Moving away from 33 crore gods
By abhay mokashi
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regularly keeps raising the issue of conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity. With the ensuing legislative assembly elections in five states, it helps the party to talk about alleged conversion of Hindus to Islam and Christianity, in order to polarise the Hindu votes. The party is joined by other Hindu organisations in making such claims.
Few of the cases of conversion have been proved to be true, while most cases are questionable. A BJP legislator from Karnataka Goolihatti Shekhar has claimed that his mother Ratnamma was forcibly converted to Christianity. If the charge is true, one wonders, how the mother of a fanatic Hindu could be converted to Christianity. Even if one presumes that the conversion was forced, it cannot be done at her residence. She must have come in contact with some Christians or exposed to the Bible and its teachings to get to know about Christianity.
Shekhar needs to come clean on what his mother was doing with Christians, if he alleges that she was forcibly converted to Christianity. What rituals were performed to convert her, has not been stated.
Religious belief and practice are extremely personal and there should not be interference by anybody in another person’s belief and practice. An individual’s relationship with her/his god is like the relationship between a husband and wife, not meant to be made known to the public.
Allegations are made that some people have been lured with good amount of money to convert from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity. There is nothing wrong in that, even if it is true. There is no need to condemn a person who, finding it difficult to live due to poverty, sacrificing a religion to join another for financial rewards.
BJP leaders and activists condemning such inducements should remember that their party has lured many political personalities belonging to other political parties, to join it. There have been unsubstantiated allegations of financial transactions to attract political leaders, but it has been proved that they have been given electoral tickets, ministerial berths or appointments to some statutory bodies. There is no need to differentiate between giving up a political belief, which is public knowledge and accepting another religion, which is a personal issue.
If people can change their political views, sometimes faster than they change clothes, there is nothing wrong in changing one’s religion.
Opponents of conversions need to find out what forces people to give up 33 crore gods, to worship a single god of another religion.
The strength of a religion should be in its teachings and not in the hands of some self-professed guardians of it. Rather than protesting against conversions or using violence, they should practice their religion in a manner that other practitioners do not feel the need to say goodbye to it.
The greatness of a religion is not dependent on how many people follow it, but on the behaviour of its followers and their contribution to the society. The propogandists of Hinduism should ensure that their behaviour is good and they contribute to the welfare of humanity in general, irrespective of caste or religion.
There are several prayer centres run by believers in Christ and a large number of people have given up various forms of addictions by going to these centres and have ended up accepting Jesus as their god. Hindu leaders (they are not leaders of Hindus or Hinduism) should do such acts in the name of their gods and they have a wide choice of gods. They can then wait for a mass exodus to Hinduism.
These fanatics are only worried about Hindus converting to Islam or Christianity and not to Buddhism. Their organisations could not prevent the mass conversion to Buddhism, when Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar embraced Buddhism. Even today, thousands of Dalit and members of various backward classes in the Hinduism are threatening to convert to Buddhism, because of continued caste discrimination and the likes of Shekhar are silent about it. This shows that their concern is more about people converting to Islam or Christianity, rather than Hindus giving up their religion.
Shekhar has ordered a survey of churches and Christian missionary organisations in Karnataka, to check on their legality. This decision to carry out the survey is of the Legislative Assembly Committee on Backward Classes and Minorities Welfare, dominated by the BJP. If the survey is to be carried out on the legal status of such bodies, it should not be restricted only to Christian organisations, but should apply to all religious bodies.
If it is found in the survey that there is something illegal about the status or activities of a religious body, appropriate action under the law should be taken, irrespective of which religion such organisations belong to or the nature of activities carried out.
The survey of Christian missionaries is bound to show that a large number of educational and social activities are carried out by several Christian missionaries. It cannot be denied that many Christian missionaries started educational institutions in the country, some of which are now over 150 years old and they are of repute.
The ill-informed fanatics have been spreading information that Hindus are converted to Christianity in such educational institutions, which is a myth. Also, such nincompoops do not even know the meaning of convent, they call all Christian missionary schools convent!
One does not become great and honourable by condemning others for their good work; for that one has to do better work. The Hindu fanatics should open, not for profit educational institutions, for all sections of the society. These should be strictly for spread of education and not for the propagation of religion. They should get Hindus to work as para-medics in the name of their gods, the way many serve the sick in the name of Jesus. This may attract followers of other religions to Hinduism.
If good work is done, the beneficiaries will be attracted to Hinduism. Also, nothing stops these advocates of Hinduism to offer money to the poor of other religions to come to the Hindu faith!
Incidentally, the New Indian Express reported on April 2, 2021 that the biggest gainer of religious conversions was Hinduism, with 47 per cent of all conversions in Kerala being to it.