It's Good Friday, Folks

Lately I've been seeing this quite a bit: Islam bashing on the blogsphere. People quote incidents in rural Bihar or Iraq, and make sweeping statements about Islamic theology. Personally, I didn't expect such vitriolic behavior from Indians. Understandably some people (ie, some Hindus) have preconceived notions about Islam, and those notions are culturally inherited. Understandable. Not acceptable, but understandable.

This view of Islam as the enemy of Hinduism is, well, old. For some time now, Hinduism has been facing serious onslaughts, and it ain't from Islam. Most Hindus are so blinkered into seeing Islam as the enemy, they fail to see what's happening under their very noses. The Churches are far more active than people realize, and they mean business.

When I was a kid, my folks kept a maid to look after me, and to ensure my older siblings didn't toss me in the trash (or scratch my eyes out). This maid also worked in the nearby Church, cleaning and stuff. The priest told her that if she and her daughter converted, the girl could join the school run by the Church, free. As the maid told my mother," If converting gives my daughter a better future, then why not?" Good point.

Years later, I would meet the occasional Bible Society fellow or Jehovah's Witness, who would talk to our family about THE Family. I guess we were nice enough, and listened patiently. As Hindus, we were open to all forms of worship, and tolerant of dissenters. But how much can you take, when someone comes into your home, and disses your belief system as mere superstition? No Sir. After a while, all Bible Society solicitations were answered by the snarling dog. Run Witness, run. The power of Jehovah compels you! Hehehehe.

In school I did have a rather pushy classmate, who seemed intent on scoring.... my soul. Funny how when they expect you to listen patiently while they proselytize, yet are scandalized when you do the same.

It was only in college that I came to appreciate the scale of these operations. South India is a virtual cesspool of Churches. Every bus is plastered with innocuous looking posters for "Youth Meetings", which turn out to be gatherings to praise His name. Gosh, it's all so cloak and dagger, they might as well be putting on white cloaks and burning Crosses, rather than worshiping them. It's common to see posters for firebrand preachers with names like Rev. John Kumar or Kishore Ezekiel Thomas. I've heard a few. It's all fire-and-brimstone sermons.

If you dig a bit deeper, you'll see that the traditional Churches in India are relatively quiet. The Catholic and Anglican Churches are comfortable to keep to themselves, and aren't looking to score major converts. But the American Protestant Churches are really stepping on the gas. In Tamil Nadu, you are never too far from a Pentecost Church. The Pentecosts are pilferaging from the traditionally sane flocks of the CSI (Church of South India). It's these American Churches that are doing the maximum damage. Students are actively working on their classmates. Not so long ago, after my father passed away, a classmate told me that I should think instead of the Heavenly Father, and how much Jesus loves me. I'd seen this before. They went after people who were emotionally vulnerable, and comfort them with Jesus. I saw it at work on another classmate, who finally succumbed to the Jesus-babble. I was carpet bombed with scriptural SMSes, biblical nuggets on grief and loss. I was told the "Living Word of God" would make everything all right. I was literally handed a Bible in class. I politely told her thanks, but I already have two Bibles at home, which I have read. I added that they sit quite comfortably between my two copies of the Gita, and the Quran. They seem to get along fine. Why don't you read what the Quran has to say?

The Baptist and Pentecost Churches also seem to encourage a schism with the rest of Indian society. A lot of people identity more with the Mother Churches in the US than with other Indians. It's this that has me most worried.

The picture above is a sticker on a door near mine, by a group called The India Church Growth Mission, or ICGM. It is Psalms 128:5: “The LORD bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.”

Tamil: to be or not to be

One of the first things I became acutely aware of in Madurai was the notion of identity. It excludes as much as it includes. So which is it? What defines identity? Ethnicity? Primary language? Religion? Caste?

The first billboard I saw in Madurai was a bilingual one, the only bilingual billboard I have ever seen in Madurai. It said, in Tamil and English (in that order), "Tamil language, divine language". I'm told such billboards are scattered across Tamil Nadu. Now, what I don't get is, why English? In all such matters, the use of English is anathema to the "Tamil-is-divine" bunch. So why have a billboard announcing the greatness of Tamil; in English? It's obvious: for the benefit of people like me. Just what they wanted me to take from it, I still dunno.

Something that's always confused me is the sense of Tamil identity. Tamils are probably the most divisive people I know, yet there is a strange sense of belonging. What's stranger still is the number of ethnically non-Tamils who identify themselves as Tamil. When non-Tamils (especially northies) think of Tamil (or any other group), we think ethnic group. A lot of the pro-Tamil people I know turned out to be ethnic Telugus, or Mallus. One recent expat from Andhra went so far as to tell me he now preferred Tamil over Telugu. Back in Bangalore, the first person I
knew from Tamil Nadu (and identifying herself as Tamil) turned out to be Telugu as well.

Yesterday I passed by two Badagas chatting. For those of you who don't know, Badagas are the largest tribal group in the Nilgiri hills, and speak a dilect of Kannada. I thought I'd use my scant knowledge of Kannada and eavesdrop. Well, whadya know? They were talking in Tamil! I don't get it. Every Badaga I've encountered is very proud of his heritage and language. Yet at least one Badaga I know speaks to his parents in Tamil.

This sort of identity-cross-connection is something I hadn't encountered in the North, at least not at this scale. In the North people are more prone to think in terms of religion=language, but that's definitely not the case here. Most Christians here (again, unlike the North) dress, speak, and behave much like everybody else. Women dress in Indian attire, and sport bindis and Hindu-inspired jewelery. Tamil Churches depict Mary in a sari, again, unlike in the North. In fact, in Bangalore I discovered that pilgrims visiting shrines of Mary for her Feast Day wear
saffron, since it is a holy colour for Indians (as told to me by one such pilgrim).

In contrast, Christians from the North (or the North-East) are far more uprooted (if I may use that term) from their ancestral culture. While most South Indian Christians have Sanskrit names, most North Indian ones do not. There is a denominational bias here. Most recent converts to American protestant churches are especially critical of "Indian" systems, and take special pains to distance themselves from anything “Indian”. It's a cultural thing too, after all. There's a greater identification with the US as the Mother Culture, rather than their
heathen ancestral one.

In recent times, these American churches have made serious inroads into South India, and I hope to cover that in a later post.

2001 : An Identity Crisis

Odd, how we feel when a long term goal is accomplished. For me, that was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I first discovered this film back in school. After the exams, you gotta kill time somehow. Well, for me that meant the library. I discovered this coffee table sorta book, full of visions of how the future might be. Flying cars, giant laser beams, and all that jazz. That's where I first read about 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was hooked.

But when I finally saw the film a few days ago, I was intrigued instead by something else. This film asks obtuse questions about the essence of humanity and consciousness. But I was struck by what shapes our outlook of the world in the first place, and how fluid and dynamic that really is.

Case in point: Scientific concepts trickling down into the public domain and reshaping how we see ourselves and the world. Take for example the descent of man from apes. A concept now so rooted in the public imagination. Hardly the case even 50 years back.

So much has changed. Spiderman is now the result of genetic manipulation, not radiation. ditto with the Hulk. Genetics is the new unknown frontier. Everybody now knows what DNA is. You can have a scene like the Terminatrix performing real-time Genomic sequencing of John Connor's DNA, and everybody can understand what just happened. 20 years ago, could an average audience understand such a scene? 30 years ago? Hardly. It's not like sequencing is a new concept, it just wasn't a part of the public imagination.

Perhaps what I find most disconcerting is how half baked scientific ideas are being paraded in the public. I'll provide an example. As you may or may not know, I am currently working in the population genetics of North Indians, for which I've been analysing the DNA of North Indian men, looking for evidence of migration patterns. I discovered that I carry a genetic marker called M17, which is predominant in Central Asia, Iran, Russia, and Eastern Europe. It is sometimes ubiquitously called the Indo-Aryan marker due to its distribution. Based on its genetic signature, it is believed M17 probably appeared somewhere in the Ukraine region, and spread outwards. M17 is widespread in Iran and North Indian upper castes as well. Curious, I decided to look around for any mention of this marker in the lay media. Well, I was shocked, to say the least. It seems for quite some time now; this and other serious genetic work has been tossed around in the media. People with no understanding of genetics are grossly misinterpreting such work to push forward their own narrow minded agendas. Several articles quote M17 to show an Indo-centric view of the world, the Hindu right-wing notion that the Aryans came from India, and spread outwards. They quote bits from serious research work, and it all looks real convincing.

For that matter, I’ve seen many scientists with a very wrong notion of the basics of Genetics. Especially in a sensitive area such as population genetics, that can be explosive. Take for example the politics of Tamil Nadu. The Dravidian movement seeks to brand Brahmins as outsiders, alien exploiters plundering the innocent Dravidians. Half understood genetic evidence would only serve such bigots. But it’s happening. Even among my classmates, who represent the cream of Tamil Nadu society in terms of education, caste is a dirty secret. Everybody expects caste to come around and bite them on the ass. Caste politics is BIG here. So it’s best not to reveal your own caste affiliations, especially if you’re a Brahmin. I know this because as part of my work, I have to collect details about the person’s ancestry, including nativity, and sub castes. These details are things many people are not comfortable disclosing, even to me.

Funny, isn’t it? In just a few generations, we’ve gone from being proud of our ancestry, to being embarrassed by it. Just goes to show our notions of identity aren't as deep as we like to think.