VSK TN
The Department of Christian Studies, University of Madras along with Centre for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society, Elon University, USA, had planned to conduct a joint international conference titled “Containment, Collection and Arrangement in South Asian Religions” in July 2020 at Chennai.
As per the conference brochure, possible topics for this ‘international conference’ could include the organization of mCirtis (sic) in temple architecture, the disposition of materials in ritual, episodes of hiding, finding or losing sacred objects in Epics and other narrative traditions : philosophical or theological accounts of perception and memory ; classificatory schemes that demarcate the structure of the human person (eg., cakras. Faculties), the cosmos and / or social and cultural institutions ; monastic traditions of manuscript collection and organization and so forth.
The convener for this sham conference James Ponniah of the Department of Christian Studies, is also a priest of the Diocese of Sivagangai, Tamil Nadu. Co-convener is Brian Pennington of Elon University and other organizers include Chad Bauman of Butler University, both universities indulge in evangelism.
It is understood that the organizers have joined hands with United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to promote this Hinduphobic conference.
On a deeper look into the background of USCIRF, one can easily understand their objective and agenda. The USCIRF was reportedly started with the explicit aim of furthering Christianity as documented in the 1997 report titled “US Policies in Support of Religions Freedom : Focus on Christians”. In the report, the US authorities have lamented over the Indian government refusing to admit new resident foreign missionaries.
It is an open secret that USCIRF has a history of fanning baseless rumours and left propaganda against India and its democratically elected governments. In fact, they went to the extent of opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, by calling it a ‘dangerous turn in the wrong direction’. It constantly attempts to spread fake propaganda against Indian government that minorities are under threat in India.
Though the proposed conference to be held in July 2020 is now ‘postponed indefinitely’ due to Chinese Corona Virus pandemic, the fact that a University from India (University of Madras) joining hands with these anti-India foreign forces has irked the common public and shook their conscience.
How come an university of repute (University of Madras) be so gullible to allow its name and banner to be used by anti-national forces to host a Hinduphobic conference in Chennai ?
The common public is also concerned about the role of both State and Central governments in allowing such conferences, which would disturb the communal harmony, to happen in the first place.
The citizens of this country would expect better accountability from the government agencies on such sensitive issues in addition to keeping a check on foreign forces, who are hell bent upon de-stabilising our country’s growth trajectory.