[] I/III. http://www.financegist.in/article/between-bhagwat-and-bhagwati/75033f60a27cf18b0e63a380001cd08c/
Between Bhagwat and Bhagwati By Peter Ronald D'Souza and Errol D'Souza Jagdish Bhagwati is a scholar second only to the more versatile Amartya Sen. Having lived in the US since 1968, he believes he has a deep, nuanced understanding of the dynamics of Indian society that others living in India, and who have dirtied their hands with the everyday challenges of running the country, don't understand. His article, The false alarm over Christians in India , Mint, 30 March, rebuts Julio Ribeiro's article As a Christian, suddenly I am a stranger in my own Country (The Indian Express, 16 March) and invites us, as the blurb of the article states, to "forcefully expose" wrong arguments. We respond to Bhagwati's article at both the levels that he has deployed: (i) using approaches in the social sciences to examine his claim and (ii) probing his arguments with counterpoints. We begin with a textual analysis. Bhagwati states that Ribeiro complains that "he is on a 'hit list' today from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because he is a Christian". "Hit list" is written in inverted commas. This implies (a) that there is a list, and (b) those on the list are to be hit. This is plainly a misreading. Nowhere in Ribeiro's article does he use the words "hit list". Ribeiro says "I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own country" and "systematic targeting of a peaceful community". Ribeiro's language is about community insecurity. It is the collective that he is talking about. Why did Bhagwati exaggerate? Secondly, in his article Bhagwati spends three paragraphs on his family, two are about attacks on Christians, three are mixed, i.e., both anecdotal and issue relevant, and two have no bearing on the proposition. Of the 1,000 words or so, about 460 deal with himself. All his mentioning that he got the Xavier Ratna award, or that he had a side conversation with Christopher Hitchens in a TV studio, or that Abid Husain was his closest friend of 40 years does is to make for nice biographical detail. Next we examine his argument as social scientists. In the last one year, the following has happened: (a) six or more churches have been attacked or vandalized, (b) a nun has been raped, (c) the Union government has declared Christmas day as Good Governance day and the ministry of human resource development has asked students to sit for an essay competition on the subject, (d) the Chief Justice of India has called a meeting of state chief justices on Good Friday, a gazetted holiday which on the calendar is no less significant a day than Diwali or Bakr Id, (e) Mother Teresa has been charged with being in the business of conversion by no less a person than the head of the RSS, (f) the Sangh Parivar is on a concerted and systematic campaign of ghar wapsi across the country from Kerala to West Bengal to Uttar Pradesh, etc., and (g) the government took a long time to condemn the attacks. These seven aspects can be seen either as random events or as an indication of an emerging order in what otherwise seems to be a disordered environment. Bhagwati prefers to see them as random events and only a "fevered imagination" would see them as attacks against Christians. This is an empirical issue requiring a testable hypothesis. Imagine seven elite universities were vandalized in the US. Imagine further that there was a systematic campaign against private elite education and also that a learned professor was assaulted. And finally imagine that all professors of Indian origin, who have taken up US citizenship, are asked to return to India, a kind of ghar wapsi . Would Bhagwati be concerned? Is there not a pattern to this activity? If Bhagwati sees no pattern in the first then he must see no pattern in the second. Now, another level of argument. Firstly, he quotes Christopher Hitchens rather than the Nobel Committee to characterize Mother Teresa's work, implying that he considers Hitchens more authoritative than the Nobel Committee. Would he echo Hitchens's other work charging Henry Kissinger with war crimes? Secondly, Wikipedia lists Bhagwati as on the Academic Advisory Board of Human Rights Watch (Asia). How should one read the sections on India where HRW says "Some inflammatory remarks by BJP politicians have added to a sense of insecurity among religious minorities"? Could those be the remarks by Mohan Bhagwat, who said about ghar wapsi : "We will bring back our brothers... They did not go on their own. They were robbed, tempted into leaving... I will retrieve my belongings, so why is this such a big issue." Thirdly, his logic is hard to fathom. To argue, as he does, that: (i) Christians believe in conversion, (ii) Mother Teresa is a Christian, and (iii) therefore Mother Teresa converts, is an inductive fallacy. His desire to bat for the prime minister is puzzling. When he says of Ribeiro's claims that "they are so ridiculous and libelous to the prime minister, and even the BJP generally, that they must be exposed forcefully as such", we are reminded of another eminent Indian who as Chief Justice of India welcomed another prime minister when she returned to power after she had been defeated after the Emergency. He wrote in a letter to her: "May I offer you my heartiest congratulations on your resounding victory in the elections... I am sure that with your iron will and firm determination...you will be able to steer the ship of the nation safely to its cherished goal." We see no pattern here. There is no connection between the two random comments. Peter Ronald D'Souza and Errol D'Souza are, respectively, professor at the Centre for Developing Societies and professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Comments are welcome at [email protected] II/III. http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/lNKcsuArsta4yushnlQ9cI/Jagdish-Bhagwati--The-false-alarm-over-Christians-in-India.html FIRST PUBLISHED: SUN, MAR 29 2015. 06 38 PM IST Jagdish Bhagwati | The false alarm over Christians in India Alarmist views about Indian Christians being under threat are overplayed and must be forcefully exposed as such Jagdish Bhagwati A recent opinion piece by Julio Ribeiro, the much-admired scourge of Khalistainis, complains plaintively that he is on "a hit list" today from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) because he is a Christian. Similar alarmist views on Christianity are common in India today, simply because of the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the decimation of the Congress by the BJP. They are being spread by church leaders; for example Catholic Archbishop Anil Couto is reported to have even celebrated the defeat of BJP in the recent Delhi elections as if a calamity for Christians had been averted. But they are so ridiculous and libelous to the prime minister, and even the BJP generally, that they must be exposed forcefully as such. Before I do that, let me establish my credentials concerning the issue at hand. I come from a family that is impressively pro-Indian-minorities. My wife, Padma Desai, has converted to Christianity (in a moving ceremony described by her in her memoirs, Breaking Out, published by Penguin/Viking in India and MIT Press in the US). Two of my nephews have married Christians: one is from Mumbai and is a multiple-award-winning psychiatrist practising in London and periodically in Mumbai, whereas the other is a Syrian Christian from Kerala. Another niece is married to a Parsi (who, of course, belongs to a still smaller, and equally beloved minority as Christians in India); and yet another almost married a Muslim young man. My only daughter's significant other for years was a Christian and indeed an American-Indian on his mother's side. Abid Husain, my closest friend of over 40 years, whom I met in Turkey when we were both working there, was one of India's most distinguished reformers and a pioneer in community development programmes. He was a Muslim and had married a brilliant Parsi intellectual. Indeed, the other equally close friend for over half a century has been former prime minister Manmohan Singh, a devout Sikh (yet another minority much loved in India except for the awfully heinous massacre, indeed a pogrom, of the Sikhs in Delhi by some Congress party men in 1984 after prime minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards). Most of all, I went to St. Xavier's High School in Bombay. I got excellent education there, and I expressed my sentimental bond with the school when I was chosen recently to receive the coveted Xavier Ratna award. On a lighter side, with discipline a high point, we used to joke how strict the school was because they even had a guy nailed to the wall. So, if there was anything to the Christian fears today, I should be the first to join the protests. But the truth is that these fears are totally groundless and are, at best, a product of a fevered imagination. First, we now know from the admirable investigative report in Firstpost (Crying Wolf: The Narrative of the 'Delhi church attacks' flies in the face of facts, 17 February) by Rupa Subramanya that there is simply no evidence for the six alleged attacks on Christian churches and one Christian school. This turns out to be a case of the "monkey say, monkey repeat" phenomenon that converts false allegation into a fact. Second, Ribeiro resents the remark of Mohan Bhagwat of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that Mother Teresa was interested in conversions to Christianity, not just in the welfare (as distinct from the spiritual salvation) of her flock. But surely, Christians do believe in conversion, as do Muslims; does Ribeiro deny that? Again, what is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. If Christians can convert non-Christians to their faith, what is wrong with Hindus doing the same? In fact, being a religion that does not normally convert, only a minuscule number of Hindus will do this whereas a far higher proportion of Christians and Muslims will. Moreover, Ribeiro is offended that Mother Teresa is not respected as a saint by Bhagwat. But he is clearly ignorant of the fact that Mother Teresa may have won the Nobel Peace Prize but many doubt her bona fides, including the late Christopher Hitchens whose scathing critique of her was not the only dissenting voice on her, as recently recounted by the Washington Post reporter Adam Taylor (Why, to many critics, Mother Teresa is still no saint, 25 February). Since Hitchens followed this with a scathing attack on Hillary Clinton (an icon mostly to herself), I must confess that when he was coming out of a television debate on Hillary Clinton and I was going in to do a debate of my own, I could not resist telling him: Christopher, you did not say that Hillary Clinton was no Mother Teresa. Ribeiro, the Archbishop and other Christians also forget that Sonia Gandhi is a Roman Catholic. To my knowledge, many have objected to her leading the country because she was born abroad (much as Americans disbar foreign-born citizens from becoming the president), but hardly anyone, in BJP or elsewhere, has objected to her because she was a Christian. US President Barack Obama's speech in India where he talked of Mohandas Gandhi's legacy of respect for all religions has been self-servingly appropriated by anti-BJP and anti-Modi critics (such as my former Columbia University student Siddharth Varadarajan) as a chastisement of their alleged communalism. But this interpretation is absurd since the president clearly had in mind the difficulties that the US itself is having with such issues. In fact, on returning to the US, he proceeded to tell Americans that Christianity itself had been guilty of serious lapses over many centuries. Ribeiro and the Archbishop are good men who have allowed themselves to be dragged into politics that plays on fear and partisanship. I only hope that they will join those of us who would like to see religious harmony, not the religious discord that can only subtract from our humanity. Jagdish Bhagwati is University Professor (economics, law and international affairs) at Columbia University. Comments are welcome at [email protected] III. http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/i-feel-i-am-on-a-hit-list/ OPINION WEDNESDAY, APR 15, 2015 As a Christian, suddenly I am a stranger in my own country, writes Julio Ribeiro Is it coincidence or a well-thought-out plan that the systematic targeting of a small and peaceful community should begin only after the BJP government of Narendra Modi came to power last May? Written by Julio Ribeiro | Updated: March 17, 2015 1:29 pm There was a time, not very long ago -- one year short of 30, to be precise -- when only a Christian was chosen to go to Punjab to fight what then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi termed "the nation's battle" against separatists. I had accepted a "demotion" from secretary in the Union home ministry to DGP of the state of Punjab at the personal request of the prime minister. Then home secretary, Ram Pradhan, and my dear friend, B.G. Deshmukh, then chief secretary to the government of Maharashtra, were flabbergasted. "Why did you accept this assignment?" they asked. The same question was put to me over the phone by then President Zail Singh. But Arjun Singh, the cabinet minister who personally escorted me by special aircraft from Delhi to Chandigarh, remarked that when my appointment was announced the next morning, the Hindus of Punjab would breathe more freely and rejoice. I presume Hindus would include RSS cadres who had been pinned into a corner by the separatists. When 25 RSS men on parade were shot dead in cold blood one morning, then Punjab Governor S.S. Ray and I rushed to the spot to console the stricken families. The governor visited 12 homes, I visited the rest. The governor's experience was different from mine. He was heckled and abused. I was welcomed. Today, in my 86th year, I feel threatened, not wanted, reduced to a stranger in my own country. The same category of citizens who had put their trust in me to rescue them from a force they could not comprehend have now come out of the woodwork to condemn me for practising a religion that is different from theirs. I am not an Indian anymore, at least in the eyes of the proponents of the Hindu Rashtra. Is it coincidence or a well-thought-out plan that the systematic targeting of a small and peaceful community should begin only after the BJP government of Narendra Modi came to power last May? "Ghar wapsi", the declaration of Christmas as "Good Governance Day", the attack on Christian churches and schools in Delhi, all added to a sense of siege that now afflicts these peaceful people. Christians have consistently punched above their weight -- not as much as the tiny Parsi community, but just as noticeably. Education, in particular, has been their forte. Many schools, colleges, related establishments that teach skills for jobs have been set up and run by Christians. They are much in demand. Even diehard Hindus have sought admission in such centres of learning and benefited from the commitment and sincerity of Christian teachers. Incidentally, no one seems to have been converted to Christianity, though many, many have imbibed Christian values and turned "pseudo-secularist". Hospitals, nursing homes, hospices for dying cancer patients needing palliative care -- many of these are run by Christian religious orders or Christian laymen devoted to the service of humanity. Should they desist from doing such humanitarian work for fear of being so admired and loved that a stray beneficiary converts of his or her own accord? Should only Hindus be permitted to do work that could sway the sentiments of stricken people in need of human love and care? The Indian army was headed by a Christian general, the navy more than once, and same with the air force. The country's defence forces have countless men and women in uniform who are Christians. How can they be declared non-Indians by Parivar hotheads out to create a pure Hindu Rashtra? It is tragic that these extremists have been emboldened beyond permissible limits by an atmosphere of hate and distrust. The Christian population, a mere 2 per cent of the total populace, has been subjected to a series of well-directed body blows. If these extremists later turn their attention to Muslims, which seems to be their goal, they will invite consequences that this writer dreads to imagine. I was somewhat relieved when our prime minister finally spoke up at a Christian function in Delhi a few days ago. But the outburst of Mohan Bhagwat against Mother Teresa, an acknowledged saint -- acknowledged by all communities and peoples -- has put me back on the hit list. Even more so because BJP leaders, like Meenakshi Lekhi, chose to justify their chief's remarks. What should I do? What can I do to restore my confidence? I was born in this country. So were my ancestors, some 5,000 or more years ago. If my DNA is tested, it will not differ markedly from Bhagwat's. It will certainly be the same as the country's defence minister's as our ancestors arrived in Goa with the sage Parshuram at the same time. Perhaps we share a common ancestor somewhere down the line. It is an accident of history that my forefathers converted and his did not. I do not and never shall know the circumstances that made it so. What does reassure me in these twilight years, though, is that there are those of the predominant Hindu faith who still remember my small contribution to the welfare of the country of our birth. During a recent trip to Rajgurunagar in the Khed taluka of Pune district to visit schools that my NGO, The Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society, had adopted, I stopped at Lonavla for idli and tea. A group of middle-aged Maharashtrians sitting on the next table recognised me and stopped to greet and talk. A Brahmin couple returning from Kuwait (as I later learnt) also came up to inquire if I was who I was and then took a photograph with me. It warmed the cockles of my heart that ordinary Hindus, not known to me, still thought well of me and would like to be friends 25 years after my retirement, when I could not directly serve them. It makes me hope that ordinary Hindu men and women will not be swayed by an ideology that seeks to spread distrust and hate with consequences that must be avoided at all cost. The writer, a retired IPS officer,was Mumbai police commissioner,DGP Gujarat and DGP Punjab,and is a former Indian ambassador to Romania [email protected] First Published on: March 16, 201512:40 am -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
