Christianity In India

"[Recent research gives an ] interesting situation where the Manichaean church becomes a strong contendor for the ownership of the Pahlavi crosses of South India. (PHILIP 2022:335)."

""Pahlavi crosses of south India are not at all evidence of the existence of an early Christianity in the region of Old-Thamizhakam as claimed by church historians" (PHILIP 2022:337), [all these facts disprove the] "stories of Syriac Christianity along with the claims of Indian Christians with respect to the martyrdom of Apostle Thomas at Mylapore" (PHILIP 2022:336)."

"These recent converts from Manichaeans migrated to the western coast. whereby then another Judeo-Dravidian group (the pre-Porto-orthodox group) of Jesus believers who were the result of an Afro-Eurasian trade network. also subjugated to Nestorianism" (PHILIP 2022:336)."

"The group from Mylapore, under the leadership of Thomas Cana, was primarily responsible for this Pahlavi cross and its copies in Malankara". [Later,] "under the supervision of Nestorian prelates, the story of Thomas Cana was also absorbed under the Nestorian brand. Gradually this imagery penetrated the subconscious mind of Malankara Nazranies as designed by prelates of Persian Christianity, whose hagiographies were associated with the St. Thomas legend in Fars and North India. the Thomas Cana legend gradually dissolved into the Saint Thomas legend of Persian Christianity, ultimately evolving as the patron saint of Malankari Nazranies" (PHILIP 2022:337)."

""A peripheral test with the ethnic migrations of Jews, Persians (Zoroastrians), and so-claimed Knanites is powerful enough to reveal the integrity of the stories of Syriac Christianity. The Jews and Persians in India, despite all the oddities, kept their language and culture intact. At the same time, the Knanites are without any reflections of their language, culture and traditions from West Asia. Furthermore, cross-testing with European Roma samples reveals the position of Knanite claims by providing us with a unique preservation of language, culture and traditions by Romas despite intensive mixing with locals" (PHILIP 2022:xxii)."

"Stories of Syriac Christianity, along with myths of Malankara Nazranies (proselytization by St. Thomas, Nambuthiri conversions, 71/2 church stories, etc.)" [are] "unscientific and contradictory" [and] "historical manipulations" (PHILIP 2022:xxii), [and] "mythical stories/legends of respective existing believers" (PHILIP 2022:xxiii), [and] "bedtime stories of Syriac Christianity" (PHILIP 2022:xxiv)."

"The most notable pioneer and prime exemplar of Christian inculturation was the Tuscan Jesuit missionary Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), who came to south India in 1608. He proudly documents that he presented himself first as a sadhu (a spiritual man who has renounced worldly dependencies), and when that was found to limit his access to householders, he adopted the guise of a Kshatriya (warrior) in order to win peoples' trust. After a series of false starts and further experimentation, he assumed his most effective role, that of a Brahmin, complete with dhoti and three-stringed thread, which he said represented the Christian Trinity! He assiduously studied Sanskrit and Tamil, publicly adopted the rigorous lifestyle and simplicity of a Brahmin ascetic, and taught the Christian gospel dressed in words and ideas that were Hindu equivalents or approximations to Christianity. He succeeded in converting a large number of Hindus, even from the highest and most learned castes. During his life, the Vatican frequently disapproved of what it considered to be compromises with pure Christianity and closely followed his movements, but today his work is lauded by the Church as a role model for inculturation – even though it involved deception."

"I do not believe that there is an easy answer to the question of how religions relate to one another. In my experience most Hindus believe and practise a facile syncretism which simply ignores essential differences. I don't think that anyone, Christian or Hindu, has the final answer. We are all in search. I would be inclined to say that Buddhists tend to be more objective and understanding than most people. But I think we all have to learn how to be true to our own religion while we are critical of its limitations and to be equally true to the values of other religions while we recognize their limitations."

"Of course, if I held the same view as Father Monchanin, you would be justified in suspecting me of deception. But you must remember that Father Monchanin was writing forty years ago and immense changes have taken place in the Church since then. The Vatican Council introduced a new understanding of the relation of the Church to other religions and all of us have been affected by this. Swami Abhishiktananda (Fr. le Saux) in particular early separated himself from Fr. Monchanin, especially after his profound experience with Raman Maharshi at Tiruvanamalai... you must realise also that the view which I hold is not peculiar to me. It is approved by the authorities of the Church both in India and in Rome. Many Catholics, of course, will not agree with it, but the understanding of the relation of the Church to other religions is only slowly growing and there are many different views in the Church today."

"De Nobili, in fact gives us the key to what was wrong in the Christian approach to the Hindu and shows how the gospel might have been presented to India in such a way as to attract its deepest minds and its most religious men."

"Here Hindus are asked to take lessons in Advaita from a man whose sole occupation in life was torturing Upanishadic texts into the dogmatic framework of a gross monolatry. It is difficult for a Christian missionary to renounce the role of a teacher even on subjects about which he knows next to nothing. In the case of Henri Le Saux there was an added difficulty: he was a poet. The flow of mellifluous phrases, particularly in his native French, was mistaken by him for mystic experience. One has to read his writings in order to see how he became a victim of his own word-imageries and figures of speech. Silencing of the mind, which is a sine qua non for spiritual experience according to all Hindu scriptures on the subject, remained a discipline which he never learnt. Small wonder that the man ended as a neurotic."

"I have come to India for no other purpose than to awaken in a few souls the desire (the passion) to raise up a Christian India... I think the problem is of the same magnitude as the Christianisation, in former times, of Greece... It will take centuries, sacrificed lives, and we shall perhaps die before seeing any realizations... A Christian India, completely Indian and completely Christian, may be and will be something so wonderful. To prepare it from afar, the sacrifice of our lives is not too much to ask... But once Christianised, Greece rejected her ancestral errors; so also, confident in the indefectible guidance of the Church, we hope that India, once baptized to the fullness of her body and soul, will reject her pantheistic tendencies... The Christianisation of Indian civilization is to all intents and purposes a historical undertaking comparable to the Christianisation of Greece."

"It is useless to tell the missionaries that Hindu sâdhanâ has nothing to do with buying a piece of land, building some stylised houses on it, exhibiting pretentious signboards, putting on a particular type of dress, and performing certain rituals in a particular way. Hindu sâdhanâ has been and remains a far deeper and difficult undertaking. It means being busy with one's own self rather than with saving others. It means clearing the dirt and dross within one's own self rather than calling on others to swear by a totem trotted out as the only saviour. It has no place for abominable superstitions like the atoning death of a so-called chirst. Above all, it is not consistent with double-talk-harbouring one motive in the heart and mouthing another. A counterfeit must remain a counterfeit, howsoever loudly and lavishly advertised. It is a sacrilege that those who are out to cheat and deceive should use the word "sâdhanâ" for their evil exercise."

"Christianity has again after a long period come in contact with a philosophy which, though it may contain errors-because the Hindu mind is synthetic and speculative-still unquestionably soars higher than her western sister. Shall we, Catholics of India, now have it made their weapon against Christianity or shall we look upon it in the same way as St. Thomas looked upon the Aristotelian system? We are of the opinion that attempts should be made to win over Hindu philosophy to the service of Christianity as Greek philosophy was won over in the Middle Ages." .... "But we have a conviction, and it is growing day by day that the Catholic Church will find it hard to conquer India unless she makes Hindu philosophy hew wood and draw water for her."

"While the Portuguese mission establishment was unanimous in branding the Brahmins as the chief obstacle to the salvation of India, there was some dissent concerning the tactics to be employed against them. Robert de Nobili believed in fraud rather than force. He dressed as a Brahmin, and taught the Yesurveda, a fifth Veda which had been lost in India, but which the emigrant community of Romaka Brahmins had preserved. He seems to have had a few followers, but after his death, nothing remained of his infiltration movement. Recently he has been declared the patron saint of the theology of inculturation,[2] and his method is being actualized and perfected in the Christian ashrams. De Nobili’s approach was one possible application of the Jesuits larger strategy, which aimed at converting the elite in the hope that they would carry the masses with them. This approach had been tried in vain in China, in Japan, and even at the Moghul court (today, it is finally meeting with a measure of success in South Korea). A practical implication of this strategy was that Christianity had to be presented as a noble and elitist religion. This came naturally to the Jesuits, who (unlike, for instance, the Franciscans) styled themselves as an elite order."

"All the efforts made to bring the heathens to Christ had all been in vain. I left no stone unturned to find a way to bring them from their superstition and the worship of idols to the faith of Christ. But my efforts were fruitless, because with a sort of barbarous stolidity they turned away from the manners and customs of the Portuguese and refused to put aside the badges of their ancient nobility." ... "On all sides spread before our eyes fields with ripening harvest, and there is not one to reap them, no one to bring help to these populations, sunk in profound ignorance. ... For so far it is along the Coasts of India that the courage of the Portuguese has brought the torch of faith; the rest of the country, the inland provinces, have not been touched, so that it may rightly be said that the Christian faith can be found only where Portuguese arms are respected." ... Nearly everybody is full of admiration for the Christian religion, very few if any condemn it, many embrace it; but there is one thing which delays conversions; it is the fear of being outcast by their own people, exiled from their country, deprived of their friends, relatives and temporal goods, as will happen if they give up the badges of their caste and the manners and customs of their ancestors.""

"I professed to be an Italian Brahmin who had renounced the world, had studied wisdom at Rome (for a Brahmin means a wise man) and rejected all the pleasures and comforts of this world."

""The name of Robert de Nobilibus will be lastingly associated with the first spread of Christianity in Southern India. It must be admitted, however, that he, his associates, and successors aimed at high game... With preaching and persuasion, these teachers adopted a questionable policy. They sought for converts among the heaven-born of India; they addressed themselves to the Priesthood-the Brahmins."

"Nobili appeared in Madura clad in the saffron robes of a Sadhu with sandal paste on his forehead and the sacred thread on his body from which hung a cross and took his abode in the Brahmin quarters. He thus attracted a large number of people. He gave out that he was a Brahmin from Rome. He showed documentary evidence to prove that he belonged to a clan of the parent stock that had migrated from ancient Aryavart and assured the members of the high castes that by becoming a Christian one did not renounce one’s caste, nobility or usage. (Pages 65-70 Christians and Christianity in India and Pakistan). He learnt Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit, and took up the Brahman style of living. He wrote in Sanskrit a Christian Sandhyavandanam for Brahmin converts. He declared that he was bringing a message which had been taught in India by Indian ascetics of yore and that he was only restoring to Hindus one of their lost sacred books, namely the 5th Veda, called Yeshurveda. It passed for a genuine work until the Protestant Missionaries exposed the fraud about the year 1840. (History of Missions, Richter, Page 57). In five years, from 1607 to 1611, he baptised 87 Brahmins. These conversions, then so marvellous, drew upon De Nobili the eyes of friend and foe alike. A big controversy raged among the Roman Catholic missionaries the world over for a considerable length of time. Much of the opposition could be explained by wounded pride on the Portuguese side. In 1623 Pope Gregory XV gave a bull in favour of De Nobili, declaring thus: We allow the present and future converts to wear the (Brahmin) thread and the tuft of hair as distinctive marks of race, social rank and office, to use sandal wood as ornament and to take ablutions as a matter of hygiene. This Brahman Sanyasi of the ‘Roman Gotra’, Father De Nobili, worked for 40 years and died at the ripe age of 89 in 1656. It is said that he had converted about a lakh of persons but they all melted away after his death."

"A book entitled L' Ezour Vedam was published in Paris in 1778. A manuscript of this book had reached Voltaire, the famous French thinker, in 1761. He had thought it a genuine work on Hindus religion and philosophy and presented it to the library of the king of France. M. Anquetil Du Perron who had spent many years in India and who "professed a profound knowledge of its religion, antiquities and literature" helped in getting it published. But M. Sonnerat, who saw the publication, inferred that it was the handiwork of Christian missionaries and must have been written in an Indian language. The purpose of the work, pronounced Sonnerat, was "to refute the doctrines of the Puranas and to lead, indirectly, to Christianity". Mr. Ellis was able to "ascertain that the original of this work still exists among the manuscripts in the possession of the Catholic missionaries at Pondicherry, which are understood to have originally belonged to the Society of Jesus". He also found "among the manuscripts, imitations of the other three Vedas"- Rigveda, Samaveda. and Atharvaveda. There was also an Upaveda of the Rigveda composed in "16,128 lines or 8600 stanzas"-a work unknown to any Hindu tradition. Several other forgeries came to his notice. On enquiries made at Pondicherry, "the more respectable native Christians" informed him that "these books were written by Robert De Nobilibus" who had become "well known to both Hindus and Christians under the Sanscrit title of Tattwa-Bodh Swami"."

"But of all the missions that were established in these distant parts of the globe, none has been more constantly and universally applauded than that of Madura, and none is said to have produced more abundant and permanent fruit. It was undertaken and executed by Robert De Noble, an Italiac Jesuit, who took a very singular method of rendering his ministry successful. Considering, on the one hand, that the Indians beheld with an eye of prejudice and aversion all the Europeans, and on the other, that they held in the highest veneration the order of Brachmans as descended from the gods; and that, impatient of other rulers, they paid an implicit and unlimited obedience to them alone, he assumed the appearance and title of a Brachman, that had come from a far country, and by besmearing his countenance and imitating that most austere and painful method of living that the Sanyasis or penitents observe, he at length persuaded the credulous people that he was in reality a member of that venerable order. .... Nobili, who was looked upon by the Jesuits as the chief apostle of the Indians after Francois Xavier took incredible pains to acquire a knowledge of the religion, customs, and language of Madura, sufficient for the purposes of his ministry. But this was not all: for to stop the mouths of his opposers and particularly of those who treated his character of Brachman as an imposture, he produced an old, dirty parchment in which he had forged, in the ancient Indian characters, a deed, showing that the Brachmans of Rome were of much older date than those of India and that the Jesuits of Rome descended, in a direct line from the god Brama."

"But for a long time to come the prime movers in these operations must continue to be European. And we hope that a great Christian, and if we may use the term, ecclesiastical army will be raised, the rank and file consisting of natives, while the captains and generals are highly qualified Europeans."

"Now, India presents the greatest of all fields for missionary exertion, greater even than China... I shall conclude by reminding you that, as patriotic people, you may be confident that the missions in India are doing a work which strengthens the imperial foundations of British power, and raises our national repute in the eyes of the many millions of people committed to our charge. You may be also confident that the results are fully commensurate with the expenditure."

"What India gives us about Christianity in its midst in indeed nothing but pure fables."

"The subcontinent of India, in the eyes of Vatican planners, has a primordial importance as the one country in Asia where the Church can make huge headway. The Roman Catholic Church has poured vast resources into India. Religious orders run 115 colleges with 135,000 students, 1,200 high schools with over 500,000 pupils, 242 technical schools with over 400,000 students. It is estimated that 60 percent of all students in India attend Roman Catholic schools and colleges. In those seats of learning, 50 percent of the teachers are non-Christian. Jesuits are involved on the local, state, and national level."

"In all these places, there was unanimity as regards the excellent service rendered by the Missionaries in the fields of education and medical relief. But on the other hand there was a general complaint from the non-Christian side that the schools and hospitals were being used as means of securing converts. ...The objection was to the illegitimate methods alleged to be adopted by the Missionaries for this purpose, such as offering allurements of free education and other facilities to children attending their schools, adding some Christian names to their original Indian names, marriages with Christian girls, money-lending, distributing Christian literature in hospitals and offering prayers in the wards of indoor patients. Reference was also made to the practice of the Roman Catholic priests or preachers visiting newborn babies to give ‘ashish’ (blessings) in the name of Jesus, taking sides in litigation or domestic quarrels, kidnapping of minor children and abduction of women and recruitment of labour for plantations in Assam or Andaman as a means of propagating the Christian faith among the ignorant and illiterate people. ... As a rule, groups have been converted, and we find ‘individual conversion’ has been an exception rather than the rule. We have come across cases of individual conversions only of persons who are village leaders and they have invariably been followed by ‘Mass conversions’ of the entire village soon after. We have not found it possible to accept the contention that the immediate material prosperity of these converted leaders bore no causal relation to their conversions. ... Evangelization in India appears to be a part of the uniform world policy to revive Christendom for re-establishing Western supremacy and is not prompted by spiritual motives. The objective is apparently to create Christian minority pockets with a view to disrupt the solidarity of the non-Christian societies, and the mass conversions of a considerable section of Adivasis with this ulterior motive is fraught with danger to the security of the State."

"“The dawn of independence is a landmark in the development of Christian educational work in this country. Since 1947 there has been a fantastic expansion in the number of Christian institutions, chiefly among the Roman Catholics. Colleges have gone up from 42 to 114 and secondary schools from 500 to 1,200. The Catholic Directory, 1969, gives fairly accurate statistics for Catholic educational work. There are now 6000 elementary schools, 1200 secondary schools, 114 colleges, and 80 specialised institutions.”"

"There are also Chris­tian armed separat­ist movements in Nagaland and Mizoram, which are openly supported by the World Council of Churches and by a number of Catholic institutions... Some Hindu writers have therefore developed detailed criticisms of Christian political behaviour in India, detailing records of conversion, and discussing the missions' international sponsoring... The single most frightening moment for the Christian mission strategists was in the mid-1950s, when the BJS was hardly in the picture as a political force. The Congress governm­ent of Madhya Pradesh ordered an inves­tigation of fraudulent conversions through social pressure and material inducement by Christian missionaries in the tribal belt. The BJS supported the implementation of the recommen­dations (for a much stricter control of missionary ac­tivities and finances) concluding the highly critical report of this commit­tee... At any rate, Nehru prevented the report from having any political consequen­ces... In 1978, O.P. Tyagi proposed his Freedom of Religion Bill in the Lok Sabha, with the object of prohibiting conversions by force or allurement. The Christian missions launched a worldwide propaganda campaign against it, and the Leftist sections of the Janata Party also opposed it, so that nothing came of it... In 1994, the Churches created a similar stir, on the occasion of a very small incident in the Chennai area. After reading Ishwar Sharan's book The Myth of Saint Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple, which argued that a number of churches including the one commemorating Saint Thomas's alleged martyrdom had been built on destroyed Shiva temples, a back-bench member of the RSS-af­filiated Tamil organization Hindu Munnani went to a church in Pon­dicherry, equipped with the parapher­nalia for puja, and inquired where the Shiva lingam was, so that he could worship it. He had learnt that the Cathedral had been built on the site of the Vedapuri-Ishwaran Temple after the temple had been destroyed in 1748 by the Jesuits aided by the them French governor of Pondicherry. Immediately, the Catholic Church was alarmed and warned that the Hindu fundamentalists were trying to create a second Ayodhya affair... Though focusing on conflictual chapters in history has been decried and condemned in the strongest terms when Hindus did just that during the Ayodhya campaign, it is a per­fectly respectable activity in other parts of the world."

"“How many hundreds of thousands have these padres turned to Christianity and keep on turning! How many hundreds of children have they swallowed up! On how many more they have cast their nets! How much evil is yet to come upon us by their means! If we sleep as heretofore, in a short time they will turn all to Christianity without exceptions, and our temples will he changed into churches... When Christianity has laid waste the land, will a blade of Hinduism grow there? When the flood rushes up over our heads it will be too late. It is because of our carelessness that these strangers insult our gods in the open streets during our festivals.” (Hindus Tract Society) ... “The nation regrets,” wrote The Hindu Reformer and Politician of Madras, “that money and trouble are spent on young men who return to their household with contempt for the practices and beliefs of their relations and ancestors, and the young men regret that their homes and community are attached to what seems to them to be foolishness and superstition.”"

"Today the most fruitful ministries are carried by more than 100,000 pastors, evangelists and preachers. Full time Indian missionaries from organized societies increased from 420 in 1973 to 2941 societies in 1983. These missionaries have seen remarkable growth in northern India in places such as Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Sikkim. In Western India, Christian workers estimate that two new worship groups are formed every week through indigenous missionary effort... In Tamil Nadu, the Indian Church Growth Mission hopes to plant 1,000 churches in unreached villages."

"Cambridge University established a prize named for an essay competition on the topic: 'The best means of civilizing the subjects of the British Empire in India, and of diffusing the light of the Christian religion throughout the eastern world.'"

"Montgomery, who had lived long in India, supported the same policy, though from another point of view. “He declared that Christianity had nothing to teach Hinduism, and no missionary ever made a really good Christian convert in India. He, too, like the tea-dealer, had a sound respect for the martial powers of the Indians, and concluded that he “was more anxious to save the 30,000 of his countrymen in India than to save the souls of all the Hindus by making them Christians at so dreadful a price”.(152)"

"Mr. Marsh, an able lawyer, who spent several years in Madras, put the case on the other side in the following words: “Indeed, when I turn my eyes either to the present condition or ancient grandeur of that country; when I contemplate the magnificence of her structures, her spacious reservoirs, constructed at an immense expense, pouring fertility and plenty over the land, the monuments of a benevolence expanding its cares over remote ages; when I survey the solid and embellished architecture of her temples, the elaborate and exquisite skill of her manufactures and fabrics, her literature sacred and profane, her gaudy and enamelled pottery on which a wild and prodigal fancy has lavished all its opulence; .when I turn to the philosophers, lawyers and moralists who have left the oracles of political and ethical wisdom to restrain the passions and to awe the vices which disturb the commonwealth; when I look at the peaceful and harmonious alliances of families, guarded and secured by the household virtues; when I see amongst a cheerful and well-ordered society, the benignant and softening influence of religion and morality, a system of manners founded on a mild and polished obeisance, and preserving the surface of social life smooth and unruffled— I cannot hear without surprise, mingled with horror, of sending out Baptists and Anabaptists to civilize or convert such a people at the hazard of disturbing or deforming institutions which appear to have hitherto been the means ordained by Providence of making them virtuous and happy”.(152)"

"For what purpose then, has this enormous territory been committed to England? .... that every man, woman and child from Cape Comorin ot the Himalaya mountains, may be elevated, enlightened, Christianised.... When the walls of the mighty fortress of Brahminism are encircled, undermined, and finally stormed by the soldiers of the Cross, the victory of Christianity must be signal and complete."

"I really do not know why the Christian leaders suddenly backed out of the dialogue ( to broker a peace dialogue between the Christian and Hindu leaders).... Certain Christian quarters are carrying on a systematic and deliberate campaign against the Minorities Commission. I do not want to mention the names of the Christians who compelled the church leadership to call of the dialogue. I know the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, Archbishop Cyril Baselius very well.... It is not they who are trying to create unnecessary hysteria over the so-called attacks on Christians. It is some lay Christian leaders who are advising the bishops to act against the interests of the community. They are trying to vitiate the communal atmosphere in the country. ... Everybody in political circles and in the media knows who these Christian leaders are. John Dayal, who heads three Christian organisations, is the main leader. He is the president and secretary of the All India Catholic Union, the All India Christian Council and the United Christians Forum for Human Rights. Every day, these organisations come out with press statements from every nook and corner of the country. ... I sincerely feel that some of these Christian leaders want the attacks to continue so that they can be in the limelight. They are playing politics in the shadow of the attacks. Some of these leaders want the tension to increase in the country. They want to achieve so many other things in the name of the attacks against Christians in the country. In the name of violence and atrocities, I suspect some Christian organisations are trying to get foreign funds. ... I did not say that all the attacks on Christians in the country are isolated incidents. We, the Commission members, after studying five out of the 40, 50 incidents of attacks on Christians, came to the conclusion that these five incidents in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana were totally isolated cases. We mentioned just five cases. No Sangh Parivar group was behind the attacks on Christians in these cases. We stand by our report. But the problem is that Christian leaders want the NMC to portray all the incidents of attacks against Christians in the country as being the handiwork of the Sangh Parivar. Sorry, we are a responsible organisation. We are supposed to tell only the truth, according to the Constitution. ... I do not know. I do not want to comment. Let the truth come out. In a few days, you will hear who are behind these attacks. The country is gong to be shocked when it hears that the attacks against Christians have not been perpetuated by pro-Hindu organisations. Look at the church blast in Bangalore. The police arrested a Muslim fundamentalist. I do feel there is a definite link between the bomb blasts in churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa. But these blasts were surely not carried out by Sangh Parivar outfits."

"“Every additional Christian is an additional bond of union with this country and an additional source of strength to the Empire”."

"From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strand.... They call us to deliver Their land from error's chain. What though the spicy breezes Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle (...)"

"With regard to the propagation of Christianity, the manner of it was so outrageous that it could not but cause scandal throughout the whole of India. We claimed that we did not force our religion on anyone. But in practice they saw us forcing our religion on the inhabitants of our territories, after we had stated, and made an agreement with them, that they would be allowed to live without constraint and in peace…"

"[Tipu Sultan, on the pretext of treason attributed to a priest] “(…) sent the order to seize [him]; but his emissaries not having found him, they hanged his servant. After which an order came from the Sultan to pursue all the priests, and to demolish all the churches; which was executed with rigor.»"

"The missionaries were sent out to exterminate heathenism in India, not to spread heathen nonsense all over Europe."

"Conversion of Hindus into other religions is dangerous to the security of the nation and the country. It is therefore necessary to put a stop to it. It is by exploitation of poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, offering of inducement and by deceptive tactics that people are converted. It is but right that this unjust activity is prohibited. It is a duty we have to discharge towards protecting our brethren in ignorance and poverty."

"Unfortunately, Christianity in India has been inextricably mixed up for the last one hundred years with the British rule. It appears to us as synonymous with the materialistic civilization and imperialistic exploitation by the strong white races of the weaker races of the world. Its contribution to India has been therefore largely of a negative character. It has done some good in spite of its professors. It has shocked us into setting our own house in order."

"The indirect influence of Christianity has been to quicken Hinduism to life. The cultured Hindu society has admitted its grievous sin against the untouchables. But the effect of Christianity upon India in general must be judged by the life lived in our midst by the average Christian and its effect upon us. I am sorry to have to re record my opinion that it has been disastrous. It pains me to have to say that the Christian missionaries as a body, with honourable exceptions, have actively supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralised a people considered to be among the gentlest and most civilized on earth..."

"“Though it was the hope of gain that brought the Portuguese adventurers to India, it was also the purpose of their kings to promote the spread of Christianity among those who came under their rule. On this ground several of the fifteenth century Popes granted them rights of dominion and commercial monopoly in the newly acquired territories. A modern reader will wonder what right the Popes had to do this; but in mediaeval Europe theologians held that the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, had a direct domination over the kingdoms of the earth, and so such grants did not seem outrageous – not to the beneficiaries at any rate. In a famous bull of 1493 Pope Alexander VI, 43 to settle rivalry between Spain and Portugal, the two colonial powers of those days, drew a line down the map of the Atlantic Ocean south of the Azores Islands to form a boundary between their respective spheres of influence. All lands not already under Christian rule ‘discovered or yet to be discovered’ to the west of the line, he assigned to Spain; those to the east, to Portugal. Along with this fantastic enactment went a command to the Spanish and Portuguese kings ‘to send to the said lands and islands good men who fear God and are learned, skilled and expert, to instruct the inhabitants in the Catholic Faith and good morals’. Moreover, other foreigners were forbidden to enter those lands without license from these kings. Whatever may be thought nowadays of such orders, the Spaniards and Portuguese were prepared to act on them; and not only in claiming and exercising, as far as they were able, rights of dominion and trade; they were seriously prepared to propagate Christianity.”"

"He was averse from shedding human blood, though he destroyed many idolatrous temples, and erected mosques in their stead. He held conversation neither with Nazarenes nor with bramins; nor would he permit them to hold civil offices under his government."

"In each of these cases [of alleged Hindu violence against Christians], the original allegations against Hindus were splashed across the front pages in India and also reported in the world press, whereas the true story, once it came out, was reported on an inside page in India and not at all abroad. Even then, Christian spokesman John Dayal repeated the discredited allegations before the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, and they keep on reappearing in secularist sources. I am not aware of a single secularist who publicly withdrew the allegations and offered apologies for his slander to the maligned Hindus. Nor of one who has drawn attention to Christian violence against Hindus in the same period, such as the abduction of four RSS activists by Christian separatists in Tripura (the four dead bodies were found two years later) or the ethnic cleansing of the Hindu Riang tribe from Christian-majority Mizoram. Even so, the propaganda line of Hindu violence against Christians is no longer pursued with the same vigour, partly because its proponents seem to be embarrassed by their crying wolf a few times too often, and partly because it remains a relatively small affair even if all the allegations had been true."

"The Christian-dominated parts of India's North-East have witnessed several instances of Hindu-cleansing. Hindu organizations like the Ramakrishna Mission and the RSS have been targeted for elimination from the region through pressure or violence. In the 1990s, tens of thousands of Riang tribals who rejected conversion were expelled from Christian-dominated Mizoram. The death toll of Hindus eliminated by Christian separatists dwarfs that of the much-publicized Hindu violence against Christians, which has killed only a handful since 1947, including in the supposed “wave” of anti-Christian riots in 1998-99. The killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines... was front-page news in the whole world and remains a constant point of reference in the dominant discourse on communalism. By contrast, when shortly after that, four RSS workers were kidnapped by Christian separatists in the North-East and their mutilated bodies were subsequently found, it was hardly reported in the Indian press and not at all in the international media."

"[the work of the missionaries is] “an unrecognised and unofficial branch of the great movement that alone justifies British rule in India”."

"Theory and practice alike concur in proving, that to increase and multiply the members of native Christians, is to increase and multiply the only class of truly staunch and loyal native subject of the British Crown among the teaming millions of India."

"“Without question the most important postwar development has been the rapid expansion of the Roman Catholic Church. At the beginning of the war there were but 50,000 Catholics in the region North East India]; in 1977 there were 369,681. In part this was due to an extraordinary expenditure of resources both in terms of money and missionary personnel, including personnel brought in from other parts of India. But it was due also to the removal after independence of the restrictions the British had placed upon Catholic missions...."