India Archives - Revelation Movement

WHY DID HINDUS SUPPORT COLONIAL RULE?

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WHY DID HINDUS SUPPORT COLONIAL RULE? Arun Shourie & the Persecution of Christians To,Mr. Arun Shourie,Author, “Missionaries in India” & “Harvesting Our Souls.” Respected Mr. Shourie, You are fierce in your critique of your opponents, yet you remain a gentleman. I don’t think you hate the people you oppose. Yet, just as Savarkar’s hatred for Gandhi inspired his followers to assassinate the Mahatma, the hatred you have spread against missionaries resulted in burning alive Australian missionary, Graham Staines and his two sons. You spread the horrible idea that “converting” outcast lepers into human beings was an anti-national activity. The spirituality of hate that you fueled continues to poison India from Manipur to other Hindutva-ruled states. It drives Hindus to beat up pious women who pray for the sick. It forces the police and the courts to imprison pastors for asking people to repent for their sins. It has weaponized the judicial system to become the enemy of freedoms it is meant to uphold. One of your main attacks on missionaries was that some of them supported colonial rule. You ignored the fact that it was your alma mater’s chaplain, C. F. Andrews, a British missionary, who went to South Africa in 1913 to persuade Mahatma Gandhi to return to India. Right up to the end of his life, Andrews supported Gandhi’s struggle for India’s independence. My response to your criticism that missionaries supported colonial rule is a counterquestion: Why Did A Majority of Hindus Support Colonial Rule? Thirty-eight lakh (3.8 million) Indian soldiers fought on the frontlines to defend the British Raj. In WWI (1914-1919), around 70,000 of them laid down their lives; 87,000 more in WW2 (1939-45). When the first war began, Indian Maharajas (mostly Hindus) volunteered over 22,000 of their own soldiers to defend the British Empire that had colonized them. The Rajas gave their money, camels, horses and weapons to defend the British Empire. During the first war, thirty-one Indian princes pooled their resources to finance a hospital ship, Loyalty. They spent half-a-million (5 lakhs) British pounds for the ship to make forty voyages and carry about 15,500 sick and wounded soldiers who were fighting to defend Britain. Later in this letter I will discuss why a majority of Hindu soldiers, intelligentsia, merchants and Social Reformers supported the British Raj. Before that, let me remind you that the Maharajas did not defend the British Empire only from external attacks. In 1857, Hindu, Sikh and many Muslim rulers defended the Colonial rule from fellow Indians. Hindu Soldiers Supported Their Colonial Rulers The Bengal unit of the British-Indian army had good reasons to begin the revolt against the Raj. So did Hindu soldiers in the Madras and Bombay units have good reasons to remain loyal to the British. At least 25% of the Bengal unit also preferred the British Raj to the Rebels. The 1857 revolt was a great example of Hindu-Muslim unity. Almost 70% of the soldiers who won Delhi were Hindus. They compelled a Muslim to become the ruler of the whole of India. Colonial rulers won that war, in spite of exemplary Hindu-Muslim unity, because the majority of the Hindu Maharajas, most of the Sikh rulers and many Muslim nawabs supplied their own troops, weapons, transport, logistical assistance and strategic information to the British. Hindu Maharajas Defended the British Empire Maharaja Jayajirao Scindia of Gwalior, for example, opposed Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi and Tatya Tope of Kanpur. The British Raj won that great war because Maharaja Narinder Singh of Patiala, Raja Sarup Singh of Jind, Maharaja Bharpur Singh of Nabha, Raja Randhir Singh of Kapurthala, Maharaja Sardar Singh of Bikaner, Tukoji Rao Holkar II of Indore, Raja Balwant Singh of Ratlam were among the prominent Hindu rulers who actively supported Colonialism. Not just in Rajputana, but most Hindu rulers of Gujarat also supported Colonial rule: Khanderao Gaekwad, the Maharaja of Baroda State, is best remembered as actively pro-British. However, he was not the only one. Local Princely and Jagirdari Chiefs of Saurashtra & Rewakantha, rulers in smaller states such as Kathiawar, Lunawada, and Mahi Kantha remained loyal to the British Raj. Those who did not defend Colonialism proactively, chose neutrality. They refused to support the rebellion. Sikh Rulers Supported the British Raj Hindus rightly blame the Sikh rulers for defending the British Raj in 1857. The choice before them was a revival of the Mughal Empire or continuation of British Rule. They had good historical reasons for preferring the British. Prominent Sikh rulers who fought to defend British Colonialism were: Muslim Nawabs Also Preferred the British Empire Over the Mughal Not just Muslim rulers, but also prominent Muslim Intellectuals and Elites also defended the Raj. The most famous Muslim public figure was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who worked in East India Company’s judicial services. He actively saved European lives during the “mutiny” in Bijnor. Legendary poet Mirza Ghalib also cooperated with the British in Delhi.So, Why Did Hindu Rulers Support Colonialism? Rajputana, roughly present Rajasthan, had 20 major Hindu rulers. Not a single ‘Maharana Pratap’ rose up to fight against the British Raj. It has become fashionable to brand these Hindu supporters of colonial rule as “traitors.” That branding can be justified only if it is understood that the Hindu rajas were guilty of treason against a silly attempt to revive the Mughal Empire. They defended the Raj in their self-interest, exactly as self-interest inspired the rebels. Back then not a single leader had a vision for Independent “India.” Missionaries had to educate another generation before thoughtful Indians began to internalize the Bible’s idea of India as a sovereign nation. Cultivating the virtue of nationalism, putting nation above self and caste interests, was a long-term fruit of Christian education. No nation called Bharat or anything else had existed in anyone’s memory or history books. The myth that Bharat used to be a nation in the distant past is brand new. Besides 20 major kingdoms, Rajputana had nearly a hundred semi-autonomous “Thikanas” and “Jagirs.” Muslim invaders

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MISSIONARY CONSPIRACY

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MISSIONARY CONSPIRACY: LETTERS TO ARUN SHOURIE—A POSTMODERN HINDU Preface to the First Edition Five major interests shaped the British East India Company’s rule in Bengal: (i) Individual need and greed drove the rank and file of the Company. They had come to a distant land to make money. Their salaries were meagre because it was assumed—and permitted—that they would engage in private trade on the side. Military success made Clive almost a millionaire; other Company employees therefore saw nothing wrong in using the political power they had acquired in Bengal after 1757 to accept, if not extort, bribes. Their corruption, Lord Macaulay later remarked, made them “a gang of public robbers.” It turned British rule into “an empire of evil genii,” far worse than the Mughal Empire it had replaced. For the directors of the Company, India was simply (ii) a trading base. They had neither the interest nor the aptitude for military expeditions. Commercial rivalry from the French, Dutch, and Danish companies was challenge enough; they could not risk the very existence of their Company by turning it into a political rival of the Mughal Empire, Indian rulers, and other European powers. Their practical commercial outlook, for example, found Lord Wellesley’s empire-building military successes too costly for their ledgers—the reason he was eventually recalled. These traders understood that the best way to maximize profits was to minimize involvement in India. Consequently, they repeatedly insisted on closing Fort William College, their only college in India, where Company employees were trained for governance. The importance of political and military power for securing commercial interests was recognized early enough as indispensable in a land frequently at war with itself. Yet the idea of assuming a moral responsibility to reform or uplift India remained as absent from their thinking as it was from their account books. For British military leaders such as Clive and Wellesley, India became primarily (iii) territory to be conquered. Their chief concern was to weaken present and potential political rivals, not to empower Indians. They focused on combating forces that threatened British interests; the social and cultural evils that weakened and oppressed Indian society were not part of their agenda. This attitude explains why, although Lord Wellesley was convinced of the justice of Rev. Dr. William Carey’s campaign against Sati (widow-burning) in 1806, he did not prohibit the practice, as Lord Bentinck later did in 1829. For Wellesley, it was difficult enough to contend with Muslim and Hindu rulers; provoking Brahmanical opposition by interfering in socio-religious customs, however harmful, seemed politically unwise. A few widows being burned alive here and there affected neither British commercial interests nor imperial governance. For secular British scholars, India offered a fascinating new field of (iv) research—Indology—in which they had the privilege of being pioneers. Many Indologists admired ancient India and encouraged the emerging Indian intelligentsia to study, appreciate, and preserve its cultural heritage. The European rediscovery of ancient India eventually contributed to the growth of Indian nationalism. Yet Indians themselves could not readily access these scholarly works, since very few knew English beyond what was necessary for conducting business with the British. India had no printing press capable of disseminating such scholarship widely, nor did it possess colleges where Indological research could be systematically studied. Indeed, the preceding seven centuries of Islamic rule had not produced a single college in India, and no Hindu ashram had evolved into a university. The audience that read and appreciated the painstaking work of the Indologists was largely Western. Their scholarship, therefore, had little immediate impact on India itself. Several British humanitarians and philanthropists respected and even romanticized “the customs and wisdom of the natives.” These “Orientalists” patronized and promoted ancient Sanskrit literature, yet they had little trust in the Indians they encountered. As a result, British policy for many decades excluded Indians from positions of significant administrative responsibility. Some highly respected British officials, such as Sir Thomas Munro, agreed that dishonesty was widespread among Indians, yet opposed this discriminatory policy. They argued that if Indians were paid salaries comparable to those of the British, they too might develop higher standards of public integrity. Even so, these men generally dismissed the possibility that Indian society itself could be fundamentally reformed. Munro, Governor of Madras from 1820 to 1824, wrote in a letter dated 30 June 1821: I have no faith in the modern doctrines of the rapid improvement of the Hindoos, or of any other people. The character of the Hindoos is probably much the same as when Vasco da Gama first visited India, and it is not likely that it will be much better a century hence. When I read, as I sometimes do, of a measure by which a large province has been suddenly improved, or a race of semi-barbarians, civilised, almost of Quakerism, I throw away the book. The (v) reformers who advocated “the modern doctrine of the rapid improvement of the Hindoos” constituted the fifth force. They stood in opposition to the views of British scholars, the military and commercial interests of the Company, and the greed of individual Englishmen. At the turn of the nineteenth century, their influence within the Company was marginal. After 1813, however, their perspective gained ascendancy. It was strengthened and legitimised by the remarkable moral transformation that England had undergone during the second half of the eighteenth century as a result of the Evangelical revival led by John Wesley. This close-knit group of reformers believed that what God had done for a morally degenerate England, He could also do for India. Indeed, in keeping with their doctrine of Providence, they argued that God had entrusted India to England because He loved India and desired to bless her. Consequently, they believed it was England’s moral obligation to bless India by “evangelising,” “Christianising,” “civilising,” “educating,” and “modernising” her. To them, these terms were essentially interchangeable. To reshape British involvement in India according to their moral vision—that is, to empower, emancipate, and modernise India—this group of Evangelical Christians, led by

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The Bible Created the ‘Steel Frame’ of India

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by Vishal Mangalwadi, Samuel Davidson and Ishita Davidson Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1955), India’s first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, described the colonial Civil Services as “The Steel Frame of India.” Who or what built that frame? The short answer is: the Bible. Between 1765 and 1820, British rulers were as corrupt as today’s Indian civil servants. Most Indians feel that our criminal politicians use civil servants to loot our tax money and extract bribes from helpless citizens. Now they are also using the police to persecute political opponents and religious minorities. Why then did Patel, India’s “Iron Man,” describe colonial-era civil services as the “steel frame” of justice and fairness that held India together? Vallabhbhai Patel, who fought against the British Raj, praised civil servants on 21 April 1947 at Metcalf House in Delhi. He argued that after independence, the Indian Civil Services (ICS), created by colonial rulers, should continue serving the new nation. Its name would change from ICS to IAS (Indian Administrative Services). Patel’s phrase “the steel frame” came from a 1922 speech by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Management guru Peter Drucker described colonial civil services as a model of public administration and management. It was the reason, he asserted, that colonialism survived for two centuries. Many of its cadre were sons of British pastors. Their parents and churches prayed that these young men would serve India with diligence and integrity. Their prayers were answered. Drucker does not defend colonialism. He knew that the British Raj was marked by muddled policies, indecision, misdirection, and failures. It survived for as long as it did because the Bible-based Evangelical movement built the Indian Civil Services. The ICS, says Drucker, was Britain’s “supreme administrative accomplishment”: [The Civil Servants] were younger sons of poor country parsons, with no prospects at home and little standing in English society. Their pay was low, and such opportunities for loot or gain as their predecessors had enjoyed in the swashbuckling days of the East India Company a hundred years earlier had, by 1860, been completely eliminated by both law and custom. These untrained, not very bright, and totally inexperienced youngsters ran districts comparable in size and population to small European countries. And they ran them practically all by themselves with a minimum of direction and supervision from the top. Some, of course, became casualties and broke under the strain, falling victim to alcohol, to native women, or—the greatest danger of them all—to sloth. But most of them did what they were expected to do and did it reasonably well. They gave India, for the first time in its long and tragic history, peace, a measure of freedom from famine, and a little security of life, worship, and property. They administered justice impartially and, at least as far as they themselves were concerned, honestly and without corruption. They collected taxes by and large, impartially and equitably. They did not make policy, and in the end, they foundered because they had none. But they administered, and administered well. (Peter Drucker. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, pp. 403-404. Emphasis added.) Robert Clive, a clerk in the Madras office of the East India Company, laid the foundations of the British Raj in 1757 by defeating Bengal’s Nawab, Siraj-ud-Daulah. Clive supported the appointment of the new Nawab, Mir Qasim, who ruled until 1763. In 1762, Mir Qasim described British corruption in a letter to the Governor and his council. And this is the way your gentlemen behave; they make a disturbance all over my country, plunder the people, and injure and disgrace my servants… They forcibly take away the goods and commodities of the peasants, merchants, etc., for the fourth part of their value, and by way of violence and oppression, they oblige the peasants to give five rupees for goods which are worth but one rupee. (Philip Mason. The Men Who Ruled India. pp. 38-39) As mentioned earlier, seven decades later, one of Britain’s greatest historians, Lord Macaulay, confirmed Mir Qasim’s testimony regarding the corruption of British rulers. In his Essay on Clive, Macaulay wrote that the British East India Company was a “gang of public robbers” that “had spread terror through[out] the whole plain of Bengal.” Its governance was as “oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian despotism… strong with all the [military] strength of civilization. It resembled the government of evil Genii rather than the government of human tyrants.” The British Parliament denounced Clive as a corrupt “Nabob.” He was followed by Governor-General Warren Hastings, who expanded British rule in India. Hastings, too, was tried for corruption. During his trial, Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, put his finger on the root of a philosophical problem. Accusing the British East India Company, Burke said, “. . . these Gentlemen have formed a plan of Geographical morality, by which the duties of men in public and private situations are not to be governed by their relations to the Great Governor of the Universe or by their relations to men, but by climates, degrees of longitude and latitude…. As if, when you have crossed the equinoctial line, all the virtues die… as if there were a kind of baptism, like that practiced by seamen, by which they unbaptise themselves of all that they learned in Europe and commence a new order and system of things.” Burke’s charge was that in India, a corrupt East India Company was practicing a ‘Geographical’ or relative morality that was not governed by God’s moral (absolute) laws. In his influential work, The Men Who Ruled India, Philip Mason points out that this moral relativism was justified to maintain British rule and trade in India. Trade interests overruled God’s moral law. The Company presumed that “to be fair to Indians was to be prejudiced against the English.” Burke’s accusation, confirmed by Charles Grant and others, inspired British Evangelicals to reform the Company. Anglican Evangelicals were just beginning to emerge out of the Wesleyan revival of the late eighteenth century. They were

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IDOLATRY, THE BIBLE & INDIA’S ECONOMIC FLOURISHING

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Shah Jahan, the Mughal Emperor, brought Persian architects to build the Taj Mahal in Agra, on the bank of the river Yamuna. A century later (1837-1838), the monsoon failed and a severe famine devastated the Agra region. Over 800,000 people starved to death. The Mughals still ruled on the bank of the Yamuna, 150 miles north in Delhi. The Yamuna continued to flow down another 300 miles before merging with the Ganga in Allahabad, now renamed Prayagraj. Both the Yamuna and the Ganga come gushing down from the snow-clad Himalayas. So should ‘Doab,’ the land between the two rivers, lack water? Proby Thomas Cautley (1802-1871), a British military engineer, said, “NO.” He decided to change the future. Between 1842 and 1854, Cautley built the Ganga Canal System which now irrigates about 9,000 square miles of agricultural land. The mission to build the world’s largest canal system of that day came with many challenges: religious, political, financial, technical and educational. The Hindu priests objected to his “Christian” conspiracy to “imprison” the spirit of goddess Ganga by building a barrage that would re-direct its flow. They worshipped the life-giving river and built temples and ashrams along its banks. There, our people learned the rites of river worship. They were also taught meditation and tantric (sexual) techniques to empty their minds in order to experience inner bliss. India had plenty of leaders as capable as Cautley, but they used their abilities to organize festivals on the banks of “holy” rivers. No one ever built an institution to train engineers to establish human dominion over them. Our wealthy men financed grand temples; a vision of the Ganga Canal did not interest them. Cautley was an employee of the British East India Company which was created to trade and make money for its directors and shareholders. Investing in canals was not its mission. Therefore, Cautley had to turn to the British Parliament. Thankfully, in 1833, Parliament had already accepted Lord Macaulay’s case that Britain must rule over India to bless and prepare her for freedom. Macaulay’s childhood friend, Sir Charles Grant Jr., was the Company’s head and a Member of Parliament. His father, Charles Grant (Senior), had witnessed the horrors of the Bengal famine of 1770 and called to reform East India Company’s rule. In 1790, Grant Sr. teamed up with William Wilberforce and Lord Macaulay’s father, Zachary Macaulay, to change colonialism. In Divine Providence, 1837 marked the beginning of the Victorian Era—an age in which the moral fervor of the Evangelical movement influenced public policy as much as Capitalism’s economic interests. The Parliament’s support made it possible to finance the Ganga Canal. Cautley’s personal credibility undergirded his optimism. As the son of an Evangelical priest, Rev. Thomas Cautley, Proby was nurtured in the Bible. He was unashamed of his belief that human beings were created to rule over creation, not to worship rivers or idols. He rejected India’s pessimistic “Noble Truth” that “Life is suffering,” which implied that the only way to escape suffering was to escape life itself. To Cautley, the famine confirmed that the land and all of humanity were under a curse, brought on by sin. He believed the Gospel that God desires to forgive our sins and make us His sons. Forgiveness delivers us from the curse. He believed that God sent the Savior to bear our sin and its curse on Calvary’s cross. Salvation makes a tangible difference. Biblical optimism was already revolutionizing India. However, he did not impose his faith upon the people he wanted to serve. He appeased his religious opponents by building bathing ghats on the Ganga. This enabled Hindu priests to continue their profession of giving ritual baths to devotees even during the monsoon. Cautley needed not just money but also engineers to build the Ganga Canal. No Indian had ever built an institution to train engineers. Cautley’s dream to build an engineering college was supported by Lieutenant Governor James Thomason (1804-1853). After Independence, the governments of India upgraded James Thomason Engineering College to the status of an Engineering University and finally to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee. The college taught more than science and practical skills. It also imparted an optimistic worldview, ethical values, work ethic and a cooperative spirit that are necessary for building lasting projects and flourishing nations. Where would they find students qualified to enroll in an engineering college that fights hunger and famines? That challenge inspired James Thomason to do what no Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Sikh ruler had done in North India. He established 857 schools throughout that region. During the last few years, the militant Hindu government has closed down more than 20,000 public schools in UP. This educational movement was the fruit of a new worldview that the Bible brought to India. It believed that the true wealth of a nation lies buried in the hearts and minds of its people and that education brings out that inner wealth. Hunters/gatherers toil day and night, but whether their labor will produce wealth depends on many factors. The key question is: how much mind, skill, planning, as well as the community’s trust and cooperation, is invested in that work. Economic flourishing depends on the Intellectual and moral development of the people. Education enables them to harness God-given resources such as water, land, sunlight and petroleum. Colonialism had no need to invest in educating Indian masses. James Thomason, the governor, promoted education because he had studied the Bible under his father, Rev. Thomas Truebody Thomason (1774-1829). Rev. Thomason came to Bengal in 1808, set up the first Church Missionary Society schools in Bengal, founded a Schoolbook Society and a Female Orphan Society for the illegitimate children of Europeans. He helped establish Calcutta’s Bible Society and translated the Old Testament into Hindustani. Before coming to Bengal and serving as a Chaplain to the East India Company, Rev. Thomason had served as a “curate” or assistant, to Rev. Charles Simeon in Cambridge. Simeon is considered the Father of the

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The Vedas, The Bible, and the History of Hindi

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Parts of the Bible began to be published in Hindustani in 1811. The complete Hindi Bible was printed in 1843. It was only after the Bible had been published the Hindi, that the first Hindu who ever wrote in Hindi, Bharatendu Harishchandra, was born – in 1850. He began his literary activities by founding the first Hindi literary magazine, Kavi-vachana-sudha, in 1867. His very first book, a translation from Bengali, was published in 1868. No part of the Vedas had been translated and published in Hindi, before Dayananda Saraswati’s translations of excerpts began to appear from 1875. After his death in 1883, additional work by his followers resulted in the first-ever unorthodox translation of the Rig Veda being published – only in 1899. However, that was rejected by traditional Hindus because it made clear to anyone who read it that the Vedas do not teach idol worship and other traditional Hindu practices. The first translation of one of the Vedas which was accepted by many traditional Hindus is by Ramgovind Trivedi. It was published only in 1954. The first society to publish religious literature in Hindi that supported traditional or orthodox Hindu thought and practice was Gobind Bhawan Karyalaya in Gorakhpur, operating through its unit, the Gita Press. That was established only in 1923. During the century and more of its existence, it has published some 418 million (41.8 crore) books in fourteen Indian languages. However, it has refused to publish the Vedas — the most sacred of Hindu scriptures. Many Hindus ask: If the Vedas are a source of wisdom and goodness, why not make them available to the whole world, at least to all Hindus? Well, that is best explaind by asking the related question: : why do orthodox Hindus prevent lower caste Hindus from worshiping in their sacred temples? The answer is that the Hindu gods are different from the Bible’s God. He invites sinners to repent and become His children, beloved and holy. Orthodox Hinduism teaches that a soul is born into a lower caste or as a female because of bad karma in previous lives. Polluted souls cannot find salvation without first re-incarnating as a Brahmin male. Gods and goddesses cannot make a sinful soul “holy”. That is why Hindu scriptures prohibit the lower castes from hearing, let alone reading or teaching the sacred Vedas. Caste-based and gender-based discrimination is justified on the basis of the theories of karma and reincarnation. These theories have had serious civilizational consequences: – The Brahmin refusal to share Sanskrit with fellow Hindus and non-Hindus made it necessary for the Mughals to make another language the normal court language -Persian. – In order to educate the oppressed, Christian missionaries had to develop peoples’ dialects so that they could be used for education and literacy. Muslims ruled Delhi for close to seven centuries, from 1192 to 1857. But no ruler, whether Muslim, Sikh, Maratha or Hindu, saw any need to develop a vernacular such as Hindi. For it is easier to keep people enslaved if they are ignorant and divided by local dialects as well as castes. Inspired by the Bible thousands of people devoted their lives, money and energy to develop and teach the heart languages of the people. We Indians did not pay them, nor did the British Raj. Missionaries served India because they were inspired by God’s love – because God, the Bible says, wants to liberate the downtrodden — dalits and shoshits. Missionaries developed Urdu before they developed Hindi because, before them, Muslims had been ruling most of north India for centuries. Missionaries published the first Urdu New Testament in 1805. It is worth remembering that, back then, the average Muslim did not read or write Urdu. Missionaries had to set up schools to teach Urdu. It was the education system set up by missionaries which made Urdu the main literary language of northern provinces, including Punjab and Pakistan. That is why Hindus such as Bhartendu Harishchand (1850-85) and Munshi Premchand (1880-1936) began their literary careers in Urdu. Most educated Indians do not know that missionaries such as Alexander Duff, Indian reformers such as Raja Rammohan Roy, and colonial rulers such as Lord Macaulay promoted English education primarily to enrich Indian vernaculars. They wanted Indian intelligentsia to access the intellectual wealth created in the West so that it can be transmitted to the common man in vernaculars. Bible translators standardized Urdu and Hindi by using the works of the following pre-British poets: — Surdas (1478–1583) who grew up around Mathura and expressed his poetic devotion to Sri Krishna in a dialect called Braj Bhasha. — Mirabai (1498–1547) who composed her devotional poems in Merta, Rajasthani and Braj Bhasha. — Rahim (1556–1627) who grew up in Delhi/Agra region as a Mughal courtier and composed his couplets (dohas) in Braj Bhasha and Awadhi. — Tulsidas (1532–1623) who composed his epic Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi (notably, he did that in spite of strong opposition by the Brahmin community in Benaras). None of these poets had used “Hindi” because it did not exist in their day. Hindi was born only when Bible translators and missionary educators fused Awadhi with a dozen other north Indian dialects in order to create a language rich enough to communicate complex and wide-ranging ideas which could not be expressed in any of the pre-existing dialects Following the work of the Bible translators who created Hindi, here are examples of the people who became pioneers of Hindi literature. It is important to note that none of them was a Brahmin: Brahmin intellectuals decided to support Hindi only in the 1890s. They were alarmed that Urdu, written in Arabic script, was becoming north India’s literary language. This fear motivated them to team up with missionaries such as Rev. Edwin Greaves of Varanasi to establish the Devanagari Pracharini Sabha (1893). Fear of Urdu motivated them to toil and develop Hindi vocabulary in “Hindi Shabd Sagar.” This massive work was published between 1922-29. However, the standardized Hindi dictionary was developed by a Jesuit

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Why is HINDUISM IN DANGER?

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The Hindu Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh wants the death penalty for those who convert Hindus. https://bit.ly/Deathpenaltyforreligiousconversions He wants evangelists killed because he knows that Hinduism is in danger. In one small Tehsil in his state, where local kings did not permit any mission to build a church, school or hospital during the British Raj, around 40 churches have sprung up between 2014 and 2025. That is, since Hindutva leader Sri Narendra Modi became India’s Prime Minister (PM) and stopped foreign funding for most Christian missions. In PM’s own constituency in Varanasi (UP), on Easter Sunday (April 20, 2025), about 15,000 “Hindus” came together to worship the resurrected Savior in a Roman Catholic ashram. Varanasi is the Hindu heartland. Some estimate that since 1992, as many as 30,000 churches may have sprung up in Eastern UP, that is, around Varanasi. Such worship gatherings send a clear message that the Hindu strategy to bribe “Low” caste Indians to remain Hindu is no longer working. Threats, violent persecutions, unjust arrests and imprisonment of evangelists, pastors, healers and new converts have become the Force” driving “low” castes out of the Hindu fold. The recent Kumbh Mela, held in January-February 2025, demonstrates that the “Power of Myth” is yielding some short-term dividends. However, the ‘Problem with Myth’ is also apparent. It is undermining Hindutva’s hold over Truthseekers. They are quitting Hinduism because they see that myths are sustained by brute FORCE, whereas Truth welcomes challenges and scrutiny. Mahatma Gandhi was right: less than 20% of “High” caste Hindus can keep their “low” caste victims — about 80% of Hindus — within their fold only by following Christ’s way of Sarvodaya — upliftment of all. Gandhiji learnt this humane lesson in 1904 when he read John Ruskin’s 1860 book “Unto this Last.” It expounded Christ’s teaching that his followers must serve the least of God’s children. In 1908, Gandhiji published Ruskin’s book in Gujarati as “Sarvodaya.” Later he succeeded in influencing his “mission school educated” party, the Indian National Congress, to follow Christ’s vision of godliness. Christ’s teaching required repentance for Hindu Casteism and a change of heart. Sadly, Gandhi’s followers in the Congress transformed “Upliftment of all’ into Social Engineering. They “reserved” some seats in legislatures, civil services and the public sector for lower castes. Without the Bible, they could not know that the true antidote to Casteism is a Spirit that loves your neighbors as themselves. Later, Gandhiji’s (low-minded) “High” caste Hindus who controlled Congress governments began using the “Reservation System” as bribes to keep their “Low” caste victims within the Hindu fold. They passed Anti-Conversion laws to deny their victims the freedom of conscience to quit an oppressive religious system. Anyone who converted lost the benefits of Reservations. Hindu politicians and their militias began forcing police officers to register false cases against godly pastors and Truthseekers. The police “Force” surrendered to such pressure because the corruption of administrative and police services has made it a powerless Force without moral backbone. If they don’t obey their corrupt political bosses, they will be punished. A “Problem with Myth” is that it turns India’s national motto, “Satya Mev Jayate” (Truth alone triumphs), into ‘Mithya Mev Jayate’ (falsehood always wins). The Hindu Religious culture of myth has produced a political, police, judicial, educational and media environment that is putting HINDUISM IN DANGER. Integrity, truthfulness and justice come from the Spirit of Truth. They build a trustworthy culture. Religious culture of myth and force is making even the judiciary in Hindu India untrustworthy. Rahul Gandhi, the opposition leader, is attempting to restore trust in the Congress Party. However, he is yet to convince Hinduism’s victims that under his leadership his party will see Upliftment of All as a matter of the Spirit not superficial Social Engineering; that his government will give freedom of conscience to all Indians; and that it will not use the Reservation System as a bribe to keep the oppressed within an oppressive Hindu fold. PS – Ruth and I are grateful to hundreds of people who loved, served, and hosted us during our month-long tour of India (March 23-April 23) and who organized dozens of meetings to promote my new book, “The Bible and the Making of Modern India.” It includes a chapter on how the Bible can make India a great nation. The revised version of the book is available from www.Triaze.com. Soon the revised version will replace the older version being sold by Amazon. We are currently in Oxford (UK) (27 April 2025), where I am speaking on Education Revolution this weekend. Below are some pictures from our month-long book tour in India.

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SLAY THE CONSTITUTION… SAVE THE COW

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Thank you friends, for petitioning the Authority in Heaven and appealing to the rulers of this age regarding the attack that had been planned against tribal Christians in Chhattisgarh for March 1. Your prayers have been heard, and the government has asked the police to maintain peace. These days, most incidents of persecution are related to “Conversion.” Many Hindus oppressed by demons, sickness, and caste are turning to Christ for deliverance, healing, and salvation. However, the three Chhattisgarh villages were not threatened because of conversions. The attack was planned because some tribal background Christians eat meat and earn their livelihood through animal skins and bones. The BJP—the Hindu party—rules the State as well as the Center. Why couldn’t the Hindus pressurize the government to enforce the law? Why would a “religious” community mobilize a mob of 5,000 devotees to become a militia and massacre Christians? Is it because 2024 Parliamentary elections have convinced everyone that the Constitution of India cannot be replaced by a religious Constitution of Bharat, democratically? Militias will be necessary to organize a constitutional coup? the real conflict is not about the cow; it is between two visions: INDIA and BHARAT. . . Gandhi Vs. Godse Mr. Arun Shourie, a crusader against corruption and a champion of Hinduism, explained an aspect of the big picture to the BBC journalist Jugal Purohit. He said, “There is an urgent need to save Hinduism from Hindutva.” The two of them were reviewing Shourie’s controversial book, The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts (Penguin Viking, January 2025). (https://youtu.be/DxkhsIuZZc0?si=nyKE-RJwZYC6GgL8 Purohit asked, “Why are you so concerned about this matter? Shourie explained, “I dread the future because of what has been done to the nation’s institutions.” The institutions that were created as checks on power have been turned into instruments of acquiring and abusing power. “What values are we teaching the next generation” —to deceive, cheat and oppress? Desperate to save sanity, Shourie says that a devout Hindu may see the cow as mother because he drinks her milk, but “does he drink his mother’s urine or eat her excreta?” If not, why do Hindus allow the bigots to define and disgrace Hinduism? Shourie does not go on to discuss the crux of this in-house conflict within Hinduism. On January 8, 2025, during the Hindu Religious Parliament in Prayagraj, Swami Avimukteshwarand asked for 1,000 devout Hindus to come out and “slay those who slay our mother cow. Do not ask for the death penalty of cow slayers. Kill them and ask for the death penalty for yourselves. Do not wait for the law to act.” The Swami is the Shankaracharya (Bishop) of Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand. The threat against the three Christian villages was a response to this call. What’s going on? Here is a hint: the same Shankaracharya has alleged that 222 kg of gold is missing from the most sacred temple in Kedarnath. That allegation implies that the BJP-appointed Board that controls Hindu temples is, at best, incompetent; devotees’ donations are not safe in the hands of political appointees. The saints must control the sacred wealth. Then politicians will prostrate before sages to get the temple funds for elections. The saints are upset because Hindu politicians love the colonial-era policy of government control over temple mismanagement. This policy began in 1817 when the East India Company sought to correct financial corruption in temples through the Madras Regulation Act. The State Religious and Charitable Endowments Act of 1925 strengthened the government’s authority over the temples. Back then, few Hindus objected because everyone trusted Civil Servants. That is no longer the case. Nehru’s socialist Humanism demolished the morality that the evangelical movement had injected into the civil services, police, and jurisprudence. Disgusted with the corruption of the Congress era, the voters handed the civil services to the BJP… The outcome is frightening ‘saintly atheists’ such as Arun Shourie. Watch my video discussion on Hinduism’s attack on Hindutva: https://youtube.com/live/FwnzPD4mfBo Vishal Mangalwadi Author of The Bible and the Making of Modern India

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Vishal Mangalwadi on 'Ram to Abraham - history of Indian marriage

From Ram to Abram: A History of Hindu Marriage

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Ram was a hero. Abram was a coward who became the Patriarch of Judaism, Jesus, and Islam. When kings Pharaoh and later Abimelech demanded his wife, Abraham, as he was later called, acquiesced without a murmur. To protect his own life, he sent Sarah into their harems (Genesis 12: 14–20, 20: 1–17) describing her as his sister. Then he followed pagan aristocrats and took concubines for himself (1 Chronicles 1: 28–34). In contrast, when the “demon” king Ravan abducted Sita, Ram organized an army of monkeys, burnt down Lanka, killed his powerful enemy, and rescued his wife. T hat contrast is quite ironic, since it was not Ram but Abraham who has shaped the law that regulates modern Hindu marriage. Abrahamic tradition, as taught by the Christian New Testament (though not by Judaism and Islam), redefined Hindu marriage because of the way Ram’s and Abraham’s narratives end: to protect his honor, Ram banished his wife while she was pregnant with twin boys. And, Abraham sent away his concubines and became loyal to his wife. Before choosing monogamy, however, Abraham requested God to accept his concubine’s son as his heir. God rejected Abraham’s prayer because marriage is not a human construct that can be re-structured by human whim. If Abraham was to follow God, he had to learn that one man marrying one woman was divine design that had been corrupted by human sin. Restoring the divine design for marriage was a part of God’s salvation that Abraham was to unfold in human history. Abraham became the Savior’s patriarch because he obeyed God and devoted himself to his wife. Naturally, the Bible’s language is discreet, but no mature reader can miss that in Genesis 17:15–19 and 18: 9–15 God commands an elderly Abraham to sleep with his wife, not with younger concubines. Both Ram and Abram lived in cultures that accepted all sorts of marital perversions including polygamy and harems. Some of these corruptions, as we shall see, had been given highest religious status. But, God called Abraham to transform Canaan’s wicked cultures that respected neither the wife nor marriage. In choosing Abraham, God restored what humans had lost due to sin. The Bible begins by telling us that God created “man” as male and female, to become “one flesh.” Husband and wife were not to be separated: either by one’s whims (1 Corinthians 7:3–5 and 10), or by another human being (Genesis 2:19–25). Marriage in India It is because of the Bible that independent India gave to Sita the right to reject Ram’s edict exiling her. Under The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, Section 9, a Sita can now sue Ram for her conjugal rights. Likewise, if this law had existed at the time, Kasturba could have sued Mahatma Gandhi for her right to have her husband sleep with her and not with other women in his ashram. Because Hindutva leaders often lecture about a “Uniform Civil Code,” not many Hindus realize that the law giving a Hindu wife an exclusive right over her husband comes from the Bible. It overturned Hindu religious/cultural tradition, and was designed by the British to put in place a system of liberating laws that were just, clear, understandable. That became the reason for the Divorce Act, 1869, Section 32. But didn’t Ram have only one wife? In the time of the epics, Mahabharat and the Ramayan, it was normal for a girl to be married before she reached puberty. That was most likely the reason Sita became pregnant only after she was brought back from Lanka and not before. Her twins were born after she was banished, without being divorced. So, did her young husband live as a celibate after expelling her? Different answers to that question are given by more than three hundred different versions of Ram’s story. However, what these versions seem to agree upon is that after Sita’s twins had grown up, Ram followed his father’s example and performed the Ashvamedha Yagya (the Horse Sacrifice). The yagya, explained in Yajurveda, required the Chief Queen to spend a night, with the sacrificed horse, naked and mimicking copulation, while three naked queens went around the horse, uttering obscenities. The queens were then given away to the priests. (See Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith, The Texts of the White Yajurveda [Munshiram Manoharlal], and Arthur Berridale Keith, The Veda of the Black Yajus School Entitled Taittiriya Sanhita, [Oxford]). While Sita’s idol may have been used in this sacred ritual, is it possible that self-respecting priests would perform this most powerful yagya if they got idols instead of queens? Why would they violate the Vedas at their own expense? Since Brahmin priests cannot corrupt their most magical ritual, the Jain Ramayan makes better sense of the story that after expelling Sita, Ram took 8,000 wives, and the chief queens were: “Maithili, Prabhavati, Ratinibha, and Sridama” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana#Jain_version.) Even if Ram performed the yagya only symbolically and not in a scripturally prescribed manner, the indisputable point is that the Ram–Sita model did not inspire Hindu Scriptures or tradition to define marriage as monogamy (an exclusive and lifelong relationship between one man and one woman). Keshab Chandra Sen and the Battle for Reforming Hindu Marriage The 1869 Act mentioned above intensified the movement to reform the Hindu world. The pioneers of the nineteenth century social reform movement had not opposed polygamy mainly because they were Kulin Brahmins. The first reformer, Raja Rammohun Roy (1772–1833), had already been married to three wives before he was nine years old. By the 1850s, thinkers–activists such as Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891) had begun to publicly agree with Christian missionaries that polygamy was evil. They could see that their culture allowed elderly Kulin Brahmins to marry prepubescent and teenage girls even after they were already on their deathbeds. Since Brahmanism had banned widow-remarriage from ancient times, after Lord Bentinck banned Sati in 1829 these girls were left with few options once they became widows. They could live as domestic slaves in their homes or choose freedom as prostitutes. In 1853 it was estimated that 12,718

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Vishal Mangalwadi's Letter to the Prime Minister of India

Idolatry: Letter to the Prime Minister of India

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Monday, January 15, 2024 To,Hon’able Sri Narendra ModiPrime MinisterGovernment of IndiaNew Delhi, India Honorable Modiji, You have succeeded in making idol-worship India’s #1 political issue for January 2024. It is a milestone in Hindutva’s effort to make India a Hindu nation. Therefore, please allow me to explain why our founding fathers did not promote worship of mythical gods and goddesses. Instead, they adopted “Jan Gan Man” as our national anthem. It teaches us to pray to the sovereign Creator, the shaper of India’s destiny (Bharat Bhagya Vidhata). Our fathers accepted Pandit M. M. Malviya’s suggestion to make Satyameva Jayate (Truth Alone Triumphs) our national motto because they wanted Truth to replace myth as our authority. They agreed with reformers such as Mahatma Jyotiba Phule that Truth liberates, while myths are made to enslave. God is a Spirit. He has no physical shape or form. That’s why every effort to make an image of the invisible God, creates false gods. Worshipping man-made gods, creation, or creatures made by God or human imagination, weakened India. That is because we are created to seek Truth; to believe what is true. That is scientific temper. It is necessary to establish our dominion over creation. A culture that worships creation makes itself incapable of understanding and governing creation. Human culture flourishes when we seek God’s kingdom and do His will on earth. Myths may be good entertainment. They may impart some wisdom and societal values. However, allowing myth-makers to make our gods put us on a downward slide into deception’s abyss. Religion influences the way we live. When temples teach myths as the foundation of a culture, why shouldn’t businessmen use fake account books? Or, the police fabricate false cases to harass innocent citizens? Why should lawyers coach witnesses to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Our courts — the temples of justice — are rapidly losing their credibility, because our culture of myth-making is turning them into centers of corruption. Whoever makes our gods has to create our ethics. This is the great dilemma, sir, that you are facing, as you prepare to inaugurate the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22nd. The Shankaracharyas, the archbishops of the “Sanatan Dharma,” are telling you that since you are married, you cannot participate in Pran Prathishtha without your wife. As a young man, you followed god Rama when you abandoned her without divorcing. Is wife a husband’s property that can be abandoned or gambled away at will as did Rama and the Pandavas? Or, does she have a dignity that must be protected? If marriage is sacred, then is it not necessary to grant her a legitimate divorce? The Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 rejected the Ramayana’s myth-made ethics in order to restore to Hindu wives the dignity that God had bestowed upon them. Would your attempt to make India a Hindu Nation drive our women back into dark ages? Please allow me to mention one more consequence of Idolatry: Your attempt to inaugurate the new Ram Temple has run into troubled waters. Many Pundits, including the Shankaracharyas, are insisting that as a non-Brahmin you cannot be the Chief Guest at the Pran Prathishta ceremony. They are saying that you are abusing their religion for your political gain. You are violating, not promoting, the “Sanatan” Caste-system. According to them, Brahmin dharma gurus must have the seat of honor: you ought to sit at their feet. I commend your attempt to violate hierarchical caste system. Yet, the learned pundits are right. Making India a Hindu Nation requires reviving the Hindu social ethics of intrinsic inequity of castes. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Is human equality a divinely revealed Truth? If so, shouldn’t new India make EQUALITY its cultural foundation? Or, must Hindutva drive India back into caste-based inequality? Should Sanatan culture weaken India by making the vast majority — the Bahujan — fourth and fifth class citizens? Sir, the Ram Mandir movement could deliver votes to you. But India will become a great nation only if it is built on Truth. Myth-makers want their will to be done in India: our Anthem prays that God’s will may be done in India: Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people, Dispenser of India’s destiny. Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha, Of the Dravida and Orissa and Bengal; It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas, mingles in the music of Jamuna and Ganges and is chanted by the waves of the Indian Sea. They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise. The saving of all people waits in thy hand, Thou dispenser of India’s destiny. Victory, victory, victory to thee. Respectfully Yours For Truth’s Triumph,Vishal Mangalwadi

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Dr Vishal Mangalwadi's 76th Birthday

India

WHY DID HINDUS SUPPORT COLONIAL RULE?

MISSIONARY CONSPIRACY

The Bible Created the ‘Steel Frame’ of India

IDOLATRY, THE BIBLE & INDIA’S ECONOMIC FLOURISHING

The Vedas, The Bible, and the History of Hindi

Why is HINDUISM IN DANGER?

SLAY THE CONSTITUTION… SAVE THE COW

From Ram to Abram: A History of Hindu Marriage

Idolatry: Letter to the Prime Minister of India

THE BIBLE & INDIA’S RENAISSANCE