BJP president Amit Shah in Dimapur on Friday. (Source: PTI BJP president Amit Shah in Dimapur on Friday. (Source: PTI

A Dimapur-based Christian organisation has asked BJP chief Amit Shah, who made his maiden visit to Nagaland on Friday, to look into the foreign funding for both Hindu and Christian religious groups and publish the details for the “good of the nation”.

The Dimapur Christian Forum, which wrote an “open letter” to Shah, also dismissed allegations by made by various Sangh Parivar outfits about Christian missionaries wooing tribals, and said it was “deprivation” that had prompted tribal communities to embrace Christianity.

“We like BJP to understand that our ancestors were not Hindus, because they did not worship Lord Ram, Shri Krishna, Hanuman or any other deities of the Hindu pantheon. They accepted Christianity. There was no inducement, but only deprivation, because our forefathers who became Christians were expelled from their villages,” the open letter signed by Dimapur Christian Forum secretary Father Chacko Karinthayil said.

The Forum also wanted to know why no “Hindu missionary” came to tell the tribals of the Northeast about the Hindu gods. “One relevant question is, why no ‘Hindu missionary’ came to tell us about Lord Ram, although we were living as neighbours for three millennia or more?

The Hindu missionaries went only to palaces of the kings, like those of the Ahoms and Meiteis. They did not come to us because we were considered as mlechchas (barbarians). The Christian missionaries came because Jesus taught them to call all human beings brothers and sisters,” the letter said.

But the Forum made it clear that it was not BJP as such which have been complaining about the Christian missionaries. “We are aware that the there has been no official accusations from BJP on any aspects of our Christian faith. We thank you and the party for it. The accusations have been from your constituents, viz RSS, VHP etc, who made you what you are. We are not listing the accusations here. But they boil down to one thing, that Christianity is a foreign thing, Christian faith is suspect, traitorous, anti-national, and so to be destroyed,” it said.

On the oft-repeated allegations about foreign funds flow to Christian missionaries, the group asserted that churches do not use funds for any anti-national activities. Instead, it asked Shah to study the foreign funding details of both Hindu and Christian religious organisations and make those public.

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