Out-sourcing Religion

Religious outsourcing goes to the heavens

The Tribune
New Delhi, June 21, 2004
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040622/biz.htm#5
Whoever said only information technology is the golden goose for India is wrong. Religious process outsourcing (RPOs) could certainly be the next big thing.

Believe it or not, but the shortage of priests in the United States, UK and other Western countries and the low cost of conducting these prayers in India has led to outsourcing of prayers here.

Churches in Kerala, gurdwaras in Punjab and temples and ashrams all across the country are receiving ‘bulk orders’ for mass, puja, havan and akhand path.

“The concept isn’t as outlandish as it sounds.

Intercessory prayers — where one person prays for, or on behalf of, someone else, who is religiously ‘challenged’ — is regularly practised by many and even has the approval of the Vatican,” says Fr. Dominique Emmanuel, spokesman of Delhi Catholic Archdiocese.

“Religious outsourcing is not something which has sprung up overnight. It has been happening for quite sometime now but media attention has been drawn towards it because of the debate on outsourcing now,” says Fr. Emmanuel.

“Religious outsourcing is on the rise because of a general decrease in the number of vocations in West, especially of priests and nuns. This is happening since the late ’60s, when new ideas came in Church and many priests left their orders,” he says.

He says in Catholics, priests offer a mass with an intention daily morning. But because of the shortage of priests, Mass cannot be arranged for every intention. Thus most of them are outsourced to India, or for that matter, any other country, which has no shortage of priests and churches, he adds.

The same seems to be the case with pujas and akhand paths in gurdwaras. “Sikhs arrange for a 48-hour recital of Guru Granth Sahib (the holy scripture of Sikhs) for thanksgiving. Paying for the people who would read the holy book as also arrangement for ‘langar’ (food) costs around $ 1,000 (Rs 46,000, nearly) in the US, while here it comes to Rs 5000,” says Sant Mohinder Singh of Dera Mohanpur.

“Also, there is a shortage of trained people who can read the Holy Scripture continuously. So most of the prayers are outsourced by Sikhs to India, he says noting “the NRIs also have emotional attachment with the religious places here. So they prefer that prayers are conducted here.”

Agrees an official from ‘puja.by-choice.com’, an online group, which conducts yagnas and pujas, “the reason why NRIs prefer to get it done from India is to do with genuineness, purity and the fact that it is being performed by ‘true’ Brahmins.” “People like to be connected to the source. Puja and yagnas performed in other countries tend to be more ‘modernised’ and ‘packaged’. West is very expensive, so performing these rituals according to Vedic tradition would be outrageously expensive and out of the reach of most people,” he says.

Moreover, people are realising that prayer knows no boundaries. Ms Renoo Nirula, a clairvoyant, was recently approached by a hospital in Israel to send healing to infants suffering from AIDS and cancer in their neo-natology wing.

About the way prayer outsourcing is done, Father Emmanuel says “there are various orders and most of them have offices worldwide from where the requests come. So it is wrong to say, as has been pointed out in some reports, that priests get paid in dollars for these prayers. Whatever is given goes to the order.” As far as pujas are concerned, those conducted at big ashrams and temples are managed online as ‘puja.by-choice’ official claims, “the process is transparent.” “In the last 14 years we have entertained requests from 26 countries including USA, UK, Australia, Africa and South America,” he says.

“Though majority of the requests for these prayers are made by elderly Indians living abroad, it is interesting to note that during the last five years, those in the age group of 18-35 are requesting for prayers,” he says. — PTI