Religious conversion - a social concern

Conversion – Challenge to Indian Nationalism and National Integration

By Ashok Sahu

Indian nationalism is based on the rock foundation of India’s culture, which is Sanatana culture that is both eclectic and eternal which is the secret of its universality both in terms of time and space. There has been intolerance by all the Semitic cultures in the world and history is replete with instances of barbaric attacks to rob India of her rich culture. Conversion of Indians to Christianity and Islam is directly linked to the alien rule to which India was subjected for more than 1000 years. Since 712 A.D. invaders from across the western border had been attempting to forcefully convert India, the Dar-ul-Harb into Dar-ul-Islam, i.e. an Islamic India which culminated during the reign of Aurangzeb till 1707 A.D. Then came the British period after fall of Plassey in 1757 when Christian missionaries in large number came from Portugal, France, Britain, USA and Germany to ‘harvest souls’ while preaching Gospels of Jesus Christ. The story that St. Thomas came to Kerala in 58 A.D. and Syrian Christians came to South India in the 4th century A.D. is without much of authentication in antiquity. Though during the Mogul period the Muslim rulers were directly involved in getting the Hindu subjects converted to Islam and patronise them by showing preferential treatment, yet during the British rule there was no overt link but covert support to the act of proselytisation by the missionaries. The British administration had divided the Indian Hindus as ‘higher castes’ and the ‘depressed classes’. They had also termed the Janajatis as aborigines and animists. The missionaries had eyed on the depressed classes (SC) and the Janajatis (ST) for conversion who were vulnerable to coercion, allurements, fraud, inducements and pecuniary benefits.

There was no anti-conversion law in India during the pre-independent days. During British regime the rulers themselves were followers of Christianity and understandably they did not enact a law, which could have been detrimental to their own interest by prohibiting conversion from one religion to another. In those days, many Hindus willingly and voluntarily embraced Christianity to secure pecuniary gains besides postings in the British Army and Civil Service, and other advantages from the British rulers. In some of the Princely States there were local laws preventing conversion to Christianity by the missionaries such as the Raigarh State Conversion Act 1936, the Patna Freedom of Religion Act 1942, the Sarguja State Apostasy Act 1945 and the Udaipur State Anti-Conversion Act 1946. Similar laws were enacted in Bikaner Jodhpur, Kalahandi and Kota. These apart, many more Princely States were specifically against conversion to Christianity and enacted anti-conversion laws in their states. During the British Rule there was rampant conversion in the tribal belts in the North East, Chhotnagpur, Orissa, Madras, Mysore, Trivancore, Cochin, Quilon and Hyderabad.

Mahatma Gandhi was vehemently opposed to conversion by the missionaries under garb of human service to the marginalised sections in the society. Gandhiji was one of those Hindus who had studied the scriptures of all the important religions with open mind and without prejudice. In fact Gandhiji had shocked the Christian world by living like Jesus without being a Christian. Like Jesus he disowned all property as well as his relatives; became a celebate at the age of thirty seven, lived a simple life adorned by Truth and like Jesus he had gathered around him followers (apostles) who were prepared to do his bidding without demur. His life-style and his preaching added to his charisma. He had become a phenomenon, an enigma, a saint worshipped by millions of people in India. Christian missionaries were greatly tempted to convert a man like Gandhiji. They thought that if Gandhiji was converted millions of his followers will automatically follow suit. Christian missionaries came from all parts of the world, to discuss with him matters religious but often with the sole aim of converting him to Christianity. They argued with him. He listened to them patiently, argued with them and sometimes even rebuked them for mixing up social work with proselytising.

Gandhiji used to say: “Am certainly against use of hospitals, schools and like for purposes of conversion. It is hardly healthy method and certainly gives rise to bitter resentment. Conversion is a matter of heart and must depend upon silent influence of pure character and conduct of missionaries. True conversion comes imperceptibly like aroma of a rose. Thus am not against conversion as such but am certainly against present methods. Conversion must not be reduced to business depending for increase upon pounds, shillings, pence. I also hold that all great religions are of equal merit to respective nations or individuals professing them. India is in no need of conversion of the type described. Whilst under Swaraj all would be free to exercise their own faiths. Personally, I would wish present methods adopted by missionaries were abandoned even now and that under conviction not compulsion.” He further adds, “I believe that there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another in the accepted sense of the term. It is a highly personal matter for the individual and his God. I may not have any design upon my neighbour as to his faith which I must honour even as I honour my own. For I regard all the great religions of the world as true at any rate for the people professing them as mine is true for me. Having reverently studied the scriptures of the world, I have no difficulty in perceiving the beauties in all of them. I could no more think of asking a Christian or a Mussalman or a Parsi or a Jew to change his faith than I would think of changing my own. This makes me no more oblivious of the limitations of the professors of those faiths, than it makes me of the grave limitations of the professors of mine. And seeing that it takes all my resources in trying to bring my practice to the level of my faith and in preaching the same to my co-religionists, I do not dream of preaching to the followers of other faiths. Judge not lest ye be judged is sound maxim for one’s conduct. It is a conviction daily growing upon me that the great and rich Christian missions will render true service to India, if they can persuade themselves to confine their activities to humanitarian service without the ulterior motive of converting India or at least her unsophisticated villagers to Christianity, and destroying their social superstructure, which not withstanding its many defects has stood now from time immemorial the onslaughts upon it from within and from without.” (Vol. 61 p.454-58 (Harijan. 28-9-1935). In anther occasion he said: “Conversion nowadays has become a matter of business, like any other. I remember having read a missionary report saying how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget for ‘the next harvest’.”

Gandhiji had thus promised ‘whilst under Swaraj all would be free to exercise their own faiths’. Keeping this promise in mind most of the Gandhians in the Constituent Assembly had a positive view while incorporating the Articles 25 to 30 under Freedom of Religion that guarantee to profess, practice, and preach one’s religion. Article 25 is most relevant for present purposes. It is similar to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 25 reads in relevant part as follows: ‘Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion’. The Supreme Court of India has upheld the constitutional validity of the Orissa and Madhya Pradesh anti-conversion laws and held that the right to profess, practice and propagate one’s religion does not include the right to convert some one to one’s religion.

While international instruments do not explicitly recognize a per se right to proselytise, there is a strong case to be made that the religious freedom within Article 18(1) of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) encompasses the right to attempt to peacefully propagate one's religious beliefs. That Article states: Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has commented that 'the freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching encompasses a broad range of acts'. Further, the 'practice and teaching of religion' is said to include the 'freedom to prepare and distribute religious texts and publications'. The Committee has concluded that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is both 'far-reaching and profound'. In light of these observations, it seems reasonable to conclude that the freedom should be interpreted to include distribution of texts and publications to non-adherents where the objective is to secure their conversion. This presupposes that the beneficiaries of biblical literature are already mature and educated enough to comprehend the ‘religious publications’.

The Human Rights Committee has also declared any restrictions on the freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs pursuant to Article 18(3) must be 'directly related and proportionate to the specific need on which they are based.' The Special Rapporteur of the Commission of Human Rights on freedom of religion or belief has similarly concluded that Article 18 allows for restrictions 'only in exceptional circumstances'. In India the separatist movements that threaten the national integration which is evident from the experience in the North East are the ‘exceptional circumstances’ that warrant a national legislation banning conversion of any sort in any part of India. In Peoples Republic of China the Christian missionaries are not allowed any activity. Such a blanket ban would not infringe the avowed secular credentials of our Constitution, as it would be uniformly applicable to all religions.

The Freedom of Religion clause under articles 25-30 has been grossly abused by the missionaries. Despite anti-conversion laws conversion is going on unabated in violation of the provisions of the statute book in states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat besides the tribe-dominated states in the North East. In the North East, in 1941-1951 the tribal Nagas and Mizos were converted from almost 0% to 90%. During the same period the Meghalaya also witnessed 75% of its population converted to Christianity. After large scale conversion, right from 1948 the NSCN and the MNF demanded to secede from Indian Union and their leaders were given political asylum in the UK. The militant outfits waged war against India. Though the Mizo imbroglio is over but, the Naga crisis still continues unresolved even after 60 years of its genesis. After independence, in the present Jharkhand, North Chhatisgarh and Sundergarh, Koraput, Kandhmal and Gajapati Districts of Orissa, up to 30% of the tribal population were converted to Christianity. The separatist unrest in these regions was the upshot of the religious conversion, which Mahatma Gandhi had always apprehended. Religion and nationalism are always intertwined in shaping the thought process of a nation. The recent examples on the Global map are East Timor, Kosovo and Bosnia, dismemberment of USSR, and the South Korea where due to religious predominance of a particular sect separate independent states were truncated from out of the parent states. In independent India, between 1967 and 2007 in order to check this trend many states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Arunanchal, Gujrat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu etc. enacted anti-conversion laws to prevent mass conversions by force, fraud, allurement, inducement and cheating. In 2006 Madhya Pradesh amended its 1968 Act and made it mandatory requiring a person embracing another religion to give advance information to the authorities.

After Independence and in the changed democratic set-up, public opinion against conversion became vigilant and assertive. In a predominantly Hindu Society, a large-scale conversion of Hindus to Christianity or Islam has a tendency to disturb the local custom and faith as well as indigenous institutions and thereby rob the local people of their indigenous culture. It generates disharmony, inter-class cleavages and fosters a rift in the society that disintegrates the body politic. It disturbs the social structure and leads to a clash of cultures. Conversions arouse resentment and indignation and help to the flames of communal frenzy and passion creating problems of Law and Order.

In Madhya Pradesh, having a large population of tribal known as “Adivasis”, the Government received number of reports that large-scale conversions of tribal to Christians were taking place by threat, inducement and other fraudulent means by foreign missionaries and the Government should put an end to this unhealthy practice. The Government then constituted an inquiry commission in April, 1954 headed by Dr Bhavani Shankar Niyogi, retired Chief Justice of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and comprising five other members including S. K. George, a Christian and a true Gandhian and working as Professor in the Commerce College at Wardha. The Commission toured fourteen districts and visited seventy- seven places. It examined 11,300 persons coming from 770 villages and sent questionnaires and received reports from 375 institutions, which included 55 Christian institutions. The Niyogi Committee Report was published by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in July 1956. This Committee presented the history of Christian Missions with reference to the old Madhya Pradesh and merged States. Even at that time there was a public agitation fomented by the Missionaries for the creation of a new State in Jharkhand. Upon this request, the Niyogi Committee said: 'The separatist tendency that has gripped the mind of the aboriginals under the influence of Lutheran and Roman Catholic Missions is entirely due to the consistent policy pursued by the British Government and the Missionaries. The final segregation of the aborigines in the Census of 1931 from the main body of the Hindus considered along with the recommendations of the Simon Commission which were incorporated in the Government of India Act, 1935 apparently set the stage for the demand of a separate State of Jharkhand on the lines of Pakistan'.

The Niyogi Committee observed that the aim of many of the Christian Missions was to resist the progress of national unity.

Their aim was to take advantage of the freedom accorded by the Constitution of India to the propagation of religion and to create a Christian Party in the name of Indian Democracy on lines of the Muslim League ultimately to make out a claim for a separate State, or at least to create a 'militant minority'.

The Niyogi Committee further stated that in order to achieve the above objectives the Christian Missionaries in India had received an amount of Rs.29.27 crores from various Western countries from January 1950 to June 1954. U.S.A. contributed an amount of Rs.20.68 Crores followed by U.K. which contributed an amount of Rs.4.83 crores.

The Niyogi Committee concluded: 'Bulk of this foreign money received ostensibly for educational and medical institutions is spent on proselytising. Most of the amount is utilised for creating a class of professional proselytizers, both foreign and Indian. There is a great disparity between the scales of salaries and allowances paid to foreign Missionaries on the one hand and to their native mercenaries on the other'. The Madhya Pradesh Government upon receiving pseudo secular directions from the Government of India buried the Niyogi Committee Report in 1956 itself. However, the Niyogi Committee Report which was accompanied by two volumes of documentation raised a storm in Missionary circles in India and abroad. The only Indian leader apart from Guruji Golwalkar who welcomed the Niyogi Committee Report was Rajaji, who said: ‘ Such Missionary attempts at proselytism tend to destroy family and social harmony, which is not a good thing to do'.

However, some of the salient points among the recommendations made by the Commission are as follows:-

1) Christian missionaries are converting innocent and ignorant people to Christianity by offering various inducements such as free education, free medical facilities and employment opportunities.

2) Christian institutions are receiving funds and other contributions from foreign countries.

3) These Christian institutions are controlled by the Churches of foreign countries.

4) It is, therefore, necessary to enact legislation banning conversion.

On these recommendations of the Committee, the Madhya Pradesh Government passed the anti-conversion law known as Madhya Pradesh Swantraya Adhiniyam Act, 1968 prohibiting conversion from one religion to another religion. Orissa was the first state in independent India to enact a law called Orissa Freedom of Religion Act 1967. These were soon followed by the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 1978 to provide for prohibition of conversion from one religious faith to another by use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means. The Union Territory of Tripura also passed a similar enactment. Whether the fundamental right to practice and propagate religion includes the right to convert, was considered by the Supreme Court of India in the case of Rev Stanislaus vs Madhya Pradesh, AIR 1977 SC 908 in which the constitutional validity of the conversion-prohibiting laws enacted by Madhya Pradesh and Orissa was challenged. The Bench observed: "We have no doubt that it is in this sense that the word `propagate' has been used in Article 25 (1), for what the Article grants is not the right to convert another person to one's own religion, but to transmit or spread one's religion by an exposition of its tenets."

The Parliament as early as 1954 took up for consideration legislative enactment banning conversion known as Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill and later in 1960 the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill and they had to be dropped for lack of majority support. A Bill was introduced in Parliament by a member O.P. Tyagi called “The Freedom of Religion Bill 1978”. The Bill was a modified and improved version of the legislative enactments of the Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. As there was no sufficient support in Parliament the Bill was withdrawn by the private member O.P. Tyagi. Notwithstanding the abortive attempts for a national legislation banning conversion, it is still felt pertinent to have a stringent law with nation wide jurisdiction so that the Christian missionaries are restrained from mass conversion of people as a scheme financed and patronised by foreign funding and diplomatic support.

1991 to 2000, the last decade of the second millennium is euphemistically referred to by the Christians whole over the world as the ‘Universal Decade of Evangelization’. Some 80 world wide plans and other 500 national plans had been announced with 2000 AD as their target dates. In this declared ‘decade of harvest’ the USA, the UK, Germany, Italy and Australia have pumped millions of US dollars into India through multi-national NGOs operating in India with the sole aim to convert as many Indians as possible from among the ‘marginalised’ section of its Hindu population. American Evangelical agencies have established in India an enormous, well co-ordinated and strategised religious conversion plan. This plan got a fillip after George W. Bush Jr. became President in 2001. At the heart of this complex and sophisticated operation is a simple strategy – convert locals and then give them the know-how and money to plant their own churches and multiply. Orissa Kandhmal is their laboratory where 20% are Dalit Pana and 52% are Janajatis in the district population, of whom 80% are below poverty line. Christian NGOs get their funding from their American patrons or from USAID. These groups like CARE, World Vision, Jana Vikash, Asha Kiran etc. are traditionally closely linked with successive American governments. In violation of the various provisions under the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act (FCRA), these world bodies have been receiving financial contributions in India ultimately intended for conversion. The annual budget by Western countries exceeds Rs. 1, 75,000 crores per annum. Such amount during 2007-08 exceeded Rs. 8,000 crores only for spending in India. In the Gajapati ADP (Area Development Programmes), situated in Gumma block of Orissa’s Gajapati district, a World Vision report admits that “Canadian missionaries have worked in the area for just over 50 years and to-day 85-90 per cent of the community is Christian”. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is “monitoring very closely” the legislation against religious conversions enacted in Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and other states. This only shows how foreign missionaries are evincing keen interest and their meticulous follow-up action on conversion activities in India. Globally supported and funded Christian missionaries are functioning with unabated zeal and enthusiasm to spread their tentacles to find out victims for conversion. Allurement and cheating are clubbed in the singular operation of micro-financing by the NGOs to the socially and economically marginalized families who after their inability to pay even the borrowed capital mortgage their faith at the altar of Jesus in lieu of the writing off of the loan amount. It is against such sinister designs that Swami Laxamananandji fought relentlessly and taught self esteem and dignity to the poor and illiterate tribe Kandhs in Kandhmal for last 40 years.

The GCOWE (Global Consultation on World Evangelization) in 1995 in Seoul, South Korea, where nearly 4000 Christian leaders from 186 countries including India, gathered to draw up secret and covert evangelical plans. Many American evangelists now describe GCOWE as “the most strategic Christian gathering in history”. That year also saw the transformation of the movement to a higher plane in the name of Joshua Project. Grassroots networking structure, a “network of networks” was planned to cover the entire world through schemes like PREM, NICE and PLUG. PLUG means people in every language, urban centre and geographic division. NICE stands for networking through initiatives and conversion by evangelization. PREM refers to techniques like Prayer, Research, Evangelization and Mobilisation. So it is evident that there is an international pressure and conspiracy which has to be fought at the diplomatic level giving topmost priority to the national security. Mass scale proselytisation is intended to weaken India by promoting insurgencies in the strategically important sectors. It may be noted that the Arakan Hills belt bordering with Myanmar is rich with uranium and petroleum. Both these are very vital for national economy.

As is generally known, Christian proselytising activities have been specially concentrated in areas of relatively of high presence of scheduled tribes. There are 63 districts in the country where Christian presence has reached 10 percent or more; in 42 of these districts scheduled tribes form 50 or more of the population. Of these, 34 are in north-eastern states. The remaining 8 districts are: Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills of Assam; Gumla of Jharkhand; Sundergarh, Kandhmal and Gajapati of Orissa; Jashpur of Chhatisgarh; and Nicobars district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The remaining 21districts with Christian presence of more than 10 per cent include Dibang Valley and Changlang of Arunachal Pradesh, Senapati of Manipur, Kokrajhar of Assam and Wayanad of Kerala, all of which have significantly high presence of tribals. They form more than 20% of the population and much more in several of them. There are only 16 districts that have significant Christian presence of more than 10% along with negligibly small presence of scheduled tribes. These 16 include 9 districts of Kerala; the Nilgiris, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari of Tamil Nadu; both districts of Goa and Andamans. It seems that the Christian proselytising activities have been specially concentrated in the areas where tribals form a majority, and there is little presence of non-tribal society to interfere with these activities. Thus the Northeast including the tea garden areas in Assam and Nicobar Islands has been rapidly proselytized. Success of proselytisation among dalits has not been as rampant as among the tribals. But in Kandhmal 20% of total population is Pana (SC) of whom 60% have been converted to Christianity, where as 52% are Kandh tribe of whom only 4% could be converted to Christianity. There are only 5 districts in the country where dalits form 20% or more of the population and yet have a Christian presence of 5% or more. These are Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Nilgiris and Ariyalur of Tamil Nadu and Gurudaspur of Punjab. But it is also perhaps true that more than half of Christians in the country are from among the Scheduled Castes who do not disclose their religion during census. They constitute the crypto Christians and are leading the Dalit Christian movement whose Constitutional status for benefiting out of the reservation facilities is pending for decision before the Supreme Court.

The Anti-conversion laws enacted between 1967 and 2007 made forced conversion a cognisable offence under sections 295 A and 298 of the Indian Penal Code that stipulate that malice and deliberate intention to hurt the sentiments of others is a penal offence punishable by varying durations of imprisonment and fines. As early as 1967, it became evident that the concern was not just with forced conversion, but with conversion to any religion other than Hinduism and especially Christianity and Islam. In the Orissa and Madhya Pradesh Acts, the punishment was to be doubled if the offence had been committed in respect of a minor, a woman or a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe community. These may be seen as further reinforcing the several statutory penalties for ceasing to be a Hindu such as the 1955-56 Hindu Law enactments namely Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 (Section 6), Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956 (Sections 7, 8, 9, 11, 18-24), Hindu Marriage Act 1955 (Sections 13 (ii), 13 A) and the Hindu Succession Act (section 26). The picture is complete if we account for the fact that most of these laws are aimed to keep the low caste Hindus within the fold of Hinduism. And so while law prohibits conversion, `reconversion' of low caste Hindus is permissible. If a low caste Hindu who had converted to another faith or any of his descendants reconverts to Hinduism, he might get back his original caste (Kailash Sonkar (1984) 2 SCC 91; S. Raja Gopal AIR 1969 SC 101).

The brutal murder of Swami Shanti Kaliji Maharaj in Tripura in August 2000 and most recently the cold blooded murder of Vedanta Keshari Swami Laxamananandji Maharaj on 23 August 2008 in Orissa remind us of the nefarious means that missionaries could adopt to go ahead with their conversion spree even by eliminating saints who come on their way of proselytisation. The Hindu population has increased less than 200% in Kandhmal district in Orissa over a span of 40 years from 1961 to 2001. During the same period the Christian population has increased by 600% and there is a proportionate decline in the number of Pana Caste among Hindus. According to the District authorities the officially converted in accordance with the provisions of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 and the Orissa Freedom of Religion Rules, 1989 are only two persons in one family till 2007. Despite an Act by the Orissa Legislature and relentless protests and emancipation programmes by Swamiji, more than one lakh have been converted in one district alone in Orissa during last forty years. At last, the lone fighter was brutally murdered along with his four associates while in his Ashram on 23rd August 2008. This shows how desperate and merciless the missionaries could be under the cloak of egalitarianism. Service is the façade and conversion is the purpose for them. The whole nation has to rise to the occasion much before enough damage is done by the perpetrators to the detriment of the national security.

The Writer is a retired IPS officer and Former Additional DGP of Assam. Presently staying at Cuttack in Orissa. (ashoksahu53@yahoo.com)