Yet, Tehelka came across an excessive use of warfare terminologies during its undercover field investigations and in the documents in its possession. Words such as ‘soldier’, ‘advance’, ‘mobilise’, ‘campaign’, ‘conquer’ and so on are commonly used. In fact, the literature of the American TMOs use descriptions that could be considered incendiary by people of other faiths. For instance, Bush’s closest ally, Pat Robertson, has described Hinduism and Islam as Satanic religions and the worship of these religions is akin to ‘devil worship’. Others have described Varanasi as the “seat of Satan.” In fact, Varanasi is considered an important ‘beachhead’ by US evangelical organisations because it is “India’s holiest cities”.

 

Eventually, the EFI hopes that Indian and foreign missionaries will come up with a less offensive language as it takes the cross to the remotest corners in India. What gives dynamism to this movement is the constant effort to rethink strategies. 

The US-funded evangelical missions have succeeded in putting in place a loosely tied network of Indian and international evangelical missions that operate with their blessings and support, but which cannot be easily traced directly back to them. Probably, it is this loose structure that has enabled the US-funded evangelical missions to operate in India, without attracting attention of the intelligence and police agencies.
It is the setting up of this network that facilitated the launch of the Great Commission in India, nearly 2000 years after Jesus challenged His church to make disciples of all nations. The inspiration was more akin to the times-Coca Cola’s well-publicised goal to place “a Coke in the hand of every person on the earth by the year 2000.” If a mere corporation could reach the entire world with a soft drink, why couldn’t Christ’s own church?

 

Census figures show that the total Christian population in the country is still a miniscule percentage of its total population: around 2.46 percent. That, legitimately, raises the questions about the efficacy of the pernicious and enormously well-funded missions to proselytise the marginalised sections of Indians. It raises a far important question: is the heat and dust raised by the issue of conversions a bogey after all? The answer is provided by People India Research and Training Institute in Ayanavaram, Chennai. “There are approximately 5,000 Indian people coming to Christ everyday. However, 55,000 Indians are born everyday.” This assertion by People India is made on the basis of its continuous streaming in of field research information from all over India.

The massive evangelisation operations, which started in the early 1990s has, in fact, not breached this equation; the ever-increasing Indian population has ensured that the total Christian population remains more or less stagnant. But statistics have a way of being duplicitous. It can be twisted to suit any perspective.  http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main.asp?filename=ts013004qaeda.asp&id=5