Conversion: Sin or
Sincerity?
Reigious Conversion : Sin or
Sincerity ?
(Cross Posted from RISA-L list. Also appeared in print in the
magazine 'Sulekha')
The debate about conversion in the wake of Papal visit to India,
has touched
many aspects of intellectual and religious shifts for various
impulsions such as
conviction, social mobility, improved respectibility or the lure
of money. But
unfortunately most of this debate has been narrowed down to the
present socio-political
scenario in India, instead of coverig in its ambit the historical
facts about the spread
of major religions of the world.
Also there is not only history but a future to think about. The
Papal call for
the Asian Harvest of Faith cannot be seen merely as an exercise to
swell the populance
of faithfuls to swell the coffers of the Church which is losing
ground in the opulant
West. It has the primary notion inherant in Christianity that it
alone is the true
religion and others are condemned to error and hence are lost. Is
it not mandatory for
the Christian leadership to pluralise its dogma and begin to offer
its way as one more
instead of the only way?
There are many cliches about the bids to conversion that are kept
alive by
vested interests that prevent us from seeing and evaluating the
evangelical agenda. The
first and foremeost is that conversion controversy is not a
religious issue but a
vote-catching device. It is projected as a Hindu Right versus
Progressive Left
confrontation.
Hence the debate after the Papal visit is being made a repeat of
the script
churned out last year in the wake of Christian-Hindu clashes in
the tribal areas of
Gujarat. Last year too, the discussions on conversions had been
held entirely under a
political colouring. The whole history of religious movements in
India and of
Christianity in India and other parts of the world was ignored and
the debate smothered
by cliches of "communal versus secular syndrome". The
tangle was projected as the
antics of the stumbling Hindu Right to malign Sonia Gandhi, the
Christian "bahu" of the
Hindu Nehru Parivar, planning a mid-term poll to oust them. Time
has only shown that
the very the agenda of proselytization by world-wide Christian and
Islamic organisations
has grown over and above the subcontinental political interests.
Proselytisation is,
indeed, not just a battle for votes, but a battle for souls with a
long history,
cultural beliefs and behaviour patterns that goes far beyond the
smaller fortunes of
the Nehru or the Sangh Parivar.
The second cliche about the conversions is that conversions have
always been a
result of lowest caste Hindus turning to other faiths to escape
the oppression by
higher varna. A section of the intellectuals live under the
misconception that in the
Vedic times or ancient times Hindu castes were not by birth but by
merit (Guna) and
profession (karma) and later became so rigid that they were
defined only by birth only.
They blame the Hindu population, its Shankaracharyas and VHP
particularly, though not
the Congress or the MArxists, for not declaring and propogating
that there is no
authority in the Vedas for birth-based varnas. They also hope that
non-rigidity and
upward mobility shall bring a Hindu reform and stop what they
admit is a "one-way
traffic of conversions to other religions." This is a
palliative that seemed to have
satisfied a vast amount of modern Hindus with reformist
convictions ranging from Brahmo
Samaj to Lohia and other socialists. This understanding of the
phenomenon is not only
ill-informed of facts but is also self contradictory.
These progressives are very shy to define "reform". Do
they mean doing away
with caste altogether or only providing greater mobility to the
lowest rungs through
Mandalisation or giving a new definition of caturvarna by modern
professions through
Guna and Karma, or yet some other formula ? The Congress is as
timid as any other party
in starting a caste-clastic (jati-bhanjak) movement. Such a
movement is much needed to
modernise and truly democratise Hindu society but it shall not
provide any security
against conversion conflicts.
As a matter of fact caste has little to do with conversion. No
Christian convert
looses his caste and gains a status of even workable equality with
upper caste
Christians, otherwise the Churches of all denominations in India
would not have been
so supportive of reservation for Christians on caste basis. The
motive to become Muslim
or Christian was seldom freedom from caste hierarchy. For
populations it was always
either force or allurement of economic uplift, for stray
individuals it can be anything
from philosophy to sex.
Christianity arrived in India in the first century or latest by
second century
even if it is to be belived that it was not St. Thomas but his
later disciples who
brought it here. According to the proponents of "a later
rigidification of varnas"
theory, by this time the caste-system had become oppresssive. If
Christianity was such
a relief for the underdogs why did it not grow leaps and bounds
from its very arrival ?
As a matter of fact, let alone in India, in the Mediterranean as
well, early Christians
were not focussing upon the destitute entirely to multiply their
fold. They influenced
among the highly placed sections of the Roman and Greek
bureaucracy and rulers as well
and their great expansion came only after the baptism of
Constantine the Roman Emperor.
In India, Christianity remained in isolation till the Protestant
British gave it
an impetus, keeping at bay even the older Orthodox Christians.
Similarly, Islamic
rulers did not target the lower-caste Hindus much, as they were
incapable of supporting
the Turkish, Afghan and later Mughal elite. They left them to the
more eclectic Sufis
whom they seldom promoted or patronised but often persecuted as
potential spokesmen of
the poor of both the beliefs. An unabashed instigator of
proselytisation, the historian
Ziauddin Barni advised the state to target the Brahmin
intellegesia and the big Hindu
landowners and merchants to be cowed into submission and
conversion. The ruling Muslims
in India never objected to the varna-jati hierarchy as they
themslves believed in
social status by birth, lord and slave, ashraf and ajlaf, and
Hindu hierarchy was
conveniently used to reinforce their own hierarchy. It is in very
late period, nearly
at towards the dusk of Mughal rule that a larger number of the
low-caste Hindus
converted to Islam as they were sucked in by the economic
allurement of preferential
treatment to converts.
The belief that in all humans are born equal was given as a social
agenda only
after the Industrial and the French Revolutions. But much before
that the religious
ideal of proselytsing was used by the Christians colonialists to
almost entirely
convert followers of traditional religions belonging to agrarian ,
hunting and forest
societies of American, African and other continents to intigrate
them into the colonial
set ups through the overt and covert push and pull of
"education and medical care"
(which could also be called initiation into industrial consumerism
and allopathy from
erstwhile simpler economies and herbal medicine).
In the modern era, conversion to Christiaity means both a
well-planned degree of
ubranisation and "Westernisation" as M.N Srinivas
defined it. The ancient Indian Hindu
or medieval Hindu ruling classes had no such needs nor expertise
to enter deep forests
or hills to widen their civilisational ambit. Hence, the VHP
reconversion bids are
riduculously crude as compared to the subtle cultural penetration
perfected by the
Christian evengelists.
It is not totally true that the primary motive of Christian
missionaries of any
denomination is to improve the standards of life for the poor, the
marginalised and the
aborigines. If this was so vast populations of the South American
and the African
Continents would not be living even after conversion in poverty
and exploitation by the
rich Christian West. For most converts, the health and education
programs of the Church
are only up to the point of baptism. Nor it is true that any kind
of serious
intellectual or spiritual persuation goes into the act of taking
most the simpler folks
into the fold. A mix of medicine and faith healing demonstrating
the power of the new
God and his Son, is employed. To take an example from the tribal
areas of the Dangs of
Gujarat itself, as admits a researcher Mr. Irfan Engineer, "
If the bhagat could not
help him/her get rid of the evil spirit, which the Adivasi
believes is the reason for
his /her disease and the Christian prayer could, he/she prays , in
addition to all Devs,
to Yesudev or Esudev whose superior power over the spirit has been
demonsatrated"
(Hindu 23.1.99). Such tactics reveal that the objective is to
achieve targets of
numerically successful proselytisation.
Last year, much of the trouble in Gujarat seems to have started
when the
Church has found a rival proselytiser in the VHP who also want to
ensure a high
head-count by branding the tribals as Hindus by token rituals. It
is strange however,
that the some Indian liberals approve of the route of Christian
assimilation of tribals
into urban culture but condemn the Hindu route to urbanisation.
And this
notwithstanding the fact that tribal religious practices of
possession and animism are
closer or identical with many Hindu practices but have always been
anathema in
Christianity. The truama that tribal socities face through either
route and the
deprivation they go through both ways to be nobody's concern. The
ancient urbanites
were less presumptuous to as their powers of penetration were
limited.
The fourth cliche that hovers on the conversion debate is the view
that
conversions have always been going on in India, from followers of
the Veda to those of
Buddha or Mahavira, to worshippers of Shakti or Tantra or
vice-versa. This perception
overlooks the fact that conversions merely meant sectarian
transition. They required no
cultural transitions of language, music, or basic rituals of life
and death. Above all
the rock-bottom common Indian beliefs of reincarnation, world as
transient suffering,
doctrine of karma, acceptance of the divine both as icon and
formless, and final
knowledge through supra-mental remain unchanged. Changing
allegiance, then from one to
another was pretty much like the sheep crossing from one Christian
fold to another.
It did not mean a transition to the Judaic covenant with God, in
the absence of which, a
person is denied salvation of any kind. For a Shavite, a
Vaishavite is different, but
not damned and not needed to be saved from heathenism or kufra.
Proselytising is not a
sacred duty and martyrdom no sure way to salvation. The
inter-mixing of beliefs, rituals
and practices of various denominations in India is ample testimony
to that. Even now,
when Hindu preachers make adherents of yoga and meditation in the
West, but only a few
insist on reliquishment of the earlier faith. Intermixing is, in
fact, encouraged an
article of new faith.
But Christianity and Islam have carried a special burden of saving
souls and
used the opportune moments of political patronage to expand
drastically. These religions
are exclusivist as they do not like to mix norms of worship and
social conduct with
other faiths. The huge and rich outfits of proselytisation that
both maintain globally
cannot be ignored. By now their methods have centuries of
experience behind them. To
hold its ground Hinduism can deal with them only through dialogue
and discussion,
violent confrontation being the worst way as it shall give
proselytizers the status of
healers. Even token "reconversion" campaigns are
ill-advised as they make a mockery of
religious faith.
The task is to make people aware of their own traditional beliefs,
whether of
well-defined Hinduism or modes of primal (now called tribal) faith
and leave them to
choose. It will be the best thing to hold open discussions on
various kinds of
religious convictions of different faiths, Christianity and Islam
no less, so that
people acquire a flexible and open attitude of give and take in
formulating religious
convictions. All faiths stand to gain by syncretism, the temper in
offing for the
coming millennium. At the same time, the biggest need is to
provide education and
health primarily for local needs and life-styles without urban
bias and religious
bigotry so that economic allurement does not colour matters of
conscience. India can
ill-afford a battle for souls, conversion and reconversion, in
years to come.
Bharat Gupt
Assiciate Professor , Delhi University.
If you enjoyed this
article , please visit: http://www.hinduunity.org
|
|
