Most knowledgeable folk in India and around the world who have studied the conflicts in Kashmir, Northeastern India and the tribal regions in the rest of India, and who rely only on facts, not left-wing or right-wing ideology, firmly state that religious differences and religious extremism have a major role to play in these conflicts. Indeed, the problems in Kashmir and the Northeast have been termed as "religious separatism" or "religious insurgencies" in scholarly books and papers of experts and public policy think tanks. Nearly 35,000 people have died since 1995 in Kashmir because of what is termed as terrorism by these experts. The corresponding number for the Northeast is nearly 20,000 deaths due to terrorism. Almost every fact-based publication that you read, clearly states that India's problem in these parts and elsewhere is that of religious extremism - Hindu religious extremism and Islamic religious extremism. Christian religious extremism afflicts the northeast. These texts also describe to what extent religious conversions and re-conversions, and the perceptions generated by them have played a role in these problems in recent times, by which I mean the last 10 years. If we want to know these facts we should read books like the following:
1. Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer 2. The anthropology of religious conversion, by Andrew Buckser, Stephen D. Glazier 3. Understanding Indian insurgencies: implications for counterinsurgency, by Durga Madhab Mitra They will tell us what reality really is. Instead, if we want to close our eyes and bury our heads in some preconceived ideology and fantasy, we can rely on fact-free circumstantial denials, euphemisms, and such things as quibbling with the meaning of the word "recent", making up the entire rambling post appended below, complete with the customary links to partisan religio-political activist blogs. This ideology consists of denial that problems in Kashmir, the Northeast, etc. have anything to do with religion. Denial that ethnicity in these regions has religious differences as its major component (Please see the dictionary meaning of "ethnicity"). Denial that the VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS, etc. members who resort to violence in India are indeed Hindu religious extremists. Denial that the terrorism in Kashmir is due in significant part to Islamic religious extremists. Denial that the insurgency has a Christian extremist component in the Northeast. Warped logic that summarily dismisses as stray incidents reports of religious conversions/re-conversions and collusion with separatists that have caused conflicts in regions where tens of thousands of people have been killed in the past 17 years, while having no problem with propagating incidents of violence by Hindu religious extremists against Christians in the rest of India as evidence of India being a country that practices widespread state-supported persecution of Christians. Cheers, Santosh ----- Original Message ----- From: Marshall Mendonza <[email protected]> > To: goanet <[email protected]> > Cc: > Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 10:11 AM > Subject: [Goanet] CONVERSIONS, INCITING SECTARIAN HATRED, AND MARGINALISATION > > Response:**** > > Santosh keeps repeating the false and bogus statement that religious > differences and religious conversions and reconversions are major > reasons for conflicts in Kashmir and the North East. I guess, like > Goebbels he believes that by repeating a falsehood a hundred times, it > will become the truth. No evidence available supports such a > contention. In fact in the North East, religion has never been a > source of conflict, barring stray localised incidents which take place > anywhere. The conflict there was always one of ethnicity which is > borne out from the articles Santosh himself has provided. I wonder why > he intentionally ignores what is not convenient to his line of > thinking. **** > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
