More info on Nagaland Visit:By Ramrani

[Guest guest]

Hello Srividhya & Rajeev,

 

I see that an off-the-list tamasha(conflict) has erupted due to Vrin

Parker's

post about his trip to Nagaland. Srividhya Ragavan referred to Vrin's

organizational affiliations and also wanted to know why he was

criticized in the Nagaland Post--what was the "other side"? Since I

was there in Nagaland and also was at the meeting in Dimapur where we

spoke with several journalists, I would like to comment.

 

First of all, Vrin has associations with numerous Vedic oriented

organizations and enterprises, most of which he founded. From infancy

he was raised a Vaishnava Hindu and personally enjoys the color and

depth of

his life long spiritual understandings, which are Hindu. Throughout

his life he has tried to be on the path of right livelihood (to

borrow a line from the Buddha) and that is why his bio is filled with

references to his efforts to bring the beautiful aspects of Indic

civilization to other Americans. The organizations that he has

founded engage, among other activities, in staging musical revues of

Indian devotional music and other such alternative entrepreneurial

efforts. These things that he does in Hawaii have no connection with

his trip to Nagaland. I have never attended one of Vrin's musical

events, but he did not stage one of those in Nagaland--though maybe

he should. So, separating Vrin's activities in Hawaii from his visit

to Nagaland is essential. I think that is perhaps what Rajeev

intended by saying that his bio was not on trial.

 

I can easily tell you the "other side" and the tilt of the article in

the Nagaland Post. I will also share the contents of two other

articles about our visit to Nagaland, one from the Asian Age and one

from the Nagaland Page. Both of these articles were more favorable

and had very interesting things to report.

 

First I will tell you about the journalists we met in Dimapur. There

were reporters from five newspapers. Four of the journalists were

fairly young and asked very interesting questions. That morning we

had given a talk at a Jain school about the importance of the

preservation of indigenous traditions--highlighting the UN's

resolution on that issue we had also met with with Naga students at a

hostel who were followers of Rani Gaidilieu. Interestingly, the press

conference was almost turned on its head, because we began to ask the

journalists about themselves and a very rich exchange ensued that

lasted for more than two hours.

 

During the meeting, a gentleman who was a bit older came in late. He

said he was a reporter for the Nagaland Post. He did not like it when

I told my story of why I had deep respect for Dharmic based religions

even though I was born in a Christian family. He and I got into a bit

of a debate because he insisted that Christian missionaries have the

right to harvest souls in any manner they can which includes calling

Hindu traditions into question. He felt the inherent superiority of

Christianity must be told to the tribal peoples. "Christians have the

right to propagate their religion because the path of Jesus Christ

leads to salvation." Well, that old prejudicial narrative just didn't

sit well with me so I asked him numerous times, "Will all

non-Christians go to hell?" He hedged and made euphemisms, but he

couldn't deny that he believed that to be true. This exclusivism is

basic Christian dogma.

 

He left the meeting early in a bit of tiff. However, the other

journalists stayed until long after dark and we talked extensively

about many issues and exchanged email addresses. I have been in touch

with one of the reporters, Frances several times, he is a journalist

from Nagaland. (More about him further on in this message.) The other

journalists who remained after Mr. Basu, the fellow from the Nagaland

Post left, told us that he is not really a journalist but actually a

well known Christian activist in Dimapur. Though originally from West

Bengal, he has been doing missionary work in Nagaland for 25 years

(this by his own admission). We were also told by these four

journalists that the editor of the Nagaland Post was a fundamentalist

Christian. I could not verify this, but several other people told us

the same thing the day the article came out in that paper. The

editor's name is Jaffry, or so we were told and supposedly he is a

Pentecostal, as was Mr. Kalyan Basu-- this, as mentioned, according

to the other journalists present and also several Dimapur residents.

 

The title of the front page article in the Nagaland Post was "US

Vedic Scholars take Christianity to Task", and appeared on December

16, 2002, written by "staff reporter". Besides the sensationalist

title, IMHO, the article itself was nothing but truth--their effort

to be critical in this article backfired. One of the most important

comments was made in the first paragraph:

 

"Two US nationals currently on a visit to the north east to study

tribal culture, practically turned [the meeting] into an exercise in

attacking Christianity thereby confirming a long held suspicion in

church circles of such eventuality." [please note, I was the one who

took Christianity to task, not Vrin.. hence his feeling that he was

misquotedŠ I was not.]

 

Think about the above quote. Here were two nobodies on a trip through

Nagaland, and because we advocated the preservation of indigenous

traditions and because we were Americans who dared to take on the

Biblical paradigm, we were front page news. In our discussion I

brought up the need to protect indigenous cultures from divisive

hegemonic forces, such as almost destroyed the Native America tribes.

What is most revealing in this above quote is that there has been a

long held worry in church circles in that region that alternative

perspectives would one day come to Nagaland. These would come from

Americans who do not to evangelical propagation but rather

cultural preservation, they have had a fear that these yoga

practicing Americans would eventually bring another message to the

peoples of the NE.

 

This statement was very telling-- the church fears that the tribal

peoples may hear that the church has declining membership in western

countries and that many westerners are looking to tribal cultures

for models of sustainable societies. Perhaps it is time for Americans

go to the Northeast and speak out against the dogmatism that

Pentecostal churches and the faith healing revivals that are financed

by evangelical outfits in the USA. The kind of Christianity that is

promoted in Nagaland is very superstitious and arcane.

 

In all fairness the negative headline was because of what I said, not

Vrin Parker. He did stress numerous times that he respected Jesus. I

was the one who engaged the Bengali missionary. He asked me why I

gave up my Christian religion and I told him. I was quoted in full in

the newspaper. I did not find it negative reporting-- it is accurate.

 

Here is that paragraph from the Nagaland Post:

 

"Yvette RosserŠ strongly denounced Christian fundamentalism and

'exclusivism' (the only religion to spiritual emancipation). She not

only charged Christianity of being responsible for the 'extinction of

tribal religion' (animism) and culture through hegmonism but accused

the colonial powers of propagating Christianity and importing western

culture. Yvette spoke of the scandals in the Catholic church in

America besides her view of the hypocrisy of the church leaders. She

also claimed that only a few percentage of people in America attend

church service. Yvette disclosed she gave up wanting to be a nun

because if the hypocrisy within the church."

 

One thing that I really did not like was the addition of the word

"animism" as defining tribal religion. I had actually made the point

that this term was used by early Christian missionaries in the NE to

try to create distinctions between the tribal people and Indic

religious orientations. In fact, the non Christian Nagas with whom I

spoke insisted that their religious traditions have many overlaps and

links with multiple aspects of Hinduism. I strongly object to the use

of the word animism to describe Heraka or other Naga beliefs.

 

The article in the Nagaland Post also included a brief bio of Mr.

Kalyan Basu and comments he had made at the meeting in defense of

early missionaries. He is quoted as saying, "Christian fundamentalism

is a choice left to a person to accept Jesus Christ as the way and no

one can become a Christian by birth."

 

The Nagaland Post newspaper staff reporter wrote, "The church proved

to be a unifying medium which was instrumental in promoting peace and

understanding among the people of the state." I must say, on our

visit to Nagaland, several groups of Nagas told us the opposite,

including Frances, one of the reporters present in Dimapur. So, that

is a description of the negative article to which Vrin referred in

this report that caused this spammed email to come to my mail box. I

want to point out again that Vrin did NOT criticize missionary

activities. I did. Since I was raised Christian and Vrin wasn't, I

suppose I can speak from experience and an emic perspective.

 

In his brief report to the IJAI list, Vrin failed to mention that

there were two other articles about our visit to Nagaland, both of

which were very positive. I would also like to quote from those two

articles.

 

One appeared on Dec. 18 in a newspaper called the Nagaland Page. At

the bottom of page one was a headline, that really cracked me up:

""Will non Christians go to Hell? Yvette Rosser asks". This article

was written by Karaiba Chawang. Here is what this article states:

 

"Two Americans, Yvette Rosser and Vrin Parker feel that Americans did

the wrong thing to Nagas by introducing Christianity. They are not

against the Christianity. They love Jesus too. But they said it has

destroyed the culture of the indigenous people" The article goes on

to quote us as saying that all cultures evolve and change and to

claim that Nagas would have remained primitive animists if it were

not for missionaries bringing them civilization is to trivialize the

very real contributions that indigenous cultures can make to a

sustainable future. I was quoted as saying that the UN is now also

trying to preserve indigenous traditions. I also commented that

tribal peoples worldwide have much in common-- I sited some of those

commonalties. This article in the Nagland Page was a very positive

report about our visit to Nagaland.

 

The third article appeared in the Asian Age on Dec 29, and though it

states that it is written by a staff reporter, it was written by

Frances Kikon. Since it appeared over a week after we left Nagaland,

Frances scanned it and sent me a copy of this article electronically.

Here is what he wrote:

 

He gives our names and then writes that we had come to Nagaland "to

propagate that the traditional customs and culture should be

preserved and not destroyed." We were then quoted as saying things

such as we were not against any religion, we thought people should

preserve their historical traditions, we mentioned the UN resolution

to that effect. The story concludes with this comment: "Ironically

the people of the land that brought Christianity to Nagaland have

come again to spread the message of cultural identity."'