Saffron March of India in its North-East Corner!

By: Kalavai Venkat

I think the performance of the BJP in Nagaland is even more impressive than its performance in Tripura.

Bengalis constitute 65% of Tripura’s population. Although they’ve inexplicably voted left all along, there was always a glimmer of hope of turn around given that they’re Hindus.

Not an easy thing given that Bengalis often vote against self-interest but then always doable given that the state once produced Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chandra, Sri Aurobindo, and Sri Ramakrishna.

Every Bengali I’ve personally known is intelligent so one could always bet that such people would eventually vote for the BJP.

Nagaland is very different. It is 90% Christian. A brief history is pertinent.

Christianity first invaded Nagaland in the 1870s. It was the Baptist or Evangelical variety. It was primarily driven by the Americans and supported by the British.

The resultant conversion of the Nagas was rapid. In the 1960s, the Christian missionaries launched what they called the Great Awakening. It had two goals. The first was to brainwash every Christian to have “personal encounters with Jesus.” This usually manifested in faith-healing and such acts of charlatanism.

It is also the most potent form of memetic virus because now the believer is not merely a Bible-thumper but also one who is convinced that his belief is true because he has personally experienced Jesus! The second was an outreach to convert the non-Christians and marginal Christians to this most virulent form of Christianity.

It was very successful because it was highly decentralized and was led by self-motivated and fanatical born-again Christians.

As a result, in just a century, Nagaland had become over 90% Christian. Over 96% of the Nagas were Christian and at least 75% of them Baptists. Remember this happened in an era when there was not much of communication technology. It was also an era when American hegemony hadn’t begun yet and hence the Americans didn’t throw their institutional might behind conversions.

Today, Christianity has acquired these additional capabilities. This is precisely why I point out that if Christianity is not checked today, India would be a Christian-majority nation by 2050.

Coming back to Nagaland, the control the pastors and congregations exercise on every believer is complete. Shepherds nominated by the church monitor every activity of the believer. This is the feature of many Christian communities in NE states. Every aspect of life from school admission to burial rites has to happen under the watchful eyes of the church.

The assault on native Naga traditions has been extensive. Some of you would be familiar with the control exercised by the churches on the converted fishermen of coastal Tamilnadu. If those are repressive then what one would witness in Nagaland is orders of magnitude worse.

Children are brainwashed from early childhood into believing the Christian faith claims and their worldviews are warped. Movements such as Nagaland for Christ didn’t arise in a void. Those are the inevitable consequences of a systematic, century-long brainwashing of a defenseless people.

The most discernible feature of the mind of a convert is that it is impervious to reason. It is tuned to accept what the church authorities say. Much of it is explained by a biological phenomenon knows as imprinting. The church authorities exploit it to the fullest not only to reinforce the Christian faith claims but also by issuing diktats during elections. The congregations usually conform.

This is precisely why the church was able to order and mobilize the congregations to blockade the Kudankulum Nuclear Plant for several months in Tamilnadu in a belligerent display of treason.

This is what makes the BJP’s performance in Nagaland even more spectacular.

A skeptic would attribute it to its alignment with tribal parties. However, that is not a sufficient explanation. The church wouldn’t have taken kindly to the alignment of any tribal party with Hindutva. It would’ve mobilized the congregations to shun that tribal party. Yet, the BJP appears to have achieved the impossible.

I do not yet have an explanation as to how they achieved it. However, this is something I would keenly study because this offers insights into how the Hindus could defeat Christianity in Tamilnadu, Andhra, and Kerala. If you could buck the Evangelicals in Nagaland then you could buck every other Christian denomination elsewhere in India.

Hats off Saffron warriors! You have inspired me. This has been the most colorful Holi splashed with every shade of saffron!