Taj

Some interesting things about the Taj. Taj Mahal was built as a monument of love for the Shah Jahan's wife who gave him like 13 children and died after 14 was born. Taj means "crown" just like in Tajikistan where the people speak Tajik. That is the first place I learned what Taj means. It was incredible to see the vast Persian influence here in India, particularly with the Taj. Everything is symmetrical and the entire building is made of white marble - unbreakable marble. The coloration in the marble is actually inlaid with semi-precious jewels. None of the pictures of the flowers or designs are painted - they are all inlaid sem-precious stones
No photographs were allowed inside the Taj, but on the inside were the tombs and around them a marble lattice, each panel made of one piece of marble. The craftsmanship was incredible. The Shah (king) Jahan (of the world) was definitely in love with his queen who was actually from Persia. He built this as a memorial for her with a guest house on one side and a mosque on the other side, both replicas of each other, again continuing the Persian ideal of symmetry in architecture. The Taj was actually an idea that originated from the tomb of the Shah Jahan's mother-in-law. This is the same design also with inlaid marble but not with semi-precious stones which is unique to the Taj. The Shah's plans were to build another Taj exactly like the first across the river that flows behind the Taj but before he could do so, his son imprisoned him in the Agra fort which overlooks the Taj also along the river. So the Shah lived out the end of his days gazing over the immaculate tomb that he built in the center of the kingdom he used to rule as a prisoner still mourning the death of his beloved wife.

WWW.JOSEPHDSOUZA.COM

This is a post from Joseph D'Souza's website, the leader of OM India and tireless advocate for the Dalit people of India. Check out his website at www.josephdsouza.com and find incredible information about the Dalit plight at www.dalitnetwork.org. Here it is...

By Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch

Published in openDemocracy

Surekha Bhotmange, a Dalit (or so-called "untouchable") member of the Hindu caste system in Maharashtra, was cooking the family evening meal on 29 September 2006 when a group of upper-caste men surrounded her home. Surekha, her 17-year-old daughter Priyanka, and two sons, 23-year-old Roshan and 21-year-old Sudhir, were dragged out of the hut. The two women were stripped, beaten and paraded through the village. The young men were beaten up so badly their faces were disfigured. All four died. Almost all of Khairlanji village witnessed this spectacle of caste vengeance. No one did much to stop it.

The attack was a retribution for previous activism. The upper-caste farmers from the area were using the Bhotmanges' land as a throughway for their tractors. The family resisted, with the help of a Dalit rights activist. Siddharth Gajbhiye. Gajbhiye himself was beaten up. Surekha Bhotmange was a witness, identifying twelve perpetrators who were then arrested. On the day that the Bhotmange family was attacked, all twelve had been released on bail. They took their ghastly revenge.

Surekha's husband, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmagne, was visiting a neighbour at the time of his family's murder. He saw his family being dragged out and remained helplessly hidden, watching what happened. He was the only witness to come forward. At his village, there are only a handful of families from his Dalit caste. The rest, perpetrators or spectators, who consider themselves higher caste, did not say a word. Police arrived a few hours after the incident, but no report was filed. When a terrified Bhotmange filed a police complaint the following morning, he was initially ignored. Only when the bodies were discovered was a case registered and some arrests made. The main perpetrators, however, were not taken into custody.

For a month, photographs of the brutality circulated among Dalit rights activists. The incident, however, barely registered in the national press. In November, a protest was organised by some Dalit activists and erupted into violence. Police teams were stoned, cars set ablaze. Eventually riot police were called in, some politicians rushed to the area to promise justice, while others blamed the Naxalites (Maoist groups leading a violent insurgency in the region) for instigating the violence. Several policemen were suspended for dereliction of duty, as were the doctors who failed to file proper autopsy reports. In December, the Central Bureau of Investigation finally filed charges against eleven of those accused.

The cost of violation

The Indian government, faced with difficult internal conflicts in vast swathes of the country, has routinely called upon people to reject the gun and enter into dialogue. Yet the Khairlanji incident showed once again that it is often only when marginalised people turn to violence that there is any hope of getting the attention of politicians and the authorities. In late November, Maharashtra state had again erupted into violent Dalit protest; three people died, a train was burned down, and several areas had to be placed under curfew. While the trigger was an attack on the statue of Dalit leader BR Ambedkar, it was apparent that the rage had been building up since Khairlanji.

Violence is unjustified, but for many it appears to be the only way to get attention. This is because - despite all the anti-caste legislation and all the policies to end caste-based discrimination - justice for Dalits remains elusive.

More than a sixth of India's population - approximately 160 million people - live at the bottom of the caste structure: denied access to land, clean water, and education, left out by the recent modernisation process and surging economic growth, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of police and higher caste groups.

For example, a Dalit bridegroom and his wedding procession were pelted with stones on 2 November 2006 by members of upper castes in Bihajar village of Rajasthan state. He was punished for riding a horse to the wedding, a privilege these upper-caste groups claim only for themselves. The following month, an upper-caste landowner chopped off all five fingers of a 10-year-old Dalit girl's hand with a sickle after catching her stealing a few spinach leaves from his property in Bihar state. She had been foraging for edible leaves for the family meal.

Such incidents of prejudice are routine, with Dalits punished for wearing watches or riding bicycles, all symbols of affluence and reserved traditionally only for the higher caste groups. While "untouchability" was abolished decades ago, the practice continues. Its pervasive persistence emerged during the December 2004 tsunami, when many higher-caste survivors refused to share emergency shelter and food rations with Dalits.

Since the police tend to ignore Dalits' complaints, only a small proportion of incidents of violence against Dalits is registered. Yet the National Crimes Bureau still registered 26,127 cases in 2005. Even when complaints are filed, despite special laws to protect Dalits, justice is usually delayed and the rate of conviction remains abysmal.

Efforts by Dalits such as Surekha Bhotmange, to demand their rights have provoked a brutal backlash from higher caste groups. In fact, incidents such as these, where witnesses, or those that seek judicial remedy, are brutally savaged, have become depressingly common. A Dalit rights activist from Punjab, Bant Singh, campaigning for the rights of landless or marginal farmers, has come under vicious attack a number of times. Members of the upper-caste, landowning community gang-raped his daughter. He pursued the case and secured the conviction of those responsible, who were sentenced to life imprisonment. Supporters of the rapists then organized further retribution: on 5 January 2006, Bant Singh was so badly beaten that both his arms and a leg had to be amputated.

Though their rights are inadequately defended, Dalits are courted by all political parties as a significant vote-bank. Since before India's independence, when Mohandas Gandhi first condemned "untouchability", numerous political leaders have claimed that they would work towards ending the medieval practice. In 2006, the Indian government called upon the private sector to voluntarily adopt affirmative action policies that ensure jobs for Dalits. There has been a strong backlash from upper-caste members, who make arguments similar to those who oppose affirmative action in the United States.

The real challenge is that, for all of the laws, policies and positive political rhetoric in favour of caste-abolition and the rights of Dalits and other low-caste members, words have hardly translated into change. Dalits rightly see mostly empty promises, with little law-enforcement or active campaigning designed to create public outrage.

While the Indian constitution outlaws caste, oddly the Indian government has refused to acknowledge its failure to end caste-based discrimination. For instance, at the United Nations, India has claimed that caste bias cannot be equated with racial discrimination. The government insists that altering an age-old tradition takes time, and cites its numerous laws and schemes as a measure of its commitment to protect victims of caste-related atrocities. Instead of seeing UN commentary and criticism as a tool to address the problem, the government goes into denial in international forums.

However, in December 2006 prime minister Manmohan Singh agreed that the "only parallel to the practice of untouchability was apartheid", a statement that was immediately criticised by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - which had rejected the UN recommendations when it held power in New Delhi.
The promise of reform

Yet the Khairlanji incident and the violent protests that followed demonstrate once again that India is failing in its obligations. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called upon the government to take special measures to "prevent acts of discrimination towards persons belonging to the scheduled castes and tribes, and in the case where such acts have been committed, to conduct thorough investigations, to punish those found responsible."
India's claims that caste and racial discrimination could not be equated were dismissed in 2002, when a general recommendation on descent-based discrimination specified for the first time that descent-based discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of caste, is a human-rights violation.

Although India does have laws to protect vulnerable communities such as the Dalits, it is obvious that with widespread prejudice within the bureaucracy there is very little will to actually implement and enforce these laws. That will only change if those that fail to implement policy receive administrative punishment or are prosecuted.

Manmohan Singh has promised reform. It is crucial that his government act swiftly so that no others ever suffer the fate of the Bhotmange family

Dalit Village

Today I visited a village where we have one of our Dalit Education Centers. The morning had me visiting the school, telling the story of David and teaching them my favorite kids' song, Making Melody - thumbs up! I was then taken around the village to the different homes of some of the children. The fascinating thing that I keep hearing is that these students, who are in an English medium school (very prestigious), have actually started to teach their parents English as well as manners. They learn to speak and act correctly at school and then they go home and teach their parents the manners they learned from school. This has made the parents very grateful although they don't teach the children themselves. The children are given an incredibly low cost education with very high standards and the parents are told that the teachers will be teaching them Biblical principles, morals, verses, songs and stories throughout their education. This hasn't received a lot of opposition because of the 1st class education that their children are receiving. Learning English and having access to the different vocational courses (computer and tailoring) is something that could help to launch these children from a desperate impoverished village into much higher paying job somewhere in the city which is only 30-40 km away. The drastic changes in these students homes when they get married and have their own children are going to be astronomical as they will be able to be educated, speak English, teach proper manners and etiquette, understand hygiene, read and understand the Bible and many of them will be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Gospel is incredibly redemptive in this situation. The teachers are all very qualified and love Jesus and were so happy to be working with these students because of the drastic changes they were able to see in the lives of the students and the families. I asked them what their greatest joy was. One teacher who is a MBB (Muslim Background Bel....) said that it is totally worth it to live under the difficult conditions that they do as teachers so that they can see what happens with the children and what changes Christ is making. They don't make anywhere near what a regular teacher makes but they know why they are doing it. The problems they have are getting to and from the school each day and not having electricity as well as poor access to water at times I'm sure. Some of our schools are in the most remote areas of India. That is the Gospel and they are doing the real thing. Here it is very important to be baptized as it signals to the community your decision to be set apart from all other religions, from polytheism, from your old religion, etc... Through the local pastor (who's wife is pregnant and sick and doesn't have money for medicine - he asked me to pray for him about this but the need was so evident) and the teachers, many have been baptized and many more are ready to receive baptism. This truly is a Biblical culture. Please visit, http://www.usa.om.org/omindia/dec.htm to find out more about the Dalit Education Centers as well as http://www.usa.om.org/omindia/partnership.htm if you would like to sponsor an Indian pastor or a Dalit Education Center. The work is overwhelming and the living conditions even more so. Many are really out on the frontier. The schools are popping up all over the place and the need for more is outstanding as well as qualified teachers and pastors to accompany the school work. OM has about 1200 pastors out in field, many in conjunction with these schools as they minister to the whole family. If you want a huge bang for your giving buck, this is definitely a way to make it happen. There are huge outcomes from this giving as well as huge needs. So little can help so much - I've seen it first hand. More and more I believe in the Church and her role in this and it is great to see that the Church is caring for the practical needs of the people that they are reaching. This is opening so many hearts to the Gospel and the change in these communities, though already evident, is going to be exponential within the next generation and on. I have never wanted people to offer their giving to something more than this incredibly powerful and effective ministry. It is education and Church planting all in one package which brings health awareness, empowerment and responsibility, awareness of hygiene and disease related issues, and it brings to the people the face and love of Christ! I have heard so many stories of instances where these pastors are being beat up by fanatics and some are having their lives threatened as well as sometimes having family members killed. I am preparing to post some stories about them soon. It is happening all the time! Prayer, finance and your love. The opportunities are endless! Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Blessings!

Suffering and Solidarity

We sat taking in the day. Bama was sniffling after finishing a short bout of tears, one of many that evening. I had watched her for most of the day to see if she would, waiting for what happened to hit her. I figured she would be fine, maybe she isn’t connected to this building, maybe, it doesn’t hurt her as much as I thought it would. What had happened? It was 9:00 p.m. and we were sitting in the Good Shepherd Ministry office in the middle of a Bombay slum just around the corner from a school which also housed the local Church. Bama, the woman who continued to press on in this slum outreach, had begun with one hut space, then two, and up to this point no one had interrupted her or told her to stop. She had transformed the lots into a school for children in the slums and we were there cleaning up the third addition which had just been completed the day before. This was for a third classroom which would expand the school’s ability to educate the children in this impoverished community.

The only thing was that every small and tattered home happened to be built or put together on property that wasn’t theirs. This is the plight for millions of Indians all over the country and especially in the metropolitan areas. So, technically the school being built shouldn’t have been built, except that every home, business and temple on the same property is under the same set of laws. Up to this point, the authorities hadn’t bothered Bama and her education centers and with that courage she pressed to build a third classroom. No sooner had we finished a magnificent India curry with chipoti, dal and rice after a long morning of cleaning and adjusting furniture for the new classroom, when a knock came on our door. Words were spoken very quickly and frankly in Hindi and in a short period the Indians in the room were rushing out the door with Bama leading the way. We came to understand later that the municipality had come with a big truck, policeman, and about 15 men to destroy the new classroom. I learned that this is normal practice as many slums shoot up overnight and sometimes they are required to tear down their dwellings for safety, health reasons, housing regulations, highways being built and many other inardent reasons that will all go away with a simple bribe. Our police of course are to refuse this course of action and to proceed under the law. If Bama had just offered a bribe to these men to continue on their way and leave the building alone, we would be outfitting the classroom with paint, posters and other teaching implements. Instead, the westerners hid so as to keep from complicating things further and Bama, along with her volunteers, some local believers, and most of the surrounding community watched as their new classroom was torn to the ground. Brick after brick was laid bare while we prayed from the office many unanswered prayers. They continued while we were moved to a local believers hut and waited the destruction out.

Finally, when we they were finished and had driven away, we moved out into the open to discover the rubble of broken walls, where just a couple of hours before stood our classroom. They had waited until right after it was finished to commence their destruction. I suppose to teach Bama a lesson. The lesson being that you don’t build unless you provide the right people with a bribe, in fact the policeman standing and watching over the proceedings asked Bama, why she hadn’t made “peace” with them earlier. For a woman who has been walking with the LORD for most of her life and serving in mission for twenty years in slum ministry, this was more than just a building. Every step forward would seem to send her two steps back. Her godly action of creating, instructing and giving hope was being reversed by greed, anger and tyranny, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Of course, this has happened to many in the slums, many homes have been simply demolished, torn to the ground, displacing thousands of slum dwellers at times. I wonder if this is what Israel felt like each time they had to face their attackers coming to the gates of Jerusalem. Should we give them food like the Israelites were instructed to do when their enemies came to bring them under a siege and instead God blinded them all while the Jews fed them and sent them home. What do you tell your king when that happens? God told them to love their enemies and especially to be kind to the passers by because they were all wanderers and tent dwellers at one time. I suppose that their lives would have been looked down upon by many, like a caste system and yet God chose them. Israel was to know what it meant to suffer, so that they could form solidarity with the world that they would reach, a world gripped under the tyranny of suffering. I remember asking my mother about her and my father’s commitment to the people that God brought them to and why they had stayed in the face of so many disappointments, discouragements and setbacks. First she said that it was for obedience, yet when I pressed for more, she told me that as she looked around at the suffering and the hopelessness and cried out to God for answers to how they would be able to reach these lost people. She told me that God spoke to her heart and said that it would be through suffering and the suffering that they experienced actually was directly related to the suffering of the people that they had been called to. It is almost like God allows us to suffer in the same way that the people that He’s called us to suffer like. If we try to escape it we are seeing our lives as less than our calling. A calling is costly! So what did Bama have at the end of the day?

She had broken walls, a broke bank account and a broken heart. What the men had come to destroy though only sought to build something else - the walls of the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and commissioned all of us to proclaim into all parts of the globe. Each brick that came down that day only served to continue building solidarity with the people that Bama had been called to. So what did Bama have at the end of the day? Many complaints could be put forward but what she had was worth more than that classroom cost, more than the bribe she wouldn't pay, more than the entire building itself - she had gained solidarity with a suffering people that would forever alter the destiny of her ministry there and give the Gospel the power it was waiting for and Christ the exaltation He deserves. When asking why we suffer, we can also ask, who do we suffer for and how are the walls of the Kingdom being built while the walls around us crumble? Suffering and solidarity.

Matthew 4:17

“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Email to George Verwer

I sen an email to George with this excerpt in it about a recent event from last week that I was involved with in the slums of Bombay...

Two days ago, a local municipality thug came with 15 guys and destroyed
>a room that the Good Shepherd ministry had just built to extend their
>school so that they could educate more children. The room was supposed
>to be another classroom. We had just finished cleaning it up and
>arranging the desks when they showed up and destroyed it all within 2
>hours. It is legal for them to do this but they should do it to all of
>the squatters in the area. They don’t because they’ve been paid bribes
>and so the inhabitants live under a constant tyranny and at any time,
>they could be uprooted and have their home destroyed. Bama is the
>leader here – a lady that was on the ship when you showed them your
>global underwear – she still remembers of course. She’s a special lady
>and has been in OM for 20 years. After the destruction, we cleaned up
>and got it all out of the way so that they wouldn’t come back and keep
>giving us problems. At the end of the day Bama sat in her chair and
>cried while the local Christians from the slum surrounded her and
>hugged her. She had entered into their world of tyranny and suffering
>in a whole new way and more than ever she was one of them.
>What a victory for the Kingdom. Suffering formed solidarity for her
>and the community. I am going to blog about it. She is going to
>rebuild it and has every intention of not giving up no matter what they
>do. She’s a rock solid women for Jesus! I was there with them the
>whole time and was able to see a servant of Jesus really love and
>suffer with these people. It is incredible what life is like here.
>

Off To School...

Well, it has been two years since I left Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where I had started a 3 year Masters of Divinity program. I have completed one year and after being gone for two years working in mission I had decided to not go back as a full time student upon returning to America. This was because I didn't want to pull out loans for another 2+ years of school, especially with the intention of being available to travel overseas for the pastoral calling God gave to me in my senior year of Bible school. I was just reminded today of the need for seminary education today as I had the opportunity to teach a Bible study using the Greek meanings and the tools that I had acquired while in Bible School and Seminary. The cool thing was that I was teaching an OM team in a slum area of Bombay where most of the inhabitants are uneducated, unable to read and seem to need prayer, finances and healing more than sound Bible teaching and Greek exegesis. Today I found out that this isn't true. Although some of the listeners aren't able to read they aren't stupid, in fact they connect with the culture of the Bible much more in their present day situation than the Western world does. In this, they were able to connect with the principles more naturally as they would from their own everyday experiences. They all were thankful for the Biblical teaching and lamented at those who had taught them without working on their sermons or teaching them off the cuff. Wow! Proper Biblical exegesis and the original languages are just as important if not more for uneducated, illiterate brothers and sisters who have embraced Christ in the slums of Bombay. So the result, after seeing God lead me back to school and asking me to trust him for the provision and reminding me of the importance of a Seminary education in the middle of a Bombay slum, I have decided, in faith, to reapply to school full time and have been accepted, trusting God for the stamina, finances and brain power. I will get home to Chicago on the 18th of August and start classes on the 22nd. Prayer is in high demand! Oh Yeah!

Images from Mumbai!