The ugly face of New Life evangelists

B D Narayankar

USUALLY TRIVIAL incidents like bursting of crackers on Pakistan’s victory in cricket matches, eloping, teasing or incidents like organising religious procession, used to trigger communal violence in Mangalore. But, now, new reasons have emerged for the communal tension in and around Mangalore. Christian missionaries, apart from carrying out their routine conversion activities, have indulged in deriding the Hindu gods and goddess. This is something new in communal-prone Mangalore region.

There is prima facie evidence against New Life missionaries, indulging in illegal activities, including conversions and denigrating Hindu gods. New Life, one of the 20 missionary centres of Karnataka Missions Network, started missionary activities six years ago in the coastal areas of Dakshin Kannada district. It is actively propagating Christianity not only in India, but also in few other foreign countries through publications, advertisements and through its website.

The missionaries began publishing and distributing literature Yesu Suvarthe containing glories of Jesus Christ among the Christians in Kannada language, but slowly they indulged in conversion activities by enticing Hindus through monetary inducements and jobs. They also started deriding Hindu gods through their literature, coxing Hindus to convert to Christianity. Such communal incidents have been reported in the local Kannada newspapers, the clippings of which are uploaded in ’thegreathindu’ website.

Interestingly, conversion activities are not being propagated from the portals of churches, but from illegal prayer halls and churches around Karnataka. For instance, Karnataka government seized a shed belonging to agricultural department in Bada village in Davanagere district, which was illegally occupied by the New Life missionaries for conversion activities. The government had confiscated the property when New Life missionaries failed to prove their ownership of the land being alloted for religious activities.

According to intelligence sources, New Life has been carrying out its activities in Raichur, Bellary, Mangalore, Davanagere, Udupi, Chamarajanagar, Gadag, Chitradurga, Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts. Noted writer Dr M Chidananda Murthy also revealed that as many as 16,000 Hindus, mostly belonging to Lingayat community, have been converted in Davanagere district alone. There were 34 churches about five years ago in Davanagere district. Now there are 384 churches where the Christian population is hardly negligible. This is the sinister design of the expansionists Christians.

In fact, Bajrang Dal leader Mahendra Kumar has also said that he has been waging a war against the illegal churches and not against the Christians. He has been reported as arguing that a church can be built with the approval of diocese on the land bought by the trust or donated by the government. But New Life activists had been taking government buildings and sheds for a purpose, and later on used the same for religious propagation. This was not approved either by the government or by the diocese.