Who8217;s afraid of conversion?

As A L Basham writes, leaving the tree of wisdom, Buddha journeyed to Sarnath where his five former disciples had settled to continue their penances. To these five ascetics the Buddha preached his first sermon or, in Buddhist phraseology, 8220;set in motion the wheel of the law8221;. They were so impressed with his new doctrine that they gave up their austerities and once more became his disciples. A few days later a band of 60 young ascetics became his followers and he sent them out in all directions to preach Buddhist dharma. Buddha then returned toKapilavastu and converted his father, wife and son, Rahula, and many members of the court.

St Thomas did the same thing. When his Master commanded that he, 8220;go and preach the gospel to all nations,8221; he set foot at Kodungallur in Kerala in 52 AD and went about doing what Buddha8217;s disciples did in the Far East. At a later age the Theosophical Society, the Brahmo Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission and countless other Hindu groups have sent out missionaries as eminent as Swami Vivekanand to the brave New World to spread their faith.

Though Islam spread mostly with the arrival of the Moghuls, early visitors to the country have recorded the presence of a thriving Muslim community co-existing peacefully with Hindus and others. It is true that some of the methods employed by the early missionaries of all hues were questionable. However, it would be unfair to judge the language and modus operandi of a past age by the criteria adopted today.

The present debate on conversion has been occasioned by the attacks on theChristian community in Gujarat. Conversion is said to be the primary cause of the strife there. It8217;s not all of a sudden that Christians have set up camp there. In fact, they have been there for nearly a century. Of course, in this period, many tribals have converted themselves to Christianity as many more to Hinduism. But to suggest, as Union Minister Pramod Mahajan does, that conversion is cause for concern is to display signs of paranoia.

The Christian population today, after 2000 years of evangelisation8217;, is less than three per cent. What8217;s more, the census records show that its percentage has been falling. This disproves the point that conversions will change the demographic profile of the country. The Mahajans are either unaware or not confident of the inner strength of Hinduism, which could successfully withstand centuries of foreign rule and yet retain its purity and appeal to the finest minds. Various myths exist about Christianity8217;s growth. The British were colonisers but they certainly hadlittle interest in spreading their religion. German missionary Herrman Moegling, who did pioneering literary work in Kannada, narrates in his biography an instance when he was thrown out of a state guest house the moment the District Collector knew that he was a missionary. In fact, mission work was prohibited in many unadministered areas of Naga hills, Arunachal, plains of Manipur and until the thirties, Tripura. Christianity has in more recent years spread through osmosis, as part of the process of modernisation, with educated youth adopting the faith without any special evangelical effort.

A few years ago, India Today reported how the church was attracting the young in Arunachal despite all the restrictions imposed on it there. An accusation often made is that violence and separatism in the Northeast can be laid at the door of the Christians. Far from that, the church has in many ways stood for national integration. The Meiteis, the Tripuris, the Bodos and the Assamese ULFA cadres are not Christian. InNagaland and Mizoram, the church has helped in restoring peace within the Indian framework.

Equally baseless is the charge that educational institutions are put to use for conversion. There are over 15,000 educational institutions run by Christians and crores of students, including L K Advani and Arun Shourie to name two, have passed out of them with their faith intact. As regards the charge that force is used to convert, there has not been a single case where a person has accused the church of doing this. Except in the case of tribals, conversion results in the loss of many facilities. Perhaps, the Hindutva agenda is to take away the benefits of reservation from the tribal Christians. If at all coercion is used, the state has a responsibility to crack down on the missionaries. Those who make the charge that the church gets huge funds from abroad, in fact, exposes the Vajpayee government8217;s inability to control such flow of funds.

There is a strong opinion that conversion of tribals ends up in thedestruction of their distinct identity. Norman Louis has written extensively on the damage evangelisation can cause to aboriginal life. But that holds true for Hindu conversions as well. This is what Verrier Elwin, a missionary who spent almost all his adult life among the tribals of Gujarat and the Northeast, married one of them, wrote extensively on tribal life and embraced Buddhism, has to say: 8220;Hindu reformers8217; are apt to import worse things into tribal society than they banish from it. Hinduisation of the tribes in central India has often meant a belief in caste that is more rigid even than that of the ancient Brahmins, and there are places where widow-marriage, which formerly had never been questioned, has now been forbidden, and boys and girls are married at an earlier age than formerly so that they may be saved from sin8217;. A whole set of new taboos on food and drink have been imported. Worst of all, as Hinduism spreads in a tribal area the tribes tend to sink down to the bottom of the socialscale.8221;

Phobia for things Christian is so strong that even Vajpayee8217;s gesture to declare the year 2000 as the Year of Christ raises the hackles of HRD Minister, Murli Manohar Johsi. He says Christianity, unlike Sikhism which is celebrating its tercentenary, is not an indigenous religion to warrant such government involvement. In fact, it is as Asian a religion as Buddhism, whose Indianness can be doubted for Buddha was born in Lumbini in Nepal. Joshi would do well to take another look at his wrist watch, which he once showed me. It bore the inscription, Vasudaiva Kudumbakam.