The Hindu : Address real cause

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 30, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Address real cause

Sir, — Valson Thampu's article on `Minorities and the T.N. Ordinance' (Opinion, Oct. 24) is well balanced. The reaction of Christians in Tamil Nadu to the ordinance on forcible conversion is as bad as the ordinance itself.

To an enlightened mind, applying force for as well as against conversion is abhorrent. It is evident that both the Church and the Tamil Nadu Government behaved in a manner not in line with the modern ethos. Both are guilty of hypocrisy too. As Mr. Thampu says, the victims are the oppressed and the depressed segments of our society.

While these segments continue to suffer even after conversion (the Church ignores them after the target is met), governmental intervention in preventing conversions in no way helps the downtrodden. None is interested in eradicating poverty, the real cause of human misery.

T.S. Rao,

Vishakapatnam, A.P.

* * *

Sir, — Valson Thampu puts into perspective the whole issue of conversion in his brilliant capitulation, `Minorities and the T.N. Ordinance'. It is an irony that religious groups are taking up the cudgels on an issue which falls much more in the ambit of rights and laws and where organisations such as the PUCL must have a role.

And it is a mockery when everybody who is somebody in the Hindu society is congratulating the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, for "protecting" Hinduism by banning conversions.

K.S. Venkitachalam,

Ooty, T.N.

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