Thursday 29 September 2011

Pattanam Archaeology has Strong Political and Sectarian Undercurrents


Pattanam archaeology  has strong political  undercurrents. On 4th september 2005 there was a conference of a neo-Buddhists radical group at State Co-operative bhavan Thiruvananthapuram. P.J.cherian who delivered the keynote address shared the dias with  president of Kerala Dalit Panthers.It should be mentioned in this context how the World Council of Churches (WCC )in association with Student Christian Movement in India, National Council of Churches in India and Centre for Social Studies and Culture  organized an International Colloquium on Caste , Religion and Culture at Kochi in May 1-4,  2011. The theme of the colloquium  was  asserting the 2000 year old history of Christian church .Dr Sundarbabu of Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, Mumbai.  who came for the colloquium visited Pattanam along his friends .  As reported by Sunderbabu, P.J.Cherian told them that the legend of St Thomas reaching Malankara in AD 52 could not be an impossibility.  Cherian further clarified that the myth of the first Brahman converts is clearly a later bogus fabrication by a threatened minority community under Brahmanical hegemony that persecuted minorities like Jains and Buddhists and annihilated them from the soil of Kerala for ever.In June 2010,JAYASEELAN RAJ submitted  an M.phil thesis to  department of Social anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway. The subject was-The Remnants of Colonial Capital-Economic Crisis and Social Reproduction of Alienation in a south Indian plantation belt.Jayaseelan raj openly admits the support he received from P.J.Cherian . The research discusses not just the dilemma of plantation workers, but also strong Hindutva forces influencing them. Jayaseelan pinpoints attack by Hindutva forces  on Pentacostal christian organisations for attempted conversions.

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