Skip to main content

Religious conversion: outdated concept


“... the worst thing of all is religious proselytism, which paralyses: 'I am talking with you in order to persuade you,' No. Each person dialogues, starting with his and her own identity. The church grows by attraction, not proselytising.”

It is Pope Francis who said it in a recent interview he gave to an Argentine weekly.  The Catholic Church was the foremost champion of religious conversions for centuries.  The Church now has a visionary leader in the person of the Pope. 

What reminded me of the interview is a report that appeared on the front page of today’s Hindu with the headline, BJP, Parivar outfits to intensify campaign against ‘love jihad’.  The last paragraph of the report reads:

“On December 23, the martyrdom day of Swami Shraddhanand (the leader of the 19th century Shuddhi (re-conversion) movement) we will convert Muslims to Hinduism in at least 50 locations in west UP” he [Rajeshwar Singh, coordinator of Religious Awakening, an affiliate of the RSS] said.  “On December 25, the day when Christians convert people to their religion, this year, we will do the reverse – by converting them back to Hinduism.  In two-three years, the rural hinterland will be free of Christians.”  Asked how he planned to convince people to become Hindus, he said, “It will be a test of who is stronger, Hindus or them.  You just wait and watch.”

The irony is striking.  The supreme leader of the religion which was the champion of religious conversions in the bygone era is saying that religious conversion is “the worst thing” and in the India of the electronic era a leader of a religion which was against religious conversions of any form (including intra-religion conversions: from one caste to another) is threatening us with forced conversions. 

“My instincts tell me that Modi will only work for the corporate sector and use one particular religious community for furthering his ends.  Modi will engender a civil war in the country if he becomes its Prime Minister, my instincts predict.”  I wrote this in a blog on Feb 16, much before Mr Modi was ensconced on the throne in Indraprastha.  My instincts are perturbed again now.  People like Rajeshwar Singh and organisations like Religious Awakening don’t enter the front page of national dailies without powerful political backing.  I hope time will prove my instincts wrong.  Let there be peace and harmony in the country.  “Let noble thoughts come to us from every side,” as Rig Veda says (1:89-i).

Is it worthwhile to fall back on religion in order to achieve any objective in the contemporary world which is driven by science and technology?  Why are people like Rajeshwar Singh unable to understand that the religion, particularly the kind that is propped up by him, is a regressive agency in today’s global society?

The answer is evident to anyone who has studied history in some detail.  The answer is that it is not about religion at all.  It is about political power.  Religion has become the handmaiden of political power umpteen times in history, each with disastrous consequences to certain segments of populations. 

R G Collingwood, professor of metaphysics, defined civilisation as an attitude (in contradistinction to process or progress) which tends to create a society that is “less violent, more scientific and more welcoming to outsiders” [as quoted by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto in his massive book, Civilizations].

When science and its technology have pervaded every aspect of our lives, when countries have opened up their borders to people from anywhere, when the whole world is aspiring to move towards a global human society, why are some people in India thinking of driving a wedge between communities?


Is a religious identity important to India anymore?  If it indeed is important, then the best advice is what I quoted at the beginning of this blog.  Not conversion but attraction.  Attract people to your religion by your good deeds.  Let your light so shine that people are drawn towards it naturally.  Force is an outdated concept among people who possess the attitude called civilisation. 

Comments

  1. The leadership of a country indirectly decides What kind of people and groups become active in a country . Under the present leadership we can expect a lot of these regressive people and groups. They whould do well to remember that correcting the mistakes of the past is not by repeating the same mistakes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pernicious elements in a country get their pep pills the moment their leaders come to power. There must be many people who took part in the Gujarat riots of 2002 that are now forming organisations like Religious Awakening. Unless Mr Modi puts his foot down and opens his heart wide, we're going to witness a dark period soon in the history of the country. But certain appointments and promotions made recently prove that Mr Modi is not going to put any of his organs in the right places.

      Delete
  2. I too am very worried on this account.
    I have lots of hope in Modi oovt. hope they don't ruin this country with petty issues like this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anyone in the right mind has ample reasons to worry, Indrani. Let's still hope.

      Delete
  3. i too had high hopes with Modi Government....thought that once he dons himself with sceptre and crown, he would come forth with a positive and impartial view...but I'm worried now....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mani, your phrase "sceptre and crown" conveys more than what an ordinary reader would understand. And that's exactly what I meant by using words like "ensconced" and "Indraprastha".

      Delete
  4. Wonderfully presented. Very compelling thoughts...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very glad to welcome you to this space, Siddharth.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser