Eleven years from now when I was in my 8th standard my uncle (mother's brother) went to Singapore on an employment contract. The contract was for a period of four years and my uncle had struggled a lot to get it. Back then, I knew him as a fun loving; cheerful man. He was a very sensitive and emotional person, who always used to help and respect others. My uncle and I used to behave just like friends and had good fun together when ever we met.

My uncle belonged to a typical Hindu family in southern India. Having struggled a lot to get employment, he was more than happy to get a four year contract job in Singapore.

In Singapore he had met with an Christian extremist group called AG (Assembly of God), who were successful in converting him. When he came back to India after four years he was a completely changed person. The usual cheer that used to be seen on his face had vanished. He was behaving with me in a very formal way and there seemed to be no affection in his talk. He was almost behaving as a lifeless creature.

At present, my uncle is in Singapore, married (with a woman belonging to the Pentecostal group) and has a kid.

The AG effect

I gained a lot of knowledge about AG and how it operates, from my uncle when he had come to India for a 1 year stay. As my college (I decided to do my college in Southern India whereas my parents were still in the west) was near his house I used to visit him on alternate weekends. At that time I had to visit my uncle's place, as he was the only relative I had who was living in southern India. Even though my uncle was changed, I liked to be with him and I made many attempts to bring him out to this trance. I have discussed a few here.

When my uncle had come to India in a changed way, I was very upset. He had brought hundreds of recorded devotional cassettes from Singapore wasting all his money. When asked what they were, he replied "one should not listen to commercial songs, as they are evil. One should listen only to devotional music of Jesus". I got really frustrated on listening to this and such other comments.

I learnt from my uncle many other things that the AG church preaches. The church is totally against listening to music (except devotional music), dancing, growing long hair (for men), drinking liquor, smoking, wearing jewelry, wearing fashionable clothes, using make up, watching movies, watching TV (except for some channels like the discovery channel, animal planet etc. But here a proper consensus has not been reached) adultery, using the internet (here there are contradictions), Eating food kept in front of idols, idol worship, using the cross or picture of Jesus, worshipping Mary (They give a very good explanation for this. They will tell "When you are thirsty would you be thankful to the water or the glass that beholds the water. Mary is compared to the glass and the water is compared to Jesus - Take your pick), going to other churches and temples (they are strictly against entering Hindu temples and Catholic churches not even for tourist reasons). But many strong people in the AG have arguments about one thing - going to the doctors. Some of them argue that all diseases should be cured only through prayer while others being a bit sensible think that doctors can be used for extreme situations.

Their main aim is to convert and by doing so helping other people to reach heaven. They mainly accuse the Catholics of not reading their Bible regularly. They strongly believe that the the end is nearing,( the indications of which are in the form of earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters) and that there will be a 'Judgment day' when Jesus will come to earth and punish people who are non believers and give salvation to those who believe. The news of earthquakes etc gives them pleasure instead of pain because they think, these are nothing but indications given by their God, that the end is nearing. Although they become happy almost unconsciously and feel guilt on being reminded of this fact.

Prayer is given the utmost importance and a good amount of time is allocated for it. The prayer happens all the time. Before eating anything, before starting any work, while leaving home, while getting up or going to sleep. Generally, the prayer consists of standing on knees and shouting, sometimes even singing devotional songs accompanied by the clapping of hands, with occasional shouts of Praise the Lord, Hallelujah etc. Prayer took place in houses as well as in the churches.

Some Incidents

On one weekend when I was at my uncle's place he started preaching me about Jesus and how Jesus Christ had died for our sins. He told me, that one day while praying on the terrace, he had seen a white line on the sky and upon seeing this he had wept like anything, because Jesus had died for his sins. My uncle was constantly preaching these ideas to my grandparents and after a few months time when I visited him, I was surprised to find my grandma (who strongly believed in Hinduism) had changed too. But grandpa who was too old for all this didn't know what was going on, although my uncle tried his best, to explain these concepts to him all the time. My uncle had a claim that he would cure my grandpa (who was suffering from extreme diabetics) with the help of Jesus Christ, which never came true. One day my uncle asked me to come to church with him. I though it would be just like any other church and all one had to do was, go, sit, and come back. So I decided to go with him. But nothing of that sort happened. The church was not like a normal catholic church.

It consisted of a rectangular room (no arches) which had many writings on the walls (verses from Bible). There were no statutes or paintings in there, not even the cross. As soon as we reached the church the pastor greeted us and welcomed me, thinking I was another permanent member. As the prayer started, people stood on their knees and one person was at the mic on stage, shouting at the top of his voice and the others joined in. I was feeling kind of, out of place in there. After the prayer there were testimonials being said by people who thought they had experienced miracles. After that a neatly dressed person came on stage and started giving a speech. Others told that he was very powerful and could read minds. At the end of the speech I saw people going on stage and that person kept his hand on their heads and prayed violently saying "the power of Jesus should enter this person" and stuff like that.

I never used to argue with my uncle as I respected him a lot. One day my uncle put on a recorded tape and asked me to listen to it. It contained a testimonial given by a black- magician (one who does black magic) who had converted to Christianity. The magician told that he used to control seven satans and made use of them to kill and harass people. He told that after accepting Jesus as his savior he destroyed the satans. The concept of satans existing being controlled by men was absolutely illogical but surprisingly my uncle seemed to believe it.

Again one day, I went with my uncle to meet a Pastor. When we reached their house I found that the Pastor's wife was not feeling well, and gave the reason that she was praying for a sick person the other day and that the evil spirits had attacked her and hence she was unwell. On listing to this I asked my uncle if he actually believed in evil spirits and satans? To which he answered "Yes, they certainly do exist, they reside in the statues of gods and goddesses of other religions and hence on should not worship statue and should not even eat the things which were kept in front to the statues". My uncle also disposed the statues of gods and goddesses that were earlier there in his house. He told me that there are also Holy spirits, in addition to the evil spirits. The Holy Spirit had to be attained through constant prayer, and once a person attains the holy spirit he starts speaking the language of God. He also told me, that he had personally seen people speaking the language of God after the Holy Spirit came over them. Which means that the person usually comes in a trance. But this type of incidents are common in all religions. I had heard and seen people belonging to other religion (other that Christianity) coming into a trance and speaking or dancing. So I was pretty much sure that this phenomenon had nothing to do with the religion that was being practiced, but had something to do with the mental state of the person. My uncle once told me that he was going to try and attain the Holy Spirit, and went and locked himself inside a room. He came back after an hour or so and told, that he did not concentrate much and hence the Holy Spirit did not come.

I thought, there was some mystery behind all this and I wanted to find that out. But I didn't know whom to ask or where to get the information. I kept going to the church with my uncle whenever I visited him though, I don't know why. May be I wanted to find out what this was all about. On one such visit I found that it was a special day in church. Some new people had come and the church looked crowded. Now the Pastor told that today was training day (training on how to convert others). They asked each person to choose a partner. I choose my uncle. Now, everyone was asked to sit face to face with his partner. Some pamphlets were distributed to everyone, which had some instructions written on it, on how to start a conversation. We were supposed to think that our partner is the potential person to be converted and had to practice initiating a conversation with him and slowly move on to the Jesus part. Then we had to switch places with our partners and it started the other way round. After this was over, the pastor instructed us to go out and try this out in reality. It was something like a contest, were we had to try and convince people we met outside. I went with my uncle, but nothing clicked. Nobody was ready to listen to him. Back at the church every member had to relate his experience and then there were evaluations as to what went wrong. Now I was sure that this was nothing but a cult.

I noticed that the process of conversion uses double standards. Firstly, a person who is feeling ill or sick is told about Jesus Christ and how he has saved many. Then they are told that by converting to Christianity their illness will go away and they can live happy and healthy lives, and after that the same person is told that only those who suffer on this earth will enjoy in the Kingdom of Heaven.

One day while having dinner with him my uncle, he told me a story, which made sure that he was going mad. He told me that there was once a lady, whose child was very sick. Hence to take care of the child the lady missed the church one day. The other day she found that her child had died. She went to the Pastor and asked him why this had happened, and the Pastor replied "you gave more importance to your child than God, by missing church for your child, and hence your child died". He used to tell many other stories which were as sick as this. This cult had created a sadist out of a good fun loving person.

All these things proved to me beyond doubt that something was wrong somewhere. I wanted to find answers. I was convinced that nothing my uncle says was true. But there was a specific timeline being followed in Christianity regarding the birth of Jesus. Hence, it had to be accepted that Jesus must have lived, but everything else had to be myths. I started questioning my uncle regarding his faith, but to no use. When he saw that he was loosing, he used to say "the lord says not to argue". When I told him that man came out of monkeys according to the theory of evolution he used to laugh at me. He firmly believed that Adam and Eve were the first human beings, but was not ready to give me a timeline for their existence. All he said was, "read the Bible, and find all the answers for yourself, instead of asking me". So what happened here was that he himself was unaware of a lot of things, but thought that there will be answers to everything in the Bible. Now I was pretty much sure that it was no use convincing him.

The thing that puts me down is that my uncle will no longer be what he used to be. It was all gone and I realized that it was impossible to convince him now. My uncle is now in Singapore married and has a new born girl child. He recently visited India but I did not talk to him much. I felt real sorry for the small kid as she will never be able to see the world in a open way.

The Indian Scenario

India is a developing country, but the inequality you find here is alarming. At one end there are people who live in slums below the poverty line where as on the other you find people owning huge estates and businesses roaming around in their Mercedes and BMW's. The major religion practiced is Hinduism followed by Christianity, Sikhism and Islam. India has four big metros namely, Bombay (Mumbai), Delhi, Calcutta (kolkotta) and Madras (Chennai) located in the West, Central, Eastern and Southern India respectively.

The AG churches in India are located mostly in the southern parts. In the northern, eastern and western parts of India, such churches have less chances of running successfully, as there are many Hindu extremists groups located here. Many riots such as the Hindu-Muslim riots in places like Gujarat and Mumbai are common here, although now that situation in under control. There have been instances when these extremists groups have broken down churches propagating conversions. As far as the eastern parts are concerned - most of these parts are not considered safe because of the presence of rebel groups. The incidents such as the killing of Graham Stone (An Australian who was burnt alive with his kid, for accusations of converting the locals) make the east a very dangerous destination for the missionaries. Many Hindu religious extremists have their stronghold in the western and central parts of India.

So the south where there are far less religious extremists groups, has become a safe destination for churches like AG. But recently the Tamilnadu government which occupies a major part of southern India, has passed a Anti-Conversion Act, banning conversions of any kind. The Christian missionaries were not the least pleased by this Act and had many debates with the minister of state, blaming this act to be anti-democratic, but to no use. But despite this act, conversions still go on. Many parts of Tamilnadu have small AG and other Pentecostal churches, the biggest AG church being in Chennai metropolitan which is the capital city. This church is way bigger than most catholic churches. Many of these churches get funding from western countries.

The Victims

People who are poor, emotionally weak, extremely sensitive or illiterate become the major victims of this cult. Generally these missionaries target the villages as the people living in the villages are mostly illiterate and poor and hence fall easy victims to these missionaries. In many cases there have been accusations that the missionaries promise the villagers of better food and money, if they get converted. The major problem here is, the religious clashes within a family. When a person gets converted and joins a Pentecostal church, he generally makes an active attempt to convert his family members also. Here what happens is the family members afraid of being framed as an outcast by the society, generally oppose the views of the person and ask him to reconvert to his original religion. This turns into clashes and generally results into breakup of relationships. So in many ways conversions can be seen as a social evil. They have a huge potential to ruin relationships and cause mental conflicts within an individual.

Extremists in any form pose a threat to the society, but it should also be noted that it is the society that gives rise to extremists. Somewhere down the line, there is a fault within our system and only by removing that fault can we cut the roots of extremism.