Jersey City Jehovah's Witnesses Reach Out To Indian Americans.
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/05/jersey_city_jehovahs_witnesses_reach_out_to_indian.html
On a recent Sunday morning, Isaac Mata, a Boston-based Indian American software-engineer, drove some 200 miles to Jersey City, not for a family or business get-together, but to participate in the Jehovah's Witnesses' biannual circuit-level convention for people of Indian origin.
Inside the JW Assembly Hall in the historic old Stanley Theater building at Journal Square on April 19, Mata along with his wife, Kalyani, a medical doctor, sat in one of the second-floor side auditoriums with their two small children listening to the daylong proceedings that focused on seeking peace and pursuing it in family and social life.
The couple -- both of whom are from Hyderabad, India, and born to Hindu parents -- faithfully held copies of the Bible in Hindi in their hands like all others present throughout the six-hour-long convention. On the podium were two people – one reading from the Bible and the other translating the gospel in chaste Hindi.
"It was such a wonderful experience, and so enlightening for all of us," Mata said afterward. "It was really worthwhile to come all the way from Boston.''
Almost similar were the feelings of people like Jeevan Gozzlamudi of Westchester and many others among close to 500 attendees, an overwhelming majority of whom were originally from India.
The zeal and religious fervor among those present seemed somewhat infectious. People shared smiles and signs of devotion, placing their hands on their chests. Their heads dropped in reverence and eyes were riveted on the Hindi Bibles on their laps.
Besides New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, attendees came from Pennsylvania and other Eastern states.
Kaushik Macwan of Union City, an Indian American from Gujarat, the state India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to, said that there is no doubt that the following among Indians Americans is increasing.
"We started with one congregation in 2004 in Edison,'' he said. "From there today we have four, five congregations in New Jersey. Our presence and following also are increasing in Jersey City. ... There has been a tremendous growth of followers because Indians are hungry of spiritual knowledge and they want to learn the ultimate truth.''
Organizer Ralph Joseph, who described himself as a "community elder,'' said the convention started several years ago with some 200 hundred people of Indian origin and has now soared to well over 1,000 -- both in-person at the Square and through simulcasts being shown in other locations.
"The great part is the impact that it has made on the lives of people, he said. "Attendance here today was 493 people, to be exact. If you add the six other locations, including Toronto, where this is being live-cast, the number will be well over 1,000. This definitely is a progress."
In India, Christians comprise less than 3 percent of the country's 1.25 billion population and are targeted for re-conversion back to Hinduism through a controversial program known as ghar wapsi, or homecoming, which was started in 2014 in some parts of India.
Recently, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noted with concern that in December, Hindu nationalist groups announced plans to forcibly "reconvert" at least 4,000 Christian and 1,000 Muslim families.
"I know there are political connotations of conversion and the so called homecoming in India," Mata said in response to a question, nothing that he and his wife became Jehovah's Witnesses seven years ago in Chicago. "I do not want to talk about this. For me, it is not a conversion in the religious sense of the term. But for me and my family, it has more to do with spirituality than religion. I got converted on my own will and volition and to satisfy my spiritual thirst."