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Ghandhiji on Legel Ban On Conversion
HARIJAN (11-5-1935)
Question of Missionaries:
"You would prevent Missionaries
from coming to India in order to baptize".
Ghandhiji has replied:
"Who am I to prevent them? IF I
HAD POWER AND COULD LEGISLATE, I SHOULD CERTAINLY STOP ALL PROSELYTISING.
It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary
heart burning among missionaries".
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CHRISTIAN MISSIONS - THEIR PLACE
IN INDIA
By MK Ghandhi
HARIJAN (11-5-1935)
NAVAJIVAN PRESS, AHMEDABAD
"But I should welcome people of
any nationality if they come here to serve here for the sake of service.
In Hindu households, the advent of the missionary has meant the disruption
of the family, coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language
and food".
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HARIJAN (27-6-1936)
Gandhiji's talk with a Polish research
student who wanted Gandhiji's autograph on a photograph, from the proceeds
of the sale of which a school run by Catholic Fathers in the rural area
would be supported. Gandhiji did not oblige with this autograph, and said:
"You know what they do - the story of their so called conversions in the
vicinity of Tiruchengodu."
"Have you read what I have written
on my son's so called conversion to Islam? If he had become a Muslim from
a pure and a contrite heart, I should have no quarrel with him. But those
who had helped him to embrace Islam and are enthusing over his apostasy
simply exploited his weakness. They are no true representatives of Islam.
My letter to Muslims, to Muslim friends, I tell you, was written with my
pen dipped in my heart's blood. Similarly there is no redeeming feature
about the Tiruchengodu conversion, I have spoken to you about".
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"A WORD TO THE MISSIONARIES" by
Mahadev Desai
(HARIJAN dated 25-1-1935)
Gandhiji said: "My trouble is that
the Missionary friends do not bring to their work a purely humanitarian
spirit. Their object is to add more number to their fold"
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"EQUALITY OF RELIGIONS"
(HARIJAN dated 18-11-1936)
Speaking to C.F.Andrews about the
missionaries, Ghnadhiji said:
"Their behavior has been as bad
as that of the rest who are in the field to add their numbers. What pains
one is the frantic attempt to exploit the weakness of Harijans. If they
said Hinduism is a diabolical religion and you come to us; I should understand.
But they dangle earthly paradises in front of them and make promises to
them which they can never keep".
In the course of discussion Ghandhiji
says
"I would say that the Oxford Group
may change the lives of as many as they like, but not their religion. They
can draw their attention to the best in their respective religions and
change their lives by asking to live according to them. There came to me
a man, the son of Brahman Parents, who said his reading your book had led
him to embrace Christianity. I asked him if he thought that the religion
of his forefathers was wrong. He said, 'No'. Then I said: 'Is there any
difficulty about your accepting Bible as one of the great religious books
of the world and Christ as one of the great teachers? I said to him that
you had never through your books asked Indians to take up the Bible and
embrace Christianity, and that he had mis-read your book - unless of course
our position is like that of the late Maulana Mohammed Ali's.., that a
believing Mussalman, however bad his life, is better than a good Hindu".
"If a person wants to believe in
the Bible, let him say so, but why should he disregard his own religion?
This proselytization will mean no peace in the world. Religion is a personal
matter. We should by living the life according to our lights, share the
best with one another, thus adding to the sum total of the human effort
to reach God".
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Talk with Christian workers on this
question of EVANGELISM or CONVERSION
Reported by Mahadev Desai
(HARIJAN dated 12-12-1936)
Ghandhiji replied to a question:
"In this manner in which (missionaries)
they are working, there would seem to be no room for them. Quite unconsciously
they do harm to themselves and so to us. It is perhaps impertinent for
me to say that they do harm to themselves, but quite pertinent to say that
they do harm to us. They do harm to those amongst whom they work and those
amongst whom they do not work, i.e., the harm is done to the whole of India".
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YOUNG INDIA(23-3-1931)
"I hold that proselytizing under
the cloak of humanitarian work is, to say the least unhealthy. 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'".
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YOUNG INDIA (27)
"A remedy suggested to "untouchables"
is rejection of Hinduism and wholesale conversion to Islam and Christianity
and if a change of religion could be justified for the worldly betterment,
I would advise it without hesitation. But the religion is a matter of heart.
No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one's own religion.
If the inhuman treatment of the Panchmas were a part of Hinduism, its rejection
would be a permanent duty both for them and for those like me who would
not make a fetish even of religion and condone every evil in its sacred
name. But I believe that untouchability is no part of Hinduism. It is rather
its excrescence to be removed by every effort. And there is quite an army
of Hindu reformers who have set their heart upon riding Hinduism of this
blot. Conversion therefore, I hold no remedy whatsoever".
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On B.R.AMBEDKAR CALL FOR MASS CONVERSION
HARIJAN (19-12-1936)
"I cannot help saying that the activities
of the missionaries in this connection hurt me. They with the Mussalman
and the Sikhs came forward as soon as Dr. Ambedkar threw the bombshell
and gave it an importance out of all proportion to the weight it carried,
and then ensued a rivalry between these organizations. I could understand
the Muslim organizations doing this, as Hindus and Muslims have been quarrelling.
The Sikh intervention is an enigma. But the Christian Mission claims to
be a purely spiritual effort. It hurt me to find Christian bodies vying
with the Muslims and Sukhs in trying to add to the numbers to their fold.
It seemed to me an ugly performance and travesty of religion"
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MAHAKAVI BHARATHIAR ON CONVERSION
AT ELURU
Mahakavi Bharathiyar has commented
once in his journal in 1906:
"The Christian Padiri has converted
nearly 300 Harijans ar Eluru in Andhra. Such conversions occur very often
at different places of our country. They should cause great concern as
the Hindu population is slowly depleting".
"I have read about a python sleeping
unconcerned when its tail was on fire. Such a suicidal act on the part
of Hindus would only result in total destruction of them".
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THE CONDITION OF CONVERT by Dr.
B.R.AMBEDKAR
Selected Speeches and Writings,
Volume V, Government of Maharashtra, 1989,
pp 445-77, at 453-56
"There are Brahmin and Non - Brahmin
Christians. Among Non - Brahmin Christians there are Maratha Christians,
Mahar Christians, Mang Christians and Bhangi Christians. Similarly in South
there are Pariah Christians, Malla Christians and Madiga Christians. They
would not intermarry, they would not inter-dine. They are as much caste
ridden as the Hindus are"
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MAHADEO GOVIND RANADE
"Under no conceivable circumstances
can the education of a great nation like the Hindus be solely or chiefly
entrusted to persons who have come to this country to destroy the national
faiths and to convert the nation to Christianity and whose work is supported
by the charitable contributions of pious people from foreign countries.
The Hindus are not like the savages of the sandwich and Society islands
without a religion of their own and so easily liable to be converted EN
MASS to a national Christianity".
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SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON CONVERSIONS
"The Hindu religion is not of self,
ever egotistical in its aspirations, ever holding up promises of reward
or threats of punishment. It shows to the individual he may attain infinity
by non-self. This system of bribing men to become Christians, alleged to
have come from God, who manifested himself to certain men on earth, is
atrocious. It is horribly de-moralizing and the Christian creed, accepted
literally, has a shameful effect upon the moral nature of the bigots who
accept it, retarding the time when the infinity of the self may be attained".
"One thing I would tell you (Americans)
and I do not mean any unkind criticism. You train, educate, clothe and
pay men to do what? To come over to my country to curse and abuse all my
fore-fathers, my religion and everything. They (missionaries) walk near
a temple and say: 'You idolaters, you will go to hell'. But they dare not
do that to the Mohammedans of India; the sword would be out. But the Hindu
is too mild".
"What have the Hindus done to these
disciples of Christ that every Christian child is taught to call the Hindus
'vile' and 'wretches' and the most horrible devils on earth? Part of the
Sunday school education for children here consists in teaching them to
hate everybody who is not Christian, and the Hindus especially, so that,
from their very childhood, they may subscribe their pennies to the mission.
If not for truth's sake, for the sake of the morality of their own children,
the Christian missionaries ought not to allow such things to go on"
"As far as converting India to Christianity
is concerned, there is no hope. If it were possible, I ought not to be
done. It would be dangerous; it would mark the destruction of all religions.
If the whole Universe should come to have the same temperament, physical
or mental, destruction would immediately result.."
