In a telephone interview to The Asian Age from Boston, Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America advisory board chairman Mahesh Mehta admitted that there was a strong concern among Hindu leaders regarding the past wrongs committed by the Christian community in India.

The Pope must apologise for the wrongdoings. This process of asking for an apology is not something unusual. The Jews sought an apology from Germany, said Mr Mehta, justifying the Hindu demand.  Asked whether it was also in order that India's Hindu community apologise to the Sikhs for the bloody November 1984 riots, Mr Mehta said: "If innocent people were killed during the riots then it is for the government to apologise. It was not only Hindus who attacked Sikhs; the matter cannot be treated as being the sole responsibility of the Hindu community."

Dr David Frawley, director of the American Institute of Vedic Studies, told The Asian Age from his office in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that Hindus groups were just asking Christians to understand and accept religious pluralism.

This is the basis of a modern and democratic context.  Terming the Hindu request as being "modern, universal and futuristic," Dr Frawley felt it was curious that Hindus, who have been making reasonable requests, were termed hardliners while the Pope, who has adopted a more rigid stand on religion, is viewed as a social liberal.  Mr Mahesh Mehta justified the Hindu reaction saying it was fuelled by the largescale false propaganda carried out by Christians against Hindu organizations.  "There is a systematic machinery which is spreading lies" about the Hindu community being out to torture minorities. Some of the cases of gangrape and persecution of Christians are fabricated," he added.

On the Hindu demand for an apology from the Pope, Dr Frawley felt it was evident that violence and coercion had been used in past cases of conversions. "Christian groups in America have apologised to native Americans for violent acts and desecration of their religious sites. So why not in India?"

He pointed out that Communist China had refused to allow the Pope to launch his evangelisation effort from Chinese soil. Similarly, he would not be granted permission to do the same in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Saudi Arabia. But a tolerant and secular India has welcomed him. "The evangelisation will undoubtedly lead to conversions in an effort by Catholics to build their own numbers," said Dr Frawley, who himself has converted from Christianity to Hinduism.

"Hindus are not against Christians. We are not against Christ. And, we are not against Christianity. We are against conversions. If one person decides he prefers Christ to Ram and converts, that is understandable, but mass conversions are not based on this understanding," said Mr Mehta. Archbishop of Delhi, Alan de Lastic's comments on a recently-inaugurated website devoted to the Pope's India visit, reveal the other side of the coin to the controversy surrounding conversions.

Conversion is generally accepted as a free personal act. Therefore, there is no such thing as a forced conversion, which is a contradiction in terms.
It is also incorrect to say that we "convert" people. What we do is to proclaim the life, teaching and the personality of Jesus Christ. The person who listens is free to accept or to reject this proclamation. When the person undergoes an internal free change of life for something spiritually better, that is called conversion "every person born into this world has the fundamental right to change his or her state of life," he writes.

Mr Mehta pointed out that Catholics have been under fire from Christian groups themselves. The Seventh Day Adventists, Protestants have conflicts with the Catholics. And now, finding themselves in a corner, the Catholics turn to nations like India to convert people and increase their numbers. "It is not a political move to increase the numbers of one institute or religion over any other. It needs stating here that even today conversions take place in America and Europe from Protestantism to Catholicism and vice-versa," writes Archbishop Alan de Lastic.

Dr Frawley said that during a meeting with the Archbishop of Hyderabad in India in February, the religious head had privately expressed his regret over some of the Pope's comments and had said there were many amongst the Catholic clergy who had their reservations on the papal's view. Pointing out that the Vatican had been indulging in doublespeak and would never commit to a statement accepting other religions, Dr Frawley said the Pope, in his writings compiled in the Coming of the Third Millennium, has said Christ is the sole mediator between man and God and the only redeemer of mankind.  "This in effect is an outright rejection of other religions," Dr Frawley felt.

He criticized the Indian media for rejecting outright complaints by Hindu groups, and instead jumping to term them fundamentalist hardliners. He attributed this anti-Hindu bias to Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress saying the party, under Nehru's leadership, had carried on in the tradition of the British and always favoured Communists and adopted a Leftist tilt.

On the other hand, David Frawley felt the Western media was more sensitive about Christian causes and that the Staines' murders were played up by the
press. "Three people were killed. It was unfortunate. But when Hindus are massacred by the dozen in Kashmir the same press ignores that," he said.

Mr Mehta concluded that the attacks on Christians were a matter of political timing. "These incidents are aimed at destabalising governments. And very often there is nothing to these charges. Some people just use Christians as  a tool to destabilize administrations; it's all part of a subtle game," he said.