The following excerpts are from what is purported to be a Communist Party (Marxist) Central Committee document issued at its Oct. 1981 meeting: Today the discontent has spread far and wide and the Adivasis are vulnerable to the separatist appeal. This situation is being fully exploited by some foreign church missions with firm roots among the Adivasis in some areas and work in collusion with imperialist Powers.
Our exposure of the misdeeds of these missions concerns their reactionary political activities against our country and in the interest of foreign imperialist Powers. It is not directed towards preventing any citizen of India from propagating his religion or faith. Our party fully supports the citizens’ right to freedom of conscience and religion. Their sinister hand in Tripura was exposed by our comrades. They openly support the Tripura Upajati Juba Samiti which under their influence takes a secessionist stand and concentrates on opposing the CPM. The Baptist Mission is desperately trying to convert the entire tribal mass to Christianity; thereby it seeks to create a wall of separation between the converts and the rest. Their propaganda is that the tribals are distinct and separate from India and have nothing to do with the Indian people. It is reinforced by conversion which is intended to draw the tribal mass near the Western Christian countries.
The Rev. Cunville of the Baptist Mission calls for virtual invasion by the world churches to convert the Tripura tribals to Christianity. Church leaders like the Rev. Cunville are openly speaking as Church leaders in the name of Christ and communion. But in other places they pose to turn towards the Left image, to fight the CM and sow the seeds of separatism among the tribals. A report submitted by the Thane District secretary of our party. Com. Khopkar, a member of the party’s Maharashtra State Committee, gives the following account of such church agents in tribal Warli area of the district: “Now the Church missionaries call themselves Kashtakari Sanghtana (Toilers’ Organisation) and declare it as a progressive Left democratic organisation and simultaneously a non party organisation. In their study camps, their advice to the Adivasis is as follows: (1) We Adivasis are a different people. The other people are exploiters. If we want to be liberated completely we must throw out all non-Adivasis from the area and we must have a republic of our own. Actually some of our people have established their own rule in Nagaland, Mizoram, etc. (2) In the Soviet Union and China, workers are exploited and ill-treated and real democracy exists in the USA only. (3) Christ alone can bring justice”. “Drive out non-Adivasis from the Adivasi areas”, is also the slogan raised in the Bihar tribal areas. In the Warli area, these agents of certain Church missions have organised assaults and attacks on our comrades. They indulge in slanderous propaganda and incite murders and clashes between Adivasis and non-Adivasis. In this connection, it should be noted that a systematic offensive from the “LEFT” is being opened by some Church agencies against our party, but it is done in the name of coming close to the Left, and especially the CPM. A big centre of these activities is Bangalore from where such innocent-looking organisations as the Centre for Informal Education and Development Studies, Indian Social Institute, etc, are working and spreading their nets. They organise seminars, call our party members and leaders to participate in them, the aim being to get a Left image and attract young people to whom they offer research jobs, scholarships, etc. and convert them into propagandists. It also appears that, at least in Karnataka, they are trying to penetrate our party. Some of our party members, throwing off their guard against imperialism and these foreign church missions, and misled by the radical phrases of these agencies, participate in their manoeuvres and play their game. It seems that our Andhra party being vigilant, has taken action in time and asked our members to dissociate themselves from such organisations. These missionaries are supported by the anti-Soviet “Left” elements in our country. They are also establishing ties with other Left groups. An ideological offensive against the party is conducted by the Trotskyites, Naxalites and all sorts of “radical” intellectuals. The coordinating and guiding hand is provided by international agencies, and the most vociferous are those returning from the USA. Our party, being busy with day-to-day problems, is unable to meet this challenge properly. It is a pity that our intellectual comrades, the professors, teachers, lawyers, are unable to put up a fight and stand paralysed before the offensive on every front. The party must arm them to do this all-important job. In its absence, a section of the radically minded younger generation is being corrupted by this “Left” ideology which ends only in counter-revolutionary anti-communism. The menace of the Naxalite ideology and its changing tactics, must be systematically fought if this counter-revolutionary group is to be isolated and defeated.
