jayesh Acharia, a tax consultant.
     Father Prakash's service society, together with 40 other nongovernmental 
organizations, is focusing its energies on the far-flung areas, convinced 
there is nowhere else for them to help.
     He said the army should be given control over the entire relief effort 
to prevent political and religious rivalry interfering with saving lives.
     "If you leave it to the government and the RSS, things will certainly go 
wrong," the priest said.

Christian Workers Beaten For Showing 'Jesus' Film in India

by Michael Fischer ("January 27, 2001)

HONG KONG (Compass) -- Members of the radical Hindu group the Bajrang Dal 
beat two Christian workers, David Massey and Simon Sakria, for more than two 
hours on January 4 for showing a "Jesus" film in Jehra, a remote village on 
the Rajasthan-Gujarat border in western India. Church leaders said the two 
Christians had gone to visit the house of a local pastor when they were 
attacked.

The attackers pushed them into a jeep, stopped at a deserted place near 
Vijaynagar in Gujarat, beat them up and abandoned them. David Massey says the 
Bajrang Dal kicked them and beat them with sticks. 

"They also tried to hit me with a sword, but I caught it in my hand," Massey 
said. "They said, 'Why have you come here? Why are you showing a film on 
Jesus here?'"

Massey and Sakria are now in a hospital in Himmatnagar in Gujarat. Doctors 
say they were seriously injured and are in a state of shock. Police have 
registered a case against the Bajrang Dal district president Jagdish Taral. 

Meanwhile, the All India Christian Council (AICC) urged Indian President K.R. 
Narayanan to direct the authorities concerned to take immediate steps to 
arrest those responsible for the attack. 

In a letter to the president, AICC executive member Samson Christian also 
urged him to ban the RSS, the Bajrang Dal, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and 
other fundamentalist organizations "carrying on the vilification campaign" 
against the Christian community.

A Spiritual Tidal Wave 
25 Million Hindu Pilgrims Flow Into Indian Delta

 
by Pamela Constable ("Washington Post," January 25, 2001)

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan. 24 -- The sloping riverside beaches were crammed with 
more than 25 million pilgrims, a human mass so dense that it simply flowed 
toward the river and waded as one into the knee-deep water.

A caravan of saffron-robed Hindu holy men, enthroned on tractors and trailed 
by hundreds of barefoot disciples, paraded toward the waters as police on 
horseback parted the crowd. A prancing army of thousands of naked, 
ash-smeared mystics, known as naga sadhus, followed them in the procession, 
waving swords and tridents.

The pilgrims had come to the delta where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers merge 
to share the spiritual experience of a lifetime: a mass ritual bath on the 
peak holy day of perhaps the largest religious gathering in history. By the 
time the Maha Kumbh Mela -- a 41-day festival whose Hindi name means Great 
Pot of Nectar -- ends on Feb. 21, a total of 70 million of the 850 million or 
so Hindus in India are expected to have taken the plunge. The rite is known 
as a snan, and Hindus believe it cleanses their souls of sin.

"What I feel right now is just bliss," said Vivek Ananda Shastri, 28, a 
teacher from Bombay, as he emerged from the frigid waters just after dawn. He 
was shivering violently as he stripped off his wet clothes, but he insisted 
he did not feel the cold. "Daily life tires the soul as well as the body. 
This one day, this one bath, is like a new birth for my soul."

On the beach around him, thousands of other dripping Hindus shivered happily, 
oblivious to the crowd and the cold. Most had spent the night huddled in 
tents or rolled in blankets on sandy fields surrounding a 1,500-acre 
riverside campground, built especially for the Kumbh Mela on the outskirts of 
Allahabad, a city 350 miles southeast of New Delhi.

"It gets very cold, but we don't mind the hardship. We pass the night singing 
songs in praise of our mother Ganges," said Ramavati, 50, a villager from 
Uttar Pradesh state who was camped in a field Tuesday night. She and her 
friends had cooked rice and lentils over a cow dung fire. "When we get home, 
people will touch our feet because we will be sacred now."

Kumbh Melas are a traditional part of the Hindu religion, which is shared by 
85 percent of Indians, and they are held four times every 12 years at 
different spots on the Ganges, Sipra and Godavari rivers. But this one is 
considered the most sacred in 144 years because of a unique planetary 
alignment, and it is taking place at a particularly holy site where Hindu 
myth says the ancient gods spilled drops of nectar. Thus, this year's event 
is a Maha, or Great, Kumbh Mela.

For days, Hindu pilgrims had streamed into the city riding trucks and 
tractors or walking with bundles of bedding on their heads, hoping to reach 
the site by today. Well before dawn, they moved toward the water almost as 
one.

By midmorning, the scene was dominated by the sadhus, who put on a 
spectacular show as they moved toward the water. The most exotic sight was 
the naga sadhus, who leapt in mock sword fights and tossed flowers at the 
awestruck crowds. Some posed for news photographers trying to slip past 
police, but others angrily threw stones.

The festival has been a major logistical feat for police and civilian 
authorities. More than 25,000 police have been stationed here to control the 
swirling crowds and to shoo bathers in and out of the water. The Uttar 
Pradesh state government erected thousands of street lights, toilets and a 
dozen pontoon foot bridges across the Ganges.

Pilgrims have been treated to a spiritual smorgasbord as they wandered among
rows of giant tents, known as akharas, topped with towers of orange and 
yellow cloth, sponsored by religious organizations. At night, the tents are 
lit up like carnival rides, and the competing drone of Sanskrit chants and 
religious lectures emanates from hundreds of loudspeakers.

"To lead a good life, you must learn to calm your heart, like the restless 
waves of the river," one guru intoned Monday to a rapt crowd of pilgrims 
huddled in a tent. "We say we are free, but are we still slaves? The mass 
media tries to attract and confuse us, saying my soap is better than yours. 
Where are our role models? Have we lost our character?"

Despite the maze of attractions, many pilgrims said their primary goal was to 
bathe as many times as possible. Men, women and children have jammed the 
beaches around the clock, removing and replacing wet clothes without shame. 
Village women, who traditionally hide their faces beneath their saris, stand 
with arms aloft, drying the multicolored garments in the breeze.

After bathing, many people kneel at the water's edge to perform pujas, or 
ritual blessings. They stick incense in the sand, toss marigolds into the 
river and light tiny flames of oil, which they set afloat in saucers made of 
leaves. Although the Ganges is badly polluted, people freely drink and wash 
in the water, convinced of its purity.

"The Ganges is my mother; when I take a dip, I embrace her and she cares for 
me," said Kirtibai Rai, 62, a fruit seller who traveled with 50 other people 
from a village 100 miles away. "I don't want to pollute the river with my 
sins, but this will purify my body and soul. I love my mother very much."

Each day, thousands of pilgrims become separated from their companions in the 
riverside crush. Many end up at lost-and-found centers, where they huddle 
glumly and wait while their names are announced over loudspeakers. Some 
announcements pose special challenges, such as the hysterical "little boy in 
a green sweater" and the village woman too shy to speak her husband's name 
aloud. Still, volunteers said they had successfully reunited 21,500 people by 
Tuesday.

The mass gathering of the faithful has been a lucrative opportunity for 
others, and the campgrounds are crammed with vendors displaying herbal soap, 
blankets and bottles for collecting river water. On Tuesday an elephant 
begged for coins with its trunk, robots told fortunes and boys painted orange 
like Hanuman, the monkey god, waved arms pierced by bloody daggers and asked 
for money.

The reverent mood has also been partly dampened by religious politics. One 
Hindu political group, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, set up a tent containing a 
large model of the controversial temple it wants to erect at the site of a 
mosque demolished by Hindu militants in 1992 in the city of Ayodhya.

Last week, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held a religious parliament here, 
attended by sadhus from most akharas. The group denounced Muslim terrorism 
and announced it would begin building the temple next year, with or without 
legal approval. But some sadhus later said they objected to the mixing of 
politics and religion at such a sacred festival.

"We have nothing to do with worldly affairs or politics," said Swami 
Krishnanand Giri, 71, a saffron-robed sadhu resting on a straw mat in the 
Niranjini akhara, where free food is distributed to needy pilgrims each 
morning. "Some political leaders try to hide behind our religion, but they 
only want to entangle people in a dirty mess. We want to lift them above it, 
to the awakening of bliss."

Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi contributed to this report.

 

Dalai Lama at Hindu festival, but no holy dip

By Sharat Pradhan
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama 
arrived on Thursday in this northern Indian town to join Hinduism's biggest 
festival but said he will not have a  holy dip in the Ganges like millions of 
devotees. 

"It's too cold," said the Buddhist leader, who arrived by a special aircraft 
with an entourage of 80 monks to Allahabad. 

He told reporters he was against religious conversions, and was on a mission 
to promote harmony between faiths. 

Organisers of the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Grand Pitcher Festival, said the exiled 
Buddhist leader will visit the Sangam, the confluence of the holy Ganges, the 
Yamuna river and the mythical Saraswati river and offer prayers. 

"He is to participate in today's routine evening aarti (prayers) performed by 
a Hindu congregation at the Sangam," said festival administrator, Jeevesh 
Nandan. 

The Tibetan leader is scheduled to make a public speech on "World peace and 
human values" on Friday. 

There was heavy security for the Dalai Lama, who is scheduled to give a 
public audience to followers and admirers on Friday at a special platform 
erected for Buddhists. 

Hindus believe a bath at the Sangam absolves sin, ends the cycle of 
reincarnation and speeds the way to nirvana. The 42-day festival, which takes 
place once every 12 years, started on January 9. 

Nearly 30 million Hindus plunged into the cold waters of the Ganges on 
Wednesday for a holy dip at the climax of the festival. 

"I have come here to have a spiritual feel of this place which I earlier 
visited in the mid-'60s," the Dalai Lama told reporters. 

AGAINST CONVERSIONS 

"I am very happy to be here and I am looking forward to bringing the 
Buddhists and Hindus closer because I consider them as twins....This place is 
really impressive and the whole environment is really spiritual," he said. 

The Dalai Lama, who is based in the north Indian town of Dharamshala, fled 
his homeland with thousands of followers after an abortive uprising against 
Chinese rule in 1959. 

The Nobel peace prize winner of 1989 came to the festival at the invitation 
of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, which is controversial 
for its militant postures on issues concerning relations with other religions 

"The birthplace of Buddhism is India. As His Holiness said, Hinduism and 
Buddhism are unicultural," VHP's president Ashok Singhal said. 

The VHP has been campaigning against religious conversions, and criticises 
Islamic leaders for undermining Indian cultural values and Christian 
missionaries for using economic incentives to convert Hindus and tribals. 

Asked about religious conversions, the Dalai Lama said he strived for 
religious harmony and did not believe in people of any religion converting to 
other faiths. 

"Conversions are out of date now," he said. 

The Tibetan leader was also due to meet Jagadguru Shankaracharya Jayendra 
Saraswati of Kanchi, one of four main leaders of the Hindu religion, fair 
officials said. 

Ganges Festival Draws Millions

by Barry Bearak ("New York Times," Jan. 25, 2001)

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan. 24 First into the sacred waters were the naga sadhus, 
the naked mystics, a powder of ceremonial ashes anointing their bodies 
and swords and tridents brandished in their hands. The more modest among them 
wore loincloths, though none any wider than the tail of a kite.

Following them toward the ritual bathing platforms were the bearded gurus, 
seated on great ornamental thrones that were pulled by tractors. Favored 
disciples hovered near, protecting the revered sages with gilded parasols.

And finally the procession was given over to the pilgrims. Then more and more 
of them. And more yet. And still more. They numbered in the millions, all on 
a personal search for the divine, there for a miraculous dip into the bracing 
chill of the merging rivers.

Officials variously put the number at 20 million to 30 million, enough to 
temporarily make historic Allahabad into one of the biggest cities in the 
world. But people were spread widely across a vast riverside flood plain. Any 
count was seat-of-the- pants guesswork.

The faithful had come for the gargantuan Hindu festival known as the Purna 
Kumbh Mela. It is a six-week fling, and it began on Jan. 9. According to the 
astrological positions of the sun, the moon and Jupiter, this morning's 
predawn offered the most auspicious moments of the most auspicious day in 
this most auspicious of events.

And Allahabad is considered among India's most auspicious cities, home to the 
"sangam," the confluence of three holy rivers, two of them real, the Ganges 
and the Yamuna, and one that exists only in myth, the Saraswati.

"How a bath here makes one feel is beyond words, beyond even thought," said 
one pilgrim, Ravindra Sharma, 72, a retired government employee. "The water 
flows through you; the water surrounds you. But that doesn't explain it. It's 
beyond explaining."

The pilgrims, themselves an assortment of ages and occupations, arrived with 
an assortment of beliefs and expectations. Some said the immersion vouchsafed 
them eternal salvation, freeing them from the cycle of birth, death and 
reincarnation; some said it cleansed them of all sin; some said it simply 
refreshed the spirit.

Whatever the reason, they arrived in multitudes, lined up on the thin and 
bumpy roads, jostling in the chaotic train stations. The greatest numbers 
were woefully poor but highly portable. In bundles held on their heads, they 
carried blankets, cooking utensils and enough food for however long the stay. 
They slept on the sandy ground wherever weariness overtook them.

The notion of pilgrimage is a powerful lodestar in predominantly Hindu India, 
a country of more than a billion people. The religion's mythology comes alive 
within the nation's borders. Gods reside in the Himalayas, and the 
life-giving Ganges and Yamuna, which start in these heavenly mountains, 
ripple across India's vast northern plain.

The origins of the Kumbh Mela reside in the ancient memory of this mythology. 
By legend, gods and demons churned the primeval ocean, summoning treasures 
from the depths. The gods made off with most of the riches, but there was a 
fight for the final bounty, the coveted kumbh, or pitcher, which contained 
the nectar of immortality.

In a chase toward heaven, some of the elixir was spilled onto what are 
present-day Allahabad, Hardwar, Ujjian and Nashik marking them as special 
places. Each of these cities has a Purna Kumbh Mela at 12-year intervals. 

Historians say the practice dates back centuries, and the mela, or festival, 
has commonly included a conclave of the powerful swamis, gurus and yogis of 
the day. In recent years, the events seem to be growing ever larger. It has
now become routine for the organizers to hail each one as the largest 
religious gathering of all time.

"To be here is to be with all these holy men," Ashi Nath Das, 61, a retired 
salesman, said while in the midst of his purposeful bath. "You listen to them 
reading the holy texts, hear them speak. You learn. And after all, the reason 
for human life is to worship God."

The kumbh is part religious observance and part fair, and the property itself 
takes on many aspects of a fairground. Vendors sell peanuts in bags made from 
scraps of newspaper. A hurdy-gurdy man shows off a pet monkey that does 
headstands. Overhead flies a huge blue balloon, beseeching the faithful to 
drink NescafŽ.

Hundreds of Hindu sects have been given their own campsites. Erected before 
some of them are huge facades with blinking lights and larger- than-life 
paintings of an esteemed guru. Some billboards and leaflets are written with 
exceptional confidence, one promising "the only true teacher of the world," 
another "the science of absolute knowledge."

If the festival had a main street, it would be the one housing the major 
akharas, or religious schools. Their holy men are the ones who lead the 
procession to the bathing ghats, using an assigned order. In the past, the 
devout have occasionally engaged in fisticuffs about the pecking order for 
the most favorable times to take the plunge.

Pilgrims often wander among the akhara camps, seeking blessings and observing 
the holy men, especially the reclusive naga sadhus, many of whom live in 
forest hideaways and caves.

Just inside the Juna Akhara's gate sits the naga Amar Bharti Baba. A hushed 
crowd is usually watching him. As an act of renunciation, he keeps his right 
arm steadfastly lifted in the air like a schoolboy certain he knows the 
answer. He gave his age as 60 and said he had kept his arm hoisted for half 
his life or so.

The renounced arm has petrified. His fingers are gnarled, the growth of the 
nails distorted into long curlicues, like wood shavings. Disciples knelt at 
his side as pilgrims laid money at his feet. His left arm, as spry as the 
right one is lame, protectively tucked the larger bills beneath a carpet.

"These are not gifts for me; these are the fruits of my labors," he said of 
the donated cash. He is well used to being asked the purpose of his arduous 
penitence. "Only if you do this can you learn why it makes sense to do this," 
he said with a trace of humor. "You learn the taste of bread only when you 
eat it."

Around the corner were several younger sadhus in the walking sleep of a 
meditative trance. Most had matted hair, including one who could toss out a 
thick braid like the tie line of a boat.

Radhey Puri Naga Baba, 33, was leaning on a swing covered with a folded towel 
and a garland of marigolds. He said he had vowed to remain standing for 12 
years and was now about two-thirds done with the ordeal. His feet are swollen.

This renunciation, he explained, was a learning exercise, teaching him to 
will away the distractions of pain and pleasure and other attachments to the 
world.

"This is nothing much that I do," he said, dismissing any suggestion of 
difficulty. "It is just my way of meditation. There are many others."

Nearby, other sadhus chanted around small fires. Some recited recognizable 
prayers. Others were more idiosyncratic, one of them muttering a personal 
poem with a thousand verses all the same: "Where do I go? My mother has died. 
I have no wife." 

But despite the captivating presence of these unusual sadhus -- and most 
sadhus are far less exotic -- the mela is more about the common people of 
India and their devotion to the living traditions of the Hindu faith.

For many pilgrims, the goal of their visit was not just to bathe, but to do 
it at the prime spot, the sangam. An armada of decrepit but functional boats 
ferried pilgrims there at 40 cents apiece. Men stripped down to undershorts 
and lowered themselves into the water. Women waded in in their saris. The 
Ganges, these days infused with raw sewage as well as religious sanctity, is 
relatively clean at this hallowed location.

"This brings me complete happiness," said Suraj Bhan Agarwal, a businessman 
from New Delhi, as he splashed in the water. Like many others, he and his 
wife, Maya Devi, fashioned their own offering, a palm- sized boat with 
tinfoil as a hull and coconut, marigolds, incense and coins as the cargo. 
They poured oil into the tiny vessel and launched it with a prayer.

So many pilgrims wanted to make their way to the sangam that officials 
pleaded for restraint. "Here in Allahabad, all bathing areas have the same 
religious value," was a message repeated again and again over loudspeakers.

For so large an event, the mela has so far been run with remarkable 
efficiency. More than 100 miles of pipelines have provided drinking water 
without long waits. One-way bridges built on pontoons have kept foot traffic 
moving in an orderly way, even if the crowds only inch along and the crush of 
humanity can sometimes seems rib-breaking.

Walking along one bridge was Rathnakar Shetty, a young merchant from Bombay. 
He had had his ritual bath and was now cold, hungry and utterly joyful.

"My soul is absolutely cleansed," he said as if he himself was surprised at 
the feeling. He suddenly stopped, which was not a popular thing with those 
behind him.

But he had something to say he considered profound. It was not anything new, 
he admitted sheepishly. But he thought it profound nonetheless.

"If you have faith, you get all the benefits God intends," he said. "If you 
don't believe, you get nothing." 

Millions bathe on Hindu festival's auspicious day

by Sanjeev Miglani (Reuters, Jan. 24, 2001)
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Millions of devout Hindus plunged into 
the cold waters of India's holy Ganges river to wash away their sins on 
Wednesday at the climax of a huge six-week festival. 

Led by naked, ash-smeared Naga Sadhus (holy men), pilgrims surged towards the 
Sangam, the confluence of India's most sacred river, the Ganges, the Yamuna 
and a mythical third river. 

Wednesday is considered the most auspicious day of the six-week Maha Kumbh 
Mela, or the Great Pitcher Festival, as it coincides with the start of a new 
moon. 

"We are prepared for 30 million people, I think we will have between 20 and 
25 million," Mela officer Jeevesh Nandan told Reuters. 

Nandan said 10 million people had already bathed since the auspicious period 
began on Tuesday evening and the number was growing steadily. 

"Bathing is proceeding without a hitch," he said. 

Hindus believe taking a dip at the Sangam absolves them of sin, ends a cycle 
of reincarnation and speeds the way to the afterlife. A bathe when the new 
moon cycle begins is considered healing for those who are ill. 

There was a sea of humanity on the flood plains of the Ganges waiting their 
turn to enter the river. Thousands of people were already in the water. 

Nandan said that it would take around 10-to-12 minutes for each pilgrim to 
bathe. 

NAKED ASCETICS 

Hundreds of Naga Sadhus wearing just marigold garlands raced to the edge of 
the water, brandishing sticks at passers-by. 

Some of them urinated, others sprinkled sand over their naked sun-burnt 
bodies and then joyfully jumped into the river. 

Applause rose from tens of thousands of pilgrims waiting behind barricades 
for their turn to bathe. 

The dreadlocked nagas, who live in caves in forests, exist on herbs, roots 
and plants and have traditionally occupied a prominent place in the Kumbh 
bathing order. 

Hindu records say there were battles in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries between the Nagas and other sects over who should lead the 
procession to the Sangam. 

Members of Hindu religious orders paraded with elephants, horses and brightly 
decorated vehicles while marching bands played on the river bank. 

The head of the Shambu Panch Agni Akhara monastic order sat under a red 
canopy, surrounded by disciples and gun-toting body guards. 

He threw flowers at pilgrims as he was taken to the confluence point of the 
rivers, where Hindus believe the gods spilt a drop of the elixir of 
immortality in an epic battle with demons. 

HUNDREDS LOSE THEIR WAY 

The streets of Allahabad, which normally has a population of about 1.5 
million people, were blocked with waves of hymn-chanting pilgrims moving 
peacefully towards the river. 

Tens of thousands of pilgrims slept the night on the vast festival grounds 
while many huddled together under trees to fight the cold. 

Shelters for people separated from their families were over-flowing with 
hundreds of people camping out in the open. 

Achala Srivasatava, a volunteer at the biggest lost-and-found shelter, said 
thousands of people had been separated from families and friends since late 
on Tuesday. 

"At one point in the night we had 8,000 names being called out on the 
loudspeaker," she said. 

Several squads of mounted police regulated the flow of pilgrims to and from 
the confluence point. About 11,000 policemen have been deployed to keep order 
at the festival. 

Millions pour into Indian town for festival's peak

by Sanjeev Miglani (Reuters, Jan. 23, 2001)
  

ALLAHABAD, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Authorities sealed off a northern Indian town 
from traffic and boosted security on Tuesday as a huge six-week Hindu 
festival neared its climax when up to 20 million pilgrims are expected to 
take a dip in a sacred river. 

Tens of thousands of devout Hindus were streaming into the northern town of 
Allahabad for a sin cleansing bath on the day of the new moon on Wednesday, 
considered the most auspicious time of the six-week Maha Kumbh Mela festival. 

All traffic was stopped at the city's outer limits to allow the mass of 
humanity to head for the Sangam, or the confluence of the holy rivers Ganges, 
Yamuna and a third mythical river. 

Hindus believe a dip at the Sangam absolves them of sins, ends a cycle of 
reincarnation and speeds the way to nirvana or afterlife. A bath, when the 
new moon cycle begins, is also considered healing for those who are ill. 

Many of the men were in loincloths while the women balanced huge bags of food 
on their heads. 

"We're preparing for 20 million people to bathe tomorrow," said festival 
official Jeevesh Nandan, who is spearheading the huge effort to manage the 
festival held in Allahabad every 12 years. 

Rajnath Singh, chief minister of the most populous Uttar Pradesh state where 
Allahabad is located, told Reuters that security had been stepped up because 
of fears of a strike by terrorists. 

TAKING NO CHANCES 

"There have been terrorist threats, we are not taking any chances," he said 
in a telephone interview. 

Sniffer dogs and several squads of anti-mine experts were scouring the vast 
flood plains where the pilgrims were congregating. Army helicopters were put 
on standby for aerial surveillance of the sprawling 6,000 acres of festival 
ground. 

Close to seven million people took a dip in the river on January 14, the 
previous most auspicious bathing day of the festival. 

Hindus believe the Sangam is one of four places where the gods spilt a drop 
of the elixir of immortality and records suggest the bathing festival could 
be some 2,000 years old. 

Unlike the first week of the festival which began on January 9 when shivering 
pilgrims stepped into the icy waters of the Ganges, the weather has turned 
balmy for the most auspicious day of bathing. 

The first to plunge into the holy waters at dawn on Wednesday will be the ash 
smeared Nagas, or holy men, who go in naked. In earlier festivals, they have 
been known to get into fights with other sects for the right to take the 
first dip. 

Yama Singh, 30, who travelled from the remote northeastern state of Manipur, 
has been sleeping on the river bank for two nights waiting for the big day of 
mass bathing. 

"I am lucky to have come here, I will be taking the holy waters for my people 
in the village who could not come here," he said. 

Indian journalists chastised by Saudi moral police

("Times of India," January 22, 2001)

RIYADH: Two women in the first-ever Indian media team visiting Saudi Arabia 
suffered a public chastisement from the dreaded muttawwa (religious police) 
for not covering their heads. 

They were ticked off by the bearded clergy who patrol the city streets to 
ensure compliance of the social and religious diktats in this conservative 
Islamic nation of 20 million, of whom seven million are expatriates.

Although both the women journalists wore the abaya, or the black robe that 
women cover themselves with from head to toe, they had not covered their 
heads. Foreign women, though required to wear the abaya, need not hide their 
faces like the locals but the muttawwa, who go about under the nomenclature 
of ``Committee for the promotion of virtue and suppression of vice'', can 
often be overzealous in the pursuit of their objectives. 

Both the women were sternly told to go inside a shop and buy a scarf while 
their male escort was censured for not keeping ``his women'' in check. Male 
escorts of women have to be either fathers or brothers, and any other male 
companions who are not blood relatives risk punishment with jail terms.

3,000 naked novices sign up with fierce sect at Indian pilgrimage

(AFP, January 22, 2001)
 

About 3,000 young men between 20 and 30 were inducted Monday into the Juna 
sect of the exotic and fierce Naga (unclothed) sadhus at the great Kumbh 
fair, the holiest of Hindu pilgrimages.

According to the head of the sect, Mahant Ravi Giri, the young men joined 
after a special initiation ceremony that combined a 24-hour fast, a tonsured 
pate and a dip in the holy Ganges river before the consecration.

"I feel I was born today," said 26-year-old Vinod Kumar, who left his family 
behind in Nepal and came here especially to join the Nagas.

Describing his consecration as a dream he had treasured since childhood 
Kumar, said: "I was lucky to find a mentor last year who taught me the sacred 
Hindu sacraments and initiated me into the ancient customs of the Nagas."

Kumar's days ahead will be tough. He will have to learn how to desensitise 
his penis by tying a stone to the organ and remain like that for days to 
avoid any carnal pleasures.

Naked, prone to aggression and partial to copious quantities of hashish, the 
Naga sadhus call the shots at India's Great Kumbh Mela pilgrimage.

Amid the riot of colour that makes up the world's largest religious 
gathering, the Nagas stand out like no others -- their nakedness emphasised 
by dreadlocks and a ghostly layer of ash that covers their bodies from head 
to foot.

Although sadhus can generally be characterised as peace-loving, these 
"warrior ascetics," who trace their roots back thousands of years, used to be 
extremely militant, fighting against rivals sects, the Muslims and later the 
British.

Trappings of that past remain. The Nagas are divided into regiment-like 
"akharas" and most still carry tridents, spears or swords, although these now 
retain a purely symbolic function.

At the 42-day Maha Kumbh Mela (Great Kumbh Fair) near the northern town of 
Allahabad, the Nagas have pride of place, leading off the major bathing 
rituals that draw tens of millions of pilgrims.

"I still have lot to learn but I am happy to be counted as a Naga sadhu from 
today," Kumar said.

Fifty-five year old Mahant Brahaspati Giri, the head of another Naga "akhara" 
(sect), said he had chosen four disciples who would be under his tutelage.

"It is a very tough life and some of those who joined us may give up. We are 
open to that," he said.

Some families persuaded or even pressurised their sons to join the Nagas, but 
Giri said the sect preferred the young boys to join on their own volition. 
"There is no force and there is no coercion," he said.

Even given their way of life, the sect has attracted a large number of 
foreigners who have abandoned their homes and taken on Hindu names.

"I couldn't find peace back home and that is what brought me to India, a year 
back," said a 35-year Frenchman, who now answers to the name given by his 
Naga mentor.

The Nagas claim to have reached the highest form of tapasya (penance) in 
their abandonment of the material world, although some of their younger 
members have a slightly incongruous penchant for catchy Hindi film songs, 
which they listen to on cassette recorders.

Hard - Line Hindu Group Eyes Temple on Mosque Ruins

(Reuters, Jan. 19, 2001)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Leaders of a hard-line Hindu religious group gathered 
on the margins of a giant festival in northern India Friday to firm up a plan 
to build a temple on the ruins of a medieval mosque destroyed by Hindu 
zealots.

The three-day ``Dharam Sansad'' or religious parliament will set a date to 
start construction of the temple, a move that is almost certain to escalate a 
long-running row with the country's minority Muslims over the place of 
worship.

``The date for construction of the temple will be decided by saints who have 
converged here from different corners of the country,'' said Ashok Singhal, 
chief of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in the northern town of Allahabad where 
millions of devout Hindus and holy men have gathered for a holy dip in the 
Ganges river.

Hindu zealots brought down the 16th century mosque in the northern town of 
Ayodhya in 1992, saying that the site was the birthplace of god-king Rama. 
They vowed to build a temple there.

Some 3,000 people were killed in nation-wide riots that followed the 
destruction of the Babri mosque. Muslims, who make up about 12 percent of 
India's billion-strong population, want the mosque rebuilt.

The head priest of Delhi's historic Jama Masjid mosque said it was up to the 
majority Hindu community to stop those who were trying to illegally build the 
temple at the disputed site.

``If the majority community of the country love unity, integrity and communal 
harmony they will have to stop the miscreants with strength,'' a statement 
from the office of Syed Ahmed Bukhari quoted him as saying at prayers Friday.

The VHP, or World Hindu Council, which has led the temple campaign, said it 
was prepared for a showdown with the federal government over the plan to 
press on with construction of the temple.

``It is possible that if the government does not allow it, we may have to 
confront it,'' the Hindustan Times quoted the council's international 
president Vishnu Hari Dalmia as saying.

DENIES DIFFERENCES

The VHP has called the meeting on the sidelines of the Maha Kumbh Mela or 
Grand Pitcher festival to discuss religious conversions and cow-slaughter, in 
addition to the Ram temple.

The ruling federal coalition, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata 
Party, has said it would not allow violation of court orders which prohibit 
any activity at the disputed site until it reaches a verdict.

Allies that make up Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's 23-party coalition 
have warned against deviation from a common government agenda that excludes 
divisive issues such as the building of the controversial temple.

Singhal denied media reports that there were differences within Hindu groups 
over the Ram temple construction plan which some holy men said had become a 
political issue.

``There is no opposition to the Ram temple. Can you imagine any Hindu being 
opposed to the construction of a temple dedicated to Lord Ram?'' he told 
Reuters by telephone from Allahabad.

Press Trust of India quoted a representative of a council of holy men as 
saying they had nothing to do with the meeting of the religious parliament 
organized by the VHP.

Holy Men Focus of Hindu Festival

by Rupan Bhattacharya (Associated Press, Jan. 18, 2001)
  

ALLAHABAD, India (AP) - Amar Bharti says he has been holding his right arm 
above his head for 27 years. Radhey Puri claims to have stood upright without 
rest since 1992. 

Hindu holy men who perform exceptional forms of worship like these are 
drawing the attention of pilgrims who seek blessings from them during the 
festival of Kumbh Mela in northern India. 

Millions of Hindu worshippers stream daily toward the makeshift city on the 
banks of the Ganges River to bathe in a ritual they believe will cleanse them 
of sin. The 43-day festival ends Feb. 21 with the last of six auspicious 
bathing days, which Hindu priests determine according to astrology. 

Aside from the bathing, which goes on day and night, many Hindus seek out 
holy men, called saints, who perform unique types of worship. 

``Some saints drink only milk. Some survive on only fruit or bread. Some only 
take water,'' said Bharti, 60. ``Everyone has a different way of doing 
penance.'' 

Bharti's method is holding his right arm above his head. Because of the loss 
of blood circulation, he has no feeling in his palm, his blackened fingers 
are permanently folded and end in long, unkempt nails. 

Since his arrival at the Kumbh Mela, Bharti has been surrounded by curious 
foreign tourists and Indian devotees 24 hours a day. Many of the Hindus seek 
him out for blessings, believing he is a superior saint because of his 
penance. 

``This is a very special way of worshipping god and it will help me and all 
of humanity to achieve spiritual goals,'' Bharti said. ``My guru also kept 
his right hand vertically erect throughout his life and I am just following 
his path.'' 

Puri, 37, said he done everything while standing since 1992, ``from sleeping 
to eating, and even the call of nature.'' 

``I will do it for 900,000 days (2,465 years) and 900,000 nights and I am 
even ready to take rebirth to complete my vow,'' he said. 

Devotees also cluster around naked holy men, who have renounced all worldly 
possessions, including clothing. They smear ash over their bodies and offer 
blessings to those who give them food or drink. 

News coverage of the naked men, and also pictures that have appeared of women 
emerging from the water in wet saris, have angered some priests and sects. 

Festival commissioner, Ashokla Sadakant, on Wednesday ordered photographers 
to remain 200 yards from the banks of the river and avoid taking close-up 
shots. 

Hindus believe that sins accumulated in past and current lives require them 
to continue the cycle of death and rebirth until they are cleansed. Most of 
the pilgrims at the Kumbh Mela hope to wash away their sins by bathing at the 
spot where the Ganges River merges with the Yamuna, and according to their 
belief, the mythical Saraswati River. 

Completing the ritual during the Kumbh Mela, held once every 12 years at 
Allahabad, 360 miles east of New Delhi, is considered even more auspicious. 
Organizers estimate 70 million people may attend the festival. 

Priests, Hindu Pilgrims Take Dip

By RUPAN BHATTACHARYA
The Associated Press, Jan. 14, 2001

  
ALLAHABAD, India (AP) - Four ash-smeared warrior priests rode their horses to 
the bank of the Ganges River and dipped into the icy waters early Sunday, one 
of the holiest days of the Hindu festival, the Kumbh Mela. 

Millions of pilgrims waited for the ascetics to bathe before joining them in 
the belief that their sins would be washed away, speeding their achievement 
of nirvana. By mid-morning, 4 million had completed the centuries-old ritual, 
which occurs every 12 years. 

As many as 70 million people are expected to dip into the river's chilly 
waters for a holy bath during the 43-day celebration that began on Tuesday. 

Six days during the festival are considered particularly auspicious bathing 
days - including Sunday, known as Royal Bath Day, when groups of holy men and 
warrior priests traditionally tussle over reaching the water first. 

In past Kumbh Melas, clashes between two rival warrior sects have led to 
stampedes, resulting in hundreds of deaths. Tragedy was averted on Sunday, 
thanks to an agreement by representatives of the two Hindu sects that the 
Niranjans would go in before the Junas. 

Two surveillance helicopters and 100,000 policemen kept watch over the 
festival grounds as bathing began before dawn to a roar of ``Har har 
Mahadav'' - ``Hail Mahadav,'' a traditional Hindu chant taken up by warriors 
before battle. Mahadev, also known as Shiva, is the Hindu god of destruction. 

Pilgrims threw garlands at the priests, who tossed them back at the crowds. 
As the bathing progressed, priests entertained the crowds with acrobatics, 
sword battles and trident fights. Meanwhile, religious songs and Hindi film 
music blared over loudspeakers. 

``Bliss, pure bliss. The dirt in my soul and the fatigue in my body have both 
been washed away,'' said B.D. Arora, a pilgrim from Jalandhar in the northern 
state of Punjab. 

Kumbh Mela derives its name from a Hindu myth that tells how the gods and 
demons fought over a ``kumbh,'' or pot, of nectar that would give them 
immortality. Legend has it that one of the gods ran off with the pot, 
spilling four drops of nectar near four blessed cities. 

While the cities alternate holding Kumbh Mela, the festival in Allahabad, 360 
miles east of New Delhi, is considered the most blessed because it lies near 
the confluence of rivers considered sacred by Hindus: the Ganges, the Yamuna 
and the mythical Saraswati. 

The festival ends Feb. 21. 

Holy men hold up human skulls at Indian festival

by Himangshu Watts (Reuters, Jan. 14, 2001)
  

SAGAR ISLAND, India, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Members of a Hindu sect held aloft 
human skulls and mothers dunked shrieking babies in the sea during a 
religious festival in India on Sunday. 

Ash-smeared men with braided hair and priests with shaven heads and tufted 
pigtails were among the tens of thousands who took a purifying dip off a 
sandy island at the confluence of the Ganges, India's holiest river, and the 
Bay of Bengal, 150 km (95 miles) south of the eastern city of Calcutta. 

"Ganga ki jai (Victory to the Goddess Ganges)!" the devotees shouted after 
washing themselves in the muddy sea water. 

The Hindu faith revolves around reincarnation and devout Hindus believe 
bathing during the festival cleanses their souls of sins accumulated during 
100 past lives and rescues them from the cycle of rebirths. 

After their dip, devotees prayed at the nearby temple of Kapil Muni, one of 
Hindu scripture's most exalted sages. 

Officials said the event was progressing smoothly, except for a fire on 
Sunday which gutted a charitable guest house where 500 pilgrims were staying. 

Police said one charred body had been recovered. Witnesses said hundreds of 
people ran out of the building in panic. 

The festival coincides this year with the six-week Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great 
Pitcher Festival, Hinduism's biggest festival, in the northern state of Uttar 
Pradesh. 

That festival, held every 12 years, could draw as many as 70 million people 
to bathe in the Ganges to wash away their sins. 

SKULL, BONES AND ENERGY 

The gathering at Sagar island has attracted hundreds of Tantric seers, held 
in awe by many Indians because of the unorthodox rituals they practise. 

These include prayer ceremonies at cremation grounds, and the use of hot ash 
from cremated bodies and human skulls to attain spiritual uplift. 

Tantric seers from the Aughar sect believe the world is made of five elements 
-- fire, water, air, earth and wind -- which are contained in the bones. They 
believe the skull is the centre of energy. 

Hundreds of women immersed new-born babies in the muddy water to thank the 
Ganges for blessing them with a child. 

Women hiked up their sarees and men stripped to the waist to bathe. They 
filled small bottles with the hallowed water, its sanctity for them 
undiminished by any fears of pollution. 

Industrial effluents and numerous corpses and carcasses enter the Ganges 
during its 1,500-mile (2,400-km) journey down from the Himalayas. A public 
address system blared repeated warnings about basic hygiene, urging use of 
public lavatories. 

The loudspeaker warnings were punctuated with announcements for people to 
rejoin companions separated from them in the crush. 

An hour before midnight on Saturday, volunteer workers at the festival took 
charge of a woman they said had been abandoned by her family. She refused 
food or water, and burst into cries of "Ganga, Ganga, Ganga, Ganga" every few 
minutes. 

"She seems to have been left behind by her family," said one of the 
volunteers. "Some people get rid of their aged parents here, with a sense of 
religious justification." 

Indian holy men scuttle plan to fix temple date

By John Chalmers
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A council of Indian holy men has 
derailed Hindu hardliners' plans to set a date for the construction of a 
controversial temple which threatens to disrupt communal harmony and 
jeopardise the government. 

The council's leader told Reuters on Friday that the Hindu holy men, or 
sadhus, had not decided whether to attend a special meeting of the Vishwa 
Hindu Parishad (VHP) from January 19 to 21 in the northern city of Allahabad, 
where millions of devout Hindus congregated this week to bathe in the holy 
river Ganges. 

The VHP, or World Hindu Council, is a radical group linked to Prime Minister 
Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). 

It had previously said it would announce a date for work to start on the 
temple -- at a site where a 16th-century mosque was torn down by a mob of 
Hindu fanatics -- during the 42-day Maha Kumbh Mela festival now underway in 
Allahabad. 

Even if the sadhus do attend the VHP meeting, they will insist that leaders 
of the Hindu and minority Muslim communities must hammer out an amicable 
solution to the explosive controversy before a date is set. 

"The best solution would be to work out something with the religious leaders 
of Hindus and Muslims," said Mahant Govind Das, general secretary of the 
Akhil Bharti Akhara Parishad, or all-India council of sadhu orders. "There 
should be no politicians and no hardliners on either side." 

A 21-foot-long (seven-metre) polystyrene model of the proposed 212-pillar 
temple was unveiled beside the VHP's mela headquarters on Monday night, just 
before the festival began. 

However, VHP President Ashok Singhal told Reuters on Thursday that a decision 
would be left to the holy men -- and they now appear to have rejected the 
plan out of hand. 

PLAYING POLITICS 

About 3,000 people died in religious riots triggered off by the razing of the 
Babri mosque in another northern city, Ayodhya, in 1992. 

Vajpayee, whose party rose to national prominence on the crest of a campaign 
to build a temple at Ayodhya in the 1980s, threw fuel onto the blaze of 
controversy last month. 

His remark that Hindu ambitions to build a Ram temple were an "expression of 
national sentiment" put his 15-month-old coalition on the defensive, though 
it won a debate on the issue in the lower house of parliament as allies 
closed ranks behind the BJP. 

Perhaps anxious that the VHP could further embarrass the government and sour 
the mood at the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great Pitcher Festival, which takes place 
once every 12 years, BJP President Bangaru Laxman appealed to the VHP on 
Thursday to defer its announcement of a date. 

He said efforts to resolve the case out of court should be given a fair 
chance. 

Hindu and Muslim groups have filed petitions claiming ownership of the site, 
which devout Hindus believe to be the birthplace of the god-king Ram, and 
Indian courts have ordered a ban on any activity there until a verdict is 
reached. 

Religious leaders on both sides rejected talks to settle their long-running 
dispute earlier this week, and Muslims threatened to use force to stop 
attempts to erect a temple. 

Das, whose council is an umbrella group for 13 orders of holy men each at 
least 100,000-strong, accused the hardliners of playing politics with the 
temple issue and said they were trying to exploit the sadhus. 

"We are not connected with any kind of politicking, we are only religious 
people," he said. "But they are playing politics...they take the name of the 
saints and decide themselves what to do." 

He said the council had passed a resolution earlier this week that if the 
sadhus did attend next week's meeting they would oppose any decision that 
risked tarnishing the image of the country. 

Festival May Draw 50 Million Hindus 
Along the Ganges, High Tech Claims a Place in Old Ritual 

by Pamela Constable ("Washington Post," January 11, 2001) 

NEW DELHI, Jan. 10 -- It's being called Woodstock on the Ganges, the largest 
public gathering in history, the first experimental nexus between dot-com 
technology and centuries-old collective ritual.

The Maha Kumbh Mela, the six-week Hindu festival that began Tuesday along the 
Ganges River near the city of Allahabad, is expected to draw as many as 50 
million pilgrims for a mass dip in the river that is sacred to Hindus, who 
believe it cleanses them of sin.

The event has attracted a number of Western celebrities, including Madonna 
and Paul McCartney, both reported to be en route to the site 350 miles 
southeast of New Delhi. Tens of thousands of other Americans and Europeans, 
both devotees and tourists, are flying to India to participate.

At the other end of the spectrum are several million sadhus, or impoverished 
Hindu holy men, who are making their way to Allahabad from across India. Clad 
in scanty saffron-colored robes and turbans, many are camped out at the New 
Delhi train station this week, dozing on mats and bundles. The government has 
added dozens of trains to Allahabad from major cities.

"The sins I have committed in many of my lives will be washed away when I 
take a dip," Januna Das Hakki -- a sadhu from Rajasthan state in the 
northwest, who gave his age as 108 -- said as he waited for his train today.

Hakki, who is half-blind and can barely walk, was accompanied by two 
disciples from his village, who fed him and helped him through the station. 
Hakki, who has made many such trips over the years to sacred spots on the 
Ganges, said he is not worried about getting lost or trampled in the teeming 
riverside crowds.

"It does not matter how crowded or noisy it is," the frail old man said in a 
whisper as he slumped against the station wall. "If there is silence in your 
heart, that is when you are in touch with God."

The origins of the Kumbh Mela, which means "pot of nectar," trace back to the 
roots of Hindu mythology, which teaches that when the early Hindu gods 
wrestled with ocean demons for control of a pot of nectar, sacred drops were 
spilled along the Ganges. They landed in several places, including Allahabad, 
where the Ganges merges with the Yamuna River.

In honor of this belief, millions of Hindu devotees gather there, and at 
three other sacred riverside locations in India, every six or 12 years. 
Sleeping in makeshift camps, they dance, sing and take cleansing plunges in 
the Ganges, many dressed only in saffron loincloths and turbans.

This year the festival is special for two reasons. First, it coincides with a 
rare planetary alignment, the first since 1857, that determines when Kumbh 
Melas are held. This means the faithful will gather in the largest numbers 
ever, so this Kumbh Mela carries the extra appellation maha, or great.

Indian newspapers said more than 10 million people had arrived in Allahabad 
by Tuesday, and 300,000 had taken their first snan, or holy plunge in the 
Ganges, which is bitterly cold in midwinter. The peak of the festival will be 
Jan. 24, a full-moon day that is believed to be most auspicious for bathing.

The other reason this year's festival is special is that it is the first 
major Kumbh Mela to occur in the high-technology age. Thus, it is being 
advertised, hard-wired and instantly transmitted around the globe on the 
Internet.

Corporations have been promoting Hindu products through numerous Web sites, 
and electronic information kiosks have been placed throughout the festival 
area. The event will be broadcast by several international media agencies, 
including round-the-clock live coverage by India's national TV network.

The ultramodern hype has left some devout Hindus grumbling that the original 
notion of simple, collective purification from sin might be lost in all the 
high-tech hoopla. It also has led to incongruous scenes of ash-smeared, 
tattooed sadhus dancing or bathing next to foreign pilgrims with cell phones.

Because of the number of people expected and the potential for calamities of 
all kinds, preparations have been extraordinary. Past Kumbh Melas, with much 
smaller crowds, have been marred by panic stampedes and fights among rival 
groups of sadhus. Theft and fraud by disreputable or drugged sadhus have also 
been common.

This year, more than 1,000 religious and cultural organizations have set up 
shop, and dozens of tent cities have been erected along the riverbanks. The 
government has installed 5,000 telephone connections, 15,000 streetlights, 
17,000 toilets, 1,000 fire hydrants, 100 miles of water pipes, a 100-bed 
hospital, 15 pontoon bridges and 200 police posts.

In a country where friction between Hindus and Muslims dates back centuries, 
authorities are also concerned about a possible terrorist attack by Muslim 
guerrillas on this high-profile Hindu event. They have deployed navy divers, 
metal detectors, dogs trained to sniff out explosives and closed-circuit TV 
monitors, as well as more than 10,000 police. The government also is offering 
groups of pilgrims insurance packages for the festival.

Some Hindu groups plan to use the Kumbh Mela to announce the construction of 
a controversial Hindu temple on the site of a former mosque in the nearby 
city of Ayodhya. The mosque was destroyed by Hindu mobs eight years ago, 
leading to days of bloody rioting. A model of the temple will be on display.

To safely accommodate affluent and foreign pilgrims, including Western 
celebrities, one of India's largest travel agencies has set up a private, 
ultra-luxurious, temporary city on the riverbanks, complete with heated tents 
and private security guards, at $400-plus per weekend for double occupancy. 
Hotel rooms in Allahabad, a city of 120,000, have been sold out for months.

"We had this idea of a camp for people who would backpack when they were 
young, but who have now reached a certain comfort level," said Bhaskar 
Bhattacharya, a TV producer who suggested the idea. "This is not to question 
their faith in any way, it's just that they've gotten used to a lifestyle."

Most pilgrims, however, will have to make do with makeshift tents and 
sleeping on the ground -- and unseasonably low temperatures. Many sadhu 
groups, known as clans, have organized separate campgrounds for their members.

Bijay Anand, 70, a cloaked sadhu from Punjab who was waiting at the New Delhi 
train station today, said he and his friends planned to stay in Allahabad for 
a month, sleeping in their clan's tents and depending on the charity of other 
pilgrims for their food.

"We will stay by the Ganges, singing and praying all day. We'll take a dip 
early each morning," he said. "Yes, it will be cold, but if I die, I will be 
in the Ganges and flow with it. We don't look for comforts in our life, so we 
won't feel the cold anyway."

India's 'Great' Kumbh Mela pilgrimage goes high-tech

(AFP, January 10, 2001)
 

With mobile phone-wielding sadhus, cyber cafes, dedicated websites and 
satellite TV crews, India's Kumbh Mela -- the world's largest religious 
gathering -- has gone high-tech with a vengeance.

Held once every 12 years, the Maha Kumbh Mela (Great Kumbh Fair) is expected 
to draw up to 70 million Hindu devotees over its 42-day duration -- more than 
four times the number that attended the 1989 event.

Organisers attribute the snowballing popularity of what has become the 
world's largest gathering of mass humanity to massive media coverage and 
unprecedented promotion through the Internet.

A host of dedicated websites have been set up to provide daily updates on the 
Kumbh Mela, with stories, photographs and information for prospective 
visitors.

The state government of Uttar Pradesh, where Allahabad is located, has its 
own official website at kumbhallahabad.com, offering everything from 
religious history to business advice for firms wanting to push products 
during the festival.

"The site has proved enormously popular, and we are getting thousands of hits 
every day," said the website's chief media officer," S.K. Dube.

Critics have suggested technological advances and mass media interest have 
undermined the spiritual nature of the Kumbh Mela, but Dube insisted that 
websites like his played an important complementary role.

"The media has advanced tremendously and computers today are like the 
typewriters of yesterday ... one cannot cannot function without them," he 
said.

"The Internet is playing a constructive role. We are not hurting anybody's 
religious sentiments. So why should people be upset?"

The sprawling tent colony set up to accommodate the millions of pilgrims 
attending the Kumbh has been equipped with more than 1,000 telephone 
connections.

Booths offer long-distance and international telephone services, as well as 
Internet access, and there are even facilities for video conferencing.

Even the hundreds of thousands of ash-covered sadhus (holy men) who have 
gathered in Allahabad have been touched by progress.

"It's just not possible to stay disconnected these days," said Mahant Madhwa 
Acharyaji, a mobile phone-toting sadhu sect leader from the western state of 
Gujarat.

"We have to meet the demands of our devotees all over the world," Acharyaji 
said, rejecting suggestions that technological accessories were inconsistent 
with the traditionally ascetic sadhu lifestyle.

"The fact that we use these phones is just an indication of our popularity," 
he said.

Ensuring the continued popularity of the Kumbh Mela as an event are 
television crews from all over the world, including some like Britain's 
Channel 4 which are relaying daily broadcasts of the festival.

"If the Kumbh retains its effervescent spirit, India could well be on the way 
to selling spirituality and salvation on an epic scale to the international 
market," said an editorial in the Times of India on Wednesday.

"This should be encouraged unreservedly by the government not just because it 
will translate into monetary gains; it would mean value addition for India 
Inc. in the global market."

The frequency of the Kumbh Mela is decided by planetary alignment, which 
dictates particularly auspicious days for pilgrims to wash away their sins in 
the waters where the holy Ganges and Yamuna rivers converge near Allahabad.

On Tuesday -- the first major bathing day of the festival -- an estimated 2.5 
million people purified themselves in the rivers' waters.

At the height of the festival, on January 24, up to 30 million devotees are 
expected at the Kumbh site.

Police nab foreign nude bathers at India's Kumbh Mela

(AFP, January 10, 2001)
 

Inspired by tens of thousands of naked sadhus, two foreign female visitors to 
India's Kumbh Mela pilgrimage took a nude dip in the Ganges, and promptly 
found themselves in police custody.

"There were two women, one of them from Mexico, and they both appeared to be 
intoxicated," said Senior Superintendent of Police Alok Sharma.

"Some women constables pulled them out of the water, put blankets around them 
and told them to get dressed," Sharma told AFP.

The two women apparently argued that they were only following the example of 
the Nagas (the unclothed), ash-covered ascetics who never wear clothes and 
are the most revered of all India's sadhu (holy man) sects.

The sadhus have been leading the bathing rituals at the 42-day Maha Kumbh 
Mela (Great Kumbh Fair), which began in the northern town of Allahabad 
Tuesday and is expected to draw some 70 million Hindu devotees.

"The Nagas are an exception," Sharma explained.

"Their nakedness is an expression of their religion and therefore causes no 
offence to anyone.

"This does not extend to other groups, or foreign visitors, whether they be 
male or female," he said.

Eclipse, holy men feed fervour at Hindu festival

By John Chalmers
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 10 (Reuters) - A lunar eclipse and the cacophonous 
arrival of a famous holy man fed religious fervour on the second day of 
Hinduism's biggest festival on Wednesday as the crowd of pilgrims swelled to 
more than two million. 

Ash-smeared sages and their saffron-clad apostles headed for the confluence 
of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers before dawn to immerse themselves in the holy 
water during the full eclipse of the moon, an auspicious moment of the 42-day 
Maha Kumbh Mela Festival. 

"This eclipse was sent by Lord Shiva, it gives power from the gods to the 
Ganges," said Anuj Kumar Singh, a student who shivered with cold after his 
bath at the place where Hindus believe a third, mythical river joins the 
other two. 

Around him, near-naked devotees immersed themselves in the gloom, their hands 
in supplication and only their lips moving as they muttered their prayers. 

Officials at the Mela, which takes place in the northern Indian city of 
Allahabad once every 12 years, said up to three million people had taken a 
dip on Tuesday as a vast township of riverside tents sprung to life. 

The next big "bathing day" falls on January 14 when, according to Hindu 
astrology, the Sun enters the Capricorn constellation. 

This day, which could draw at least five million devotees, will be the first 
severe test for security and crowd control arrangements. 

The Times of India newspaper said on Wednesday intelligence sources had 
"received fresh information about a possible subversive strike during the 
Kumbh." 

It cited a report that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, which recently 
carried out a daring attack on the Red Fort in New Delhi, was planning 
similar raids at the Kumbh Mela. 

However, Mela Senior Superintendent of Police Alok Sharma told Reuters there 
had been no direct threat to the festival from the group, one of several 
militant outfits fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir. 

The Times said police had instructions from New Delhi to prepare for the 
possibility of a few Hollywood stars making an appearance at the fair. There 
has been talk that Madonna and Richard Gere could turn up, but there was no 
official confirmation. 

One man that did make an appearance at the Mela on Wednesday was holy "sadhu" 
Shri Swami Vasu Dev Anand Saraswatiji Maharaj, who may not have quite the 
following of Western screen icons, but caused enough of a stir to snarl up 
traffic in Allahabad. 

DREADLOCKED ASCETICS 

Led by four elephants, the sadhu's procession of at least 5,000 fabulously 
decorated disciples, brass bands and admirers snaked for two km (1.25 miles) 
along the road leading down to the sangam, or confluence of rivers. 

A loudspeaker on one of his floats, which carried people dressed as gods, 
blared out the famous line from a 1950s Hindi movie hit: "You are the Ganges 
and I am the Yamuna, and we are sure to meet some day." 

The most revered sadhus are the Nagas, or unclothed, dreadlocked ascetics, 
many of whom live in remote caves and forests surviving on herbs and roots. 

Rival brotherhoods of sadhus have been known to clash at melas, particularly 
over who will take the plunge into the river first on auspicious days. 

The first day of the mela went smoothly, and there were no uncontrollable 
crowd surges unlike the past -- around 500 people died in a stampede at a 
Kumbh Mela festival in the 1950s. 

More than 20,000 police personnel, including forces from outside the state, 
have been deployed in the festival area, which stretches across some 1,396 
hectares of flood plain. 

Special electricity sub-stations and 20,000 toilets and urinals have been 
built and more than 8,000 sweepers have been put to work to deal with the 
debris of a crowd which, cumulatively, could total some 70 million by the 
time festivities are over next month. 

Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela cleanses them 
of sin, speeding the way to the end of reincarnation in this world and the 
attainment of nirvana, or the after-life. 

Allahabad, in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh, is one of four 
spots where Garuda, the winged steed of the god Vishnu, is said to have 
rested during a titanic battle with demons over a pitcher of divine nectar of 
immortality. 

Two of the other towns are on the Ganges, which stretches from a glacial cave 
in the Himalayan mountains to the Bay of Bengal. Garuda's flight lasted 12 
divine days, or 12 years of mortal time, so the Kumbh Mela is celebrated at 
each city, alternating between each every three years. 

The festival at Allahabad is considered the holiest of the four and the last 
one, in 1989, attracted 15 million pilgrims. The Guinness Book of Records 
declared it the largest gathering of human beings for a single purpose. 

Mammoth Hindu festival has smooth start in India

By John Chalmers
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The greatest-ever gathering of human 
beings got off to a smooth start in northern India on Tuesday as more than 
2.5 million Hindu pilgrims plunged joyously into the chilly waters of the 
holy river Ganges to wash away their sins. 

Scantily clad holy men, their faces daubed with sandalwood paste and ash, 
mingled with a milling mass of old, young, rich and poor at the confluence of 
the blue-green Ganges and the dirty-brown River Yamuna before dawn, kicking 
off a festival expected to draw some 70 million people over the next six 
weeks. 

Organisers of the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great Pitcher Festival, which is held 
once every 12 years in the city of Allahabad, said their painstaking 
military-style planning for the onslaught of worshippers had paid off. 

There were no uncontrollable crowd surges unlike the past -- around 500 
people died in a stampede at a Kumbh Mela festival in the 1950s -- and apart 
from a Mexican woman being bundled away by police after she stripped naked on 
the bank of the river, everything went without a hitch. 

However, two people died of natural causes during the day, and six people 
were killed in a road accident as they were bringing the ashes of a relative 
to sprinkle into the Ganges. 

Mela officer Jeevesh Nandan, who said he had suffered sleepless nights since 
he was entrusted with the job of running the festival four months ago, 
sauntered along the sand dunes beside the river with the tide of pilgrims. 

He said at least one million people had taken a dip in the Ganges by 10 a.m. 
(0430 GMT). Thanks to a watery winter sun chasing off the morning fog, a 
further 1.5 million had followed as night closed in. 

"We are really satisfied with the flow of pilgrims and we can say that the 
mela has taken off smoothly," festival commissioner Sadakant (eds:one name) 
told a news conference. 

WASHING AWAY THEIR SINS 

Hindus believe that bathing in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela cleanses them 
of sin, speeding the way to the end of reincarnation in this world and the 
attainment of nirvana, or the after-life. 

Allahabad in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh is one of four spots 
where Garuda, the winged steed of the god Vishnu, is said to have rested 
during a titanic battle with demons over a pitcher of divine nectar of 
immortality. 

Two of the other towns are on the Ganges, which stretches from a glacial cave 
in the Himalayan mountains to the Bay of Bengal. 

Garuda's flight lasted 12 divine days, or 12 years of mortal time, so the 
Kumbh Mela is celebrated at each city, alternating between each every three 
years. 

Hindus consider the festival at Allahabad as the holiest of the four and the 
last one, in 1989, attracted 15 million pilgrims. The Guinness Book of 
Records dubbed it the largest gathering of human beings for a single purpose. 

DRESS REHEARSAL 

Nandan said the first day, although auspicious because it falls on the last 
full moon of winter, was merely a dress-rehearsal for the four other big 
bathing days of the mela, particularly January 14, 24 and 29, when up to 30 
million people might attend. 

"For those days we have calculated that for each person to get undressed, 
have a bath and get dressed again it takes 10 minutes," he said. "So we have 
organised it to make sure there is no clog of people, with only one road in 
and three roads out." 

Hindu holy men, known as sadhus, stood out from the crowds. Many wore nothing 
more than skimpy loin cloths, some sat in yoga positions beside the river 
muttering as they read Hindu scriptures. One had painted himself red and 
attached a tail to his buttocks to look like the monkey god Hanuman. 

Shiv Charan Ram Das Baba, whose dreadlocked hair spilled out of his loosely 
tied saffron turban, said he had come by foot from the southern state of 
Andhra Pradesh. His journey took him more than a month, and he had begged for 
a living along the way. 

Down at the river, a haze hung over the men in underpants, ladies in saris 
and children chasing each other through the water. 

Hundreds of rowing boats milled around the sangam, the confluence of the two 
rivers with a third underground mythical river, named Saraswati after the 
Hindu goddess of learning. 

"It's chilly when you get in first but you forget that quickly in the 
excitement," said a man who was towelling down a toddler shivering with cold. 

Hundreds of policemen patrolled the banks of the river where a mini city of 
some 20,000 desert-brown tents have sprung up to house both officials and 
different sects of sadhus, and watch-towers had been erected with 
closed-circuit television sets to monitor the movement of pilgrims. 

India's Hindu Festival May Produce World's Biggest Gathering
  

Allahabad, India, Jan. 8  
The first of an estimated 75 million Hindu pilgrims are in 
the northern Indian city of Allahabad for the start Tuesday of the Maha Kumbh 
Mela, a religious festival expected to be the largest gathering of humanity. 

The Maha Kumbh, which can be traced back more than 5,000 years, takes place 
every 12 years when the sun, moon and the planet Jupiter are aligned. 

The mela, which means fair, draws people from all over the world to bathe in 
the waters of the Ganges and the Yamuna, which meet in the ancient city, 650 
kilometers (400 miles) southeast of New Delhi. Hindus believe the mythical 
Saraswati once flowed at Allahabad and bathing where the holy rivers meet 
will wash away their sins. 

``It's going to be the biggest ever gathering and we have made elaborate 
arrangements,'' said O.P. Verma, one of those helping to organize the 
festival. ``We are all set.'' 

Hinduism is the dominant religion in the world's second-most populous nation, 
with close to 85 percent of the 1 billion-strong population subscribing to 
various denominations of the faith. About 50 million people attended the last 
festival in 1989. The Guinness Book of World Records called it the largest 
gathering of human beings for a common cause. 

The Uttar Pradesh government has spent 1.2 billion rupees ($25.8 million) on 
building 100 kilometers of roads, a 100-bed temporary hospital, 15 temporary 
bridges, 100 temporary toilet complexes and acres of camping sites for 
pilgrims. The city's population was 810,000 at the time of the 1991 census. 

Maintaining Order 

As many as 15,000 policemen will maintain order during the 42-day event. 
About 500 people were crushed to death at one festival in the 1950s. 

Between 20 million and 30 million people are expected on the most auspicious 
day of all which falls Jan. 24, said Verma. 

``We have made elaborate traffic plans to move the crowds,'' to prevent any 
confusion leading to a stampede, said Verma. 

Smaller Kumbh festivals are held between each Maha, or greater Kumbh, with 
the site rotating between Hardwar, also in Uttar Pradesh on the Ganges, 
Ujjain in the western state of Rajasthan on the Sipra river and Nashik in the 
western state of Maharashtra on the Godavari river. 

The mythology that surrounds the Kumbh Mela recounts how the gods and the 
demons fought over the pot, or kumbha of amrita, the elixir of immortality. 
During the struggle, drops of the elixir fell on the four earthly sites where 
the melas are held. 

At each mela's climactic moment, the rivers are believed to turn back into 
that primordial nectar, giving pilgrims the chance to bathe in the essence of 
purity, auspiciousness and immortality. 

Bitter Cold 

The planetary alignment is crucial -- bathing at the right moment is believed 
to generate the greatest religious merit. That promise is enough to overcome 
apprehension about the bitter cold. Temperatures have dropped to about 5 
degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) in most parts of northern India. The 
weather has led to as many as 25 deaths in Uttar Pradesh alone, news reports 
said. 

The Kumbh Mela's most important figures are the nagas -- the dreadlocked, 
ash-smeared, lightly clad, militant ascetics whose members formerly made 
their living as mercenary soldiers and traders. These holy, aggressive men 
still monopolize the holiest sites at each Kumbh's most propitious moment. 

Although the government now enforces an established bathing order, various 
factions of holy men clashed over which sect should be the first to cleanse 
themselves at one of the smaller melas in 1998. 

At Hardwar in 1986, 60 people were crushed to death during a stampede. 

Jan/07/2001 22:06 ET 

Indian city braces for massive Hindu gathering

by Sunil Kataria (Reuters, Jan. 7, 2001)
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Hindu pilgrims swarmed to a spot on the 
holy Ganges river in India on Sunday as officials fretted over safety ahead 
of what is expected to be the world's biggest gathering of human beings. 

The "Maha Kumbh Mela" or Grand Pitcher Festival, which is held around once 
every 12 years, is expected to see more than 70 million people taking dips in 
the Ganges over 42 days from January 9. 

Some 30 million people are expected to bathe at the confluence of the Yamuna 
and Ganges rivers near the northern city of Allahabad on January 24 alone, 
when an auspicious new moon will appear. 

Allahabad, which is located some 650 km (405 miles) southeast of Delhi in the 
state of Uttar Pradesh, has a normal population of around one million people. 

"We know it's an awesome task. And we are prepared for any eventuality," 
Sadakant (eds: one word), Mela Commissioner in charge of preparations, told 
Reuters. 

"We have worked out the crowd movement in such a way that they will not by 
allowed to swell beyond a limit at any given point," he added. 

The Guinness Book of World Records described the last Maha Kumbh Mela in 
1989, when around 50 million people attended, as the largest ever gathering 
of human beings for a single purpose." 

There were no major problems at the last festival but around 500 people died 
during the event in the mid 1950s. 

Smaller versions of the festival are held every three years in three other 
towns along the Ganges. 

Officials must cope with fears of stampedes and managing people getting lost 
in the milling millions, as well as the logistical nightmares of provision of 
food, water and other essential services. 

But the faithful shrug off the risks as they search for a bath which will 
purify them of their sins. 

CELESTIAL BATTLES 

Legend says gods and demons fought a celestial war, spilling heavenly nectar 
at Allahabad. 

The pilgrims will mainly aim for the "Sangam," or confluence point, where 
they believe the Yamuna and Ganges rivers are joined by an underground 
mythical river, named Saraswati after the Hindu goddess of learning. 

Among the faithfull will be people from rare religious sects including seers 
in saffron robes and naked "sadhus" (holy men) with ash spread over their 
bodies. 

For devout Hindus, the Kumbh Mela is an occasion to celebrate tales and 
beliefs handed through the generations. 

"I am sure there is something very powerful and very pure about the Kumbh," 
pilgrim Venu Gopal told Reuters. "It has been on for centuries, there must be 
something special about it." 

In a political sideshow, Hindu activists plan to announce a date for the 
start of construction of a controversial temple on the site of a mosque which 
was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu zealots in the northern town of Ayodhya. 

SWARMS ARRIVE 

Hundreds of pilgrims have already begun pouring into the festival area, 
braving chilly winds and fog. 

"I have come here to achieve salvation," said 65-year-old woman Brahamani 
Devi, who arrived from the neighbouring Hindu kingdom of Nepal. 

In a more worldly vein, Ram Kishore Das Ramayani, a holy man from downriver 
Varanasi, grumbled about the arrangements. 

"It's freezing here," he declared. "And no blankets, no arrangements for fire 
to warm us, or facilities like water supply, toilets and proper roads... 
Everything is pathetic, compared with what we heard." 

But officials reel off a string of statistics to show how hard they have been 
working, spending some 1.5 billion rupees ($32 million) on the event. 

More than half a million tents and 20,000 makeshift toilets have been have 
been erected, while some 20,000 policemen and 8,000 sweepers have been 
deployed in the spruced up town. 

Security has been a worry, especially with concerns over possible attacks by 
separatist guerrillas. 

"We have factored in the feedback from the army intelligence, central 
intelligence agencies, police etcetera," Sadakant said. "We are taking 
security very seriously." 

Temple row overshadows India's mega-pilgrimage

by Sean McLachlan (Reuters, Jan. 7, 2001)
  

ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 7 (Reuters) - A festering dispute over Hindu ambitions 
to build a temple on the rubble of an ancient mosque overshadowed last-minute 
preparations in northern Indian on Monday for the largest gathering of human 
beings in history. 

Vast crowds had already arrived in the holy Uttar Pradesh state city of 
Allahabad the day before the start of the six-week "Kumbh Mela," of Pitcher 
Festival, which the government estimates will be visited by at least 30 
million Hindu pilgrims. 

Hindus believe that bathing in the holy waters of Allahabad during the mela 
-- which takes place once every 12 years -- will cleanse them of sins, 
breaking the cycle of death and rebirth and uniting them with Brahman, the 
universal divinity. 

Devotees will head in droves for the "Sangam," or confluence point, where 
they believe the Yamuna and Ganges rivers are joined by an underground 
mythical river, named Saraswati after the Hindu goddess of learning. 

Many of the pilgrims are "sadhus," scantily clad -- or often naked -- holy 
men who wander throughout India practicing yoga, preaching the tenets of 
Hinduism and begging for a living. 

"I came a long way from Jammu and Kashmir to be at this holy place," said one 
sadhu who was far from prepared for northern India's winter chill, which has 
claimed 35 lives in Uttar Pradesh over the last few days. 

The festival acts not only as a reaffirmation of faith, but also as a chance 
for members of various sects to meet and discuss theological differences. 

RELIGIOUS WRANGLE 

Despite the spiritual fervour across the city of tents set up on the banks of 
the river, the mosque-temple row looked set to be more than a political 
sideshow of the festival after religious leaders ruled out talks to settle 
their dispute at the weekend. 

Representatives of the minority Muslim community threatened to use force to 
stop a temple to the god-king Ram being built on the site of the Babri 
Mosque, which was torn down by a mob of Hindu fanatics in 1992. 

The razing of the mosque in the town of Ayodhya, which lies a few hours drive 
north of Allahabad, triggered India's worst communal violence since the 
bloody partition of 1947. 

Hardline sadhus will meet at the festival on January 19-21 and then announce 
the date when work on a temple will start at the site, which is believed by 
Hindu's to be Ram's birthplace. 

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata 
Party rose to national prominence on the back of a campaign for an Ayodhya 
temple in the 1980s, threw fuel onto the blazing controversy last month. 

His remark that the temple was an unfulfilled expression of national 
sentiment put his 15-month-old coalition government on the defensive, though 
it won a debate on the issue in the lower house of parliament as allies 
closed ranks. 

Allahabad is one of four spots where Garuda, the winged steed of the god 
Vishnu, is said to have rested during a titanic battle with demons over a 
pitcher of divine nectar of immortality. 

He rested at four spots -- Allahabad, Hardwar, Ujjain and Nashik -- at each 
of which nectar spilt onto the earth. 

Garuda's flight lasted twelve divine days, or twelve years of mortal time, so 
the Kumbh Mela is celebrated at each city every twelve years, alternating 
between each every three years. 

AN ANCIENT TRADITION 

Hindus consider the festival at Allahabad as the holiest of the four, and the 
last one, in 1989, attracted 15 million pilgrims. The Guinness Book of 
Records dubbed it "the largest-ever gathering of human beings for a single 
purpose." 

Twice that number are expected at this year's festival. More than half a 
million tents and 20,000 makeshift toilets have been erected and, with 
concerns over attacks by separatist guerrillas, some 20,000 policemen have 
been deployed. 

The holiest dates for bathing are calculated by astrologers based on the 
position of the stars and planets during Garuda's flight. The first major 
bathing date will be January 9. Other auspicious dates are January 14, 24 and 
29, February 8 and 21. 

Ancient records show the festival has been held for at least 2,000 years. The 
Chinese traveler Huan Tsang noted in 643 A.D. that pilgrims of other faiths 
also attended. "Worships were offered to Buddha, (the) Sun, Shiva. Buddhist 
monks, the Brahmins and Jain heretics received gifts alike," he wrote. 

Devotees of other religions still attend the Kumbh Mela, 

"The sadhus all parade down to the water, naked and blowing horns and banging 
drums. Everyone makes way for them," said Satvinder Bir Singh, a Sikh 
landlord who attended the last mela. "It was a magnificent sight." 

Indian Hindu, Muslim leaders to talk on temple row

  (Reuters, Jan. 6, 2001)

NEW DELHI, Jan 6 (Reuters) - India's Hindu and Muslim leaders plan to hold a 
meeting later this month to try and find a solution to an explosive row over 
a disputed place of worship. 

Leaders of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the World Hindu Council and Babri 
Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) are expected to meet in the northern city of 
Lucknow on January 13, a VHP leader told Reuters. 

"There is a proposal for a meeting on January 13. We do not have any 
objection if negotiations begin with Muslim leaders," said Praveen Togadia, 
VHP's International General Secretary. 

Hardline Hindu groups linked with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been campaigning for a temple at the site 
in the northern town of Ayodhya where a historic mosque was destroyed by 
Hindu zealots in 1992. 

They believe the site is the birthplace of the Hindu god-king Ram. 

Some 3,000 people died in nationwide riots that followed the destruction of 
the 16th-century mosque, and since then the dispute has led to deep religious 
and political divides in the country. 

Vajpayee last month sparked off a fresh controversy when he said that a Ram 
temple in Ayodhya was a reflection of national sentiment. 

He made it clear, however, that his government would not permit any activity 
at the spot until the courts have ruled on the site. 

Hindu and Muslim groups have filed petitions claiming ownership of the site 
and the courts have ordered a ban on any activity there until a verdict is 
reached. 

Togadia did not give the details of the agenda for talks with Muslim leaders 
but said the VHP would not back down on its demand for a temple at the 
disputed site. 

Two Christian priests abducted, beaten in India

  (Reuters, Jan. 5, 2001)

JAIPUR, India, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Two Christian priests were recovering in 
hospital on Friday after being abducted and beaten in a tribal village in 
western India, police said. 

They said the priests, identified only as Simon and David, were abducted from 
Zer, a village in Rajasthan's Udaipur district, on Thursday and forcibly 
taken to the neighbouring state of Gujarat where they were beaten. 

Anand Shukla, an Udaipur police chief, told Reuters the two abductors had 
been identified. One was a Zer villager and the other a resident of Gujarat. 

The priests suffered minor injuries and were admitted to a hospital in 
Bijaynagar in Gujarat, Shukla said. 

No motive was given for the attack, but Gujarat has in the past been the 
scene of violent attacks on Christians, who make up about two percent of 
India's billion-strong population. Right-wing Hindu organisations have been 
blamed for the attacks. 

Hindu leaders deny the charge. They say forced religious conversions by 
Christian missionaries are responsible for unrest in tribal areas. 

India's Hindu nationalists teach a new lesson

By Sanjeev Miglani
  

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters, Jan. 3) - There is a new gospel sweeping India: 
that Indians do not know their history or their greatness and have lost all 
sense of the spiritual values laid down by their ancient scriptures. 

Instead of blindly aping the West's education system, it must teach children 
India's ethos, culture, religion and a corrected version of history that 
restores primacy of place to Indian civilization, say its preachers. 

And these once-wild ambitions of Hindu revivalists are suddenly becoming a 
reality. Since it took power a year ago, the coalition government led by the 
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has made subtle but 
far-reaching changes to the school syllabus and the education system. 

The aim is to produce a new generation of deeply religious Indians proud of 
their country and its rich heritage. 

This month, state education ministers will discuss a new curriculum framework 
formulated by the National Council of Educational Research, which says 
children must be taught about religions and the primacy of Indian 
civilization and inculcated with a deep sense of nationalism. 

Critics of the BJP say the curriculum is a thinly veiled but dangerous 
attempt by its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or 
National Volunteers Corps, to foist its brand of Hindu ideology on 
schoolchildren. 

"It is a clear departure from the existing system of secular non-religious 
education," said K.N. Panikkar, who teaches history at New Delhi's Jawaharlal 
Nehru University. 

A chapter entitled "Value Education" in the NCERT document says morning 
assembly in schools must focus on inculcating values. "Interesting stories 
about the lives and teachings of prophets, saints and sacred texts of 
different religions, readings from books of wisdom, essential teachings of 
all the major world religions and meditation may constitute a regular 
activity," the document says. 

'LIP SERVICE' TO TEACHING ALL RELIGIONS 

Panikkar said the new emphasis on religion in the classroom appeared 
innocuous but would eventually force children to think along denominational 
lines. "While the document pays lip service to the teaching of all religions, 
it is clear to anyone where the RSS sympathies lie." 

The secretive RSS is widely accused of harboring a deep-seated bias against 
the country's minority Muslim and Christian communities. RSS leaders deny 
this but say they are opposed to special treatment for any community. 

Leaders of the 75-year-old RSS have also extolled the achievements of ancient 
India from calculus and nuclear physics to advanced chemistry and 
aeronautics, saying it was a pity Indians had forgotten their homegrown 
geniuses. 

"Few of these claims are substantiated and I fear that what the new 
curriculum will end up doing is to give children a false sense of 
importance," said Eduardo Faleiro, a deputy of the main opposition Congress 
party. 

"As far as the RSS is concerned, India could make nuclear weapons hundreds of 
years ago. They are trying to give education a sectarian and chauvinistic 
orientation," said Faleiro, who has spearheaded a campaign against what he 
brands the painting of textbooks with the Hindu color of saffron. 

The NCERT document, which could be the basis for new textbooks in 
government-run schools, says children must be made to join the National Cadet 
Corps, where basic military training is given. Until now the popular NCC has 
been voluntary. 

CHANGING MINDSETS 

The neglect of Sanskrit, the ancient language widely regarded as the mother 
of all Indian languages, must stop and children must have a basic knowledge 
of the tongue, it says. 

Education experts leading the move to overhaul the education system deny they 
are pushing a secret Hindu agenda and say that instead they are struggling to 
change rigid mindsets. 

"The moment someone talks about India, Indian ethos, Indian heritage, values, 
roots and religion, these people jump out of their cozy confines and start 
shouting from rooftops that India is in danger. Why are they so jittery?" 
asked NCERT director J.S. Rajput, who led the group that wrote the new 
curriculum. 

He said it was "tragic" that Indians were hesitant to learn about their 
civilization or Sanskrit or even about religions. 

"We are not in the business of religious education. We are talking about 
teaching different religions to children. Would you like him (a child) to 
pick up stray ideas of different faiths from the street?" he asked. 

A glimpse of such an emphasis on religion and Indian values is available is 
in western Gujarat state, where a BJP government has already introduced new 
textbooks in state schools. 

A chapter on minorities in a social studies book says Hindus are a majority 
in India and Muslims a minority, and there are other foreign religions such 
as Christianity.. 

"Is such reference necessary? They are trying to give a minority complex to 
children at a young age," said Cedric Prakash, who leads the St. Xaviers's 
Society, which has been campaigning against attacks on Christians in the 
state. 

The book also extols Hindu society's 2,500-year-old caste system as a gift 
from the ancient Aryans because it was based on a clear-cut division of 
labor.       

 Religious freedom in Pakistan, India examined

by Tahir Mirza ("Pakistan Dawn," September 19, 2000)

WASHINGTON, Sept 19: Religious freedom in Pakistan and India and the link 
between the freedom movement in Kashmir and religion were examined at a 
hearing held by the US Commission of International Religious Freedom in the 
Senate offices here on Monday. 

The commission is a US federal government entity created under the 
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, and it monitors religious 
freedom in other countries, serving as an advisory body for the president, 
the secretary of state and Congress. 

Shortly before Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to the US, 
the commission had written to President Bill Clinton urging him to take up 
the issue of religious persecution of minorities in India. 

In Monday's hearings, the Indian government was criticized for its failure to 
condemn the rise in sectarian violence and it was stressed that the official 
silence on attacks on Christian churches had encouraged extremist forces. 

Pakistan came under fire for tolerating widely practised discrimination 
against Christians and the Ahmadiya community. The inbuilt constitutional 
bias against the minorities and the continued adherence to separate 
electorates were also underlined. 

The issue of Kashmiri Pandits also figures in the discussions, and the 
interesting point was raised that animosity against the Pandits had less to 
do with religion and more with the fact that they were seen, even before 
partition, as a dominating social, economic and political class. 

Mostly, the presentations by those who took part in the hearings followed 
predictable lines and were not free of cliched pronouncements. But Professor 
Ainslee T Embree, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, made 
an effort to link religion with culture, and said the RSS had tried to 
project Hinduism as an all-embracing culture. 

He said while Jawaharlal Nehru had often been quoted for his harsh judgments 
on the role of religion in India, when he talked of the "essential unity" 
which had been "so powerful that no political division, disaster or 
catastrophe had been able to overcome it" (Nehru's words), he could only have 
been referring to religion as the source of that unity. 

Professor Mumtaz Ali Khan, an expert on minorities in India, took particular 
exception to the stocking by the BJP government of India's premier research 
institutions by communalists instead of scholars of a secular and scientific 
bent as had been the case before the nationalists came to power. History was 
being distorted under the patronage of the new heads of such research 
institutions. 

John Dayal, a human rights activist from India, said a distinction should be 
made between Hinduism the religion and Hindutva the political philosophy of 
the Sangh Parviar. He decried the government's apathy to the violent crimes 
against Christians and said the Indian premier's silence on the issue was 
killing. 

Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, 
detailed the state oppression unleashed against Kashmiri Muslims fighting for 
their right of self-determination and urged the United States to assume the 
position of a "leader" and play an active role in finding a lasting 
settlement of the Kashmir question. He said the Kashmiri leadership as 
represented by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference should be included in any 
peace talks. 

The hearings were presided over by the International Religious Freedom 
Commission Chairman Elliott Abrams and others who took part in the 
proceedings were Mumtaz Ahmad, professor at Hampton University; Mohan 
Shahani, human rights activist from Pakistan; James Channan, a Roman Catholic 
priest from Pakistan; Mujeeb Rahman representing the Ahmadiya community; 
Sumit Ganguly, professor at the University of Texas; and Arvind Sharma, Birks 
Professor of Comparative Religion at McGill University. 

Former US ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley was also billed to take part 
in the discussions which were continuing when this report was filed. 

US panel holds session on religious freedom in India

 
by Amberish K Diwanji (Rediff.com, Sept. 19, 2000) 

A day after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee left Washington for India, 
the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom held a 
hearing on India and Pakistan, including a special session on Kashmir. 

The decision to hold the hearing within 24 hours of the prime minister's 
departure was "not a coincidence," according to the commission's director of 
communications, Lawrence J Goodrich. "While we had no intention of causing 
any embarrassment to the prime minister on his visit, we also timed it to 
gain maximum media advantage by holding it just after he left Washington," he 
told rediff.com. 

Chairing the hearings was Elliot Abrams, president, Ethics and Public Policy 
Centre, Washington. The session on India included Professor Emeritus Ainslie 
Embree of Columbia University, Professor Arvind Sharma of McGill University, 
Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan of the Muslim Forum for Social Justice and John Dayal of 
the All India Christian Council. 

While Professor Embree gave an overview of the religious situation, including 
how Hindus view conversion, Professor Sharma specifically spoke on the Hindu 
view of conversion and religious freedom, pointing out that most Hindus were 
against conversion. 

He said the problem occurred with Western thinking that assumed that a man 
could only follow one religion. He pointed out that a Hindu does not mind if 
you pray to Allah or Jesus; what he minds is if you stop worshipping Hindu 
gods to worship other religions' gods. 

Dr Khan said that Muslims suffered from a series of disabilities, 
marginalised due to poverty and illiteracy. She said that under the Bharatiya 
Janata Party regime, the sense of insecurity had increased though Muslims in 
India do look up to Vajpayee. 

Dayal said a sharp distinction had to be made between Hinduism and Hindutva 
(which was Hindu nationalism). 

He said violence against Christians would only end when there is political 
will and when the highest in the land make it clear that India will not 
tolerate hate campaigns against Christians or other minorities. 

After the session on the state of minorities in India, the next session was 
specifically on the situation in Kashmir. Speaking at the session were Dr 
Ghulam Nabi Fai of the Kashmiri American Council, a pro-independence outfit 
based in the United States, and Dr Vijay Sazawal of the Indo-American Kashmir 
Forum and Professor Embree. 

Dr Sazawal spoke on behalf of the Kashmiri Pandits who have been displaced 
from Jammu and Kashmir, and killed in large numbers, leading to an ethnically 
cleaned Kashmir valley. On the other hand, Dr Fai spoke about the crimes 
committed on Muslim Kashmiris by security forces based in the state to fight 
insurgency. 

There was also a session on the plight of minorities in Pakistan, followed by 
a situation analysis hearing on India and Pakistan. 

During the last session, the speakers took pains to point out the difference 
between India and Pakistan, stating that while in India the minorities were 
protected by laws but their application was weak, in Pakistan, the laws 
themselves discriminated against the minorities, offering them little hope. 

Dr Marshall Bouton of the Asia Society, Professor Sumit Ganguly of the Centre 
of Asian Studies, Texas University, Professor Tamara Sonn, College of William 
and Mary, and Robert Oakley, former ambassador to Pakistan spoke at the 
session. 

Later, commission chairman Elliot Abrams told rediff.com that hearing was 
only to gather information about the state of religious freedom in India and 
Pakistan. 

He was at pains to explain that the commission under no circumstances equated 
the situation in Pakistan with that in India. "The only reason we had both 
countries heard on the same day was because some of data pertaining to 
Kashmir involved both nations," he said. 

Abrams said the commission intended to send a team to India later to study 
the ground situation. "What we have heard so far is statements by persons 
whom we have called from India or Pakistan, or are based in the US," he said. 

The chairman added that the commission would also study reports sent in by 
human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. 

When the commission's director of communications was asked whether the 
evidence and reports submitted would be verified, Goodrich replied in the 
positive. "Our experience shows that most reports or evidence submitted is, 
unfortunately, true," he added. 

He said that another reason for visiting some countries was to meet members 
of communities that did not get representation at the hearing. "We can't call 
everyone, so it is better to go down and meet the others, which we will do 
when we visit India," he stated. 

Abrams said the report guides the US administration and Congress in framing 
foreign policy. "The United States is committed to dealing with countries 
that respect religious freedom and our report will inform the government 
about which countries are not up to the mark," he added. 

When asked why a hearing on Kashmir was made part of the religious freedom 
hearing, he stressed that the commission was not looking into the political 
crisis in the state. "We are not seeking to offer a political solution or 
even seek information. What we have sought to know is the plight Of the 
Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir, both of whom are unable to practice their 
faiths," he said. 

The commission has 10 members, including the chairman, who is appointed by 
the speaker of the House. The 10th member is the ambassador-at-large for 
religious freedom, ex-officio, who is appointed by the US president. This 
post is vacant after Robert Seiple quit the commission a month ago. The 
members are selected on a bipartisan basis, with Republicans and Democrats 
nominating the members. Of the current nine, the Democratic Party selected 
five. 

The commission has to draft its report on the religious freedom situation of 
all countries and submit its report by May 1, 2001. 

62 Hurt in India Religious Violence

(AP, Sept. 13, 2000)

BOMBAY, India (AP) -- Police fired into a crowd of Hindus and Muslims who 
clashed Wednesday during a religious ceremony in western India, and at least 
62 people were hurt, a state official said.

Four people were hit by bullets when police fired in the air to disperse 
rioters in Nanded, nearly 700 miles from New Delhi, said Mohan Patil, 
additional home secretary of the state of Maharashtra.

Twenty-one people were admitted to a Nanded hospital. Paramilitary forces 
were called to help police and a curfew was imposed, authorities said. Police 
arrested 28 people.

The Hindus and Muslims clashed during an immersion ceremony of the idol of 
Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed god of prosperity.

Thousands of Ganesh idols are taken out in colorful processions winding 
through the streets of western Indian towns and villages at the end of the 
10-day Ganesh Chathurthi festival. The idols are then immersed in the Arabian 
Sea or in nearby rivers.

The parades often pass through Muslim neighborhoods, leading to violence.

The procession Wednesday was passing through the Jama mosque area when some 
Muslims at the mosque objected to Hindu religious songs being played on 
loudspeakers, Patil said.

They threw stones at the marchers, who turned violent when one rock hit the 
statue. The 10,000-person Hindu procession then attacked the mosque.

A policeman fired three rounds in the air to disperse the rioters. As news of 
the firing spread, riots broke out in different parts of the town. Police 
fired 11 rounds at a violent crowd, injuring four men, Patil said.

Satan worship concerns Christians in northeast India

("Newsroom," September 1, 2000)

AIZAWL, India, 1 September 2000 (Newsroom) -- Religious leaders in the 
predominantly Christian state of Mizoram have asked police to investigate 
recent incidents of Satan worship involving teenagers, a trend that some 
officials blame on television shows about the paranormal and the occult.

"This is not good for our society or any society," said the Reverend 
Vanalalrhuajwa of the Presbyterian Church Synod in Mizoram.

The sudden rise in popularity of devil worship in the last three months so 
alarmed parents and teenagers that Presbyterian elders asked four faculty 
members at Aizawl Theological College to study the problem. Their report 
appeared to confirm the fears of church leaders, who then asked police to 
intervene.

One church elder who asked not to be named described an incident where high 
school boys and girls formed a circle in a cemetery late at night, chanting 
invocations to Satan. In the center of the circle was a monkey skull with the 
inscription ``Natas Si Dog'' -- ``God is Satan," in reverse. Police said the 
students then slashed their wrists in a ritual offering of blood.

Aizawl police Superintendent Zorammawaaia said the phenomenon has taken 
authorities by surprise because the population in this tiny, northeastern 
state is about 90 percent Christian, primarily Presbyterian. Like many 
Indians, the police superintendent goes by a single name.

Police do not know how many students may be involved, but Zorammawaaia 
suggested that the Satan worshipers probably are influenced by television 
shows about witchcraft and other black magic.

About 25 million homes in India have cable television, which gives them 
access to programs such as "The X Files," the American show about FBI agents 
who investigate paranormal and unexplained incidents, and Indian programs 
such as "Aahat," "Anhonee" and "Woh."

Producers of programs such as "Aahat," for example, say they are emphasizing 
the supernatural over more traditional horror themes because that is what 
audiences want. They also are targeting younger children. For example, in one 
episode of "Aahat" a doll that is possessed by an evil spirit persuades a 
young girl to trade places, then refuses to relinquish the girlÕs body. The 
show received the highest ratings ever for a television show in India and was 
the topic of conversation in schools for days afterward.

"We are just entertaining the people for 25 minutes," "Aahat" producer 
Pradeep Upoor said in defense of the show. "Once you tune in to our program 
it won't let you go. Just like the doll."

In a Hindu culture that believes in reincarnation, shows that depict people 
who come back to life to exact revenge have great appeal, according to 
psychiatrist Harish Shetty.

"When horror shows show the victim wreaking vengeance after he/she dies, it 
appeals to the primitive emotions of human beings," he said. "The children 
enjoy it. They are scared but, like their parents, they are excited by life 
after life."

Not everyone shares that excitement, however. One 7-year-old girl wrote to 
the High Court describing how "Aahat" scared her. In Delhi, a city court 
observed that some "horror serials" were detrimental to the mental health of 
children.

"We need to teach these young people and ensure they do not indulge in these 
kinds of weird religious practices," the Reverend Vanalalrhuajwa insisted.

SC frowns upon noise pollution in the name of god

by Rakesh Bhatnagar ("Times of India," August 31, 2000)

NEW DELHI: The right to propagate and practice
religion of one's choice does not mean aggravating
noise pollution through amplifiers and loudspeakers,
the Supreme Court has ruled, adding: ``The young
babies in the neighbourhood are also entitled to enjoy
their natural right of sleeping in a peaceful
atmosphere.''

In a significant judgment, the court has made it loud
and clear that: ``The activities which disturb old and
infirm persons, students or children having their sleep
in the early hours or during day-time, or other persons
carrying on other activities cannot be permitted in the
name of religion in a civilised society.''

A Bench, comprising Justice M B Shan and Justice S N
Phukan, dismissed the appeal of Chennai-based
Church of God (Full Gospel) in India against the
Madras High Court order that directed necessary
action against vehicles honking loudly and making the
church ``to keep the noise level of speakers at a lower
pitch''.

A residents' welfare association had sought the high
court direction to the local police and the pollution
control authorities to restrain the church from using
loudspeakers, drums and other sound producing
instruments while reciting prayers. Such activities, the
petition said, caused noise pollution and disturbance
in the normal life.

The church contended that since the association's
petition had an oblique motive to ``prevent a religious
minority institution from pursuing its religious
activities'', the court could not prevent it from
``practising its religious beliefs''.

Can a community or sect claim right to add to noise
pollution on the ground of religion? Should drum
beating or use of microphones and loudspeakers that
disturbs the peace of neighbourhood be permitted?
The apex stressed: ``Undisputedly, no religion
prescribes that prayers should be performed by
disturbing the peace of others nor does it preach that
they should be through voice-amplifiers or beating of
drums.''

Upholding the right of the aged, infirm, children and
those afflicted with psychic disturbances to live in
peace, the court said any religion or sect ``should not
adversely affect the rights of others, including that of
being not disturbed in their activities''. It said the state
machinery should intervene to correct the imbalance
between competing interests where it was not possible
to bring about a voluntary harmony in a free play of
social forces.

Christianity is taking hold in the Himalayas

("Religion Today," August 23, 2000)

A new light is dawning in a corner of Asia where spiritual darkness is great. 

...Native evangelists in northern India, Nepal, and Bhutan are starting 
churches in the Hindu- and Buddhist-dominated region, ministries there 
reported.  ...

Churches are growing among the Kurku people, a tribe of about 400,000 
living in central India, Anderson said. Six new churches have been started and many of 
the tribesman have been trained to do evangelism and church planting since 1996, 
he said. 

...Supernatural displays of God's power are a key factor, Anderson said. Kurku
people transport their sick on ox carts to one village church and "as they're 
prayed for, God heals them instantly," Anderson said. "The next week they return with 
another cart of sick and demon-possessed people." Several villages are now 
open to the gospel message because they have seen friends and relatives made 
well, he said. ...

Young people are trained to preach and start new churches. More than 125 
have been trained in India and 99 Christians from the Himalayan region have been 
trained at a center in Nepal, Anderson said. The Himalayan evangelists have started several
church-planting initiatives in their region. ...

Nepal, the world's only Hindu kingdom, forbids evangelism. Churches are
allowed to worship and talk about Jesus, but asking someone to change their 
faith carries a mandatory three-and-a-half year sentence, according to news reports. 
Baptizing a person into the Christian faith carries a seven-and-a-half-year sentence. ...

Christianity is growing despite the obstacles. There are more than 200,000
Nepalese Christians, up from 50,000 in 1991, a Nepalese pastor said. Native 
workers are having success among tribal people in Nepal, Charlottesville, Va.-based 
Christian Aid Mission, a ministry that helps meet the needs of indigenous evangelists, 
reported. ...

Indian Christians protest attacks, pray for peace

by Himangshu Watts (Reuters, August 26, 2000)
  

CALCUTTA, India, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Christians in India's eastern city of 
Calcutta observed the birthday of the late Mother Teresa on Saturday with 
solemn prayers and strong protests against a spate of attacks against their 
faith. 

``The attacks are a real disgrace for the country,'' Sister Nirmala, superior 
general of Mother Teresa's order of nuns, told Reuters. 

A series of church bombings and murders of missionaries and priests since 
last year have rattled Indian Christians, many of whom say they feel 
vulnerable under the rule of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party 
(BJP)-led federal coalition. 

The Statesman newspaper on Saturday reported a Christian deacon was paraded 
naked earlier this week for distributing Bibles during a Hindu festival. ...

Christians blame Hindu hardliners, including those believed to be close to 
Vajpayee's BJP, for the attacks. 

But Hindu groups deny they are behind the attacks and say the attacks are the 
result of friction caused by Christian missionaries coercing and luring 
remote tribal and lower-caste Hindus to convert. 

Christian leaders in Calcutta have invited nearly 3,000 Hindu leaders to 
address more than 500 meetings for communal harmony in different parts of the 
eastern state of West Bengal. ...

India has 22 million Christians, just over two percent of its more than one 
billion people. 

Polygamy as a social problem 

("Frontier Post [India]," August 21, 2000)

Polygamy is one of the most controversial subject in recent times. The 
misconception that Islam permits a man legally and morally to have as many as 
four marriages. The practice of polygamy is accepted in our society but some 
times, it creates problems for the spouses, as well as for the children.  
The key passage in the Holy Quran, in which polygamy is said to be 
permissible as "And if ye feel that ye will not deal fairly by the orphans, marry of the 
women who seem good two or three or four and if ye fear that ye cannot do 
justice to so many than one (only) or the (captives) that you right hands 
posses. Thus it is more likely that you will not do justice". 
A Yousaf Ali in the Holy Quran explanatory note 2988, P 209, opins "the 
unrestricted number of wives of the time of ignorance was now strictly 
limited to a maximum of four provided you could treat them with perfect equality in 
material things as well as in affections in immaterial things. As this 
conditions is most difficult to fulfil, I understand the recommendations to 
be towards monogamy.  
According the research report about "problems of the children in pologamanes 
families in Peshawar, 44 per cent out of 100 respondents, father were having 
two wives at the same time. Other 44 percent respondents gave the reason of 
second marriage as lack of understanding between parents and 54 percent of 
the respondents were of the view that the separation was because of the father's 
second marriage, 43 percent were living with their mothers, 58 percent 
respondents said that fathers support their families, while 28 percent of 
respondent said that for other economic needs they take help from mother, 
majority of the respondents i.e. 36 percent said that their father was 
frustrating and 42 percent fathers attitude with them also frustrating, 42 
percent respondents were having frustrated attitude with step relations. 
While 52 percent step-mothers and 45 percent of the step-sibling behaviour with 
respondents were frustrating, 48 percent majority of the husbands behaviour 
with the wives were also frustrating. 
Children in these families often suffer from psychological problems like 
tension, depression, loneliness, etc. , due to lack of parents attention and 
up and down between the relations of parents. In some cases of joint custody 
children spend part of each week with one parent and part of each week with 
other parent, they live to set of adult parents in two separate homes. 
In some families, if a father want to economical support to his children but 
his new wife becomes upset. She eventually told her husbands that if he was 
going to send money to a wife or children, she would leave him. Resultantly 
the husband stops sending the money to his children or previous wife. So that 
the other family suffering from the economical problems. When step parents 
hurt the children by beating or other psycho-physical abusing, they neglect 
the former children and give priority to their own ones. Which creates the 
sense of hatred and inferiority complex. This lack of care may produce 
deviation in the children and they get involved in anti-social activities and 
they ignored their studies and some times lack of love developed the feeling 
that he or she is unwanted child and then they feel insecurity and 
frustration which creates a desire to run away from home and avoid family members as much 
as possible.  
As the family is considered to be the necessary of the human nature so if 
frustration or break comes in this institution, definitely the personality 
gets effected resulting many psychological and sociological problems behind. 
Frustration or break in the family occur through different sources, which are 
the root causes of psycho-socio and economical problems, so that majority of 
the children from the polygamous families can't get easily success in their 
lives and also cannot easily moved in their peer group and society by 
creating general mass awareness regarding the ill consequences of this practice. 
Media can play an important role in this connection. Islamic view point 
regarding the issue should be properly narrated and explained as previously 
people, especially, these having desire for second marriage, misunderstand 
the provision and permission of second marriage by Islam, without understanding 
its pre-requisite. There community centres should be set up where the people 
having family problems should come and discuss them with qualified social 
worker and other experienced people in over coming their personal and family 
problems. Marriage law also should be reviewed and amended to discourage 
second marriage. Make a child feel loved and secure. In schools the teachers 
should pay more special attention to the children of the polygamous families 
to solve their educational and  step relations problems with positive 
guidance and guide their parents that don't ignore their children and especially the 
father should be given the equal rights to his wives and all children.