A good article, thanks for bringing this up.

If anyone wants to learn about the book that was the "cause" of the arrest, look under "Hakikat" not "Haqeeqat." Same pronunciation, I would guess, but the later is a film with a different subject.

India is a primitive theocracy, not any better than Iran, in my opinion. The book in question is being used as an excuse to arrest and harass Christian leaders in that country. There is no evidence presented that Bishop Samuel even had anything to do with the book.

Find my statement harsh? Lets look at what India's own leaders had to say about the arrest.

"Justifying the action taken by Rajasthan governmnent against Emmanuel Mission Society, Chairman of state Minority Commision Jasbir Singh today alleged that the controversial book "Hakikat" contained a lot of 'objectionable and derogatory' remarks." Source: Link

The Emmanuel Ministries were clearly dangerous...they are feeding 2,500 orphans who otherwise would have starved to death. See Link

Why is India taking this action against Christians now? Because they got what they wanted from President Bush. And these are the people that we trust with nuclear weapons?

The government never acts there unless the person becomes desperate enough to become a rioter or a terrorist.Situation is allowed to vitiate at times with people keeping their fingers crossed and predictibly before riots or carnage taking place.The crooked politicians are the sole beneficiaries of politics of hate and carnage.The rests are enunchs overwhelmed by a plethora of expediencies and blinding far-sightedness to fool the world. There the respectable leaders of politcal parties even of international stature exhort people to bloodshed and depredation openly from public platforms against the powerless and harmless fellow citzens..You need country specific standards to measure things .I am askance at the respectability the sangh parivar and the vishwa hindu parishad enjoys in the west and America which is givng sleepless night to the helpless through silent and secret harassemnts and peretual intimidations and its daughters and grand daughters orchestrating riots to break the back. terror in India .All concerned citzens must do what ever they can do to stop the NRis sending huge funds to them.

No its not India but the Facist there, which now is holding the country at ransom or has complete domination.No its not happening now .It was always there They lost patience and did some crass job.Facist there are not a fringe element.They overwhelmingly dominate each and every walk of life.They are making life of minorities hell by involving the hindu masses in every sphere and every capacity, to agonise and torture them in day to day life.

""Justifying the action taken by Rajasthan governmnent against Emmanuel Mission Society, Chairman of state Minority Commision Jasbir Singh today alleged that the controversial book "Hakikat" contained a lot of 'objectionable and derogatory' remarks."

I don't see that as being much different than hate speech laws that prevent people from stating their beliefs in Europe and elsewhere. I don't mean to sting ya, Larry, but you, yourself felt that the cartoons in Denmark were illegal under Danish laws that you, yourself promoted as right.

Had the Danish government felt the same those cartoonists and the newspaper editor could have been arrested. Would that have been any different than people being religiously offended and punishing their offender in India? That is the danger of allowing offending people to become a crime *anywhere*.

Actually, BakerStreet, the Danish newspaper editor WAS arrested and then released because of political pressure. However...you missed part of my post. "There is no evidence presented that Bishop Samuel even had anything to do with the book." According to statements made by the Indian government "The book had been published with the connivance of the Emmanuel Mission Society," of which Bishop Samuel is a leader. The book was actually written by M G Mathews for Truth and Life Publications.

Before arresting the Bishop, an attack had been made on a St Paul school for orphans by Hindu families. No arrests were made, although the government termed the attack regrettable.

Bishop Samuel has incurred the wrath of the Hindu majority for feeding and saving the lives of thousands of orphans of the lowest caste of Indian society. The Hindu objection is that it was these childrens' fate to die.

The two situations are not the same. In one a newspaper editor published cartoons that violated the laws of Denmark, but was released. In the second, a book was published that was found to be objectionable. Not illegal, mind you, but objectionable. So the Indian government arrested a Bishop, who sheltered thousands of orphans. He wasn't the author, but offered a convenient target.

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

This book was available in the store run by the Bishop's organization, wasn't it? It is also illegal to sell material constituting 'hate speech' in Europe, which lawsuits by France and other nations against Ebay and other online retailers have shown. The abiguity between "illegal" and "objectionable" is the kind of abusable grey area we've talked about before.

The fact is, if insulting people's beliefs wasn't a crime, people wouldn't be able to be arrested this way. Granted, these thugs would probably make up another excuse, but every time we grant the government power to jail people for expressing their beliefs we give thugs like these one more tool. Sure, this book is just and excuse for oppression, but laws like this are what give them their best excuses.

"A Bunch of Thought"by Mr Gurugwalkar which makes the minorities terrifed ,in answer to which this book was written has never been banned.This book is a tremendous source of inspiration to the facists who kill lower castes and minorites there.The arrest of Mr Emmanuel is tip of tip of the ice berg.The leaders like Advani and Bal Thakrey of shiv sena has never been arrested who has been playing with the life of ordinary folks- helpless minorites in the country and responsible for carnage of thousands of women children and men.And they never will be.It would have been better and a more honourable thing that these facists had been terrorsits , dying in the neighbouring countries or with a price on their heads.But they have chosen the path of safe terrorism and a short cut to heroism despite.

Here is another piece of news on the issue which make guesses and logic of mr bakerstreet take a back seat.State president of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Engineer Mohammed Saleem has termed the Rajasthan Government's action in arresting Samuel Thomas, the chairperson of Kota-based Emmanuel Mission International, as "unfortunate and mala fide". The dramatic manner in which Bishop Thomas was taken into custody in Delhi two days back only bared the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Rajasthan, he charged. Addressing a gathering here over the weekend Mr.Saleem said strict action was warranted in the case of any one writing or publishing anything which contained blasphemous material. However in the case of the book "Haqeeqat", instead of taking action against the author and publisher, the Government chose to target Emmanuel Mission and the Christian community at large, he charged. "The book has been used by the Government to persecute the Christians in Rajasthan while the workers of the Sangh Parivar went on a rampage in the schools and institutions run by the community," Mr.Saleem pointed out. Mr.Saleem alleged that a senior Minister in the Rajasthan Cabinet, who hails from Kota and had a personal enmity with the EMI and its management, influenced the police to arrest Bishop Thomas. 0"The same Minister used to openly threaten EMI and was instrumental in spreading hatred against the Christian community," Mr.Saleem pointed out. Mr.Saleem said Muslims would join the Peace March the Christian institutions and activist groups are planning in the State capital on March 21 to protest against the attacks on Christians in Rajasthan

major maths
Every community has its bunches of fanatics and lumpen elements.The Moslem community of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar lot are the most rabid .You find fanatic hindus more in Maharashtra and Gujarat.Moslem by and large are more intolerant with killer instinct more developed than anyone else.You see these intolerance and unbalance reflected in every sphere of their life.One of my hindu friend grew a special liking for a muslim restaurant in a moslem locality in Delhi .He would go there for tea after work -strolling. After a month or so when they came to know that he is a hindu they made the boys and table men pick quarrel with him.The moslem hawkers and shopkeepers flanking the lane started getting even with him .He was terrified and now he is afraid of muslim localities.This is not an isolated case.Given the behaviour of Indian Moslems Hindus are really too tolerant and pragmatic.Millions of moslems are dependent on hindus for their bread and butterin India .The pragmatism they receive from Hindus , they cannot expect to get - even a part of it from their fellow moslems on account of diffenrences with regard to sect schholof thought and language.How many instances of bombing of churches and mosques and religous gatherings you have in India? It is ungodly, unpious and cruel to target a particular commuity for berating and shut your eyes completely from the rest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!