Is US behind conversions in India?

Right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief K S Suddharshan on Tuesday alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, with the help of non-governmental organisations, was indulging in religious conversions in India.

Delivering the special address at a symposium on "Empowerment of Hindu Intelligentsia" organised in connection with Sri Guruji (RSS founder M S Golwakar) Centenary Celebrations in Madurai, he claimed that as soon as George W Bush took over as president, he had allocated $20 billion for the NGOs to work and convert people to Christianity.

"The CIA planned to establish one church in every post office area. The churches would be established within walking distance of each other," he said.

The 'surreptitious' way of organising conversions under the garb of doing service was more dangerous, he said, adding that the NGOs planned to setup schools, hospitals etc to veer the rural people away from their Hindu moorings.

He alleged that the missionaries were also misleading the tribals, with whom they worked, by saying that Aryans had invaded their land.

He said Maoists also posed a threat to the country, "resorting to terrorism" and "just as they did in Nepal, they would attack government offices, including, police stations, etc to demoralise government officials, and bring the area under their control.

He said Muslims were trying to spread their religion by migrating to new areas, infiltration and Jehad. They had become the majority population in some of the districts, he added.

Eminent thinker and journalist Arun Shourie said the domestic media was not writing about the full preparedness of China along India's borders, or about Pakistan trying build mosques madrassas along the borders, and was giving importance to Pakistan's view or terrorists' views.

The RSS should counter the "anti-hindu anti-Indian culture press" only through alternative way of communicating directly to the people, he said.