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Deviousness `anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Sta.sh
I know of certain 'elements' who criticize the Christian missionaries' work; some of them going to the extent to attacking them/their establishments.
Their Argument usually is that the missionaries, in the garb of doing social service, brainwash the poor tribals and convince them to convert to Christianity.
I find such notions ridiculous..I think most missionaries don't do it for the only 'converting' people. Even if few of them do, why should anyone be bothered by it? For 1. In India everyone is free to follow and promote their faith and 2. If they are so concerned about 'conversion' why don't they leave their cushy homes, go out into the remote areas and do the kind of work, the missionaries do?
There's actually a lot more to be said on both sides - I'm certainly not 100% in favour of everything every missionary does! I ought to get round to writing it all up sometime soon.
One of my biggest gripes both with many missionaries and with many of the missionaries' opponents is the arrogant assumption that the tribal people don't have perfectly good minds of their own - on average as good as anyone else's (and probably better than the minds of those with the arrogant assumptions).
While their skills and abilities were better suited to adapt to the environment they have lived in for generations,
the world around them is changing fast..and unfortunately, Indian development hasn't been inclusive and broad based
to the extent desired.. In the context, whatever be the motive, one can't downplay the missionaries' work, which often results in upliftment(relative), if not in empowerment always.
Their skills are more suited to the environment they've lived in for generations, because those are the skills they've learnt in childhood; their innate abilities vary over the same range as anyone else's. ~cocooned is 50% Adivasi - and is currently doing a Music degree at Oxford University; ~conskeptical, also 50% Adivasi, is a software engineer with one of the world's leading microprocessor design companies. (That's my two children.)
Sometimes the help, although well-intentioned, is actually counterproductive; sometimes some of things done to help are productive, and others counterproductive - the nett effect can be difficult to estimate; often the nett effect is clearly positive (as in the case my pictures relate to).
That's missionaries. Industrialists? Mostly they make great boasts about trying to help, but many of them have no good intentions at all from the beginning. Certainly some of them have good intentions, whatever the actual effects; but equally certainly some of them are motivated purely by greed.
Little boys filling out with a few weeks good feeding isn't at all unusual in such circumstances, and washing the dust off, oiling the skin, and putting on new clothes makes people feel good and look good for very little effort. The most dramatic change, to my mind, is the mother's cheeks.