Sandesh Prabhudesai
20 October 1999
The picture is slowly becoming clear as the Dharm Jagaran Yatra has begun. Its slogan is 'Quit India' for the foreign missionaries and the programme is reconversion of the Catholics back to the Hindu religion.
Making an issue of Pope's visit to India next month, the yatra has however begun from yesterday, to hit the national capital on 4 November, two days prior to the visit of the Pope John Paul II as the state guest.
Sanskruti Raksha Manch, the banner used for it this time by the Sangh Parivar, held a small function at Diwar, an island across Old Goa, from the place called 'Porne Tirth' (the ancient place of pilgrimage), to launch the yatra on Dussehara day.
Recalling that the Dwarkeshwar temple here was like a Jerusalem for the Hindus in Goa, Bal Apte of the Manch felt all such places which were destroyed by the Jesuits and the Portuguese rulers four centuries ago should be rebuilt once again.
The yatra however is a first step to warn the foreign missionaries to wind up from India, failing which the second step would be taken to drive them out. The third step would be then to 'rehabilitate' those who were forcibly converted, he warned.
Speaking on the same lines, Mukundraj Maharaj Madgavkar of Siolim, who presided over the launching ceremony, also spoke of reconversion to Hindu religion of all the Goan Catholics, who were forcibly converted 500 years ago.
The Manch had initially projected a picture that the yatra is to merely demand apology from the Pope for the four-century old inquisition in Goa and a commitment regarding alleged forceful conversions in tribal areas elsewhere in the country.
But the focus now becomes more clear as the Manch is talking about rehabilitating all the Hindu temples destroyed by the Portuguese rulers. The Sangh Parivar however also expresses all 'sympathies' for the Goan Catholics, claiming that they have been kept in total dark by the Church regarding the atrocities on the neo-Christians during the inquisition period.
In the same breath, Apte however admits that most of the history of these atrocities is documented by the Catholic priests themselves. Unlike forceful conversions of the past, the recent ones are by offering inducements to the tribals, he alleges.
After holding a public rally in Panaji on Wednesday, the yatra would enter Maharashtra via Belgaum. It would then proceed to Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, before reaching Delhi.
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