Caste, Conversion and a “Thoroughly Colonial Conspiracy”

by Satish K. Sharma

As is customary these days, before embarking upon any critique, irrespective of how justified, it is appropriate to make a “declaration of innocence”, simply to meet the inevitable “ad hominems” and “knee-jerk” uproar which follows, usually from those for whom their own vested interests and prejudices are sacrosanct and for whom evidence is an optional desirable but not a prerequisite. This note is not an “attack on Christians” but an evidence supported response to the manner in which the primary Anglican Institution, the Church of England has abused its dominant position to architect and inflict a hate crime upon the Dharmic community, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and other communities of non-Abrahamic Indian origin, resident in the UK. It is a response to the manner in which Parliament, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission failed in their duty to require evidence and remain impartial, and failed in their duty to protect a non- violent, fully integrated and successful British religious minority, the Dharmic community. We bear no animosity to Lord Harries the instigator of this hate crime, an elderly member of the Upper Chamber and respected in matters of “Faith & Belief” but in this issue, his actions have had devastating consequences, consequences which we submit were both predictable and anticipated as well as advantageous to an Evangelical Institution committed to the conversion of Dharmic communities, here in the United Kingdom and particularly in their declared target marketplace, India. We accept that the former Bishop of Oxford was continuing in the culturally “hard wired” tradition of his institutional ancestors (a tradition moulded by a white supremacist Colonial past in which a heaven exists from which Hindus are still barred, an orientation which must be difficult to shed in a single lifetime) a tradition of “religiously colonising and oppressing” my own Dharmic religious ancestors, an activity which if it were not protected by cassocks and crosses, would be a Hate Crime, past and present. When the Church fathers first encountered the “life – affirming” Dharmic ideals in the India of the 16 th /17 th century, their own institutions’ “life-dominating” ideals were naturally jeopardised and whilst the plunderers set about colonising the physical continent, the Church’s missionaries set about their “religious colonisation” of the minds of the Dharmic community. Both employed tactics which fall well within the definition of “Crimes against Humanity” and breach every “Hate Crime” definition being diligently and rightly promoted by PM Teresa May’s government. We submit that the Church of England is still engaged in “religious colonialism” and actively pursuing its mission of “saving the heathen” using the weapons of denigration followed by religious grooming and radicalisation, the deliberate creation of an atmosphere rife, particularly with “Hindu-odium – deep seated hatred of all things Hindu” and thus is actively engaged in Hate Crimes, today. Religious Colonialism, i.e. the replacement of heathen cultures and religions is as much if not more an act of genocide as the physical genocide, in that it seeks to destroy not only the fabric of a community, but the core psychological links with its ancestors and their spiritual and cultural knowledge. It is an act of emotional and intellectual violence of the most heinous kind, a crime which has no place in the 21 st Century, and we petition those responsible for the protection of justice & human rights, to ensure that the Dharmic community of the United Kingdom receives justice and protection from this institution, and its “Caste Proliferation” initiative. Pt S. K. Sharma, B.Sc (Hons) MBCS FRSA General Secretary, National Council of Hindu Temples (UK)

54 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2017