Religious Conversions – The Real Purpose

The process of conversions could be traced back to time of Jesus Christ when he told his apostles to make disciples in all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). Jesus definitely would not have told some one to kill people if a mortal is resisted to convert (as in case of massacres in Cuba when it was colonized by Spaniards, where thousands of tribals were killed by the army sent by church).It has been in practice for many missionaries who decided to employ what ever means they want to convert people to one religion.

In Indian context right from the time of Muslim invaders forcible conversion was the order of time and later came the forcible conversions to Christianity. In his words of Sri Sathya Sai Baba (India’s spiritual leader) “I have not come to create another new religion, but to make a Muslim a better muslim,a Christian to a better Christian and a Hindu to a better Hindu”. Converting from bad to good and better character is important than converting to a new religion. We belong to a land where polytheism is a way of life. The unstable mind must be changed to stable instead of converting the religions. We know Muslim conversions were ruthless in the early days. We have examples like Nithiyanandan, and pedophiles in Europe. They are Hindus and Christians respectively then why they have committed this shameful act understandably with no remorse, simply because they are not better Hindus or better Christians. Now the matter is not with religion but with their character and the state of mind. If a human being cannot believes himself but a religion surely he is degenerating. The Indian subcontinent is predominantly a Hindu Rashtra. Who ever lives beyond the banks of Sindhu River are called Hindus (according to a theory). It is surely against the universal principles if outsiders are allowed to forcibly (or through any other means) convert the residual population to some other religion. The erstwhile church which ruled the whole Europe wanted to spread the Christianity for many reasons, one prominent reason is the tithe. One of the main reasons for the eruption of French revolution is the religion, when the common man had no bread to eat on one end and on the other church was extracting the tithe from the beleaguered population. It is only when the nation states were created in Europe the influence of church actually waned. Conversions made countries to secede (Sudan a case in point). We need to retrospect how poor Africans were forced to embrace Christianity. There are many examples to quote. Nigeria and Sudan is a case in point. While the polytheistic religion asserts that there are multiple ways of reaching god (i.e., attaining the salvation) but the religions with monotheistic inclinations propagates the contrary and that is the reason why we have crusaders and Jihadists. 

We may need more revolutions like the one happened in France(French revolution) in the 19^th century to defend the inherent culture and tradition from the alien and invading forces (I am talking about people who misunderstood Jesus and the great prophet).In regional sense few  state governments in India created laws which declares forcible religious conversions as an offensive act. But stealth of money power is terrifying. A tribal living in a remote village in Orissa does not really bother about any religion; he might be interested to convert if there is an assurance of material returns a chance which missionaries would not want to miss. And these hapless beings think that they could come out of the poverty yoke. A religion means a civilization and also a culture. It is only the power of culture which gave a stiff resistance to British occupation forces as they were stymied with this unprecedented strength which they have never come across in other continents. Imagine a hypothetical situation a Hindu organization (missionary) as invincible as a missionary of any other religion sent to Europe to convert people to Hindu religion, the European dwellers would definitely be unyielding and I think we in this sub-continent deserve to show the reaction to those who want to convert religions. The aliens and the invaders were able to find a place in this vast land only because our ancestors were truly non- xenophobic as in Persia or Maghreb for example. After all we live in a secular, democratic, republic set up and religious freedom is enshrined in our constitution, but forcible conversion is against this grain of the constitution. I think we should include a clause in the ninth schedule of the constitution or in IPC that forcible conversion is an act equal to disturbing the harmony of the society.