Vishal

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.

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

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