Comments on: Protect me from Salvation

By: Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:24:41 +0000

Interesting information; thanks for posting. Here in the U.S. the Salvation Army is viewed as a harmless organization that you mostly see around Christmas time, standing outside of the stores and ringing bells to try to get people to donate money for good works. Nothing coercive about it at all, and it gets no support from the government. Your post about the S.A.’s involvement in some of the coercive practices of British imperalism was an eye-opener. I plan to seek out more information about this.

By: James Taylor

James Taylor — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:55:13 +0000

If you look up the very word salvation, it has two different meanings:

a. Preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil.
b. A source, means, or cause of such preservation or deliverance.

Which definition above are you implying when you write ‘Protect me from Salvation’?

The denotified tribes were and still are lowest caste of the Hindu society. The fact that they were branded as criminals has no relevance to the salvation that many have recieved and are still receiving to this day through the work of the Army. I am a proud recipient of that salvation, in fact I am more excited now more than ever in my faith. To know that I was once a part of a tribe full of ‘the starving, the criminal, the lunatics, the paupers, the hopeless, the drunkards and the harlots’ but now am a king in the eyes of a merciful an loving Creator. James Dinkerrao Taylor

By: Shashwati

Shashwati — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 20:10:33 +0000

Thank you for the interesting information about your grandfather, I am glad he didn’t have to live in a settlement, which is what happened to the denotified tribes, who number 60 million today. But your point of the Army not being a complete malefactor is well taken, even though they don’t seem to have even acknowledged their role in the oppression of so many people, regardless of their intentions. The point about Hinduism , its not a competition to see which religion is more oppressive, but rather the role organizations play in some very oppressive policies.

By: Samuel

Samuel — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 05:29:02 +0000

Down south, the Army has done more good than harm. I need only talk about the village my parents were born in. The village is all Christian and they all went to the Salvation Army church. We are what the government calls Scheduled castes and a look at the neighboring villages is telling as to how different our lives turned out to be.

All the people in my village are land owners and there is no untouchability as they do not have to depend on an upper caste land owner for their livelihood. The story is not so in the neighboring villages. The Army was the vehicle of progress in my village, sending my grand father to college. Now that might not strike you as special but those days, a Dalit graduating from college was no mean feat.

I am not writing this to say that the Army is an angelic organization (I take issue with them discriminating against gays) but just to take exception to the one dimensional portrait you paint here.

How do you suppose one hold Hinduism accountable? The Kanchi mutt does not have a Dalit working there to date. No, I am not suggesting that one ought to hold Hinduism accountable but your post is not very different from what a Southern Baptist would have written about a Hindu organization.