Author:
Publication: CrusadeWatch.org
Date: April 20, 2007
URL: http://www.crusadewatch.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=740&Itemid=128
Sri John Dayal and other strident spokespersons
of Christian Church and missionaries have faulted Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
the Prime Minister, for the public expression of his opinion that the humanitarian
services that the Christian missionaries are rendering through their schools
and hospital have a conversion motive. It is really astounding for them to
disown the conversion motive. It is not only Atal Bihari Vajpayee who has
asserted this truth of the missionaries' motives, but no less a person than
Mahatma Gandhi himself has on several occasions asserted this opinion publicly
and in writings in the Harijan and Young India journals he edited.
Swamy Vivekananda during his sojourn in the
USA, after attending the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in October 1893,
had also brought out this prime motive of the Christians and spoke against
it. This is what he said to the Christian missionaries. "You train, educate
and pay men to do what? Come over to my country to curse and abuse all my
forefathers, my religion and everything. They walk near a temple and say ,
you idolaters will go to hell. They dare not do that with the Mohammadens
of India. The sword will be out. …… if all India stands and takes
all the mud that is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean and throws it up against
the Western countries, it will not be doing an infinitesimal part of that
which you are doing to us. (History of Hindu Christian Encounters. Page 241).
Mahatma Gandhi had tried to put the Christian missions in a tight spot by
proclaiming that proselytization was morally wrong and spiritually sterile,
if not counter-productive.
Here are excerpts from what Mahatma Gandhi
said and wrote.
Mahatma Gandhi advised the missionaries to
serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytizing
but continuing their philanthropic work.
…" Although the missionary went
to the foreign fields to win souls for Jesus, the results of his labours also
meant the extension of commerce. Trade would follow the banner of the Cross,
as readily as it would the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, or any of the
other national emblems and usually it cost a good deal less."….
(Young India of February 8, 1923)
"I am sorry to have to record my opinion
that it (Christian missionary work) has been disastrous. It pains me to have
to say that the Christian missionaries as a body, with honourable exceptions,
have actively supported a system which has impoverished, enervated and demoralised
a people considered to be among the gentlest and the most civilized on earth.".
(Young India Feb 8, 1923)
Mahatma Gandhi further wrote: "…it
(the missionary's work) is not unusual to find Christianity synonymous with
denationalization and Europianisation…." It was precisely for this
reason that Dr B R Ambedkar refused to become a Christian. While renouncing
Hinduism he converted to Buddhism and not Christianity, saying that if he
converted to Christianity he would cease to be Indian. Mahatma Gandhi wrote
"If instead of confining themselves to purely humanitarian work such
as education, medical services to the poor and the like, they use these activities
of theirs for the purpose of proselytizing, I would certainly like them to
withdraw. Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any
other. Certainly the great faiths held by the people of India are adequate
for her people. India stands in no need of conversion from one faith to another.
Gandhiji gave an interview to the press on March 21, 1931. Gandhiji made no
concession to conversion by "modern methods", which "has nowadays
become a business like any other. He was reminded of "a missionary report
saying how much it cost per head to convert and then presenting a budget for
the 'next harvest'.
He then asked some very pertinent questions:
"Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity
as his religion has cured me of some disease or why should the doctor expect
or suggest such a change whilst I am under his influence? Is not medical relief
its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I, whilst I am in a missionary
educational institution have Christian teaching thrust upon me?"
The Harijan dated May 11, 1935 published an
interview given by Gandhiji to a missionary nurse before that date. The nurse
asked him, "would you prevent missionaries coming to India in order to
baptize? Gandhiji replied, "If I had power and could legislate, I should
certainly stop all proselytizing. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict
between classes and unnecessary heart-burning among the missionaries".
In Hindu households the advent of a missionary
has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress,
manners, language, food and drink". The nurse commented, "Is it
not the old conception you are referring to? No such is now associated with
proselytisation". Gandhiji was well-informed about the missionary methods.
He said, "The outward condition has perhaps changed but the inward mostly
remains the same. Vilification of Hindu religion, though subdued, is there……"
About the humanitarian work Gandhiji had this
to say. , " 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.
The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the
Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands
of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there."
The incident of a Polish student asking Gandhiji's
autograph, on the photo, is very revealing of the motives of the missionaries.
A Polish student brought a photograph to Gandhiji and got it autographed by
him. "There is," he said, "a school conducted by Catholic Fathers.
I shall help the school from the proceeds of the sale of this photograph."
Gandhiji took back the photograph from the student and said, "Ah, that
is a different story. You do not expect me to finance the Fathers in their
mission of conversion? The Harijan dated July 18, 1936, published a discussion
which Gandhiji had with Pierre Ceresole (PC), his very admiring Christian
friend and some Christian missionaries.
(PC) Would you be really happy if I stayed
at home?
(Gandhiji)I cannot say that. But I will certainly
say that I have never been able to understand your going out of America. Is
there nothing to do there?
(P.C) Even in America there is enough scope
for educational work.
(Gandhiji) That is a fatal confession. You
are not a superfluity there. But for the curious position your Church has
taken you would not be here. …… There is a kink. At the back of
your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service
in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The same issue carried the following dialogue
between Gandhiji and a Missionary Lady (ML).
ML: …..the Church at home would be happy
through our hospital more people would be led to Christian lives
Gandhiji: But whilst you give the medical
help you expect the reward in the shape of your patients becoming Christians.
ML: Yes, the reward is expected. Otherwise
there are many other places in the world which need our service. But instead
of going there we come here.
Gandhiji: There is the kink. At the back of
your mind there is not pure service for its sake, but the result of service
in the shape of many people coming to the Christian fold.
The definite views of Gandhiji fearlessly
expressed and recorded and published and the conviction of Dr B R Ambedkar
vindicate what Sri Atal Bihari Vajpayee said about the "humanitarian"
motives of Christian missionaries. Let us not dismiss them as pre-Independence
situation. Government of Independent India appointed the Niyogi Commission
to inquire into the reported unethical methods of Christian missionaries to
gather harvest of converts. The Niyogi Commission found evidence of inducement,
fraud, mis- and dis-information practised by Christian missionaries to convert
Hindus, especially, the illiterate, isolated and destitute. It recommended
the enactment of laws to regulate conversions. Only two or three Governments
(Orissa for example) enacted the law. But in the last forty years less than
a dozen conversions were reported in compliance with the relevant Orissa law.
Obviously, the Christian missionaries have been disregarding the law with
impunity. In light of the Pope's call for a harvest of souls for Christianity
from Asia (surely not from Islamic countries eg. Afghanistan where eight Christian
UN aid workers are jailed and charged for attempting to convert Moslems to
Christianity) i.e., the tolerant Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs and the feverish
activity of missionaries supplied with fantabulous foreign funds and the alarm
that their activity is raising among Hindus and the strife that would follow
from Hindu resistance to conversion and defence of their religion, Government
of India must first enforce a temporary halt to conversions to be followed
by enactment of law to regulate conversions, to prevent fraud, inducement,
mis-information and tricks to secure converts especially from vulnerable and
defenceless sections of our country.
