Intelligence gathering network

In fact, according to the documents in Tehelka's possession, foreign missionaries have played a stellar role in organising the intelligence gathering missions. Vander Berg, co-director of Pray India and Mission analyst with Mission 21 India, has wide "missionary experience" in India and has worked as a pastor in many places. Another notable Christian scholar, an Australian who has married an Indian, is credited with having turned around two US-based evangelical mission agencies-Frontier Mission Center and Youth With A Mission-into formidable research organisations. Hackworth is considered within the international and Indian Christian evangelical circles as the "only man who knows all the Peoples Groups of India at the district level." After setting up such an elaborate network, church groups in India are understandably disappointed over a recent Supreme Court ruling (September 1, 2003) that there was "no fundamental right to convert" someone from one religion to another, and that the government could impose restrictions on conversions. This was in response to the petition by the All India Christian Council (AICC), challenging the validity of the controversial Freedom of Religion Act that became law in Orissa in 1999. The law now mandates that a person wanting to change faiths has to declare to the district magistrate that this decision was made "of his own will". The magistrate then forwards the declaration to the police to see if there is any objection before permission for the conversion is granted. Any religious leader intending to perform a conversion has to indicate the time and place of the ceremony to the magistrate in advance, and violating any of the regulations could lead to imprisonment and a fine. In fact, last year Sister Ekka was convicted for converting 96 people without following the procedure laid down by law. Most missionaries, however, simply proceed without informing the district authorities. "I think that this is curbing the liberties of an individual, the natural rights, the unalienable as they are called. The government or the state cannot control my convictions. That's a matter of personal choice, which should never be taken away. So I would also say, the freedom of religion Bills, the focus is against the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes. In the Gujarat Bill and also in the Tamil Nadu Bill they have used the word. So the target is again the marginalised and the poor for them to stay there," says Howell. Conversion is a highly sensitive issue in some parts of India, including Orissa, where in recent years Christians have been victims of violence, including arson attacks, and two missionaries have been slain. Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two sons were burnt alive in January 1999. Later, the Rev Arul Doss, a Roman Catholic priest in the Balasore diocese, was killed in a remote region. Howell explains that the violence against Christians is because the "the church is empowering the poor." The reality is that India's marginalised communities are indeed powerless. Independent India has failed to empower Dalits and tribals. The church has stepped in to provide them development services, which really fall within the government of India's ambit. But conversions in India, as they are happening today, are not merely about empowering the poor. It is about a sinister and subversive strategy, hatched in the US, backed by the Bush administration over the years. The question is: does the Indian establishment know or is it pretending not to? Source

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