Nepal-No Hindu Sadhus to Enter Country

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"A secret circular has been issued to the

administration in the border areas to check the entry

of sadhus from India during the Hindu festival of Shivratri on February 16, home ministry sources said." Won't allow Hindu sadhus to enter country: Nepal Posted by: "EagleSM23" eaglesm23 Eaglesm23 Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:26 am (PST) Won't allow Hindu sadhus to enter country: Nepal

http://www.rediff. com/news/ 2007/feb/ 12nepal.htm

PTI- February 12, 2007

 

The government has beefed up security along the

Indo-Nepal border fearing that thousands of Naga

sadhus and other Hindu fundamentalists will infiltrate

Nepal to join protests in Kathmandu aimed at reviving

the demand for a Hindu state.

 

A secret circular has been issued to the

administration in the border areas to check the entry

of sadhus from India during the Hindu festival of

Shivratri on February 16, home ministry sources said.

 

The World Hindu Federation and other Hindu groups are

planning to bring some 30,000 Naga sadhus or Naga

babas from India to Kathmandu to stage sit-in and

demonstrations to save the world's only Hindu monarch

and revive the Hindu state, WHF said in a statement.

 

'The government has reportedly received information

about the infiltration of thousands of fundamentalist

Hindu activists from India to join the pro-Hindu

demonstrations in Kathmandu aimed at reviving the

demand for a Hindu state,' The Kathmandu Post quoted

sources as saying.

 

Nepal was converted into a secular state through the

Parliament Declaration on May 18, 2006 and the major

parties have virtually agreed to abolish monarchy

through Constituent Assembly election slated for June.

 

The local administration in the district bordering

India have been instructed to tighten the flow of the

sadhus through the open border during the festival.

The administration in the border areas have informed

their Indian counterparts about the plan and sought

necessary cooperation, the report said.

 

P.S. Is it possible that Christian Missionaries have a

hand in this? Read below:

 

Nepal's New Peacemakers - Christianity Today,A

Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

http://www.christia nitytoday. com/ct/2007/ february/ 37.114.html

- Anto Akkara in Katmandu, Nepal

Posted 2/09/2007

 

When Jyoti Adhikari became a Christian, her husband,

who came from a traditional Hindu family, could not

stomach the thought. But Adhikari didn't flinch, even

though her husband divorced her.

 

"I have no regrets. I am rejoicing in the Lord," said

Adhikari, who looks after her teenage son now. Since

her conversion, Adhikari has become a local

evangelist, bringing 90 people to faith in this

Hindu-majority nation of 27 million sandwiched between

India and China along the Tibetan border.

 

In other cases, new Christians wait years before they

are reaccepted into their families. In 1984, Jit

Ghale, now a senior pastor, told his parents he wanted

to become a Christian. His parents disowned him. He

waited four long years before being welcomed back.

 

In 1999, Uttam Kumar Pariyar, a member of Nepal's

now-abolished royal privy council, stunned national

leaders when he made public his conversion to

Christianity. "They started looking at me like an

outcast," said Pariyar. Hostile council members

launched a public campaign to oust him.

 

"I was determined not to give up my faith in the

Lord," recalled 64-year-old Pariyar. "But King

Birendra did not bother about my conversion and never

asked me why I gave up Hindu faith." (The current king

is Gyanendra—brother of Birendra, who was assassinated

in 2001.)

 

Last April, Nepal faced a national crisis with growing

protests for restoration of democracy. One day,

Pariyar handed a personal note to the king, quoting

from 1 Peter 5:7–11: "Cast all your anxiety on him

because he cares for you." Eventually, the king gave

up all political power. Maoist rebels and the

so-called Seven Party Alliance stopped fighting.

Political leaders declared Nepal a secular state—it

had been a Hindu state—and began peace talks.

 

Christian leaders believe these huge changes will

increase religious freedom. Now numbering 250,000,

Christians have the opportunity to become voting

citizens, not just subjects of a king. In June this

year, a national election will take place.

 

Seeking Equality and Freedom For All

 

For decades, Nepalese Christians focused on planting

churches and ending religious discrimination. But they

now have an unusual chance to play a growing national

role.

 

"Although the declaration of a secular state did not

come with sympathy to Christians, we consider this a

God-given privilege," said Simon Pandey, general

secretary of National Churches Fellowship Nepal.

 

"We organized an open-air evangelistic meeting in a

public place for the first time on July 1," he said.

"There were over 10,000 people. It was a big

celebration. " Previously, it had been impossible for

Christians to convene large public gatherings.

 

Pandey said Christians are still eagerly waiting for

the day "when all religions will be treated equally,"

giving Christians and other minority groups the right

to register religious organizations, build churches,

and preach freely.

 

Before 1960, Nepal had officially banned Christians

from living inside the country. But reformers changed

the legal code. The first Christian group began in

1959 with 29 members. During the next five decades,

Christianity grew by 10 to 20 percent annually,

especially among Dalits at the bottom of Hindu

society, making Nepal one of Asia's most stunning

church growth stories.

 

Leaders admit this young church faces major

challenges, because seasoned local leaders are rare.

Purushotam Lal Manandhar, president of the National

Christian Council of Nepal (NCCN), told CT, "Most of

our members are first-generation Christians and have

faced opposition and even harassment for their

conversion from their dear ones."

 

Simon Gurung, a pastor and president of (Katmandu)

Valley Christian Council, said, "I had to face social

boycott when I became a Christian." After he became a

pastor, Gurung went around preaching the Good News in

all the ways he could. He was arrested in 1982 and

1990 and kept behind bars for months.

 

Christian growth in rural areas began in the 1970s.

Some years later, Nepal introduced a parliamentary

system, replacing Hindu-dominated village councils.

This liberalizing move also supported religious

freedom and the number of Christians kept shooting

upward.

 

Pastor Yam Bahadur Tamang became a Christian as

democracy took deeper root in 1990. "The Hindu people

in my village used to stone me when I passed through

their areas," recalled the 32-year-old pastor living

in 11th KM Village of Gorkha, 90 miles south of

Katmandu.

 

During the last 15 years, Tamang said, the attitude

toward Christians in his area has utterly transformed.

Today, the majority of the 350 families in his village

are Christians. The region has become a Christian

stronghold with 20,000 believers.

 

"Many come to us for healing. Others are impressed by

our lifestyle change," said Tamang. Christians, he

said, become a public witness, leading "exemplary"

lives by giving up drinking, smoking, and gambling.

Churches are also becoming visible and attractive

examples of equality and freedom at work within a

nation struggling toward political democracy.

 

In late January, for the second year in a row, a

handful of Christian leaders nationwide prayed

together for "lasting peace and democracy" in their

country. Ramesh Khatry, executive secretary of the

Association for Theological Education, a new seminary

in Katmandu, organized the event.

 

But the effort will probably involve fewer than 20

percent of all Nepali pastors. "The desire for social

and political influence is something that the wider

Christian community has been rather slow in

developing," said scholar Mark Pickett via e-mail.

Pickett teaches at the Evangelical Theological College

of Wales and served in missions for 20 years in Nepal.

 

Hindu and Buddhist Backlash

 

Many Christian leaders are still charting their way

through a thicket of cultural and social issues,

leaving little time for national- level engagement.

These issues range from scheduling worship on

Saturdays, since Sunday is a workday, to confronting

fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists who harass

Christians.

 

However, there have been cases of unethical Christian

leaders exploiting religious tensions. K. B. Rokaya,

general secretary of the NCCN, told CT that several

religious leaders have been "selling Jesus and getting

huge sums from evangelical groups for real and

imaginary conversions. " He said some unethical leaders

send photos of village meetings, passing them off as

congregations of new converts.

 

"This is a betrayal of harmony and tolerance,"

lamented Rokaya. He cautioned that such activity would

only strengthen fundamentalists.

 

Hindu fundamentalist organizations, including the

extremist World Hindu Council, have held rallies in

small towns, demanding that Nepal reassert its

identity as a Hindu nation.

 

Though the campaign has so far evoked only muted

response from the masses, Hindu extremists have

already succeeded in spreading religious unrest in

remote villages. In Gorkha district, pastor Ghale

visited rural churches in late October and told CT

that Christian villagers have been given ultimatums to

leave Hindu- and Buddhist-majority villages or forsake

their faith. In Laprak and Gumda villages, churches

and Christian homes have been destroyed.

 

In late December, Maoist rebels staged a one-day

strike to demand more influence over the interim

national government. Church leaders worry that

political tensions may worsen in coming months.

 

But a new organization, Christian Efforts for Peace,

Justice, and Reconciliation, recently announced plans

to set up local reconciliation groups, Rokaya said.

They hope to bring villagers together to talk about

"peace building, reconciliation, healing, trauma

counseling, and the inter-religious living together."

 

------------ -------Anto Akkara is a journalist based

in New Delhi,

India.------ --------- --------- --------- ---------

 

New Life for Nepal - Hindu monarchy abolished

 

 

 

http://www.christia nitytoday. com/ct/2006/ august/1. 17.html

 

Posted 8/01/2006

 

Christians in Nepal are exulting over the national

parliament's dramatic decision on May 18 to abolish

the monarchy and declare the state secular, wiping out

its tag as a Hindu kingdom.

 

"Our joy is beyond words," Simon Pandey, general

secretary of National Churches Fellowship of Nepal

(NCFN), told CT. The House of Representatives'

unanimous vote, he said, will have "far-reaching

impact on the life of the church." Most notably,

Christians can now register their congregations and

build church buildings.

 

The parliament has also made the king a taxpayer,

abolished his privy council, and stripped him of all

executive powers, including command of the armed

forces.

 

Massive pro-democracy protests forced King Gyanendra

to give up absolute power on April 24. He reinstated

the parliament he had dissolved four years ago and

swore in a popular government led by a coalition of

opposition parties.

 

More than 1 million protesters choked Nepal's capital,

Kathmandu, for three weeks in April. The king yielded

only after 18 democracy protesters died and more than

5,000 suffered injuries in clashes with the police and

army.

 

"Things have moved much faster than anyone could dream

of," said Kalai Bahadur Rokaya, general secretary of

the National Christian Council of Nepal (NCCN). NCCN

and NCFN between them account for most of the 1,500

tiny congregations scattered in the Hindu-majority

nation in the foothills of the Himalayas. Christians

number little more than 700,000 among Nepal's

population of at least 25 million.

 

"For the last 10 years, there has been no prayer

meeting or worship service in our churches without

specific prayer for the nation," said Narayan Sharma,

Gospel for Asia's national leader for Nepal.

 

Under the Hindu monarchy's constitution, "religious

freedom" meant just the opposite: "No person shall be

entitled to convert another person from one religion

to another." The constitution also said that "every

person shall have the freedom to profess and practice

his own religion as handed down to him from ancient

times having due regard to traditional practices."

This effectively ruled out conversions.

 

Royal officials strictly enforced this "religious

freedom" under the panchayat (village council) system,

in place until 1990. Pastors and evangelists risked

their lives to preach, with dozens arrested and

tortured. The new constitution of 1990, which

introduced multi-party democracy, reiterated the ban

on conversions. But officials hardly enforced the

measure, and since 1990 churches have flourished.

 

Amid such freedom, church leaders are cautious about

the "religious anarchy" the new religious freedom

could invite. "Mercenary evangelists will now go

all-out in their bid to swell their numbers," NCCN's

Rokaya cautioned. "That could lead to opposition."

 

Hence, the NCCN has already appealed to the government

and Nepal's political parties to provide for a

"Religious Coordination Ministry" when a constitution

is drafted to suit the new Nepal.

 

 

 

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