 We're talking about religion today, the global emergence of the evangelical movement. The religion in general with Dr. Roopmati Kandikar, who joins us today. He's our esteemed guest, our strategical analyst, if you will, who covers the whole world with us. Hi, Roopmati. Hello, Harje. And thank you for having me, and lovely to be back with you always, always, you know, when I went to law school, my roommate was an Indian Muslim. And he had prayer rug. People carry their books and notes in their Tashay case. Saeed carried his prayer rug in the Tashay case. And five times a day, he prayed. He was really, really, really serious. He followed all the rules. Sometimes it worked for him, and sometimes it didn't work. But I was impressed with that. And he was kind to me. He showed me how to cook a madras curry dish during, we ate only at night during Ramadan. So I know about that. Anyway, come to find in Iowa, just a few days ago, religion seemed to determine the outcome because the evangelists, we've heard of them increasingly heard of them, voted as a block for Trump. What I cannot understand, and maybe you could help me, is why. Because they're religious, they say. They're passionate about their religion, they say. And the press agrees with that, I guess. But Trump is not religious. He's certainly not an evangelical. He's a Presbyterian. And he doesn't follow any of the rules. And he violates the rules and does things that would be immoral and inappropriate in any religion, any religion anywhere. So why then did he win with so much assistance from the evangelicals in this country? Have you got an answer for me? As speechless as you, Jay, but religion has taken the forefront in politics everywhere. And so when we see Iowa, which had supported Trump around only 20% last time goes up to 59%. And this overwhelming support for Trump is only fueling his, you know, his fervour. And this, Jay, we see that they're non-religious. Trump is the most non-religious person that you can, non-moral person that you can find. But you find a set of Protestant people who believe in God, who believe in Jesus, who believe in goodness, and the teachings of the Bible supporting him. So that becomes kind of, you know, a point for reference and thinking, why? But Jay, remember we had spoken a long time back about the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court. This was given by Trump to them when they abolished the right to abortion. That was Trump's gift to them. And when Trump gives such a overwhelming judgment for them, they kind of go with his this conservatism and, you know, this kind of going back to the roots and going back to nature, but it's playing to that tune. And Trump is doing this very smartly. He is now bought religion into everything. You see any of his speeches, he'll talk to you about the Bible. He'll talk to you about, you know, things which hurt everyday people. He'll talk about transgender issues, gender, choosing issues when they allow kindergarten kids to choose their gender. That is morally wrong for any, any, any sane person. But this kind of freedom that they are giving to and at school level. So he's, you know, talking of the vulnerability of parents when they allow drag shows into school campuses, you know, allowing this gender thing men are allowed to participate in women's sports, this kind of what is that imbalance in society. Trump is playing to the tune. He is catching every soft corner, every nerve that hurts. And he is playing to the crowd. And his crux, he's taken the Bible. Now Bible is such a, when nothing fail, everything fails for a ruler, he always goes to religion. We have always seen that through the ages, that every ruler goes to religion. That is his ultimate weapon, Trump card, as you say. That's hard to find a positive thing about religion vis-a-vis politics and democracy. The founding fathers were right to to prohibit the establishment of a religious state and to separate religion and government. But that's changing now and evangelicals seem to have the upper hand and they will have the upper hand in the election, assuming that Trump, you know, takes the candidacy and I think he will in November. They'll be playing from a religious point of view. And I agree with you that the abortion issue, his stand on abortion, wedded him to them and they're going to support him in terms of holding the line on that issue and maybe other issues which have religious importance to them, but not necessarily to him. It's the old thing about one issue connection with the cult organizer and everybody gets behind them, even though they don't agree with anything else he's doing. But let's move east. Let's move across the Atlantic to the Middle East. And it seems to me Europe has become secular, where in those countries a hundred or two hundred years ago were very religious. You know, the Catholics were wedded to Rome, you know, Germany was Protestant and so forth. But they're secular now. Religion does not play an important role, I don't think. But if you go into the Middle East, religion plays a very, very important role. And, you know, we know that the largest single religion in the world is Islam. And they don't fool around. They proselytize people by force. And they have the core end to justify using that force to proselytize. But the terrorists who say they're doing this in Allah's name, are they really doing it for religion or something else? Jay, Europe is in such a point that it's in the middle of two proselytizing religions. Both religions have always survived on preaching and spreading the message. Now, you have Islam and Christianity head on, you know, it's like a mini crusade that is happening. You have people going door to door and speaking about Sharia law, about the goodness of Islam and trying to convert the previously known Christians to Islam. And Jay, history speaks that Islam has always converted by sword. If preaching doesn't work, they go to force. And you have this love Jihad, you have points where Islam spreads from person to person. They go from person to person. And that is very, you know, in depth, graining of Islam. So Jay, this kind of Christianity has divided into Protestant and Catholic. Islam is going by force on Islam. That is the problem Jay, when the migrants come, they don't change the religion. First, if they had to adjust to a European society, they had to adhere to the Christian way of life. They had to follow certain rules and now you have halal and laws everywhere in Europe. So it's not a European country anymore that you go to. You go to kind of offshoot of an Islamic country. They have, you know, you have a donor shop more than you have a pretzel baking shop. So that kind of cultural invasion that Islam brings in is extremely dangerous. We see that even in Israel, Alaska was not a mosque before. It was a Jewish site. They came and overtook it. They invade culture. And then the conflict comes after many, many years. They convert. They don't have places of worship. They will come on the street and worship. How many pictures have you seen where people will pray right down next to the car in the lawn of you never see a Catholic going in or Protestant going in front of a tree and bringing a cross and praying. But they can do that in every street. That is the visibility of the religion that they bring in. And 10 people who see 200 people praying on the knees, you will be like that religion may be something, you know, in curiosity kills the cat, that kind of thing. And that's the way they convert young minds. That's the way they doctrine it, you know, you take a two-year-old child and we've seen this, we've seen this many times. And going back years in my life, the two-year-old child hardly speaks in either Arabic or Hebrew or English or anything. But the two-year-old child knows how to say, I will dedicate my life to killing Jews. But is the two-year-old child familiar with the Qur'an? Does the Qur'an give principles that the two-year-old child knows about? Is the two-year-old child being trained in some sort of religion or in only that distilled single statement, I will dedicate my life to killing Jews? Is that a religion? What is the nature of that religion? Intolerant, violent, Islamophobia is real because J, Islam preaches jihad and they call the other who does not believe in your religion as infidel, a person who should not, who does not deserve the right to live. And the person who does not believe in your religion does not go to heaven, he goes only to hell. So this kind of extreme grip that they have over life, death and you know the way of living and they even tell the Qur'an even preaches that the way to deal with people who are infidels is to do away with them. So when a child is learning Arabic and learning Qur'an, he'll not learn about the way of life, he will learn that he does not have to tolerate anything outside his religion and that's where the problem starts when you start growing up with this. I'm telling you J, immigrants who came to Europe had to adjust to European way of life. Today Europeans have to adjust to the migrant way of life and that is a bit dangerous because I don't see European cafes, yeah a little bit you know rare, it'll be a rare rarity in the future, they will say you have segregation of women and men, you know they will bring the Islam way of life into the streets of Europe like it has already happened but migration was wrong because it brought in religious and cultural invasions. That is the problem, giving shelter, giving you know relief from your war zone, everything refuge is brilliant but those coming in and doing cultural invasions is wrong. Now America is facing this in all the porous borders, there was a case I'll tell you Jihadi's head of Islam in Azerbaijan has reached the borders of America, they were asking him where are you from, he says you'll know soon who am I and he is a convicted terrorist in 2019. So this kind of screening on religion will happen J and Trump was one of the people who was doing screening on the base of religion and he was called out for it that he can't do this and today the reality that that was a bit right to screen on religion, it was not against humanity because we are facing problems of this kind, we are having these religious fanatics coming into a democratic country and going to threaten every democratic institution that this country stands on. You know it's interesting and this is a friend of mine just came back from London and you know he was there when that 100,000 group of people was in London protesting for the Palestinians but also for Hamas and you know violent Islam and you know his reaction was this is kind of funny because they came to Britain seeking sanctuary, they came to Britain saying that things in their country were too dangerous for them so they had to leave that country and come to a country that was not dangerous that where they could enjoy you know the quality of life in Britain and for that matter in the continent but they never really latched on to the culture that they said they wanted to join. This is so in Paris too by the way it's very it's very accentuated in Paris so you have these communities that are really dangerous as you say and at the same time they came and they are still coming as a matter of sanctuary in order to escape the danger back home. It all seems ironic to me I'm sorry very ironic but let's let's move to let's move to India for a minute. What provoked my title for this show was a couple of news stories about a church called the Halvary Church that was founded about 20 years ago and is now led by a fellow named Pastor Kumar and Pastor Kumar has somehow increased the size of this church this is a gospel church it's a born-again church I guess you would say the Indian variety of evangelical church and from a couple of dozen people 20 years ago till now it has achieved 300,000 parishioners and it has a dozen different locations in India and a number of other locations in every country in Central Asia around India and it is going great guns and that is important to understand you know what that is what is what is happening for a Christian church in the heartland of India in fact in Iverdad which is a Muslim city that it should grow so quickly and be so successful they have a they have one I guess you call it a temple but it's really a warehouse that seats 18,000 people and they have services a day this Pastor Kumar runs five services a day it's just like the mega churches in the U.S. and his vision is to expand it everywhere in India and around India and for that matter the world and so we have notions of global religions that are essentially disconnected with old-fashioned Christianity this is a a newfangled religion kind of thing and you know it's it's built on the same Bible I suppose but it's different principles and different ways of increasing itself can you explain to me what is going on with this church yeah in India you see churches have a different kind of setting and this particular church that you speak about in Hyderabad Muslim dominated area he is doing well for himself but the problem with these churches in India is that they used to learn poverty stricken people with food medical aid for the sake of conversion conversion activities were on the basis of food and this so that was looked down upon if you teach and you preach and you get your converts that is fine but if you write and you try to get converts that would not work and now like you know during COVID how the rationing was free and is still free for below poverty level we have around 13 million people who have come out of the poverty level so people now converting on the basis of poverty has reduced to such a drastic bit and religion in India Jay is always the majority and one bit I want to tell you about the Ram Mandir being built it was inaugurated yesterday in India is Hindu that's why Hindu that India is different from Pakistan Pakistan and Muslim and India is Hindu so what is a Christian church of this size doing in the very center of India much more complicated in the very center of a Muslim city in India why why we have the most beautiful churches in the world Jay some of the most beautiful churches in the world but now like you're talking of Mr this one Joseph he'll be like you know his activities will be monitored his activities will be monitored why because if he converts on the basis of poverty that's what I'm telling you this point of conversion on poverty was looked down upon by many many both the cast even Islam even Hinduism they did not want Christianity was competing with them but Christianity has always survived we have always had a good set of we had a meeting on Christmas at the Prime Minister's residence so Christianity is ingrained in Hindu society Indian society but this kind of evangelistic churches is a new thing and he preaches 18,000 in a huge population is a miniscule amount we find it very big but there it is nothing so yeah because too many people millions and millions of people and 18,000 is like that he'll present his case to the funding from abroad in such a way that 18,000 people attend my this but from abroad when you're funding you have a church in Texas which will take only 500 people and you have this guy taking 18,000 people you will fund him more and that is where the you know it's imbalanced that he presents he is not able to capture the heart of the Indian society that's you know it reminds me maybe there's not a good comparison of the Falun Gong in China and now the Falun Gong is not a religion it's just it's a I think it's a less than a religion it's just a sort of culture thing and yet the Chinese government sees it as a threat a risk a political risk and therefore they go after anyone who is associated with the Falun Gong and they put them in retraining camps and torture them and what have you and you know it's interesting that here you have this evangelistic church of some size already may not be that big compared to the size of India which is 1.4 billion already but but it is certainly a phenomenon worth Mr Modi's attention and I wonder if this presents a political threat to him your thoughts not all day because they have you have you have him writing the Ram Mandir issue right now 3 million 3 million devotees in 7 million devotees in 3 hours at the inauguration so that kind of madness he enjoys oh why don't you explain those explain the Ron temple explain the Ron temple so people will know the significance of this with Indian religion Ram Mandir was a historical event in India and all the media western media the guardians New York Times everybody has reported it as the temple being erected on a raised Muslim site but the Muslim site was built on the birthplace of Ram and after a struggle of 550 550 years India has finally got its Ram Mandir built and it's a magnificent temple and you have seven million devotees entering and Mr Modi did this single-handedly so he doesn't need to even he's got the he celebrated Diwali on a day of 22nd August 22nd January which is always celebrated in November so on a call he got 1.4 billion people to celebrate a festival so that is what religion holds in Indian society we have pictures of the of the Muslim church that was there before the mosque and and the new relatively new it's only 20 30 years old the new and this is the temple that is being made right now so the mosque is gone the mosque is gone because the mosque was built on a Hindu temple which was raised to the ground that was on the birthplace of Ram and that's where he erected this mosque general so that was brought and it's been that mosque that birthplace is since 7500 years so I guess to draw some conclusion out of this is that India is certainly a very religious place people show up by the millions for an event like this is a very ironic a rather iconic event and I guess what I'm saying is that Varendra Modi knows how to knows how to make political capital of this he is elated himself he's done something which was impossible and it would have kept on in Indian society for millions of years nobody would have done anything about single-handedly he has done through his life he started early on in his life campaigning for the building of the Ram and it means he was a person who used to be a organizer on the street he never dreamt of being a prime minister and when he became the prime minister he has fulfilled his dream and it's a it's a journey which is is going it's a lifetime achievement you say because he has done something for the Hindus which nobody would have ever done so here are you are you saying that that India is more unified under the Hindu religion than it was before yes yes definitely yesterday because India never had caste we had divisions on the basis of work and when the British came in they got a census in 1831 on the caste system of India and they divided the Hindu society into caste untouchables you know you are from this caste this and it divided the Hindus yes on 22nd of January it was a day when Hindus came together as Hindus for Ram and you imagine 1.1 billion people coming together irrespective of state irrespective of which caste they are and uniting is one this was he united India in a matter of ministry entire India was celebrating a festival together for the return of Ram to his rightful place so this have happened without rent promoting never I am practically tell you that never it is a huge achievement religion making somebody a king out of a political leader this is it okay now we're now we're hitting pay dirt so we're going to try to draw some global threads here some global principles we've looked at how you know evangelicals are taking over political process in the US we've looked at how how the how Islam is taking over I don't know third of the world and teaching children that all they got to do is hate Jews and some religion all I will bless them and then and then we're looking at India where you have two phenomena working at the same time you have Reverend Kumar and his extraordinary growth of this evangelical church and I agree with you it's all about feeding people take care of them becoming a community is in our previous show we talked about how the Mormons have done that in the United States if somebody is down and out they come in they're acting good neighbors and so the evangelicals in hybrid dad are acting as good neighbors and helping people out who need help and this brings them to the church and not only for their generation but maybe for the generations to come and the church becomes bigger and more important in in the life of of those people and then of course you have Modi and you know developing this this new Hinduism yes by taking this iconic church iconic mosque and putting it aside and putting the old temple 500 years ago and it said the birthplace of rum and so what we have is an emergence of new political power on the horns of religion lovely love yes right right jay i mean you can actually see that religion every time a leader is presenting going back to the bible going back to the rama and you know you have these things playing such a big role big role and religion has come to the forefront of politics like never before it was never like this people tried to keep themselves a political a religious a secular no inclination towards any particular religion that was the cracks of the situation but openly support even Trump said that he will not allow any anti-jew activities on any campus or any you know anybody supporting this will be thrown out of the country that much he went so supporting your right religion has become the in thing right now and nobody's complaining about it because religious tolerance taught us that we were falling prey to domination by one particular violent religion and that kind of tolerance was bringing us to our knees jay we were at the mercy of any organization which was formed in the desert they would come to your doorstep in a matter of minutes and you had masterminds who are plotting and planning on bringing down every symbol of democracy or religious tolerance that you had and you know it was falling flat on the face so we have this kind of brazen upliftment of politics in such a way that they support the religion that they believe there is no pretence there is no appeasement and that kind of politics is appealing to the masses yeah but it also it also maybe you can help me with this other phenomenon it's the phenomenon of Vladimir Putin the master of propaganda and disinformation you know he's trying so hard to win the hearts and minds of every Russian and with many Russians he's failing but but with some with maybe millions he's succeeding one of the things he does is he gets the Russian Orthodox Church involved and he corrupts the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and they support him as a matter of religion they support his his crazy war invasion of Ukraine and the expansion of Russia as a religious matter and I'm saying where did that start it certainly did not start with the with the church it did not start with the church wanting to be bigger and more powerful such as these other examples that we've been talking about in this case it's Putin who was who wanted to enhance his propaganda machine by using the leadership the the bishops or whatever their titles are in the Russian Orthodox Church so it's the other direction here in Russia right so he's using the church as something to enhance his power even though he's he's not religious at all he's a completely secular person um so what do you think about that how does that play with the investigation you and I have been making here today he does the most immoral thing of war and then he goes and shows himself to be very religious and bowled down and everything with the Orthodox Church and that has happened on many occasions I mean you really see when you visualize Putin you see him as a very religious pious man but the things that he does are completely different and he is really catering to anti-Christianity or anti-Jewish agenda J he supports these people to a tremendous extent when they can attack Israel and you know that kind of double standards doesn't work well you cannot I told you appeasement politics it's you cannot play both sides you have to take a side which is right and which is wrong if you play in the gray zone white or black if you play in the gray zone he is going to find himself in such a mess and J the more transparent your actions are the more clearer you are in life and he is not clear about many of his actions not all of his actions when he does this when he tries to show that cloak his actions with religion he tries to show that he is pious but he is not he's doing he's having wars which are of a tremendous catastrophic event in countries he's wiping out countries he doesn't care about life religion is all about morality caring for the other respect that doesn't work anywhere so he's just using it now when he talks of China China is brazenly bringing down Islam brazenly you were Muslims the Uighur camps they are not allowed to put Islamic signs on the board they are very clear that they don't like it put in place the balancing act is seesawing between Christianity and Islam that that will hurt him very badly he has to take a proper right to try to stand stand with one side don't play both cards that is always there ah such such interesting vectors such interesting connections here on global connections I really have enjoyed this discussion I learned so much I think the best talk shows we have on think tech are the ones we we learn things that we never anticipated we will learn it's lovely talking beauty thank you dr. group body counter cover this great discussion talk soon thank you always thank you very very much