Kiran Kumbhar, a writer for leftist online rags The Wire, Scroll, spoke in the language of Islamic terrorists to defend Dr JA Jayalal’s proselytising proclivities and understate his penchant for converting people into Christianity. This comes days after OpIndia highlighted the problematic utterances of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) President Dr JA Jayalal regarding the use of hospitals as a springboard to convert people into Christianity,
In a string of tweets, Kumbhar normalised IMA president Dr JA Jayalal’s extremely problematic opinions and his wish to convert doctors, students and patients to Christianity. Instead, he blamed “Hindutva paranoia” for faulting the IMA president of harbouring missionary zeal to convert people into Christianity.
Though Kumbhar stated that he did not agree with Dr Jayalal’s interviews, he also mentioned that he did not get the impression that the IMA president was endorsing conversion of medicos to Christianity. Instead, he downplayed the view that Dr Jayalal was supporting conversions as a mere “hallucination”.
If this was not enough, Kumbhar then went on to share a list of people who have served as IMA presidents in 90 years to allege that the medical council body was an “out-an-out” Hindu dominated organisation. He then alleged that the concerns regarding the religiosity of Dr Jayalal are misguided as the IMA is largely a Hindu-dominated association, in a Hindu majority country.
These are straw man arguments raised by Kiran Kumbhar to undercut Dr JA Jayalal’s overt endorsement for Christian proselytisation. According to Kumbhar’s absurd logic, since the Indian Medical Association comprises mostly Hindu doctors and had largely Hindu presidents in the past, having a Christian who wishes to lure people into his faith is completely acceptable.
What Kumbhar conveniently fails to mention here is that the Hindu doctors in the organisation and Hindus who served as chiefs of the organisation in the past 90 years did not share the same zeal in converting non-Hindus to the Hindu fold as displayed by Dr Jayalal in converting non-believers into Christianity.
This spurious defence that Hindus are in majority and therefore do not face any threat of conversion is often peddled by Islamists and their sympathisers to term the concerns raised by Hindus as unfounded and blown out of proportion while refusing to acknowledge the alarming radicalisation among them and their singular zeal to either convert or destroy the non-believers.
The point here is that Hindus do not fetishise religious conversions as demonstrated by the dogmatic believers of the Abrahamic faith, who consider it as their religious duty to bring non-believers into their fold. Therefore, Kumbhar’s defence that the IMA is predominantly a Hindu organisation and is insulated from Christian proselytisation is a shallow argument, made with the express purpose of defending Dr JA Jayalal’s problematic assertions.
The Wire writer also claimed that the IMA president was targeted not for his inclination to spread Christianity but for his critical views on Ayurveda. Here, Kumbhar tried to whitewash Dr Jayalal’s passion for Christian evangelism by falsely asserting that he is being targeted because of his public opposition to Ayurveda.
Quite clearly, Kumbhar here is gaslighting Hindus all the while as he uses vile Hinduphobic slurs such as ‘cowdung cake’. He is using the language of Islamic terrorists in order to absolve the IMA President of his sins.
He blames Hindus for correctly interpreting what the IMA President himself wished to convey. His usage of the ‘cowdung’ slur makes it evident that his whitewashing of the statements is a consequence of the deep seated anti-Hindu bigotry in his heart.
Dr Jayalal’s desire for using Hospitals to spread Christianity
In his recent interviews, Dr Jayalal expressed his desire to use his professional qualifications and his recently acquired position as the head of the Indian Medical Association to further Christian evangelism that is carried out by Christian missionaries. Dr Jayalal said that the coronavirus outbreak is an opportunity that can be leveraged to convert medical students, patients and fellow doctors into Christianity.
Dr Jayalal regards the platform of the Indian Medical Association as a springboard for him to share the “love of Jesus Christ” and be a “living witness to God and encourage young medical students and doctors to receive Jesus as their personal saviour”.
According to Dr Jayalal, it was “Christian compassion” and Christian doctors and churches who relieved the world from lethal maladies such as leprosy, cholera and other pandemics in the past. He believes the coronavirus pandemic has provided “the urgent need of the proclamation of the Gospel to people who are suffering from the virus has allowed us to share the Gospel even in secular institutions”.
In his presidential address after being anointed as the chief of the Indian Medical Association, Dr Jayalal did not flinch from expressing his Christian evangelism and hailing controversial characters such as Mother Teresa, regarded by many as a predatory Christian proselytiser responsible for industrial-scale conversions of the indigenous people to Christianity.
Dr Jayalal not only promoted Christianity in his capacity as the President of the Indian Medical Association, but he also criticised the ancient Indian traditions and Ayurvedic medicine. Elaborating on his critique that “the Hindu Nationalist government wants to destroy modern medicine saying it is ‘western medicine’,” Dr Jayalal said that the government has faith in Ayurveda because of their cultural value and traditional belief in the Hindutva.
While he dismissed Ayurveda and other Vedic medical treatments as “quackery”, Dr Jayalal was unabashed enough to claim that Christian doctors are blessed with a special ability to provide “holistic healing”, which includes spiritual, mental and social healing.
