HVK Archives: An aberration, but unpardonable
An aberration, but unpardonable - The Observer
Dina Nath Mishra
()
January 28, 1999
Title: An aberration, but unpardonable
Author: Dina Nath Mishra
Publication: The Observer
Date: January 28, 1999
The devilish act witnessed last week in Manoharpur in Orissa, in
which an Australian Christian missionary was burnt to death with
his children, calls for soul-searching on the part of the Hindu
society at large.
The killing in Jahanabad is a different matter as it is related
to poverty and caste tensions. Burning a Christian missionary
is a very serious matter not only for its international
ramifications, but also because it symbolises that the tolerant
psyche of Hindus has registered an impact of Islamic and
Christian intolerance.
In the recent conversion debate itself, a Hindi daily came out
with a report. It narrated how Christian missionaries managed
the murders of three goldsmiths by stoning them and how a doctor
and a retired army man were done to death as all of them
resisted conversion in South Bihar. It never attracted the eyes
and ears of the media as that of the killing of the Australian
missionary, partly because of the fact that presently the
political atmosphere is very much surcharged with events like
this, partly because the earlier victims were Hindus and finally
because the local societies are accustomed to the aggressive and
intolerant activities of Christian missionaries.
In fact, mass conversion and social resistance. to it have
generated a large number of clashes in Orissa and Arunachal
Pradesh during the last few years. A number of places of
worship were destroyed by both sides. A couple of weeks back,
the defence minister George Fernandes gave the number of
churches that were destroyed in Arunachal Pradesh. But the
media could not report barring small news items here and there.
Similarly, prior to December 25, 1998, Dangs district of Gujarat
had witnessed similar clashes for the last five years. A number
of temples of Shiv and Hanuman were desecrated. All these
things were largely ignored by the media. But when the
accumulated anger of the non-converted tribals exploded, the
media woke up to report only the effects and not the cause.
The mass conversions in India have been causing the biggest of
disasters in India for centuries. Even in this century,
partition of the country was caused basically by conversions,
mostly forcible, during the last 1000 years. We have been
reading the saddest stories of the north-eastern states,
including Nagaland and Mizoram, for decades. I had written a few
weeks back how 41,000 non-converted tribals were pushed out of
Mizoram by Christian terrorists. Now they are living in refugee
camps in Tripura. In, the ongoing debate about conversion, many
Christian, and other leaders claim that Christians are the most
tolerant people. The actual experience does not square with
this claim. Even Encyclopaedia Britannica, written by Christian
themselves, describes Christianity as one of the most intolerant
faiths. One of the greatest Hindu intellectuals, Ram Swarupji,
who recently died, has analysed the roots of intolerance in
Islam and Christianity. He says that both 'believe that not
only are they different, but they are also superior. From the
start, they believed that the god they worshipped was superior
to the gods of their neighbours and their religion was invested
with truth while others wallowed in falsities.
As a result, they have developed along missionary and crusading
lines. Their God-given task has been to teach the principles of
a true religion to a benighted world of idolaters, pagans,
infidels and devil-worshippers. The viewpoint may have lost its
appeal in certain sections influenced by new trends in thought
towards more universalism, but it is still quite popular with
the organised churches.
Look at the way Islam and Christianity are working in Asian and
African countries... The more naked methods of good old days may
no longer be suitable and may require a different approach, but
the old mind is still very much there and we must not forget
this fact. Read from this angle, we find that the two
scriptures are very different in their atmosphere. The
scriptures of Semitic inspiration are hortative (sic),
admonitory; they urge, they reprove, they enjoin, they warn,
they even enforce. There is a note of feverishness in them. But
the atmosphere of the Hindu scriptures is unhurried, relaxed and
expositional. The first variety seem (sic) to goad you; the
second one to lead you step by step. The first one is
passionate, zealous, the second one calm and detached. The
first one plays on your hopes and fears; it threatens you with a
hell and promises you a paradise; while the second one aims at
opening up your understanding.'
What happens when the most tolerant faith is faced with two of
the most intolerant faiths of the world. Most of the Hindus
thought after 1947 that the chapter of separatist politics of
conversion had ended. The Christians which enjoyed patronage
during the pre-independence period felt orphaned and had an
identity crisis. But all the churches were connected with some
international sect of Christianity or the other. The
missionaries mellowed down for a few years and reverted to their
zeal of conversion. Particularly, they concentrated in the
north-east. Their population in Nagaland in 1991 increased to
88 per cent from 46 per cent in 1951. In Meghalaya, during the
same period they increased from 35 per cent to 67 per cent, in
Manipur from 12 per cent to 34 per cent, in Mizoram from 46 per
cent to 88 per cent, and in Arunachal Pradesh from below 1 per
cent to 11 per cent. This conversion has played havoc with the
north-eastern people. Mahatma Gandhi used to call conversion an
evil practice. He challenged the very idea of conversion while
having a dialogue with missionaries in South Africa, in Britain
and even after his return to India.
He wrote in Young India on September 27, 1936: 'I hold that
proselytising under the clock (sic) of humanitarian work, is, to
say the least, unhealthy. Conversions have now-a-days become a
matter of business, like any other. I remember having read a
missionary report saying how much it costs per head to convert
and then presenting a budget for the next harvest.' The per
capita cost of conversion may have increased a hundred fold by
now, but so has the inflow of foreign funds for various
competing sects of Christianity which are engaged in the
business of conversion. Mahatma Gandhi had drawn the attention
to the exploitation of poor masses for conversion also. He
wrote in Harijan on April 17, 1937: 'You talk of the conception
being no longer there. Only the other day a missionary
descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed
it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took
charge of their temple, and demolished it. This is outrageous.'
Conversion does not fit into Hindu thinking. VHP is engaged in
re-conversion on a large scale after the approval of all the
important Shankaracharyas and Pithadhipatis. Re-conversion is an
aberration in Hinduism, but it is a curative.
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