In search of identity : debates on religious conversion in India 9780195663587, 0195663586, 9780195677126, 0195677129

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GRAD BL 639 .K561 2003

In Search of Identity Debates on Religious Conversion in India

SEBASTIAN C.H. KIM O XFO RD

In Search of Identity

In Search of Identity Debates on Religious Conversion in India

Sebastian C.H. Kim

OXFORD U N IV E R SIT Y PRESS

BL O XFO RD

■KSél

U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001

^oo I xford University Press is a department o f the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Säo Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in India By Oxford University Press, New Delhi © Oxford University Press 2003 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope o f the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquiror

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Acknowledgements

This journey has been a hard one. On the way I have been immensely enriched by my reading and writing on the topic of conversion in India but often overwhelmed by the complexity of the issue I am dealing with. My journey has been enlivened by the many people who have shaped my thinking and supported me in various ways, and I am privileged to acknowledge here the contributions they have made along the road. I am deeply grateful and indebted to Dr Brian Stanley, my PhD supervisor at the University of Cambridge, for his insights and thorough guidance, and also his pastoral concern. I have particularly appreciated his wide knowledge of world Christianity and his careful scholarship. I am very thankful for the advice given by Dr Julius Lipner of the University o f Cambridge and Prof. Robert E. Frykenberg of the University of Wisconsin. I am also grateful for the interaction of other faculty members and fellow graduate students of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. I wish to thank my colleagues at Union Biblical Seminary, Pune: Dr Leaderwell Pohsngap, the Principal for his encouragement, and particularly Dr P.S. Jacob for his insights on Indian philosophy, which made me aware of the depth of Indian thought. I also appreciate the friendship and warm hospitality of Krickwin and Hmingi Marak both during the years I taught at UBS and while I visited there for my research. I am indebted to the members of the Fellowship of Indian Missiologists, who first introduced me to this research topic. I would especially like to thank Dr Jacob Kavunkal, Dr Julian Saldanha and Dr S.M. Michael for their advice and help. I also appreciate the valuable input of the late Dr Stanley Samartha and other faculty members of the United Theological College, and of Dr Joshua Kalapati of Madras Christian College.

vi Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the staff of the Union Biblical Seminary, United Theological College, Madras Christian College, Ishvani Kendra, Vidyajoti College, and the National Archives of India for their help in accessing the resources of these institutions. I would also like to thank the Voice of India, Hindu Vivek Kendra, especially Mr Ashok Chowgule for providing valuable material. I have very much appreciated the literary wealth of the University Library and the libraries of the Centre of South Asian Studies and of the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. The specialist collection of the Henry Martyn Centre, for the study of mission and world Christianity, has also proved a very useful resource in Cambridge, and I am particularly grateful to Dr Graham Kings for his warm fellowship. In addition, I have extensively used the Oriental and India Office Collections of the British Library and the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies. What began as a PhD thesis has now been realised as a book due to the help of the editors at the Oxford University Press, New Delhi. I gready appreciate their efficiency and careful scrutiny of my script. I would like to express my sincere thanks to those in Korea who have encouraged and helped me, especially Dr Chong-Soon Park without whose support this journey would not have been possible. The help and concern of Dr Paul Kiman Choi also sustained me on the way, and for this I am very grateful. I wish to thank Dr Jin-Kyung Chung, Dr SunHee Kwak, Revd Sam-Hwan Kim, Dr Sang-Bok Kim, Dr Keun-Young Park and Mrs Eu-Sook Lee. At the Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary, Seoul I also appreciate the encouragement of Prof. Jung-Woon Suh, Prof. Kwang-Soon Lee and Prof. Sun-Ae Joo. Throughout my journey, I have been immensely thankful for the concern and love shown by my parents, Young-Tae Kim and NamKyoung Kim. The interest shown by my brothers and sisters, especially my older brother Dong-Hwan Kim, has been a great encouragement to me. I also would like to express my sincere appreciation to my parentsin-law, Neil and Gwyneth Freeman for their thoughtful help and advice. Jonathan and Lydia have been very patient and understanding of their Daddy stuck in the study with his books. I am grateful to them and also to Kirsteen, my wife, for her sacrificial support, her critical comments and meticulous correction of my writing. This journey has been a hard one but with the support of many, and by the help of God, it has also been a joyful one. Cambridge December 2002

Abbreviations

AIR ATA BJP CAD CBCI CELAM CWMG ER FIC HVK IBMR ICHR IMC/CBMS, SOAS

IMR IRM N CCC NCCI

All India Reporter Asia Theological Association Bharatiya Janata Party Constituent Assembly Debates: Official Report (Delhi) Catholic Bishops Conference in India Consejo Episcopal Ladnoamericano (Latin American Episcopal Conference) The Collected Works o f Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi) The Ecumenical Review The Framing o f India’s Constitution: Select Documents (B. Shiva Rao (ed.); New Delhi) Hindu Vivek Kendra International Bulletin of Missionary Research Indian Church History Review Joint Archives of the International Missionary Council and Conference of British Missionary Societies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London Indian Missiological Review International Review o f Mission(s) National Christian Council Correspondence (IMC/ CBMS, SOAS) National Christian Council of India

viii Abbreviations

NCCR Niyogi Report R&S RSS VHP WCC

National Christian Council Review Report o f the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee (Madhya Pradesh) Religion and Society Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Vishwa Hindu Parishad World Council of Churches

Contents

1 2

3

4

5

Introduction: Christian Mission and the Problem of Conversion in India Debates on Conversion under the British Raj I. Debates on conversion in Bengal in the first half of the nineteenth century II. M.K. Gandhi and the debates on conversion, 1931-1937 The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly, 1947-1949 I. The issue of conversion in the emerging politics of swaraj II. The debate on conversion in the Constituent Assembly III. Religious freedom and the secular state Debates on Missionary Activity and Freedom of Religion in Independent India, 1954-1979 I. The debate over the report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee (Niyogi Report), 1954-1957 II. The debate over ‘freedom of religion’ legislation, 1967-1979 III. Hindu tolerance, law, and conversion The Debates on Conversion Among Protestant Theologians in India, 1966-1971

1 13 14 23 37 38 42 55 59

60 73 84 88

x

Con tents

I. The Protestant debates on conversion in the 1960s and 1970s II. Conversion, secularization, and community 6

The Catholic Debates on Conversion in the 1980s I. The theology of inculturation and the debate on the Hindu-Catholic approach to conversion II. Liberation theology and the debate over mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu

7

World Evangelization, Hindutva, and the Debate Provoked by Arun Shourie, 1994-1995 I. Christian campaigns for evangelization of the world II. Nationalist Hindu responses to world evangelization and the campaign of Hindutva III. Debate between Arun Shourie and Christian leaders IV. The past and present of Hindu and Christian understandings on conversion

8

The Debate on Conversion Initiated by the Sangh Parivar, 1998-1999 I. Hindu-Christian tensions over conversion II. Conversion from the perspective of Hindus III. Christian rethinking of conversion in the context of Hindutva IV. The problem of conversion as symptomatic of a clash of religious frameworks

9

Conclusion: Human Rights, Tolerance, and Religious Conversion in India I. Christianity and human rights II. Hinduism and religious tolerance III. Towards a theology of conversion for Christian mission in India

Appendices I: The Proceedings of the Debate on Conversion in the Constituent Assembly, 1947-1949 II: Summary of Recommendations of the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee (Niyogi Report)

Contents III: The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act 1967 (Orissa Act II 1968) IV: The Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968 V: The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Indigenous Faith Act, 1978 VI:

Freedom of Religion Bill Introducedin the Parliament

xi 207

209 211 213

Bibliography

215

Index

240

1 Introduction: Christian Mission and the Problem of Conversion in India ‘I became a Christian because I was ill and the pastor healed me,’ he said. ‘Now . . He hesitated, looking around at his minder. ‘Now since the church was burned, we feel it good to become a Hindu.’ ‘But why?’ I asked. ‘What made you want to change?’ . . . I asked the question again to the old man. ‘It is better for us to be Hindu,’ he said quiedy. ‘It is . . . less difficult.’ —William Dalrymple (1999)

This conversation between a journalist and an old man who had just reconvened to Hinduism1 through a shuddhi2 ceremony in Dangs district, Gujarat, illustrates the struggle over conversion in contemporary India. The issue of conversion was a subject of debate between Christians and Hindus and among Christians themselves throughout the period from Independence to the end of the twentieth century. It was much debated in the Indian media during the last two years of the century, 1 Though there are difficulties in defining the term Hinduism, and some prefer to use alternative terms (e.g. Hindu religions), in this study we shall use it to represent Hindu faiths and practices in general. For a discussion of the origin and diversities of Hinduism, see Lipner (1994: 1-21). See also for the modern concept of Hinduism, Frykenberg (1997: 82-107). 2 ‘Purification’. In this study I will not use diacritical marks for the transliteration o f Sanskrit or Hindi words, except in the case of direct quotations from other writers. Where there are differences in transliteration of the same word, I will use the most common form. I am grateful to Dr Eivind Kahrs of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, for his advice on this matter.

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In Search of Identity

and became particularly intense when Atal Behari Vajpayee, Prime Minister of India, called for a ‘national debate on conversion* in January 1999 and during the visit of Pope John Paul II to India in November 1999. The questions arising in the conversation above are two-fold, one explicit and the other implicit: ‘Why do people convert?’ and ‘Why has conversion caused such controversy in India?’ The question of why individuals or groups o f people change their religion has been the subject of numerous studies, particularly from sociological and anthropological perspectives.3 Their main concern has been identification of the principal motivations in conversion movements and a critical assessment of the role of Christianity or social, economic and political aspirations in the process of conversion. This represents a reaction to an interpretation of conversion that emphasizes the role of the missionary and sees the people as passive recipients of evangelization. Such studies focus attention on the initiative and active participation of the people themselves in the process of conversion. Conclusions about what exactly causes people to convert, the mode of conversion, and the effects on their society differ widely among the scholars. Those who emphasize discontinuity in the process of conversion point to the constructive role of Christianity in bringing about social change by examining the tensions between different socio-economic communities. Geoffrey Oddie, widely known for his extensive research on conversion movements in India, argues that though Hindu customs clearly remain in the daily practice of the converts and in their society, the changes in practice were significant, and that the people responded to the modernity offered by Christianity (1975: 61—79; 2000: 228—53). The main focus of Oddie’s and other similar studies is the interplay between lower and upper castes, and between the poor and the land­ owners. They take the view that, in the rapidly changing socio-political situation, factors such as ‘dignity, self-respect, patrons who will treat one as an equal, and the ability to choose one’s own destiny inclined people to opt for religious conversion (Forrester 1991; Gladstone 1984; Webster 1992). It is argued in such studies that Christian conversion, unlike Sanskritization, was able to facilitate structural change and that conversion movements represent caste mobility or the realization of a communal identity (Michael 1998; Kanjamala 1984). 3 For a survey o f these studies, see Rambo (1982: 146-159; 1993); Shinn (1993: 195-207); Hefner (1993).

Introduction

3

Others view conversion primarily as a people’s assimilation of new ideas and values in the course of their own progress towards modernity and see greater evidence of con tinuity between pre- and post-conversion. Furthermore, they emphasize that conversion movements often occur due to tensions within given ethnic groups rather than as a result of a struggle with other caste and social groups. Susan Bayly, in her sophisticated studies of Christian and Muslim communities in south India, finds that conversion is a result of ‘internal competition within the different social and religious groups’, and argues that the similarity in culture between the Christian and Muslim communities and the Hindu community demonstrates the remarkable ‘adaptation, accommodation and synthesis’ of Christianity and the latter’s capacity to be ‘radically reshaped’ to suit the need of different societies (1989: 115). There have been similar anthropological studies notably by David Mosse (1986; 1994: 85-107) and Rowena Robinson (1998) and, to a certain extent, by Lionel Caplan (1989). In their estimation, the role of Christianity as a religion was either insignificant or irrelevant, and the people adapted Christianity to their needs rather than adapted themselves to it. Conversion took place only when Christianity was able to fit into the people’s pre-existing value system and their traditional religiosity, and was perceived to further their struggle for modernity and identity. The above discussions about the Indian case are not dissimilar to those on conversion in other contexts in which the converts’ attraction to Christianity is emphasized. Max Weber argued that the systemized dogmas of Christianity enhanced its attraction (1956:60-74) and Robert Hefner similarly emphasizes the ‘rationality of Christianity’, which drew converts (1993: 7-14). Humphrey Fisher (1973: 27-40) and Karl Morrison (1992) insist that people are attracted not only by Christianity as an institutionalized religion, but also to the faith and supernatural aspects ofit. On the other hand, Robin Horton (1971: 85-108; 1975a: 219-35; 1975b: 373-99) and Jean and John Comaroff (1991) argue that religious conversion in Africa is merely a part of larger socio-cultural and ideological changes taking place among the people so that Christian conversion offers only a limited contribution and also has litde place in African experience. They insist that conversion to any particular religious tradition has no significance as such: it is simply a catalyst in a wider socio-historical movement. Though the findings of sociological and anthropological studies differ in their assessment of the role of religion in the process of conversion,

4

In Search of Identity

they share the same premise that conversion needs to be understood as a social phenomenon, whether it initiates a transformation or is pait of some wider transformation already going on, and they fail to take into account religious factors in the process. Moreover, where religion is concerned, their interest is focused mainly on the encounter between ‘traditional religions’ and ‘world religions’ and they tend to underestimate the complexity of the former and the potential locality of the latter (Hefner 1993:3-14). Although these socio-cultural studies of conversion provide us with a deeper understanding of why and how people convert to ‘world religions’, conversion, whether as radical change or gradual assimilation, is seen only from the converts’ point of view. However, the study of conversion in relation to Christian mission also needs to address the perspective of those who decided not to convert to Christianity (or another religion) in spite of the perceived attractions o f ‘world religions’ and their quest for modernity or identity. Furthermore, what is regarded by converts as a positive step spiritually or socially, may be seen by those of the religion they left as deeply offensive. In India missionaries and theologians struggle to find a solution to the problem that conversion also has evident negative connotations, especially to Hindus. This brings us to the second question of why conversion is so problematic in India. Historians have examined the problem of conversion in relation to several socio-cultural dynamics and this has resulted in four main explanations. First, the problematic nature of conversion is due to communalism. It is argued that communal tensions in India were exacerbated by ‘colonial modernity’, particularly by the policy of encouraging different legal systems for different communities and by the late-colonial ‘politics of numbers’ through the introduction of separate electoral systems for different communities. In this explanation, tensions around conversions are related to ‘community borders becoming simultaneously harder and more vulnerable’ (Sarkar 1999: 84-8). Second, the problem is due to conversion challenging the socio-economic establishment. The reasoning is that conversion undermines the hierarchical system of caste and at the same time disturbs the rural economic system of India, in which high-caste landowners exercise tight control over lower-caste Burners. In this scenario, conversion is seen as a threat not only to the caste system but also to the economic interests of the landowners and therefore opposed by Hindu leaders (Wilfred 1983: 61-73; Fernandes 1984: 289-306; Kooiman 1989). Third, the conflict was provoked by the Hindu counter-conversion

Introduction

5

movement. In this view, the political rise of the movement for Hindutva—making India a Hindu nation—and the aggressive campaign of Hindu ‘fundamentalists’ resulted in the ‘manufacture’ of the issue of conversion as an excuse to bring about the political agenda of Hindu ‘fundamentalist’ groups (Thapar 1997: 54-81; Sarkar 1999: 91-8). Furthermore, it is argued that conversion was used by the Hindu ‘fundamentalists’ as part of a deliberate attempt to undermine the Christian community. The problem initially arose when the ‘Hindu “fundamentalist” organizations’ sought political support from tribal areas, which necessitated displacing the considerable Christian influence on tribals; later, the issue of conversion was used as retaliation against the secular position taken by several Christian organizations in the face of Parivar politics (Panikkar 1999: xv-xix). Fourth, Hindus and Christians hold conflicting conceptions and definitions of conversion, which put them at cross-purposes. It is argued that Hindus see conversion in sociological and political terms while Christians view it in theological terms. Hindus feel threatened by Christian campaigns of conversion because of their historical experience with colonial power, which causes them to interpret even the ‘spiritual conversion’, which Christians declare to be their concern, as socio-political in nature (Frykenberg 1999). Christian theologians and missionaries, on the other hand, have been concerned mainly with methodological problems of Christian conversion; yet they share a common assumption with the historians who relate the problem of conversion to a particular aspect of Indian society— communalism, economics, politics, or cultural diversity. That is, Christian studies also tend to assume that the problem of conversion is socio-cultural rather than theological. In other words, people of other faiths reject Christianity not because of its content but because of the way it is presented. The relationship of Christian faith to other religions and cultures has been a primary concern for those engaged in Christian mission, as evident in the ‘contextualization’ approach of Protestant evangelicals and in the ‘inculturation’ theology of Catholics. Protestant evangelical thinking on contextualization was first brought together at the ‘Consultation on Gospel and Culture’ in Willowbank, Bermuda, in 1978 (LCWE 1978). It starts from the assumption that people will convert if they understand the gospel clearly enough, and generally utilizes communication theory and anthropology to discover a way of least resistance to the gospel by maximizing linguistic, cultural and social (but not doctrinal) continuity between the missionary message and the

6

In Search of Identity

traditional culture (McGavran 1970: 198-215). The Willowbank Report, though affirming the ‘radical nature of conversion’, suggested ways in which conversion could be reinterpreted so that ‘de-culturization’ of converts could be avoided (LCWE 1978: 19-22). Indian examples of this approach include a consultation on ‘Re-Reading Mass Movements in India’ held in 1997 to evaluate the conversion movements in various parts of India (Hrangkhuma 1998), and another on ‘Conversion in a Pluralistic Context’ in 1998 to examine the best way to approach conversion in contemporary India (Marak and Jacob 2000). The participants of both consultations considered different motives and modes of conversion, and suggested to the Indian church the adoption of methods more sympathetic to the cultural context. ‘Inculturation’ became the dominant concept of Catholic mission theology soon after the term was introduced in the second half of the century, but the precise meaning of the term and its applications could range from adapting the gospel to local culture to encouraging ‘theology from below’, or ‘local theologies’, as a way forward in Christian mission (Bevans 1992; Schreiter 1985). Aylward Shorter defines inculturation as a ‘creative and dynamic relationship between the Christian message and a culture or cultures’. It is an ongoing process of dialogue between the gospel and culture and an interaction between different cultures, since faith is integrated in culture and it promotes the reinterpretation of culture ‘enlivened by the Gospel from within’ (1988: 10-2,42). Louis Luzbetak, starting with a similar definition, sees a process in which Christians and non-Christians are both being converted to a common socio-cultural ground (1988: 79—82). Some other theologians, led by Aloysius Pieris, go further in saying that the issue of conversion is not only a matter of Christian faith adapting to local culture but of Christian faith expressing itself in terms of the traditional religion, a process he calls ‘enreligionization’ (1988: 51—4). Alongside the development of contextualization and inculturation, there were theological changes in ecumenical attitudes towards other religions in this period. There was a move away from the Kraemerian exclusivist approach dominant after the 1938 meeting of the International Missionary Council at Tambaram (Kraemer 1938) towards the pro­ motion of dialogue with people of other faiths, which came to the fore particularly at the Nairobi Assembly of the WCC in 1975 (Samartha 1981). This non-confrontational approach necessitated a reinterpretation of the meaning of conversion within the conciliar Ecumenical movement.

Introduction

7

This redefinition was also a response to pressure from Orthodox and Catholic churches to separate conversion from proselytism. The latter was defined as a ‘corruption of Christian witness’ in which ‘cajolery, bribery, undue pressure or intimidation is used—subtly or openly—to bring about seeming conversion’.4 Any form of proselytism was renounced in Christian mission, and even condemned as a ‘scandal and counterwitness’.5 As the century wore on, the earlier disapproval of proselytism for its unethical methods both towards Christians of other traditions and towards people of other religions developed into renunciation of any attempt to convert those of other confessions or faiths (Vassiliadis 1996: 257-75; see also Goodman 1994). The condemnation of proselytism encouraged the application of the term ‘conversion’ to Christians themselves rather than to people of other faiths. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s legacy of the ‘church for others’ was used to justify a ‘secular Christianity’ in which conversion was of Christians ‘to the world’. This was accompanied by a widening of the understanding of mission. In 1952 the International Missionary Council defined mission as ‘witness’, which was understood as ‘proclamation, fellowship and service’ (Bosch 1992: 511-2). Service later became the dominant theme, especially under the influence of J.C. Hoekendijk.6 In a classic text of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez calls for a ‘conversion to the neighbour, to social justice, to history’ which is implied in conversion to God (1973: 83-97, 118). What is stressed in these views is the active human response to God in conversion rather than the work of God, and the conciliar ecumenical movement also came to the conclusion that there are certain ‘unconverted elements’ of the life of Christians and of the churches (Van der Bent 1992:380-90). In this context, Emilio Castro tried to bring conversion and social change together by pointing out that conversion was always relational and therefore defining it as 4 ‘Christian Witness, Proselytism and Religious Liberty in the Setting of the World Council of Churches’ (ER, October 1956: 48-56). 5 ‘Common Witness and Proselytism—A Study Document’ (ER, January 1971: 9-20); ‘Toward Responsible Relations in Mission’ (1RM, April 1993: 235-9); ‘The Challenge of Proselytism and the Calling to Common Witness’ (ER, April 1996: 212-21); ‘Towards Common Witness—A Call to Adopt Responsible Relationships in Mission and to Renounce Proselytism’ (IRM , October l 997: 463-73). 6 Hoekendijk pushed the concept of ‘missio Dei or God’s mission’ to the point where mission became almost entirely secular, a process detailed by Bosch (1992: 391-2) and by Yates (1994: 196-7).

8

In Search of Identity

‘incorporation into the saving and liberating mission of God in the world’ (1992: 501—10). This understanding is also evident in Philip Potter’s view that ‘[b]eing turned to God is also being turned to one’s fellow humans’ (1983: 313-23), and in the work of José Miguez Bonino, who sees conversion as taking place in the communal praxis of the believers (1983: 324-32). One may argue that God’s calling to conversion is for believers and that it is not just a matter of eschatological salvation but also of constant transformation, which includes the ‘conversion to neighbours’. However, in the context of Hindu calls for a moratorium on conversion, the Christian renunciation of proselytism and reinterpretation of conversion merely avoids confrontation on a contentious issue, which will remain unless Christian mission denounces the conversion of non-Christians altogether (see Stanley 2001; also Kerr 1999: 8-14). The question of why conversion is so problematic in India remains unanswered and the implications of this for Christian mission are not addressed. The studies cited above yield insights into the causes and difficulties of conversion, particularly in relation to the unique socio-cultural and political setting of India, and also into Christian understandings of conversion. However, though valuable, they have not by and large dealt sufficiendy with the theological and ideological undercurrents in either the Hindu or Christian understanding of conversion, or with the changes in understanding taking place, especially in post-Independence India. Religious studies in this period have generally taken the form of dialogue, which seeks to find common ground between faiths and tends to set aside differences (see Coward 1989). This leads to avoidance of contentious issues such as conversion and sometimes naivety about the other’s intentions. My interest in the issue of religious conversion in India started when I attended the annual meeting of the Fellowship of Indian Missiologists (FOIM) in Pune in August 1994. The participants—Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant scholars—were much stirred by the recent publication of newspaper editor Arun Shourie’s book, M issionaries in India: Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas (1994) and decided to arrange a consultation on mission and conversion in the following year (Mattam and Kim 1996). I was intrigued by Shourie’s arguments against Christian conversion and also by the reactions of Christian and Hindu writers to the book—responses which revealed the complex and controversial nature of the question in India. What is strikingly absent in the existing literature

Introduction

9

on conversion is a willingness to listen to the voices of Hindu leaders who strongly contest Christian conversion, and to the Indian theologians who struggle to find ways to solve the problem of conversion in India. Moreover, both Hindu leaders and Christian theologians tend to ignore each other, each accusing the other of fundamentalism or imperialism, and being suspicious of the other s motives. In the light of consistent Hindu objections to conversion, in spite of Christian efforts to redefine and adapt it in the Indian context, the problem of conversion would seem to demand further investigation. The above socio-cultural reasons for Hindu objections to conversion serve only as a partial explanation of the problem of conversion in India (see Schreuder and Oddie 1989: 512-3; also Frykenberg 1980:127-38). Furthermore, the fact that Hindu resentment against Christian conversion continued despite political changes both during the Raj and in post-Independence India in which Hindus obtained considerable socio-political power indicates that conversion is more than a political issue. This study takes an approach that is different from the studies mentioned above. It will examine the major debates on conversion between Hindus and Christians and among Christian theologians in twentieth-century India after Independence in order to trace trends in theological and ideological interpretations of conversion from both Hindu religious leaders and Christian theologians. Debates are often the symptom and not necessarily the cause of controversy. Nor are they merely academic exercises disconnected from the context since the protagonists do not always manufacture new arguments but often represent opinions already held by a constituency. It is in debate between Hindus and Christians rather than in dialogue that contradicting views are revealed because in a debate the participants present their own view rather than seek common ground. Therefore during a series of debates major arguments and crucial issues that need to be addressed can be identified. This study seeks to reveal the main arguments against conversion or for conversion and the reinterpretations of conversion, and understand these within the historical dynamics of the context. It critiques both sides of the argument by examining the counter arguments and also considering the wider historical background and the theological and ideological basis of the debates. It also traces the interplay of the major Indian debates with discussions taking place elsewhere so that, though this study primarily deals with the issue of conversion in India, it applies to Christian mission beyond India as well.

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In Search of Identity

Chapter Two gives the necessary background to Hindu objections to Christian conversion in post-Independence India by examining debates that took place during the first half of the nineteenth century in Bengal, involving Ram Mohan Roy and the pandits, and the debate of Mahatma Gandhi with Indian Christian leaders and Protestant missionaries in the 1930s. The early Protestant missionary understanding of conversion was of a renunciation of Hindu traditions and a radical commitment to Christian doctrine based on an understanding of the universality of the Christian gospel beyond caste, race and cultural differences. This was challenged by arguments for a Hindu understanding of the particularity of religious tradition, for continuity between the teaching of Christ and Hindu traditions, and for the invalidity of Christian doctrine in the Indian context. Gandhi’s condemnation of Christian conversion was dearly part of his political agenda in his struggle against the British Raj because he feared it would increase communal disturbances. But his personal conviction of the ‘equality of religions’ and of the value of ‘Hindu tolerance’ played a significant role in persuading both Hindus and Christians to object to conversion. Gandhi’s debates with E. Stanley Jones and V.S. Azariah reveal two different understandings of conversion: first, as the result of an inner spiritual quest without any change of religious community; and second, as a personal search for truth and justice, which necessarily results in a change of religious affiliation. Both Roy’s and Gandhi’s views on conversion were immensely influential for Hindus as well as Christians during the ensuing debate in postIndependence India. Chapters Three and Four explore the objections made by Hindus to conversion and analyse Christian responses to them in the context of the changing political situation brought about by Independence. The debate over conversion was focused on the inclusion of the freedom to ‘propagate’ as one of the fundamental rights during the discussions in the Constituent Assembly. The contradiction between Hindu and Christian views on conversion became clear in the course of debate. While Christians based their argument for conversion on its being a basic tenet of Christian faith and on the individual human right to freedom, Hindus argued that conversion is against Hindu dharma, which is an indispensable part of Hindu tradition. Hindu objections led to a public inquiry into missionary activities by the government of Madhya Pradesh. The resulting Niyogi Report was highly critical of conversion activities, particularly the conversion of tribals and the activities of foreign missionaries. It questioned the motives of the tribals who convened to

Introduction

11

Christianity and drew attention to the socio-political implications of this for Indian society. It also attached a political agenda to the activities of foreign missionaries and criticized their conversion methods. Subsequently, Hindu objections to conversion were concretized in three main ways: by the introduction of Hindu ‘personal laws’, which were disadvantageous for caste Hindus who converted to another religion; by the limitation of the social benefits of converts from Scheduled Caste backgrounds; and by the passing of the ‘freedom of religion’ acts. The Hindu attitude toward conversion was revealed to be intolerant and this prompted Christians to respond, either with strong condemnation of Hindu ‘politicization of conversion’ or with a reinterpretation of conversion. Chapters Five and Six deal with these reinterpretations of conversion and the subsequent debates that took place within Protestant and Catholic theological circles. The Indian Christian reinterpretation was a result of the pressure from Hindus but was also influenced by theological changes in the wider Christian community in the 1960s and 1970s. These chapters deal with the struggle of Indian theologians to find a common identity as Indians and yet keep a self-identity as Christians within the dominant Hindu community, which resulted most notably in theologies of the ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’ and the ‘Hindu-Catholic’. In each case the theological problem of the relationship of the Hindu and Christian communities was solved by finding a ‘meeting-point’ or ‘point of contact’ between Hinduism and Christianity. This study goes on to consider the limitations and implications of these theologies in the context of independent India. The ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’ approach to conversion recognizes the widespread influence of Christian values on Indian society, and concludes that this obviates the need for an individual to change community in order to express allegiance to Christ. The HinduCatholic approach is based on the beliefs that the Christian gospel transcends all cultures and societies and that Hindu culture embraces all dogmas and faiths, and therefore it is not only possible but also desirable to synthesize the two. Both approaches stem from a conviction that conversion, in the sense of radical separation from the past, is not acceptable in India. They share a common theological presupposition that Christ is Lord of all and therefore applicable to all, regardless of their religious practices, and also a sociological presupposition that Indian culture does not discriminate against religious beliefs. The liberation approaches, informed by a sociological understanding of conversion

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In Search of Identity

movements as expressions of social mobility, will be considered in the context of mass conversions in south Tamil Nadu in the early 1980s. Although these focused attention on dalit initiative in conversion, by portraying dalit motives as socio-political, they provided only a partial explanation of the phenomenon. Chapters Seven and Eight examine the debate in the 1990s, when the campaign for Hindutva and Christian campaigns for evangelization of the world clashed in many parts of India. There was open and hostile condemnation by Hindus of Christian missionary activities and by Christians of the reconversion movement by Hindu activists, which created tension in tribal areas. The Hindu-Christian debate was intensified especially after the publication of Arun Shourie’s book Missionaries in India, which revealed a depth of Hindu resentment towards Christian conversion that was deeply anchored in their religious understanding—something that many Christian respondents had failed to recognize. The unprecedented attacks on Christian communities by the Hindu activists and the national debate that followed confirmed the breakdown of mutual understanding and called for tolerance from both sides. Hindus argued that conversion was an act of violence, a rejection of Hindu nationhood, and an inherent problem of Christianity. Christian theologians responded to Hindu attacks either by treating conversion as a ‘non-issue’, arguing for the right of any individual to convert to another religion, proving a spiritual or religious component to conversions, or distancing themselves from ‘fringe groups’ active in campaigns of conversion. Examination of the debate in the 1990s will show that Christians were ill-prepared to respond to the Hindu challenge to conversion as a result of their failure both to hear Hindu objections and also to recognize the persistence of traditional views on conversion in their own churches. This study will demonstrate that, though Hindu objections to conversion are conditioned by socio-cultural and political circumstances, their arguments are deeply rooted in their own philosophy and religious traditions. Examination of the responses of Indian theologians and missionaries to the Hindu objections will reveal that the religious aspect of the encounter between Christianity and Hinduism has not been sufficiently addressed. The study will identify a number of emerging theological perspectives in Hindu-Christian debates and suggest that a fresh appraisal of the Christian emphasis on human rights and of the Hindu tradition of tolerance will be crucial for the future of HinduChristian relations in India.

2 Debates on Conversion under the British Raj Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that o f 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. — Mahatma Gandhi (Young India, 23 April 1931)

The advent of the British Raj led to a time of ‘religious, philosophical, and social ferment’ (Young 1981: 13) as the traditions of India encountered modernity and Hindu leaders responded to the activities of missionaries and the influx of Western civilization. Kenneth Jones has helpfully identified three Hindu views on the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity in the early nineteenth century: the equivalence of Christianity and Hinduism, based on the ‘ethical core of each religion’; the validity of both Hinduism and Christianity, with each having different paths; and the supremacy of Hinduism over Christianity (1989: 212-3).1 Both Ram Mohan Roy, representing the first position, 1 Jones, discussing Bengal, gives Ram Mohan Roy, K.C. Sen and Orthodox Hindus as his examples. Neill identified three approaches: the radical integration of Christianity together with Western customs and culture (e.g. Derozio of the Hindu College); the adaptation of much of the Western way of life while maintaining Hindu identity (e.g. Prince Dwarkanath Tagore); the reformation of Hinduism by adapting many Christian principles and much Western thought (e.g. Ram Mohan Roy) (Neill 1985: 365-6). In addition, Young argues that there was a strong ‘resistant’ group of pandits

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and the pandits,2 representing the third, engaged in public debate with missionaries on conversion in Bengal in this period, which will be considered in the first section below. The second position emerged most clearly in the twentieth century in the views of Mahatma Gandhi on conversion and will be considered in section two of this chapter. These debates will be given some attention here because they rehearsed arguments that were used in twentieth-century India after Independence. They were in many respects proto-typical of those in our period and were often referred back to in later debates on conversion. I.

D e b a t e s o n c o n v e r s io n in b e n g a l in t h e f ir s t HALF OF T H E N INETEENTH CENTURY

Bengal, the seat of British power in India, gradually became the ‘nerve centre of political, commercial and intellectual developments’ in the early nineteenth century (Ali 1965: 1), and the city of Calcutta was the ‘focus and symbol’ of the interaction between ‘traditional India and alien western ideas’ (Lipner 1987: 292-3). Along with the Indian reformers, the work of Protestant missionaries was instrumental in causing a ‘revolution’ in nineteenth-century Bengal, which eventually led to an Indian renaissance (Potts 1967: 244). However, as the issue of religious conversion arose (Copley 1997: 208-38; 1994: 52-74), the relationship between the Hindu leaders and the missionaries soured, and this was expressed through intense public debates on conversion in Bengal, which continued throughout the period.3 who opposed the advancement of Christianity as well as any reform movements within Hinduism (Young 1981:18-22). There was also a group called ‘Young Bengal’ who had received Western education and were attracted by Christian teaching, and some of whom were convened to Christianity. They were actively involved in socio­ political and religious life in Bengal, advocating reform of Hinduism. But by the end of the first half of the nineteenth century, many of the same were increasingly hostile to the missionaries (Ali 1965: 9). 2 Hindus learned in Sanskrit and in the philosophy, religion, and jurisprudence of India 3 There were also debates in Agra and Lucknow between Protestant missionaries and Muslim scholars in the 1840s and especially in Agra in 1854 (Powell 1993). In Bombay, there was a debate between John Wilson and Hindu pandits in the early 1830s (Young 1981: 25-31). See also the earlier debate between Ziegenbalg and Hindu leaders (Grafe 1972:43-69; Arasaratnam 1981:7-33; Singh 1999: 120-45).

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The debate between Rom Mohan Roy and Joshua Marshman, 18201823 Ram Mohan Roy (also called Rammohun Roy), a young Bengali Brahman, openly criticized orthodox Hinduism for the practice of idolatry, which he saw as a corruption of Hindu philosophy. Influenced by Islam, he held a monotheistic faith in the unity of God grounded in the Vedanta. Later, through interaction with Western thought, he came to see morality as the essence of religion and believed that reason should merely serve to purify it (Killingley 1978: 337—40, 364-6). In the light of his new understanding, he campaigned for the reform of Hinduism. He was gready attracted to the teachings of Jesus, but saw the Christian doctrines built around them as a corruption of the religion of Jesus. This led him to publish The Precepts o f Jesus: The Guide to Peace and Happiness in 1820, which was a collection of selected teachings of Jesus, excluding his miracles, death and resurrection. In his introduction, he justified his work: Voluminous works, written by learned men of particular sects for the purpose of establishing the truth, consistency, rationality, and priority of their own peculiar doctrines, contain such variety of arguments.... Besides, in matters of religion particularly men in general, through prejudice and partiality to the opinions which they once form, pay little or no attention to opposite sentiments (however reasonable they may be) and often turn a deaf ear to what is most consistent with the laws of nature, and conformable to the dictates of human reason and divine revelation.... For, historical and some other passages are liable to the doubts and disputes of free-thinkers and anti-christians, especially miraculous relations, which are much less wonderful than the fabricated tales handed down to the native o f Asia, and consequently would be apt, at best, to carry little weight with them. On the contrary, moral doctrines, tending evidently to the maintenance of the peace and harmony of mankind at large, are beyond the reach of metaphysical perversion, and intelligible alike to the learned and to the unlearned (1834: iii-iv). For Roy, accepting the atoning death of Christ was not necessary for a true disciple of Jesus because following Jesus was a matter of obedience to his teaching and this was compatible with Hinduism (Roy 1834:

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1-93). However, this view faced serious opposition from the Serampore Baptist missionaries, who argued that Roy was misrepresenting the gospel by neglecting the deity of Jesus and the atonement. The debate was started when Joshua Marshman, in his editorial in the Friend o f India (a journal published by the Serampore mission), described Roy as ‘an intelligent Heathen’ whose work might ‘greatly injure the cause of truth’. He was concerned that Roy was treating Jesus as merely a teacher or founder of a religious movement not as ‘Lord of all’ or ‘Redeemer of men, Sovereign Judge of quick and dead’ (Marshman 1822: 1-4). Cut to the quick at being called a ‘heathen’, Roy defended his position. First, he stressed the sufficiency of the teaching of Jesus apart from dogmas and historical facts because ‘there is no other means of attaining eternal life except the performance of our duties towards God in obeying his commandments’. Second, he saw Christian dogmas as the product of human institutions and individuals and thus the cause of division and confusion. He claimed that the majority of Christian converts in India were converted by ‘other attractions’ rather than by a ‘conviction of the truth and reasonableness of those dogmas’. He argued that the doctrine of the Trinity was ‘the stumbling-block to the conversion of the more enlightened amongst the Hindoos’ and that the unity of God was ‘the only doctrine consistent with reason and revelation’. Third, he claimed that he was not against Christianity and the missionaries but was trying to make the gospel meaningful to Hindus, and he accused the missionaries of insensitivity (Roy 1834: 95-125). In reply to Roy, Marshman reaffirmed the importance of the doctrines in a way typical of English nonconformists of his time: because they ‘enlighten the mind, awaken the conscience, and convert the soul’. He went on to use Calvinistic arguments against rational religion: the deity of Christ; the atoning death of Jesus; human depravity and the necessity of divine interference (Marshman 1822: 5-16). He further argued in the following article: Thus then we find the doctrine of Jesus’s atoning for the sins of men, and of his forming the only way of access to God, so fully interwoven into the instruction he gave to men, that if it be taken away, nothing remains to which we can attach either truth or consistency (45). Roy responded to this with his ‘Second Appeal’ in which he argued from the Bible that, though Jesus ‘represents himself as a Saviour, or a

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distributor of eternal Hie, in his capacity of divine teacher’, this did not necessarily mean that he himself was divine, and therefore he affirmed the ‘indispensableness and the all-sufficiency of the excellent Precepts in question to procure salvation’ (Roy 1834: 127-306). Marshman made his reply to this (1822: 64-256) and Roy wrote his ‘Final Appeal’ in 1823 (Roy 1834: 309-634). Throughout, Roy stressed the sufficiency o f following the teaching of Jesus for Christian salvation and attacked the Christian doctrine of the deity of Jesus. Through further interaction with Christians who tried to convert him to Christianity and the attitude of some missionaries who engaged in debates, Roy became increasingly hostile to the missionaries, and turned instead to defend Hinduism (Collet 1900: 125-6; Potts 1967: 238-9). The debate has been seen first and foremost as a failure of missionary response towards an Indian attempt to interpret Christianity. In Sophia Collet’s view, it was ‘impossible not to regret that the Christians of the day and hour had not been wiser’ (1900: 112). According to Stephen Neill, the missionaries were ‘strategically right but tactically wrong’ and Roy was ‘mistaken’ in thinking that the precepts of Jesus could be separated from Christian doctrines, so that ‘neither convinced the other’ (1985: 366-70). Robin Boyd saw the debate as ‘reminiscent’ of that in the West over Unitarian doctrine, and concluded that it had ‘little that is specially Indian about it’ (1975: 21). But the debate was deeper than matters of ‘tactics’ or ‘mistakes’ or ‘Unitarianism’. Contrary to what Boyd suggests, Roys theology was based on a Hindu understanding of religion, though it was couched in Western terminology. M.M. Thomas has provided a convincing interpretation of the theological point at issue: it was a question of conversion. He saw that the heart of the debate was the ‘relation between morality and salvation in Christianity’. For Roy, ‘knowledge of the moral law had in it its own power to reconcile men to God and empower them to lead the moral life’, whereas Marshman believed in ‘man’s need of grace, the act of God in Jesus Christ, to atone and reconcile man to God, and to enable him to live the moral law’ (Thomas 1991: 9-14). Thus, for Thomas, the debate ‘may be seen in pan as the struggle of modern India to define the truth and meaning of Jesus Christ in terms relevant to its life and thought, and in pan as the Church’s witness to its faith in dialogue with a segment of the Indian mind’ (1991: 30). The significance of the Roy-Marshman debate was therefore not in the methodological problems o f the missionaries or a H indu’s

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misunderstanding of the Christian faith, as many have thought: it was in the theological problem of the difference between a Hindu who discovered his version of the truth in the teaching of Jesus and a Christian who was converted to his version of truth through his faith in the doctrines concerning the life and death of Jesus. Roy was excited at discovering the teaching of Jesus, which he believed was of great value to his fellow Hindus in reaching the truth. The historical and theological nature of the person of Jesus and the metaphysical doctrines about him were not his concern; he was taken up with following Jesus and applying his teaching to his life. This did not require a radical change from the past, since it was simply a further stage in the search for the truth, which his Hindu faith taught him was ongoing. He understood that there was continuity in religious experience and therefore there was no need to abandon his previous identity or change his religious context. He believed he had found a way to experience the fullness of Christ without conversion to Christianity. On the other hand, Marshman believed that it was only through the atoning death of Jesus that the salvation of humankind had been made possible and that participation in this is attainable only through a personal experience of conversion. Marshman’s background in the Evangelical Revival led him to see conversion as a necessary and decisive moment of spiritual experience, as a new birth, an inward and outward religious change. Therefore conversion represented a clear discontinuity in religious experience and necessarily resulted in a change in religious context. Neither Roy nor Marshman were free from the cultural and religious contexts in which they operated and in which they interpreted religion in general and conversion in particular, and their debate reveals fundamental differences between Hindu and Christian theologies over conversion. Roy’s work became foundational for future Indian theologians’ arguments against conversion.

The debate between John Muir and the pandits 1839-1845 In the late 1820s and in the beginning of the 1830s, a number of young higher-caste Hindus in Bengal were convened to Christian faith. These were mainly students of the colleges run by Alexander Duff and other missionaries, who aimed to raise up a body of educated converts through whom the ultimate conversion of the country would take place (Neill 1985: 310-1). Concerned by this development and provoked by a

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pamphlet written in Sanskrit in 1839 by John Muir, a Scottish civil servant and Orientalist, Hindu pandits started to respond publicly to Christianity. Muir had a great zeal for the propagation of Christianity as well as for diligent research into Sanskrit literature. He wrote Matapariksha (Test of Doctrines) because he regarded Hindu resistance to Christianity as intellectual rather than religious or ethical. He held that the ‘test of reason’ would expose a false religion and that arguments from Hindu literature would lead all Hindus of their own free will to a gradual conversion. Muir put forward three marks o f a true religion: a miracle-working founder, holiness of scripture, and universality of scripture. He argued that ‘only Christianity possesses all three’ and used his criteria to prove Hinduism false, concluding that the ‘true religion, by which people are saved, must be proclaimed to everyone’.4 Muir’s presentation brought strong reactions from the pandits. Somanatha (Subaji Bapu)’s response in 1839 was based on the unity of purpose and compatibility of religions, although, as Young shows, this did not imply their equality. Somanatha held that no one should change their dharma: ‘For each person his own religion is best; the same religion would be perilous for another person’. Since one’s dharma is in accordance with the karma acquired in previous lives—and, in Somanatha’s estimation, Hindus had more karma than Christians, making their path to truth more straightforward—his philosophy suggested the superiority o f Hinduism (Young 1981: 143-9). Haracandra Tarkapancanana responded ferociously to Muir, accusing him of being ‘blind’ and ‘confused’ and ‘Hinduism’s great foe’ and implying that converts were guilty of lust, covetousness, or at least lack of judgment. On the basis of belief in the eternal pre-existence of the Vedas, he advocated both practical and doctrinal intolerance of Christianity, using militant expressions in actively attacking both its doctrines and the converts, and he provoked great anger from the Christian community (Young 1981: 149-53). The most important response for our study was from Nilakantha Goreh5 who argued that ‘[r]eason conforms only to scripture; not the scripture 4 A synopsis of this is included in Young (1981: 73-80). Young’s work includes English works by Muir and English synopses of his Sanskrit texts. It also gives exhaustive treatment of Hindu counter-arguments. For the brothers William and John Muir and their encounters with Hindu and Muslim scholars, see Powell (1996). 5 Goreh was a Maharashtrian who lived in Benares at the time of writing. He later rejected Hinduism and became a leading Indian Christian theologian, better known as Nehemiah Goreh.

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to reason’ (Young 1981:104-7). Julius Lipner explains that Goreh stood ‘squarely in the classical Vedantic tradition, for which the nature and existence of Brahman, the supreme being, cannot be demonstrated by reason’, and in his thinking, ‘faith leads reason by the hand, reason grasping faith where it may’. Therefore for him Muir’s claim of ‘universality’ and ‘conformability to reason’ as the mark of true religion was in fact the sign of a false religion since ‘the true religion is not based on truths susceptible to reason’ (1987: 298-9). The debates between Muir and the pandits were focused on the universal claim of Christianity and the use of reason to establish truth. While Muir claimed that Christian faith has universal implications for all human beings, regardless of their race and caste, on the basis of God’s universal grace, the pandits argued for the particularity of all religions, including Hinduism, on the basis of dharma. Muir argued that conversion is required because only Christianity is a ‘true’ religion by which one must obtain salvation. Muir’s ‘test of reason’ for true religion was based on the Western notion of rationality, as shaped by the Enlightenment, and according to that standard, he described Hinduism as failing. But the epistemological basis of the pandits’ apologetics was the Vedas, and by this measure Christianity was deficient and its doctrines false (Young 1981:135-6). According to their philosophy, Christianity was an inferior dharma and they thus called for ‘standing faithfully by one’s own religion’ (Young 1981: 161-4). Therefore the suggestion that conversion was necessary for salvation went against their understanding of the sanatana dharma. A critical Hindu response to Christian theology, particularly of conversion, began to emerge in these debates. The debates in Bengal focused initially on the doctrinal differences between Christianity and Hinduism, but conversion had become a central issue as early as the Roy-Marshman debate. As high-caste conversion was felt in the Hindu community and as conversion of Hindus was seen as the ultimate motive of the missionaries, the debate became even more clearly focused on the issues of the legitimacy of conversion and the universal claim of the Christian religion. Thus conversion was the main motivating factor behind the debates and Hindu leaders were pushed to find theological and philosophical justification to counter the Christian theology of conversion that the missionaries brought into India.6 The 6 For further debate on conversion between William Morton and the Editor of Prabhakar, and also the debate over the amendment of the ¡ex loci in 1850 (known as the Caste Disabilities Removal Act or the Freedom of Religion Act) see Ali (1965: 35-44, 94-136).

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missionaries’ understanding that Christianity is the ‘only’ true religion applicable to every human being regardless of race and caste meant that they believed that they were obliged to help Hindus to convert since this was the ‘only’ way to their salvation. The various Hindu responses to this problem of the universal claim of Christianity resulted not so much in a new theology of Hinduism as in a discovery of the essence of Hindu dharma and its cultural and geographical distinctiveness that was expressed in the system of caste. It was dharma that provided the rationale and justification for regarding the Christian notion of conversion as unacceptable and inapplicable in the Indian context— that is, for affirming the particularity of Hinduism. The missionaries introduced Christianity into India along with Western civilization—its science, technology, literature, philosophy— based on the notion of ‘reason’. In their approach to Hinduism, they used these ‘scientific’ tools to ‘prove’ the ‘irrationality’ of Hinduism and encouraged Hindus to do the same. Because Christian doctrines were systematized they regarded them as indisputable and used them as the basis for assessing other religions. They regarded Christianity and science as closely linked and complementary, but in practice, they tended to regard science and reason as independent ‘neutral’ sources of authority against which all non-Christian religions could be measured. Therefore, Muir and others found it ‘fatally difficult to see dimensions of nonWestern consciousness that could not be reduced to the hard tactile level of facticity’ (Stanley 1996: 26-7). While the missionaries found no difficulty in holding a ‘reasonable’ approach to assessing Hinduism, they did not apply the same to the Christian faith. However, in India, ‘unlike in the West, science was not perceived as possessing an alternative authority to religion’; it was simply incorporated into ‘the greater religious truth’ (Jones 1989: 212). Therefore, Hindus found it difficult to see why Christian doctrine should ‘lack’ the reason they learned from their encounter with Western science and technology. As the debates continued, it was evident that the Hindus were moving from the position of defending their religion to opposing Christian doctrine by adopting the rationale that was imported by the missionaries. Thus, the missionaries found that ‘from being mere critics o f the native religions, [they] were called upon to defend their own position’ (Ali 1965: 54-5). During the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning o f the twentieth century, a number of young high-caste Hindus converted

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to Christian faith. These converts—Krishna Mohan Banerjea, Nilakanth Shastri (Neheraiah) Goreh, Pandita Ramabai, Lai Behari Day, Narayan Vaman Tilak, and Sadhu Sundar Singh— later became prominent Christian thinkers and theologians.7 Because of their higher caste background and their profile in their society, their decisions brought controversy and criticism from their respective Hindu communities. In response to criticism, they each had to exhibit their sincere commitment to Christ and at the same time their firm roots in Indian heritage. Banerjea, Goreh and Day were particularly eager to share their new faith with Hindus by various means and openly argued for the superiority of Christianity over Hinduism with a view to persuading them to accept Christianity (Philip 1982: 74-81). But, with the exception of Goreh who held a high view of the Church, most of the these converts were less enthusiastic about the Protestant missionary understanding of conversion as a radical break with Hindu tradition and an incorporation into the Christian community. For example, though Singh emphasized the importance of Christians being associated with the Christian community, he nevertheless complained that ‘[n] arrow-minded Christians often do not consider those to be Christians who believe in Christ, if they have never publicly identified themselves with Christian communities’ (Francis 1994: 357, 380-1). Others, like Tilak and Pillai, were highly critical of Western forms of the Christian church and denominationalism. They advocated indigenous Christianity and expressed their theologies in vernacular poetry (Jacob 1979; Tilak 1956; Appasamy 1966b). The problem of conversion in relation to the church is a recurring theme for Indian theologians and this was highlighted at the International Missionary Council Tambaram Conference in 1938 by the Madras ‘Rethinking Christianity’ group (Devasahayam and Sunarisanam 1938). They pointed out the politicization of mass conversion and expressed concern over the Christian community being confined to the church, which they saw as a Western product. They regarded the traditional missionary emphasis on conversion to the Christian community—and therefore change of religious affiliation by joining the church— as the root cause of the problem of Christian mission. And they insisted that there must be an alternative model and goal for Christian mission: either 7 For their conversion experiences, see Philip (1982: 1-22); Paradkar (1969: 15); Adhav(1979:103-40); Jacob (1979:3-4); Appasamy (1966a: 17-26); Appasamy (1966b: 22-31).

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creating an Indian church, radically different from the traditional church structure, or seeking the kingdom o f God and rejecting any form of church (see Chapter Five). By the early twentieth century, the Indian people—at least the ruling classes of Indian society—had gained confidence in Hinduism not only as the main religion of India but also as a competitor to other religions and ideologies. This was a result of the work of Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, K.C. Sen, and especially Swami Vivekananda. The latter in particular popularized Hindu religion and philosophy in the West, thus changing the perception o f Hinduism as an ancient superstitious belief associated with immorality to a highly sophisticated system of religious thought and culture based on the ancient wisdom of Hindus. Thus the nationalists were able to argue for the superiority of ‘religious’ India in the face of the acknowledged political and military supremacy of the West. Vivekananda summed up the new confidence of Hindus in their religious heritage when he said in Los Angeles in 1900, ‘The voice of Asia has been the voice of religion. The voice of Europe is the voice of politics. Each is great in its own sphere’ (Vivekananda 1993:142). The Hindu critique of Christianity, especially of the missionary intention to convert Hindus, was to be expressed even more intensely by M. K. Gandhi in debate with missionaries and Indian Christian leaders in the 1930s. II. M . K . G a n d h i

a n d t h e d e b a t e s o n c o n v e r s io n ,

1931-1937 As India moved into the twentieth century, the idea of the common religious identity of Hindus was promoted by the nationalist movement, especially the National Congress Party formed in 1885. The movement had developed a clear objective: to achieve independence from the British Raj, and its leaders did not hesitate to relate this to the Hindu religious heritage of the majority. This also gave moral and spiritual justification to self-rule, swaraj, under the principle of self-reliance, swadcshi, and resulted in a powerful ideology by which the Hindu élite were able to mobilize the mass of the people despite the diversity of Indian society. However, those who wished to integrate the politics of the nationalist movement and the Hindu religion in their struggle for India’s independence faced a serious challenge—the conversion of increasing

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numbers of the Depressed Classes8 to Christianity. Mass conversion along the lines of caste group or community was a general pattern in the history of Christianity in India (Pickett 1933: 36-57; Webster 1992: 33-76).9 The conversions from the Depressed Classes in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century gave rise to various problems: first, conversions of the Depressed Classes undermined Hindu claims to religious supremacy, or at least ‘equal’ rank with other religions—especially Christianity; therefore they were a challenge to the basis of the political framework with which they were opposing British rule. Second, both Hindu leaders and the leaders of the Depressed Classes saw the political potential of conversion, especially as the British government moved in 1932 to provide a separate electorate for the Depressed Classes (Harper 1988: 147-75). So the issue became a dominant concern for both sides in their respective struggles for freedom—from the British Raj and from the system of untouchability in Hindu society. Third, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, mass conversions were seen as caused by ‘outsider intervention’ by the missionaries for ‘ulterior motives’, which raised strong suspicions among Hindus.

The formation o f Gandhi’s views on conversion As M. K. Gandhi emerged as the leader of the nationalist movement and the leading figure in Indian politics, he became increasingly aware of the need for a unified national identity that could bring political momentum to the fight against the British Raj. He also knew that such a national identity was not possible unless there was peaceful coexistence 8There are number of other terms used for this group, for example, untouchables, outcastes, Harijans, Scheduled Castes, dalits. Although the term dalits is the current most common self-designation, it was not in general use in the 1930s. Depressed Classes was the official term and Harijans was the name Gandhi gave the group. In this study I shall use these terms in keeping with the context and the preference of the writers. 9 J.W. Pickett defined mass conversion as a ‘group decision’ to convert rather than an individual decision (1933: 22). However, John C.B Webster argues that it is both an individual and a group decision but that the movement spread via caste linkage (1992: 75-6). Sundaraj Manickam prefers the term ‘group conversion’ since ‘mass’ implies the scale of movement rather than the pattern (1977). See also the similar argument by Donald A. McGavran who prefers to use ‘people movement’ (1970: 296-315).

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of the different religious communities in India (Samartha 1974: 97). He saw conversions of the Depressed Classes as a threat not only to communal harmony but also to the very concept of the Indian nation. Therefore he openly expressed his disapproval o f conversion to Christianity. I have absolutely no faith in the proselytizing activity that is being carried on today. It may have benefited some persons, but the benefit is of little account when compared with the harm which has followed. Religious controversy serves no purpose. God wants us to profess what we sincerely believe. There are thousands of men and women today who, though they may not have heard about the Bible or Jesus, have more faith and are more godfearing than Christians who know the Bible and who talk of its Ten Commandments. Religion is no matter for words, it is the path of the brave. And my humble intelligence refuses to believe that a man becomes good when he renounces one religion and embraces another (CWMG XXVII: 204).10 He further complained that missionary activity took place under the ‘shadow’ or ‘protection’ of the Raj (Young India, 6 August 1925). Gandhi engaged in many debates on the issue with missionaries and Indian Christian leaders. In the early 1930s, as mass conversion became a ‘movement’, his tone on the issue of conversion was increasingly hostile and focused on the issue of the proselytizing activities of the missionaries among the ‘untouchables’. Although deeply rooted in Hindu religious philosophy, Gandhi was a ‘man whose own religious life was not mainly shaped by philosophical texts, even by scriptural authorities’, but by his own moral judgement and by political exigencies (Chatterjee 1983: 14). For Gandhi religion and politics were inseparable (CWMG XIII: 221); therefore he could not regard mass conversion as a purely religious movement, as the missionaries insisted it was, but increasingly felt the potential political and communal problems that would result for his agenda. Despite apparent contradictions (Samartha 1974: 78), there is an 10 1925.

Speech delivered to a meeting of women missionaries in Darjeeling on 6 June

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overall consistency in Gandhi’s approach which is perhaps best summed up by M.M. Thomas who saw him as primarily a man o f ‘political and social action, inspired by a religious interpretation of human existence’ which had three major components: satya, ahimsa and swadeshi (1991: 195-200). Gandhi’s understanding of satya was that all religions express a search for the Truth and in that sense they are all equal. Therefore he argued against proselytism on the basis of the ‘equality of all religions’ and the need to respect them all (see Pushparajan 1990; Jesudasan 1970: 45-72). Gandhi condemned ‘competition and conflict’ and ‘counting numbers’, and denounced conversion as ‘a blasphemy against God and the self (CWMG XXVII: 203-6). He stressed that ‘a Hindu should be a better Hindu’ and regarded proselytizing activity as an interference with the good works of God ( Young India, 19 January 1928). He complained that the missionaries’ objective was not the ‘upliftment of the untouchables but their ultimate conversion’ and regarded the motive of mass proselytization as vitiating missionary effort ( Young India, 21 March 1929). As early as 1916, in a speech to a missionary conference in Madras, Gandhi condemned the ‘ulterior motives’ of the missionaries who used ‘ways and means’ to approach the most vulnerable section of the society because this was against his principle of ahimsa. It violated the fundamental ethics of human conduct and was an ‘unfair’ intrusion on human dignity. He strongly urged the missionaries not to engage in proselytizing activities since their interpretation of the Great Commission was rather narrow, many conversions were wrongly motivated, and in every case a ‘conversion leaves a sore behind’. But the swadeshi principle was the most powerful and most frequendy used in his arguments— the idea that India needed economic, political and religious self-reliance, the fundamental right of any society as a people of dignity. His ideas on swadeshi had implications for three spheres of Indian life: religious, political, and economic. In the religious sphere, he claimed that Hinduism was the ‘most tolerant [religion] because it is non-proselytising’ and, according to this spirit of swadeshi, a Hindu ‘refuses to change his religion’ since he can improve it through reforms within ( CWMG XIII: 219— 25). For him, Christianity was something un-Indian that was imposed upon the people against their will, and even more, it was the religion of the oppressors—the enemies of the swadeshi movement. By the early 1930s there was growing tension between Gandhi and the missionaries

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and this eventually led to a debate between M. K. Gandhi and £. Stanley Jones, the prominent American Methodist missionary.11

The debate between M. K. Gandhi and E. Stanley Jones on conversion, 1931 E. Stanley Jones was very influential and well respected in India through his practice of inter-religious dialogue, ashram living, and his interaction with educated Hindus. In his book, The Christ o f the Indian Road, which was first published in 1925, he stressed that Christians presented a Christ to India who is not a Western import but was there in India before them. He said that the aim of his mission was ‘to produce Christlike character’, not to westernize India, and he discerned a regeneration of Indian life through an as yet unrecognized experience of Christ (Jones 1925:48-9). On the issue of conversion, he distinguished between what he called ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ conversion and, though he saw both as legitimate, emphasized the importance of the former over the latter, particularly in view of conversion being used as a political weapon by different religious communities (1928: 70-89). He insisted that ‘horizontal’ conversion, that is mere change of religious affiliation, should not take place unless it involved a ‘vertical’ conversion which he defined as a ‘spiritual change wrought by Christ that lifts us from sin to goodness, from discord to harmony, from selfishness to sacrifice, from ourselves to God, and gives us a new sphere of living, the Kingdom of God’ (1928: 71). Although he believed that Gandhi truly practised the teachings of Christ, in 1926 he wrote to Gandhi to persuade him to meet and experience the ‘radiant Person of Christ’ both for his own sake and that of the nation. Gandhi expressed his appreciation of these sentiments and invited Jones to his ashram to discuss the matter further, and they remained friends, but he did not accept the necessity for a personal experience of Christ (Jones 1939: 139—41; 1948: 102; see also Martin 1996: 64-5). Controversy began when Gandhi was interviewed by The Hindu and asked if he would favour the retention of foreign missionaries when India obtained self-government. He replied, 11 For recent work on E. Stanley Jones and his relationship with Gandhi, see Martin (1996).

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In Search of Identity

If instead of confining themselves purely to humanitarian work and material service to the poor, they do proselytizing by means of medical aid, education, etc., then I would certainly ask them to withdraw. Every nation’s religion is as good as any other. Certainly India’s religions are adequate for her people. We need no converting spiritually (CWMG XLV: 320). This brought an immediate reaction from missionaries in India as well as Christians in the West who were concerned that Gandhi was advocating the prohibition not only of conversion but also missionary work as a whole.12 Because of this, Gandhi later toned down some of his comments to: ‘I would certainly like them to withdraw’ and ‘India stands no need of conversion from one faith to another’ (Young India, 23 April 1931; also see NCCR, June 1931: 301-2). E. Stanley Jones wrote an ‘open letter’ to Gandhi opposing the original statement. He agreed with Gandhi that missionaries should not use hospitals and schools for the purpose of proselytizing as he saw education and healing as sufficient ends in themselves. However, while he opposed proselytizing, he also argued: ... I think it is an entirely different thing for me to share my faith with others, and if that sharing leads to moral and spiritual conversion, I believe that person so inwardly convened has a moral right to declare outwardly what he has experienced inwardly and to join any group where that new life might be cultivated... [I] t is a fundamental human right and a fundamental human duty to share what he finds precious in any realm— intellectual, social, moral, political, and spiritual (NCCR, May 1931: 271-5). As for the statement that the ‘religion of one nation is as good as another nation’, he claimed that the truth is by its very nature universal, comparing it with scientific truth. He concluded that what Gandhi was demanding was the relinquishment of the right to share Christ with others, which he regarded as inherent in a Christian’s spiritual make-up.

12 Among the respondents were James Rutnam (1931) and B.W. Tucker (1931). See also ‘Editorial Notes’, NCCR, June 1931: 281-3; C. Frimodt-Moller (1931: 298-301).

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29

The root o f Jones’s argument was that the Mahatma, whom he regarded as ‘the aposde of the new freedom’, was inconsistent in using political means to limit religious freedom, which hinged on the issue of conversion, while talking about a new India which would be the embodi­ ment of toleration. To this open letter, Gandhi responded in a personal letter (CWMG XLVI: 45) in which he expressed his disappointment that Jones, whom he regarded as his friend, had responded hastily without checking the accuracy of the interview report. However, taking into consi­ deration all the circumstances, the missionaries’ suspicion that Gandhi intended to use political means to stop conversion was not unfounded.13 While Gandhi argued against conversion by applying the principle o f swadcshi, Jones’s argument was based on human rights. They also differed over the nature of religious identity. Gandhi considered that religion was embodied in the religious heritage of one’s forefathers— thus a person is born into it. Since it is one’s very identity, one needs to reform it rather than renounce it. Therefore conversion to another religion was not only religious apostasy but also a denial of the self and understood as a rebuff to Hindu society. But Jones believed that religion, like ideology or scientific facts, could be separated from one’s socio-cultural heritage. It is something that the individual may decide rather than something already decided by one’s socio-cultural background. While Gandhi argued for the duty of Hindus to keep the identity they were born with, Jones argued for the right of the individual to select the religion of their choice. Hindus felt that under the British Raj the missionaries and the Christians had held an unfair advantage and could impose their religion upon the people of India. Christians and missionaries feared that the situation after Independence would be reversed. Therefore Jones sought a way of allowing conversion while maintaining Hindu identity. Jon'es’s struggle to untangle the problem of conversion was by no means new or unique to him: it remains a recurring problem of Christian mission in India. The debate continued when Gandhi went to England to attend the second Round Table Conference in London. During this visit in 1931, Gandhi spoke to a missionary conference where he emphasized that it was a misunderstanding of his intention to say that he would legislate to 19 Later Gandhi also allowed publication of an interview with a missionary nurse in which he stated, ‘If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop them proselytizing’ (Harijan, 11 May 1935).

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In Search of Identity

prohibit missionary activity; however, he held to his position concerning conversion (CWMG XLVIII: 120-8). Gandhi insisted that just as a nation has no right to impose its ideology and power on another, so the missionaries had no right to impose their religious convictions. He drew a further parallel between the British Empire and the missionary enterprise: as the Empire was meant for the benefit of its own people by exploiting the people of India so the missionary activities to convert people were primarily in the interest of the missionaries and not out of genuine concern for the people in their need. Perhaps what Gandhi found most unjustifiable was the missionaries’ insistence that they knew better what the people of India needed—spiritual salvation in the form of religious conversion. What he saw as the real need, the fundamental right of his own people, was deliverance from oppression and poverty. He could not tolerate what he saw as the arrogance of the missionaries, just as he could not accept the rule of the British Raj.

The debate between M. K Gandhi and V.S. Azariah on mass conversion, 1935-1937 V.S. Azariah, Bishop of Dornakal and Chairman of the National Council of Churches of India, Burma and Ceylon, became ‘the most successful leader of grassroots movements of conversion to Christianity in Asia during the early twentieth century’ (Harper 2000: 1). Azariah and other Christian leaders were initially cautious of association with the mass conversion movements because these were politically sensitive. Nevertheless, Azariah’s writings show that his attitude to mass conversion was not unfavourable and he believed that, in spite of the problems, there was a spiritual dimension to mass conversions that represented the sovereign work of God (Azariah 1929: 509-17). The most significant forum for cooperative evangelism among the Protestant churches in India was the Forward Movement in Evangelism which was initiated by the National Council of Churches in 1932. They defined their main objective as ‘evangelism’, by which they meant the presentation of Christ to all Indian people with a view to their conversion. It was very much a church-centred mission, emphasizing that the church is the ‘divine instrument’ and that the convert should join the church to share in its privileges and responsibilities. The Council issued a series of ‘Calls to the Church’ beginning in August 1933 to mobilize its members for evangelism and a nation-wide Protestant Christian movement developed,

Debates on Conversion under the British Raj

31

which was supported by churches and mission organizations (see Hodge 1939: 86-98). As the Protestant churches engaged in full-scale evangelism, especially among the Depressed Classes, the leaders needed to present their views on conversion in order to counter the widespread criticism of Christian conversion by Hindu leaders. In 1935, responding to one such presentation, which defined conversion as a change of heart from sin to God brought about by Christ alone, Gandhi took the opportunity to make a strong attack on conversion, especially mass conversion. He declared that this definition could apply only to cases of individual conversion, not to the mass conversion of the Depressed Classes, and insisted that conversion should be left to God and no one should judge another’s heart. He argued that it could not be a Christian’s right to convert others because the motivation to convert others is in itself wrong. He forcefully stated his belief that .. .there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another in the accepted sense of the term. It is a highly personal matter for the individual and his God. I may not have any design upon my neighbour as to his faith which I must honour even as I honour my own. For I regard all the great religions of the world as true at any rate for the people professing them as mine is true for me.. .Whether they—the missionaries—and we wish it or not, what is true in the Hindu faith will abide, what is untrue will fall to pieces. Every living faith must have within itself the power of rejuvenation if it is to live (Harijan, 28 September 1935). In October 1935, B.R. Ambedkar, leader of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation and a renowned lawyer, made the unprecedented declaration that he and his followers would renounce Hinduism (Zelliot 1992: 150-83; Webster 1992: 79-128; Vishwanathan 1998: 211-39). Indian Christian leaders, being cautious about the political nature of Ambedkar’s move, did not, it seems, immediately make a direct approach to him to persuade him to become a Christian (Webster 1992: 10912). Azariah himself expressed concern over the politicization of conversion (Harper 2000: 307-8). However, it was in this context that Azariah, in the third ‘Call to the Church’ issued in January 1936, saw fit to challenge the churches in India to make a ‘concentrated and definite advance in evangelism’. He stated that the call was in no ‘communal

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In Search of Identity

spirit’ or for ‘adding numbers to a community’, and argued that a recent ‘widespread and deep unrest’ among the Depressed Classes was not from ‘material dissatisfaction’ but a response to ‘deep spiritual hunger’ (Azariah 1939: 92-4). At this stage he clearly justified the church’s engagement in evangelistic work among the Depressed Classes on the grounds that, although they might appear to be communally or materially motivated, the mass movements were a spiritual matter. Later, in December 1936, a Conference on Mass Movements was held which discussed the unrest among the Depressed Classes and the progress of the Forward Movement. In response to criticism of the motives, methods and results of mass conversion by Gandhi and others, and to some Indian Christians’ apprehensions about the ‘spiritual quality’ of the new converts, the National Christian Council justified mass conversions by terming the real motives behind the movement as ‘spiritual’, caused by the work of the Holy Spirit (Hodge 1939: 11415). However, the motivation of the converts from Depressed Class backgrounds was still the focus of criticism from Hindus and a major concern for Christian leaders. Azariah wished to embrace the Depressed Classes, whose motives included the social and economic, but without undermining the credibility of Indian Christianity; therefore he made a statement legitimizing ‘non-spiritual’ motives in conversion, which he said should not prevent converts from joining the Christian fellowship. In his letter to all the heads of churches and missions, he acknowledged a variety of motives in the mass movements, but stated: We are however convinced that underneath all appearances, there is the longing, in the generality of these groups, to flee from the superstitions and religious practices of the past, to escape from the religion which has not respected their personality and to abandon the society which has not treated them with fair justice. We believe these motives are justifiable enough for people to change their religion..! Susan Harper explains how, by ‘recognising their socio-political dimensions, Azariah interpreted Ambedkar’s efforts for the Depressed Classes and their outcome as valid reflections of God’s activity’. Azariah defended the movements not only from biblical precedents but also ‘from u Azariah’s letter entitled ‘All Heads o f Churches and Missions (Private Circulation)’, May 1936, Box 395/43, IMC/CBMS, N CCC, SOAS.

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33

the particularities of the Indian situation’, that is he viewed the problem o f conversion ‘from within the context of a culture in which material reality was imbued with sacred significance’. This led him to develop a more subtle understanding of the motivation of mass conversions beyond the dichotomy between spiritual and material (Harper 1988: 149-52). In a shift from his earlier approach of looking for the spiritual motive behind the other motives, Azariah now saw the whole human predicament as motivation for conversion. However, as he also stated at the time, he believed that, through good discipleship of the new converts by members of the Christian community, any ‘unworthy motives’ would later disappear and be replaced by ‘love to the Lord Jesus’.15 Azariah’s confidence in the ability of the Christian community to bring about a spiritual outlook in the converts was in sharp contrast to that of Gandhi, who believed that the ‘non-spiritual’ motives of the converts compromised the result and could never produce a spiritual community. In 1936 and 1937 Gandhi’s polemic against conversion became more forceful:16 he denounced it as the ‘deadliest poison that ever sapped the fountain of truth’ (Harijan, 16 January 1937) and ‘an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace’ (Harijan, 30 January 1937). It is important to notice also that Azariah recognized the source of the motivation and decision for conversion in the people themselves. In his analysis, they were motivated to convert not because of the proselytizing activities of outsiders but by their own concerns. As Azariah looked towards imminent Independence, after which Indian Christians would have to live under swaraj, it was important to establish that Indian Christians were not just a product of outside interference but also the outcome of their own search for the new life in Christ. Gandhi, on the other hand, increasingly criticized Christian efforts to convert the Depressed Classes by saying ‘the poor Harijans have no mind, no intelligence, no sense of difference between God and no-God’ ( Harijan, 28 November 1936) and, in an interview with John Mott, he made a highly controversial remark in which he compared evangelizing Harijans to preaching the gospel to a cow (Harijan, 19 and 26 December 1936). 15 Azariah’s letter entitled ‘All Heads o f Churches and Missions (Private Circulation)’, ibid. 16 Note chat Gandhi bitterly criticized his son Harilal’s public announcement of his conversion to Islam on 29 May 1936 (Han/an, 6 June 1936).

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In Search of Identity

Gandhi portrayed the mass conversions as Christians trying to impose their religion by offering material and social benefits on people who did not know the consequences. However, this made+ it seem as if Gandhi was patronizing the Depressed Classes as mere objects of conversion who could be easily manipulated by other groups wanting to take advantage of them, and this provoked resentment from intellectuals of a Depressed Class background as well as Christian leaders. The active mobilization of mass movements among the Depressed Classes by Indian Christian leaders created tension with Hindu leaders, and the relationship between Azariah and Gandhi especially soured (Harijan, 17 April 1937). Harper gives a detailed account of an attempt at Hindu-Christian mediation by Agatha Harrison, Secretary of the India Conciliation Group, and also of the Gandhi-Azariah meeting at Nagpur in 1937, its subsequent failure, and the controversy over it raised by Donald McGavran a year later (Harper 2000: 318-38). In the midst of the mediation process, in his letter to Harrison, Azariah made his position clear: ‘Christianity has always stood for conversion, and for changing people from one society to another’ which means ‘breaking with the old fellowship and joining a new fellowshipand he called on Gandhi to abandon his ‘attitude of antagonism to change of religion as such’ (Azariah’s letter, 17 January 1937). The mediation meeting failed, as it was bound to do since the differences of view on conversion between Gandhi and Azariah were so deep, and their suspicion of each other’s intentions increased. The struggle between the two was not only a personal divergence of views, but also a reflection of the stigma attached to conversion in India, as a result of its history and politics, and of the deep religious differences between Hindus and Christians. Gandhi’s suspicions about conversion meant that he tended to regard the Indian Christian community as an appendage of the missionaries and not demonstrably a spiritual community. Therefore, he found it difficult to accommodate the Christians as equal partners in his vision for India. Gandhi was alarmed by the fact that in the 1930s Indian Christians themselves initiated mass conversion movements among the Depressed Classes not only because of the growth caused in Christian numbers but also because of the increasing confidence of their leadership. Gandhi’s indication that he would use political means to prevent conversion was understandable in view of the inseparability of politics and religion in his outlook, but it was seen by Christians as a threat to exercise religious oppression in free India. The price of gaining political

Debates on Conversion under the British Raj

35

freedom from the British Raj would be that religious minorities had to conform to the Hindu majority, and therefore conversion would be severely constrained. Within the complexity of Indian society and given the socio-economic situation of the Depressed Classes, the motives for conversion were inevitably mixed. This undermined the legitimacy of the Christian community as a whole. Gandhi saw the mass conversion movements as yet another political move by the Harijans. He regarded the Harijans as sharing a common Hindu heritage and made many attempts to ‘uplift’ them but underestimated their resentment at being treated as object rather than subject and their deep desire for human dignity and equality. It was ironic that the man whose confidence in the equality of his people with other nations led him to challenge the British Empire should himself take such a paternalistic attitude to oppressed communities within his own nation. The differences between Azariah and Gandhi hinged on the nature of conversion: Gandhi asserted that conversion takes place legitimately only in the spiritual realm of the individual, whereas Azariah concluded that it also embraced socio-political realms of human community. In the Indian context—and perhaps in any context—such a fine separation o f motives as Gandhi’s is impossible. On the other hand, Azariah’s attempt to legitimize socio-economic and political motives for conversion was based on the confidence that the Christian gospel would eventually lead converts into spiritual maturity and produce a transformed community—a premise that would frequendy be challenged by Hindus, as I shall explain in the following chapters. Though much effort was expended in discussing motivation, it became increasingly clear that for Gandhi any change of religion was unacceptable because it contravened his ideal of an India founded on traditional Hindu values. The differing views on conversion of Gandhi, Jones and Azariah, though conditioned by the socio-political circumstances of their time and the result of their personal convictions, also represent the particular religious tradition of each. The Hindu argument against conversion based on religious tolerance and Christian arguments for conversion as a fundamental right and part of the essential nature of Christianity were to be characteristic o f later debates as well. Conversion emerged as a crucial issue in the ‘dynamic’ historical process o f ‘internal dissent and cultural adjustment’ in early nineteenthcentury Bengal as Hindus and Christians sought to express the

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In Search of Identity

relationship between their religions (Jones 1989: 210). Whereas the nineteenth-century debates focused on individual conversions of highcaste Hindus, those of the twentieth were concerned with the mass conversions of Harijans. In the 1930s, in the context of a separate electorate for the Depressed Classes, conversion became a bone of contention as never before. In the debates of Gandhi with missionaries and Indian Christians it was revealed as a matter of great complexity that could not be ignored in the process of making an independent India. The search for a common identity for Hindus and Indian Christians was set to continue but the effort had already been stained by their deep and painful suspicion of each other, and entangled by the problems of the colonial legacy and the politics of communalism. So the debates on conversion went on as India approached Independence, and the arguments rehearsed in early flineteenth-century Bengal and further developed in the 1930s resurfaced in the Constituent Assembly, which will be examined in the next chapter.

3 The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly, 1947-1949 Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions o f this Pan, all persons are equally enrided to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. —Article 25 (1) of the Constitution of India1

As Independence approached, the political centre of gravity was inevitably located in the Constituent Assembly, the body that would frame the Constitution of independent India and thereby guide the lives of its people. As Jawaharlal Nehru and S. Radhakrishnan emphasized, this would be the first test of whether the ‘sovereign body of the Constituent Assembly could define swaraj in such a way as to meet the ‘fundamental needs’ of all the people of India regardless of their race, religion or community (Nehru 1983: 692-4; Radhakrishnan’s speech in CAD II: 269-70). The formulation of a Constitution based on their ideologies of ‘sovereignty, unity, order, a strong state, secularism, democracy and parliamentarism, economic self-sufficiency and the need for social and economic reform’ was the primary political agenda of the nationalist leaders as they faced the challenge of the new era (Brass 1994: 10). In this process of shaping the new India, the leaders of the nationalist movement not only had to arrange for the orderly transition of power from the British but also to channel into a common direction the widely differing views within the Hindu majority while keeping together the 1 Adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949.

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In Search of Identity

various ‘minority’ communities of the country. Though it has been shown that the nationalist leaders were committed to a secular ideology throughout their campaign (Chandra 1988: 518-28), their bias towards the Hindu majority was equally evident. As the struggle with the British for Independence neared its close, the struggles between different communities within India became apparent—particularly between the majority Hindus and the minorities. As far as Hindus and Christians were concerned, religious conversion was a major issue. It caused communal tension and was a stumbling block to common identity. This was evident during the debate concerning the fundamental rights to be enshrined in the Constitution. In this chapter, I will discuss the reasons for the emergence of conversion as a major constitutional concern, and then analyse the subsequent debate in order to reflect in an informed way on the arguments of both Christians and Hindus over the issue. I. T h e i s s u e o f c o n v e r s i o n i n t h e e m e r g i n g POLITICS OF SWARAJ

The Christian community had made it clear that they wished to be integrated into the wider Indian community in building up the nation, and that they welcomed the movement towards Independence (NCCR, January 1946: 32; NCCR, March 1947: 103-4). However, there was growing concern among Christians that their religious liberty would be limited under Hindu majority rule (Bates 1945: 56-62). This fear was confirmed by increasing attempts by Hindus prior to Independence to prohibit conversion in various parts of India. As a result of the passing of the lex loci, the Regulation Law in 1832 and the amendment of it in 1850 known as the Caste Disabilities Removal Act or the Freedom of Religion Act, the disadvantages caused by change of religion had been largely removed in British India (Potts 1967: 222-23). However, this did not apply in the princely states, where Hindu or Muslim law was practised and, in the period before Independence, various restrictions concerning conversion were passed in these states: the Raigarh State Conversion Act of 1936 required that a person seeking conversion needed to obtain a certificate of conversion from the authorities and disallowed preaching for the purpose of conversion. Similarly, the Patna State

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly

39

Freedom of Religion Act of 1942 (Weller 1946: 80-1; Srivastava 1982: 161; Smith 1963: 176-81; Manikam 1947: 175-90); the Surguja State Apostasy Act in 1945 (NCCR, March 1946: 87); and the Udaipur State Anti-Conversion Act in 1946 (Niyogi Report I: 12-13) all placed legal obstacles in the way of the would-be convert and the one propagating the message. These restrictions on conversion in the princely states led to anxiety among foreign missionaries and Indian Christians that their religious freedom would be severely limited and the rights of the Christian minority ignored in independent India. While the intention of Hindus in these states to restrict conversion was clear—and this was gaining support from other states even in British India (NCCR, September 1947: 459)2— Christians regarded the right o f conversion as a key issue in the matter of religious freedom. At the Mass Meeting at Nagpur on Religious Freedom in November 1944, the participants passed a resolution which emphasized that the freedom ‘to worship, to preach and to convert people of other faiths’ is an ‘integral’ part o f Christianity and the ‘inalienable and unalterable right’ of all Christians, and that this has no political or communal motives (NCCR, February 1945: 30-1). The joint committee of the Catholic Union of India and All India Council of Indian Christians issued a resolution in October 1945, which urged that, in the constitution, ‘the free profession, practice and propagation of religion’ should be guaranteed (NCCR, January 1946: 2-3). In negotiations with the Indian National Congress, the All India Council of Indian Christians agreed to cooperate with the Congress but at the same time made it clear that they expected a guarantee of ‘full and unfettered profession, practice and teaching’ of Christian faith (NCCR, January 1946: 32). E. Stanley Jones, who was then the leading figure among the missionaries, expressed his concern that ‘where it [conversion] is not allowed there is a denial of freedom of conscience. A denial of freedom of conscience strikes at the root of individual freedom. It would be the beginning of other bondage. No free people could or would tolerate it’ (1946: 98-103). There was a growing movement among Christians to safeguard this religious freedom in the Constitution itself under the ‘fundamental rights’ 2 The Central Provinces and Berar Public Safety Act of 1947 stated that any conversion had to be validated before a District Magistrate but later this clause was deleted because of strong opposition from Christians.

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to be included in it. The Christian campaign then focused on the Constituent Assembly to ensure that the Christian representatives in the Assembly presented their position on conversion (NCCR , April 1946: 120-1). TTie National Council of Churches Tenth Triennial Meeting in Nagpur (26-29 November 1946) stated that: Christians desire and expect that provision shall be made in the Constitution of the country that will ensure to every single individual freedom to profess, practise and propagate his or her faith, including the right to change it voluntarily, and desire further that no person because of conversion should be deprived of any civic, or personal right, nor be subjected by the State to any social or economic or legal disability because of such change in religion (NCCR, January 1947: 21). Similarly, the Catholic Union of India, in their statement on fundamental rights, declared that the freedom of conscience includes ‘the right to change one’s religion’ and the freedom of expression includes ‘the right of individuals or organisations to teach, preach, and propagate the tenets of their creed and win adherents’ (NCCR, February 1947: 98). In September 1946, in the midst of this discussion, J.F. Butler and S. Samuel published The Right o f Conversion. This 45-page ‘pamphlet’ was produced with the intention of justifying in a systematic way the Christian insistence on the importance of conversion. The authors defined conversions as ‘changes of faith, together with the outward expressions that such changes normally involve, and efforts to promote such changes’ and insisted that the right of conversion, along with freedom of religious belief and expression, was an ‘inherent right’ based on one’s sense of ‘duty and integrity’. They argued that: Truth is universal—true, and therefore good, for all: hence, when it fully grips a man, it (or what is sincerely taken to be it) grips him not only as a thing to hold, but as a thing to spread. And (subject to the usual provisioes about anti-social conduct) a man has a right to give due expression to so fundamental a conviction as this. This right is a universal one (11).

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly 41

In the major part of the pamphlet, they stated the Hindu objections to conversion and disputed each position.3 They argued that religions are not the same in nature, and that one religion cannot simply be merged into the other; they must be compared with each other with a view to ‘decide’ between them, and such a decision cannot be made without allowing the right of conversion. Furthermore, Christianity consisted of a series of doctrines and statements of historical facts that are discontinu­ ous with other religions. They insisted that conversion is so important to Christians that it is a ‘life-and-death matter’ (16-41). As for die issue of legislation against conversion activity, they pointed out that any interfer­ ence by law in the method of conversion might interfere with the right itself, which is to do with morality not law. And, especially in the current situation in India, they feared that the Hindu majority, which had always had social power, were now beginning to have political power to legislate religious laws as well. How the Hindu majority dealt with these powers would be a test of the ‘tolerance’ and ‘self-confidence’ of the Indian people as a whole (42-5). This work was hailed in the National Christian Council Review as dealing with a ‘vital interest* and making a ‘substantial contribution’ to the churches in India (NCCR, March 1947: 142-3). However, because their argument relied on the notion of indi­ vidual rights, it offered an unconvincing justification of conversion to Hindus, who gave priority to the integrity and harmony of society. The Hihdu objection to the right of conversion was forcefully presented when a conference of the heads of the various Hindu religious institutions issued a memorandum to the Constituent Assembly in December 1946— a statement that established the Hindu understanding o f the issue. They stated that freedom of religion should be safeguarded as a basic and fundamental need of all, not just for one particular community, and furthermore, this safeguard should be expressed in accordance with the principle of dharma as embodied in the Hindu tradition and not on the basis of ‘right’ as Christians insisted (Indian Social Reformer, 21 December 1946). They alleged that the Christian campaign of conversion was carried out by organized agencies, not with religious motives but for secular advantages, using various means 3 The objections were: established Hindu religion is true; all religions are the same; conversion denationalizes; conversion brings about denominations; conversion is socially disruptive; conversion involves religious controversy, conversion uses abusive and unfair methods.

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In Search of Identity

including schools and hospitals, which caused disturbance to society. Therefore they concluded that ‘[s]ocial peace and political stability can best be secured by allowing cultural and religious groups to live their own life, unhampered by external interference or aggression’, letting the people ‘continue in the faith in which they were born’, free from ‘proselytizing interference’ (Indian Social Reformer, 28 December 1946). For Hindus, conversion was deeply resented because they saw it as something imposed by a colonial power from outside. Moreover, the conversion of Indians to Christianity was understood by the Hindu leaders not as a primarily spiritual or religious question but rather as a political and communal one, and a major disturbance to Indian society. In the context of increasing tendencies to mass conversion among the Depressed Classes and the tribals of the hill areas, they felt that the life of the majority Hindu communities should be protected. Christians, however, regarded conversion as a fundamental political right of the individual and feared that, under swaraj, Hindus would use their majority power to oppress them by legislating further against conversion. So they geared their efforts towards getting the Constituent Assembly to guarantee the fundamental right of conversion in the new Constitution. Christians of both Catholic and Protestant traditions held the view that conversion is a vital pan of the Christian faith and that the Constituent Assembly’s position on the right of conversion would be a barometer of the attitude of the new government towards the Christian community. The sharp difference on conversion between Hindus and Christians is evident as in the following discussion of the debate in the Constituent Assembly. II. T h e d e b a t e o n c o n v e r s io n in t h e C O N ST ITU EN T ASSEMBLY

The Constituent Assembly was officially inaugurated on 9 December 1946. On 24 January 1947, as pan of the process of formulating the Indian Constitution, the Assembly adopted a resolution to set up an Advisory Committee. At its first meeting the Advisory Committee in turn set up five sub-committees including a Fundamental Rights SubCommittee and a Minorities Sub-Committee.4 Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, 4 The other Sub-Committees were: ‘North-East Frontier Tribal Areas and Assam Exduded and Partially Exduded Areas Sub-Committee’, ‘North India Frontier Tribal Areas Sub-Committee \ and ‘Exduded and Partially Excluded Areas Sub-Committee (except those in Assam)*.

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly

43

the Chairman of the Advisory Committee and a former president of the Indian National Congress, predicted that the difference between the interests of the minorities and the majority was the most difficult area the committee would have to deal with (FICII: 66-7). This turned out to be the case, largely due to the issue of conversion.

The debate on conversion in the Advisory Committee Conversion was initially dealt with in the Fundamental Rights Sub­ committee.5 There were several drafts submitted to the sub-committee on the subject of religion (FIC II: 67-96), but the draft articles by K.M. Munshi and B.R. Ambedkar explicitly dealt with the question of conversion. Munshi, a former Home Minister of Bombay, emphasized duties as inseparable from ‘fundamental rights’ and argued that the law o f the Union should be able to prevent the misuse of rights. He included in his draft a preventive measure on conversion in his section on ‘The Right to Religious and Cultural Freedom’: ‘Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion, undue influence or the offering o f material inducement is prohibited and is punishable by the law of the Union’ (FIC II: 69-80). On the other hand, Ambedkar saw the main purpose of the articles as the maintainance of ‘the right of every subject to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and to free speech and free exercise o f religion’. His draft section on ‘Fundamental Rights of Citizens’ stated: ‘The State shall guarantee to every Indian citizen liberty of conscience and the free exercise of his religion including the right to profess, to preach and to convert within limits compatible with public order and morality’ and that there should be no compulsion to participate in any religious act (FIC II: 84-90).6 While Munshi homed in on the rights of the people who are exposed to conversion activity from which they need to be protected, Ambedkar stressed conversion as the right of each individual to exercise their free will. The meeting of the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee on 24 March decided to take up Munshi’s draft and examine it in conjunction with other drafts. After lengthy discussions, the report of the sub-committee was submitted to the Advisory Committee on 16 April 1947 (FIC II: 5 The Chairman of the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee was J.B. Kripalani, who was then the Congress President. 6 Note the use o f ‘convert’ in the sense of converting others.

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137-76). This included Clause 16 on religious freedom and Clauses 21 and 22 regarding the prohibitions on conversion, which were substantially the same as in Munshi’s original draft:

Rights Relating to Religion (16) All persons are equally entided to freedom of conscience, to freedom of religious worship and to freedom to profess religion subject to public order, morality or health and to the other provisions of this chapter.7 (21) No person under the age of 18 shall be made to join or profess any religion other than the one in which he was born or be initiated into any religious order involving a loss of civil status. (22) Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognized by law and the exercise of such coercion or influence shall be an offence (F/C II: 173-4). The Minorities Sub-Committee, unlike the Fundamental Rights SubCommittee and the Assembly as a whole, had a significant Christian representation. There were four Christians out of the 22 members, including the chairman, H.C. Mookherjee.8 In its first meeting on 17 April, this sub-committee decided to examine the draft clauses recommended by the Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee for the 7 In this clause the following sentences are included. Changes were made to them during the debate, but since they do not relate direcdy to the main issue o f this study, they will not be included hereafter. Explanation I - ‘The wearing and carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion.’ Explanation II - ‘The above rights shall not include any economic, financial, political or other secular activities that may be associated with religious worship.’ Explanation III - ‘No person shall refuse the performance of civil obligation or duties on the ground that his religion so requires.’ 8 Whereas, out of the 296 members of the Assembly, only seven were Christians (including J.J.M. Nichols-Roy who was included in the quota for ‘Backward Tribes’) compared to 163 Hindus and 80 Muslims (F/C 1:298). The members of the Muslim League boycotted the Constituent Assembly and did not take up their seats in the Advisory Committee until July 1947. Muslims appear not to have spoken in the debates on conversion in the Assembly with the exception of the brief comments by Tajamul Husain and Mohamed Ismail Sahib (CAD VII: 817-8, 831).

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly 45

purpose of protecting minority rights. In their meeting, M. Ruthnaswamy proposed that certain religions were ‘proselytizing religions’ in their doctrine, so propagation o f their faith should be permitted as a fundamental right. He also pointed out that Clause 21 would result in breaking up family life in the case of parents changing their religion, and proposed that minors should be allowed to follow their parents (F IC II: 2 0 0 -4 ). The sub-committee therefore recommended amendments, and relayed these to the Fundamental Rights SubCommittee on 19 April. In these recommendations, the phrase ‘the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion’ was inserted in Clause 16 in place of ‘freedom of religious worship and to freedom to profess religion’—and thus the right to propagate was recognized. However, the amendment to Clause 21 contained serious restrictions on conversion. The conversion of minors was prohibited, except in the case of following the decision of their parents to change religion, and any conversion of an adult had to be recognized by a Magistrate (FIC II: 206).9 Both the Christian insistence on the right of propagation and the Hindu attempt at the prevention of conversion were thus represented in these clauses. It then became necessary for the Advisory Committee to examine both the draft and the amendments. Regarding Clause 16, there were strong objections to the word ‘propagate’. It seems that the members were not very clear on the meaning and implications of the word but they were very much aware that the Christian community strongly supported it as a vital part of their ‘minority right’. Several members pointed out that the right to ‘freedom of speech and expression’, which had been accepted already, should cover the point presented. Munshi expressed his suspicion that this word might be intended to cover ‘forced conversion’. Others argued that it gave biased support to the ‘propagation o f particular religious faiths and beliefs’. But there was also strong support o f the Christian position so that the debate could not reach a consensus. The chairman therefore took a vote on the clause and the amendment to add the word ‘propagate’ was accepted (FIC II: 264-8). In the discussion on Clause 21, the chairman, Patel, argued that it did not concern fundamental rights and should therefore be deleted and the matter left to legislation (FIC II: 271). On the same grounds, the 9 There was no suggestion to amend Clause 22 although. *n the committee meeting, Rajagopalachari pointed out that Clause 22 was not necessary since it would be covered by the ordinary laws of the land such as the Indian Penal Code.

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chairman wanted to delete Clause 22. He also thought that conversion by coercion or undue influence would be an offence against the Penal Code anyway. F.R. Anthony, the president of the Anglo-Indian Association objected, apparendy because he feared that leaving the matter to the legislature might result in more severe restrictions on conversion. Others made the point that the rights of the person who was converted by ‘undue influence’ should be recognized (FIC II: 271-2; see also D ’Souza 1947: 525). As a result, the chairman suggested retaining the sentence, ‘Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognized by law’, but deleting the rest of the clause (FIC II: 272). The clauses on fundamental rights finally sent by the Advisory Committee to the Constituent Assembly on 23 April 1947 included the following: (13) All persons are equally entided to freedom of conscience, and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion subject to public order, morality or health, and to the other provisions of this chapter. (17) Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognized by law (FIC II: 298). Much to the relief of Christians, the word ‘propagate’ was now included as a fundamental right, and the clause on the prohibition of conversion of minors was deleted. But Hindus were not satisfied with the results of the Advisory Committee so the debate on conversion now continued in the Constituent Assembly.

The debate on conversion o f minors in the Constituent Assembly The proposed clauses on fundamental rights were brought to the Constituent Assembly on 1 May 1947. As the Constituent Assembly discussed Clause 13, the word ‘propagate’ was accepted without debate (CAD III: 485-6). But, as Clause 17 was presented, Munshi brought a two-fold amendment: the word ‘fraud’ was added to ‘coercion’ and ‘undue influence’; and the prohibition of the conversion of minors was again brought in. The debate then focused mainly on the issue of the legitimacy of the conversion o f minors. Munshi argued that the amendment would provide legal protection to minors. In the case of

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly

47

minors being converted by fraud, coercion or undue influence, they would still legally belong to the former religion so that their rights would not be lost (CAD III: 488-9). To take account of this, F.R. Anthony proposed to add a sentence to Munshi’s amendment, ‘except when the parents or surviving parents have been converted and the child does not choose to adhere to its original faith’.10 He reminded the Assembly ‘how deeply, how passionately’ most Christians felt on this issue of conversion, which they regarded as the ‘most fundamental of Christian rights’. And he argued that, since the majority accepted the right to propagate in Clause 13, putting an absolute prevention on the conversion of minors would lead to an ‘embargo’ on the right itself. He urged the members to consider this in accordance with the ‘ordinary concepts of natural law and justice’ and not to ‘cut at the root of family life’ (CAD III: 489-90). J.J.M. Nichols-Roy—a minister of Assam and a Christian— in supporting Anthony’s amendment, pointed out that the spiritual aspect of conversion must be taken into account when one deals with the issue, and if the law of the country were to exclude minors from this aspect of life, it would ‘oppress the consciences of the youths who want to exercise their religious faiths before God’ (CAD III: 491-2). The most vigorous challenge to those who wished to modify Munshi’s amendment was put forward by Purushottamdas Tandon, who later became the president of the Indian National Congress. He stressed that ‘the majority’ of the Assembly were against the idea of conversion, especially in the case of youth, since they are ‘immature’ in the legal and moral aspects of life. He argued that conversion of minors was necessarily brought about by some kind of adult influence; therefore ‘under all circumstances’ conversion of minors would be invalid. He expressed his strong resentment at the Christian insistence on the right to convert minors: We have agreed to the right of conversion. Generally, we, Congress­ men do not think it at all right—I say so frankly—that people should strenuously go about trying to convert peoples of other faith into their own, but we want to carry our Christian friends with us— friends who feel that they should have the right to make conversions—and we have agreed on their insistence to retain this formula about 10 Notice that this sentence was very similar to the suggested clause from the Sub-Committee on Minorities on 19 April 1947.

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‘propagation’. They know that we are opposed to it, yet we have agreed (CAD III: 492-3). Algu Rai Shastri expressed his anger against the Christian opposition to the amendment, saying that it was needed to protect minors from the actions of parents who decide to change their religion ‘out of their greed’ (CAD III: 497-9). Furthermore, Jagat Narain Lai argued that allowing the word ‘propagate’ as a fundamental right had gone over the ‘farthest limit’ of the tolerance of the majority, therefore the amendment was ‘essential if the right to propagate is conceded’ (CAD III: 500-1). The Hindu objection to the conversion of minors was understandable given that such conversions have many ramifications in the context of the legal and social complexity of the Indian civil laws. However, the amendment was opposed by many because of its serious problems with regard to the integrity of the family. Jerome D ’Souza, a Christian representative, pointed to the challenge this would bring to ‘family authority’ notwithstanding the ‘legal and juridical difficulties’, and supported referring it back to the Advisory Committee (CAD III: 4967). Ambedkar explained the practical difficulties of implementing the amendment, especially in the case o f minors whose parents were converted. He opposed the amendment on the grounds that earlier committees had considered the matter in great detail and come to the conclusion that the prohibition of the conversion of minors ‘would lead to many disruptions, to so many evil consequences’ that it ‘would be better to drop the whole thing altogether’ (CAD III: 501-2). As the debate in the Assembly could not be setded, the decision was made to refer it back to the Advisory Committee (CAD III: 502-3). The debate caused great concern to the Christian community. A letter was sent to the Advisory Committee insisting that it was an ‘inalienable right’ that one should be ‘free to choose his religion or society, without his motive being impugned by government’ (NCCR, June-July 1947: 273-4). The editor of NCCR regarded the proposed amendment as ‘undue interference’ that would harm the cause of the religious liberty (NCCR, June-July 1947: 277-8). As the discussion on the issue continued, Christians not only objected to the amendment but were also of the opinion that the whole clause itself should be deleted because they regarded the amendment as intended to ‘nullify’ the religious freedom stated in Clause 13 (NCCR, August 1947: 340—1). This concern was voiced at the Annual Missionary Convention in Kodaikanal at which

The Debate on Conversion in the Indian Constituent Assembly 49

Protestant missionaries devoted their time to discussing their role in independent India. Much of their declaration was devoted to statements of intent to cooperate with the government and serve the people of India, but they also made it clear that they would stand for the ‘right of the individual to outer conversion where there is an inner conversion’, with the qualifier that they had ‘no desire to build up communal power for political ends through conversion’ (NCCR, June-July 1947: 320).11 According to Jerome D’Souza, a Catholic member of the Constituent Assembly, there were various attempts by the Christian members to convince the others that the phrase ‘undue influence’ was very vague and therefore open to abusive interpretation, and that the Christians had no intention of using conversion for political means (D’Souza 1947: 525).12 As a result, the Christians gained support from other members o f the committee, and Munshi, the main Hindu protagonist became ‘sympathetic’ towards the Christian position. Eventually when Patel, the chairman of the Advisory Committee, suggested in a committee meeting that Clause 17 should be dropped, this was accepted without difficulty. Patel sent a letter along with the ‘Supplementary Report’ of the Advisory Committee to the president of the Assembly in which he said, ‘on further consideration . . . this clause enunciates a rather obvious doctrine which it is unnecessary to include in the Constitution and we recommend that it be dropped altogether’.13 On 27 August 1947, the day when Patel moved the Supplementary Report in the Assembly, the communal violence during the Partition was at its height. Referring to the ‘bitter strife’, he urged that they ‘dispose of their business as quickly as possible’ and ‘do nothing . . . which will add to our difficulties or to the difficulties of our neighbours’ (CAD V: 212-15). On 30 August, the Constituent Assembly again discussed whether they would drop the clause. Although there was some opposition (CAD V: 394-5), Patel argued that the clause was not necessary in the list of fundamental rights since forcible conversion was not recognized by law. Finally, the 11 See also the resolution of the Landour Convention, in NCCR (Aug 1947: 341-2); and the observations of E. Stanley Jones, who played a major role in the Convention, in Stanley (1947: 351-4). 12These were mainly led by H.C. Mookherjee, a Christian and the vice-president o f the Constituent Assembly. 13 ‘Letter from Patel to the President [of the Constituent Assembly]’ in Dr. Rajendra Prasad Papers I (l-F /47; No. 29; 25 Aug 1947), National Archives of India.

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chairman put the motion to a vote and it was decided that the clause should be deleted altogether. Thus the result of the debate on conversion in the Constituent Assembly was, as it turned out, in favour of the Christian position. The word ‘propagate’ was retained and Clause 17 intending to prevent or prohibit conversion was deleted. Most Christians were relieved by the decision of the Assembly and applauded the efforts of the Christian members (The Examiner, 20 September 1947: 525; NCCR, October 1947: 477). However, there were some dissenting Christian voices. For example, Arthur Mayhew was concerned about the ‘disintegration of Hindu families and society by conversion’ and suggested that Christians may need to accept ‘restrictions’ on their work among non-Christian communities for the sake of national unity (1947: 414-5). P.E. Burckhardt, President of the Basel Mission in India, argued that Christians should accept the rule prohibiting the conversion of youth below 18 years— a rule already in practice in many educational institutions (1947: 474-5). Comparison of Christian and Hindu positions in the debate reveals that, although both sides were dealing with the rights of minors, their views on conversion were direcdy opposed. While Christians regarded conversion as vital to faith and religious freedom, and therefore essentially good and right, Hindus saw conversion as something alien, a symbol of oppression and enslaving power imposed upon the people of India against their will, and therefore essentially evil and wrong. For Christians, the right of conversion was accorded to minors for their own good, whereas, for Hindus, protecting minors from conversion was seen as ensuring their rights, as in other age-limited legislation such as that relating to child labour and marriage. Hindus therefore regarded all conversions of minors as the result of ‘undue influence’ on those who do not yet have the maturity to make such an important decision. Christians, on the other hand, viewed conversion as a spiritual and individual matter, which has no age limits. Therefore, they thought the rights of the minors should be respected in such a matter of personal and individual choice, which takes place between the person and God. They argued that young people have both the maturity to make a spiritual decision and also the right to choose their own faith, therefore the state should not interfere with conversion. However, for Hindus, conversion was not an individual or spiritual matter only but involved religion and society, and so could not be regarded as a private concern. Therefore, they believed the lawmakers

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not only had a mandate to protect minors and other vulnerable sections of the community from making what they saw as harmful choices, but also to safeguard the peace and unity of Indian religion and society. Christian members insisted that, having allowed the freedom to propagate to ‘all persons’, the Assembly should not contradict its own decision by preventing the conversion of minors as this would eventually be a challenge to the fundamental right itself. But Hindus, who had reluctantly accepted conversion as a fundamental right because of the strength of Christian feeling, seemed to expect that in turn Christians should accept their insistence that the conversion of minors be restricted. They felt it unfair that Christians were so adamant in insisting on the right to convert both adults and minors while Hindus were exercising tolerance on what was such a vital issue for them. This ‘intolerance’ of Christians was very much resented by Hindus who considered that they were ‘taking undue advantage of the generosity of the majority’ (CAD III: 500). Furthermore, although Christians repeatedly insisted that conversion was a religious matter and that they had no intention of using it for political or communal gain, they used political tactics and exhibited remarkable cooperation between Christian groups in order to get the majority of Hindus on their side in the Assembly on an issue which they believed was important to their community. This may have added to Hindu suspicion of the real motive of Christian insistence on the right of conversion. It appeared to Hindus to be something more than a desire to preserve minority identity, involving a specific agenda for independent India.

The debate on the propagation o f religion in the Constituent Assembly The result of the debates in the Constituent Assembly was prepared by B.N. Rau, the Constituent Advisor as a first draft Constitution and presented to the Drafting Committee on 27 October 1947. Then the committee, headed by Ambedkar, went through it clause by clause and submitted their revised draft Constitution to the president of the Constituent Assembly on 21 February 1948. The clause allowing the right of conversion was as follows: Article 19. (1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions o f this Part, all persons arc equally entitled to

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freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion (FIC III: 524). The draft Constitution was published and the people and organizations of India had an opportunity to express their views before it was adopted by the Constituent Assembly.14 During a session of the Constituent Assembly to approve the draft Constitution on 3 December 1948, there was again strong opposition to the word ‘propagate’ in the article. Tajamul Husain, a Muslim representative from Bihar argued that it was not right to permit people to propagate religion in India since religion is a private matter between a person and his God and, moreover, propagating activities had become a ‘nuisance’ in the country (CAD VII: 817-9). T.K. Shah alleged that there had been abuse of freedom of religion in educational institutions, hospitals and asylums in which the Christian authorities used their position to convert vulnerable people, and he claimed that in such circumstances a change of religion was ‘open to suspicion’. He also saw the debate as a clash between religions such as Christianity, which openly proselytized, and others such as Hinduism, which did not, and urged that the former should exercise ‘self-restraint’ (CAD VII: 820-1; see also CAD VII: 826-7). Among the Hindu respondents, Lokanath Misra was the most explicit in expressing Hindu feelings on the article: Article 19 is a Charter for Hindu enslavement. I do really feel that this is the most disgraceful Article, the blackest part of the Draft Constitution. I beg to submit that I have considered and studied all the constitutional precedents and have not found anywhere any mention of the word ‘propaganda’ as a Fundamental Right, relating to religion.. .Justice demands that the ancient faith and culture of the land should be given a fair deal, if not restored to its legitimate place after a thousand years of suppression (CAD VII: 822-3). He feared that it would pave the way for complete annihilation of Hindu culture’. He claimed that the root of the recent communal violence was the aggressive propagation of Christianity and Islam in the land of India. 14 As a result of this consultation, several members suggested the deletion of the word ‘propagate’ but this was rejected since it involved a question of policy. See FIC IV: 41-2.

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He also believed the terms ‘secular state’ and ‘Hindu generosity’ were being misused to undermine the ancient Hindu culture and asked the members to at least drop the word ‘propagate’ in Article 19 (CAD VII: 823-4). In the same vein, Rohini Kumar Chaudhari pointed to the misuse o f ‘propaganda’ by the missionaries of the past for the purpose of ‘throwing mud’ at Hindu religion and Hindu deities by abusive language and ridicule, and demanded that the Constitution should make a provision to prevent such activity (CAD VII: 835-7). However, there were suggestions from members who were not Christians to keep the word ‘propagate’. Their reasons included the following: first, the right of conversion would not only be applicable to the Christian community but also to all communities. In particular, the right to propagate would also apply to Hindu culture and heritage as against other religious communities. Second, there were ample safeguards against the misuse of such rights and each state has the right to regulate such activity. Third, since the Christian community had exhibited great willingness to assimilate to the general community, they should be allowed to propagate their own religion. Fourth, the article does not give unconditional freedom but only expresses limited toleration (CAD VII: 831-5). T.T. Krishnamachari, in particular, argued convincingly for the importance of accommodating the concerns of the minorities unless they clearly restrict the interests of all. He pointed out that the right to propagate was meant for all, including the members of the Arya Samaj, who were actively bringing converts back into Hinduism. Therefore, as long as the right to propagate was subject to public order, morality and health, as already stated in the article, it should be granted. He urged that the social factors behind an Untouchable accepting Christianity apart from a religious motive should be openly acknowledged, and he emphasized that, under the Constitution, all are equal and this equal right should be given equally to anyone to ‘propagate his religion, and to convert people’ if a person should be convinced that this was his ‘duty towards his God and his community’ (CAD VII: 836-7). These arguments were endorsed by Munshi who insisted that, in contrast to the past, there would be no political threat caused by conversion in independent India. He realized that this issue would have to be solved by compromise and he expressed his sympathy with Christians: it was on this word that the Indian Christian community laid the greatest emphasis, not because they want to convert people

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aggressively, but because the word ‘propagate’ was a fundamental part of their tenet. . . So long as religion is religion, conversion by free exercise of the conscience has to be recognized (CAD VII: 837-8). Munshi’s speech proved decisive, although other Hindus tried various means to delete the word ‘propagate’ or to add provisos to it and it was clear that they were not happy with the inclusion of the word (Goel 1996: 241-2). In the ensuing votes on each amendment, the Assembly opted to retain the word ‘propagate’, and the article was included in the Constitution as Article 25 in the section on ‘The Right to Freedom of Religion’ (CAD VII: 838-40). It was finally adopted by the Assembly on 26 November 1949. Since Hindus were in a majority in the Constituent Assembly, it is necessary to probe further into why they were willing to concede the right of conversion to the Christian minority. This cannot be fully explained as the result of the convincing arguments of Christians, or as the outcome of the Christian campaign for religious freedom since there is no evidence of a long-term change in the Hindu attitude towards conversion. It has been argued that the Hindus accepted the word ‘propagate’ in a compromise with the Christians that involved the latter giving up their reserved seats in the legislature (Saldanha 1981: 159; Thomas 1966a: 106-7). However, if one considers the chronology of events, it is evident that Christians put their confidence in the Hindu majority alter the latter had made provision for the minorities in the fundamental rights. This concession to Christian concerns appears to be what caused Christians to cooperate with Hindus in the abolition of reserved seats.15 15 When the Constituent Assembly decided to include the word ‘propagate’ on 30 August 1947, some Christians were still insisting on having reserved seats in the various legislatures and, as a result, the draft Constitution (October 1947) included reserved seats for Indian Christians (F7CII: 387-400; FJCIII: 22-3). See also Jerome D ’Souza’s speech pledging his support for reserved seats in the Constituent Assembly on 27 August 1947 (CAD V: 253—4). The question of abolishing reserved seats for religious minority communities was raised in the Advisory Committee only on 30 December 1948 and decided by the committee on 11 May 1949 (F/CIV: 599-602; CAD VIII: 269-300, 349-55). Note H.C. Mookherjee’s speech mentioning that he had gained confidence in the majority Hindu community because the Assembly had guaranteed ‘safeguards’ for minorities in the fundamental rights in the Constitution. See also D ’Souza’s speech in CAD VIII: 306-8.

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As the ferocity of the debate showed, the Hindu concession was less than an expression of Hindu tolerance or the triumph of the spirit of compromise. Instead, Hindus were compelled by circumstances to accommodate minority rights because of the communal tension and outbreaks of violence around the time of Independence.16 As shown above, Patel’s appeal in the Assembly the previous year to drop the clause restricting conversion was precipitated by the strife of the Partition. It would seem, therefore, that the crucial factor that persuaded the majority of the Assembly to vote for the right of conversion was the need to placate the minorities in the face of communal violence. In any event, despite the Christians’ and the missionaries’ optimistic view of the result (Jones 1947: 351-4), the debate did not produce mutual understanding between Hindus and Christians but instead confirmed their differing views on conversion. In the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, and in the Christian literature during and after it, the word ‘propagate’ as used by Christians and Hindus was understood to include the right to seek the conversion of others (Goel 1996: 240-1; Saldanha 1981: 159-60; Srivastava 1982: 153). The question then arises as to why Christians used the word ‘propagate’ instead o f‘convert* at the time of the Constituent Assembly. One reason is that the word ‘conversion’ was sensitive at that time so that the Christians would tend to avoid it in order to minimize the reaction from the Hindus. But more significandy, it appears to be the case that the Christians used the word ‘propagate’ because they saw the right to propagate one’s faith as the most fundamental right, and assumed that the right of an individual to convert to another religion was guaranteed by the clause ‘freedom of conscience’ in the same article.

III.

R e l ig io u s f r e e d o m a n d t h e s e c u l \ r s t a t e

The problem over the inclusion of the word ‘propagate’ hinged on the struggle to maintain the rights of particular religious communities within the ideology of the secular state. Chapter Two showed that the arguments of Mahatma Gandhi against conversion in his struggle with the British Raj were based on his ideology of the equality of religions, which he promoted in order to embrace different religious communities and create 16 For Hindu communalism and the power struggle between Hindu and Muslim leaders in Bengal at the time of the Partition, see Chatterji (1994).

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a common identity of India as a nation that shares traditional Indian values. For him religious differences were unimportant and even irrelevant in his search for a common Indian identity because Hinduism was tolerant of a variety of religious beliefs and practices. Gandhi’s ideology developed into the concept of ‘secular India’, which was promoted by Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of the nationalist movements at the time of the Constituent Assembly and continued to be a guiding principle of Indian politics in the 1950s. The objection to religious conversion was based on this ideology, it undermines the legitimacy of other religious traditions and disturbs the harmony of society. Therefore the idea of religious conversion was incompatible with the pursuit of secular India where all the religious communities ‘respect’ one another’s religious traditions and, in the words of Nehru, ‘live and let live’ (1951: 73). Though the Constitution included the right to ‘propagate’ for the sake of the Christian minority, that very word opened deep wounds of suspicion and resentment in the majority Hindus. In his widely known work, India as a Secular State, Donald E. Smith demonstrated that the Constitution clearly embodies the ideal of the secular state. Smith regarded the religious minorities as the ‘natural custodians’ of the secular state and gave much credit for this to Protestant Christians, who had a tradition of church-state separation. However, as he himself pointed out, Indian secularism was understood more as ‘a state which aids all religions impartially’ than ‘a state which is separate from religion’ (Smith 1963: 100-34, 4 9 5 -9 ).17 Therefore, the contribution of the Protestant Christians to the secular ideal must be seen as rather limited. Indeed, in the debate in the Constituent Assembly, Christian insistence on the right of conversion gave rise to serious 17 Smith examined the Constitution of India in terms of freedom of religion, citizenship, and separation of state and religion. India is regarded as a secular state by most scholars but there are exceptions: Ved Prakash Luthera argued that India ‘is not and cannot be’ a secular state because of the inseparability of religion and the state (1964: 147). However, Donald E. Smith disputed Luthera’s position on the basis that Luthera took too narrow a concept of secular state and a rather static view of Hinduism (1963: 110). On the other hand, J. Duncan M. Derrett pointed out that the idea of ‘secular state’ is incorporated in the ‘ancient and traditional values’ of the people of India, therefore it is ‘unique’ to India and need not necessarily follow any particular model (1968: 27-33). See also Manju Subhash who regards religious toleration as a key element in Indian secularism (1988: 139-54); G.S. Sharma argues that the nationalist approach to secularism was to draw general moral consciousness out of religious traditions and make this a national ideal (1966: 195).

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questioning about whether secularism would prevail in independent India (CAD VII: 822-6). At the time of the Constituent Assembly, the question of religious freedom, developed in the West in the struggle over church-state relations (Bates 1945: 378-456; Wood 1949: 9-24), was a very important pan o f the agenda of the Western nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was approved by the United Nations Assembly on 10 December 194818• and Western Christians played a major role in promoting religious freedom as a fundamental human right.19 Therefore, the Hindu suspicion that the debate in the Assembly was instigated by the wider Christian churches, which were eager to continue their influence in India after the demise of colonial rule (Goel 1996: 240-55), was not entirely unfounded. However, the Indian Christian insistence on the right of conversion as a fundamental right was more directly a result of the Hindu attempt to restrict or prohibit conversion in various states prior to the Constituent Assembly. Although the campaign for the right of conversion was initiated by the missionaries and couched in terms of a Western understanding of the religious freedom of individuals, Indian Christians themselves were convinced that the right of conversion was vital for their identity and existence, and thus they actively campaigned for this right at the time of the Constituent Assembly. As far as the rights of religious communities were concerned, several arguments were advanced by Hindus for giving Hindus preferential rights. First, in the context of the encounter between Christianity, which is actively proselytizing, and Hinduism, which is non-proselytizing, it is fair to give certain protection to the latter. Second, since Hinduism is the religion of the majority of Indians, in a democratic setting the majority’s interests should be respected and determine the direction when it comes to a conflict of opinion with religious minorities. And third, because Hinduism is pan and parcel of traditional Indian society and 18 Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated ‘the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ which includes the freedom o f‘everyone’ ‘to change his religion or belief and ‘to manifest his religion or belief. See also the contemporary document, ‘Human Rights and Religious Freedom’ issued by the Joint Committee on Religious Liberty of Great Britain in Wood (1949: 131-43). 19The statement ‘Human Rights and Religious Freedom’, for example, is grounded in Christian principles (Wood 1949: 14^). Bates, Religious Liberty: An Inquiry was produced under the auspices of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America and the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, and published by the International Missionary Council.

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constitutes the very identity of the Hindus, it should be given preferential treatment over other religions. However, I have shown that, throughout the debate, Christians anchored their identity primarily on the individual right of conversion—the right to seek the conversion of others and the right oneself to convert to another religion. This they regarded as fundamental to their faith and to their religious freedom. Christians also argued that as individuals have equal rights in a democratic country, religious communities should also have equal rights to maintain their notion of belief, rather than be forced to conform to the majority. The struggle of Indian Christians at the time of Independence was to maintain themselves as a part of the wider Christian community and at the same time identify themselves as a part of India, whose culture was so entwined with Hindu tradition. The former gave them a sense of belonging and communion with people worldwide but also laid them open to Hindu accusations of less than full allegiance towards common Indian heritage, and furthermore of associating with the people who exercised colonial power over India. The latter gave them shared dignity and pride in being Indian but led to a situation in which their religious freedom might be restricted by the majority Hindus. For Hindus, Hindu culture and tradition were such an integral part of their identity that religious conversion meant changing one’s heritage and thus losing one’s identity. It went against the tradition o f‘social, moral and religious order’, established by dharma (CAD VII: 824-6). While Christians feared that the majority Hindus would use their social and political power to suppress conversion, Hindus resented the fact that Christians were determined to have their way over the right of conversion, which they saw as a symbol of colonial oppression. As I will show in the next chapter, Hindus did take various preventative measures against conversion and these were supported by the leaders of Hindu nationalist movements as they expanded their political influence in the 1950s and engaged in active promotion of Hindutva. Christians may have won the right of conversion in the Constituent Assembly but they had failed to win the confidence of Hindus, who had been seeking solidarity from their Christian compatriots at the troubled time of Independence. At the same time Hindus, with all their new vision for India, were not able to appreciate the importance of conversion to the Christian minority, who were struggling with their identity in the unknown future of swaraj. From now on, the issues of fundamental rights and tolerance were to become the major themes of the ongoing debate between Hindus and Christians on conversion.

4 Debates on Missionary Activity and Freedom of Religion in Independent India, 1954-1979 N o person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religious faith to another by the use of force or by inducement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any person abet any such conversion. — The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 [N]o man, no law, no Government has the right to prevent me nor force me, nor any one, if I choose to embrace the religion that gives me peace, joy, love. . . . There is no freedom, if a person is not free to choose according to his or her conscience. — Mother Teresa1

Although the ideal of ‘secular India’ was widely shared by th£*political leaders of post-Independence India and was embodied in the Constitution, its actual implementation has not always been without tension and struggle, particularly where the relationship between the state and religious minority communities is concerned (Brass 1994: 1220). This struggle has been exacerbated by the rapid growth of various Hindu nationalist movements, their campaign to uphold Hindutva, and their rejection of anything ‘foreign’ on Indian soil. Hindu nationalists 1 ‘An Open Letter’ delivered in person to Morarji Desai, the prime minister of India, on 26 March 1979 (The Examiner, 31 March 1979: 195-4).

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demanded a series of radical discontinuities between the pre- and postIndependence eras, between those who were loyal to Indian tradition and culture and those who were not, and between Indian-ness and foreign-ness, all of which hinged on Hindu dharma. Missionary work directed towards the conversion of Indian people to Christianity was unacceptable to them: conversion was regarded not only as a religious intrusion undermining confidence in Hindu religious ideology but also as a political scandal because it allowed the continuation of foreign influence and dominance even after Independence. This chapter examines the Hindu attempt to respond to the conversion activities of Christian missionaries— both expatriates and nationals— through a government enquiry into missionary activities and through legislation against conversion. Subsequently, I will attempt a critical analysis both of the concept of tolerance promoted by the leaders of the Hindu nationalist movements and of Christian arguments for conversion based on the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. I. T h e d e b a t e o v e r t h e r e p o r t o f t h e Ch r is t ia n MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES ENQUIRY CO M M ITTEE

(n iy o g i r e p o r t ) ,

1954-1957

During the first years of Independence, the presence of foreign missionaries involved in medical and social work was generally accepted by the people of India, and the Government of India allowed this to continue (Scott 1957: 366-7; Jacob 1958: 410-6; Smith 1963: 1979). K.M. Panikkar, a prominent historian, expressed the view of many when he said, ‘it is unlikely that the favourable circumstances of the nineteenth century effort of proselytization will be repeated, for these were based on the unchallenged political supremacy of Europe’ (1953: 454-6). However, the fact that the number of foreign missionaries was increasing and that conversion of adivasis2 and ‘Backward Classes’ was continuing made the government anxious about the entrance of missionaries and their activities (McLeish 1955: vii, 210).3 There was a 2The original inhabitants of India. They are also called tribals, Scheduled Tribes or aboriginals. 3 McLeigh commented that between 1951 and 1955 there had been an increase of 500 in the total number of foreign missionaries.

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growing fear among missionaries, particularly those who were involved in evangelism, that their entry to the country was going to be limited (NCCR, December 1950: 538). In 1952 this fear was confirmed when the Government of India turned down an unprecedented number of visa applications for new missionaries of the recognized societies and the Ministry of Home Affairs announced its intention to restrict the entry of foreign missionaries henceforth (Bhatty 1952: 551—4; Jacob 1958: 412; Scott 1957: 367). In April 1953 Kailas Nath Katju, the home minister, commented in the Lok Sabha that, although foreign missionaries were welcome, it would be undesirable if any of them ‘indulged in proselytization’. He also stated that he had received several allegations that foreign missionaries were engaged in proselytizing activities in the Surguja and Raigarh districts of Madhya Pradesh, and that an enquiry was being made (in Niyogi Report II/B: 39). Responding to this, G.X. Francis, the president of the Catholic Regional Committee (Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh) insisted that the allegations were untrue and that, on the contrary, the Christian adivasis were subject to persecution, harassment and discrimination. He called for an ‘impartial’ enquiry into any ‘invasion’ of the fundamental rights stated in Article 25 (1) of the Constitution (Niyogi Report II/B: 39-40; NCCR , May 1953: 195-7). Eventually, on 16 April 1954, the Madhya Pradesh government announced the launch of an enquiry into missionary activities. Its press release stated that the government had often received complaints against illegitimate means of converting people and that, on the other hand, missionaries also alleged harassment by non-Christians: hence an enquiry was thought necessary (Francis 1957: 116-22). The committee was headed by Bhawani Shankar Niyogi, retired Chief Justice, and all members were Hindus except S.K. George, a Syrian Christian, to whose selection Catholics strongly objected, believing that he did not represent the Christian communities in India (Niyogi Report II/B: 26-7). It was commissioned to enquire into any ‘political and extra-religious objectives’ in missionary work by examining missionary activities in the light of ‘a thorough review of the question from the historical and other points of view’ and to make recommendations to the government for necessary action (Niyogi Report I: 169-70). 4 For more on S.K. George, see K.P. Aleaz (2000) and T.K Thomas (1970).

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The making o f the Niyogi Report The fact that the enquiry into missionary activities was launched in Madhya Pradesh was not only because of the increase of missionaries in the area but also, more significandy, due to the state’s particular socio­ political background. The inauguration of the Constitution in January 1950 and the amalgamation of certain princely states into Madhya Pradesh meant that the ‘anti-conversion’ laws of these states were no longer ‘valid’. Christian missionaries started to enter these areas, and began work among the aboriginals in the way they understood was guaranteed in the Constitution. However, the authorities of the former princely states regarded the entrance of the missionaries as an intrusion on the autonomy that they had maintained even during the British Raj.5 The Christian leadership challenged this by appealing openly to enter these states for Christian missionary work, as they believed the local authorities were violating the constitutional rights of the Christians (Niyogi Report II/B: 341-53). Furthermore, Madhya Pradesh had a significant population o f tribal peoples,6 among whom there were significant movements o f ‘mass conversion’ during the 1950s.7 More importandy, however, there was a widespread political campaign, called the Jharkhand movement, among the aboriginals in the area to have their own state.8 Despite the denial by the Christian leadership of any political involvement, the coincidence of the conversion of the tribals with their political campaign inevitably raised strong suspicions among Hindus. In addition, Madhya Pradesh had always been a stronghold of Hindu nationalist movements as it was the birthplace of and basis of the support and leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu 5There was controversial incident in which a Catholic priest who entered a former princely state without notifying the authorities was arrested. See Francis (1957: 110, 116). 6 The tribes comprised 18% of total population of Madhya Pradesh (Niyogi Report I: 6). See also recent figures from 1994 which show that the state has the largest proportion of tribes (23.22%) (K.S. Singh 1994: 2-3). 7 In 1952, there were mass conversions of Uraon tribes in which 4003 were recorded as converted (Niyogi Report I: 20; Francis 1957: 113-5). 8 For a detailed account of the movement, see Banerjee (1982: 222-35). G.X. Francis regarded this movement as the key cause of the enquiry (1957: 115).

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Sabha of Nagpur.9 From its beginning, the RSS promoted ‘Hindu India’. Although the leadership of the RSS initially limited its scope to the socio-cultural sphere, because of their radical promotion of ‘theocratic’ and ‘ethnic’ nationalism over ‘secular’ nationalism, especially after Independence, there had been much struggle with the central govern­ ment.10 Under the leadership of M.S. Golwalkar, and prompted by increasing frustration with the central government and pressure from more radical groups within the movement, the RSS eventually launched its political party—Jana Sangh—during the early 1950s.11 The ideology of Hindutva and the identification of Indians with Hindus were very much rooted in the mind of the Hindu nationalist leaders. In their political struggle with the federal government, they saw the conversion of adivasis and the presence of the missionaries as a direct challenge to their ideology. They regarded conversion as a denial of Hindu identity and therefore a rejection of being Indian, and the missionary as an instrument of foreign oppression. It appears that this ideology of the Hindu nationalists and their emerging power led to the setting up o f the enquiry committee. Therefore, although the increased number of foreign missionaries in India in the 1950s made the central government wary of missionary entry, the main cause of the setting of the enquiry committee was the particular political situation of Madhya Pradesh and the tension between the Hindu nationalists and the missionaries over the issue of the conversion of adivasis. As the committee set to work with the full support of the state government, they faced furious opposition from Christians, especially the Catholic community. When the Madhya Pradesh government first announced its enquiry committee, the Catholic Regional Conference immediately responded by questioning the legitimacy of such a committee. From then onwards the relationship between the enquiry

9 See Jaffrelot (1996: 132-49). The Hindu Sabha of Nagpur was founded in 1923 and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (Association of National Volunteers) was founded at Nagpur in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. Nagpur was the capital of Madhya Pradesh but became part of Maharashtra in November 1956. 10 The RSS was banned soon after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and Golwalker launched satyagraha on 9 December 1948 which lasted till January 1949. 11Jana Sangh was initially led by S.P. Mookerjee and later emerged as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) (see Jaffrelot 1996: 315-9: Basu et al. 1993: 30-4). Jana Sangh later launched an ‘Anti-Foreign Missionary Week’ in November 1954.

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committee and the Catholic community gradually grew worse.12As the committee started touring different regions of the state, there was uneasiness about how Christians should respond to it. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in India expressed its ‘deep concern’ over the situation in Madhya Pradesh and made a strong objection to the committee. They insisted that the propagation of faith by missionaries was guaranteed in the Constitution: Freedom to propagate religions confers a right not only on the preacher, but also a corresponding personal right on the listener to accept any religion he deems fit or right. If the Missionary cannot propagate his religion, the logical inference is the denial to every person in India of the right to believe, accept and profess the religion of the truth of which he is convinced (Niyogi Report II/B: 6). The tensions between the Catholic leadership and the committee escalated when the committee issued a questionnaire in November 1954 after the completion of their preliminary enquiry trips to different district centres.13 Again, the Catholic leadership protested strongly against the questionnaire, saying that it was highly directive and had underlying assumptions—such as that the tribals and lower castes would not have the intellectual ability to understand religious concepts; that conversions 12See correspondence between the Madhya Pradesh government and the enquiry committee, and between G.X. Francis, president of Catholic Regional Committee and the Standing Committee of the Catholic Bishops Conference (Niyogi Report II/ B: 1-38). The major objections from the Catholics were: First, the adivasis and people were not free to testify to the enquiry committee for fear of retaliation from Hindus unless some protection was given. Second, since Hindu organizations and other denominations were involved in conversion activities, it was not fair for the government to take up an enquiry into Christian missionary activities only, and the missionaries concerned should be given a chance to answer. Third, the composition of the enquiry committee was five Hindus and one Christian, who had no ‘representative status’ in the Christian community. They requested an ‘equal representation’. Fourth, on some occasions during the enquiry, speeches were allowed and in some cases Hindus made accusations against Christians and commented provocatively on the missionaries. 13 The questionnaire consisted of 99 questions on the following categories: Introductory 1-3; Conversions 4-24; Social Relations 25-42; Missions 43-68; Hospitals 69-77: Schools 78-92: Remedies 93-99. It appears that the issue of the ways and means of conversion was the most important focus o f the questionnaire.

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to Christianity are brought about by certain forms of inducement; that the convert will lose his/her loyalty to the nation; and that missionaries have ulterior political motives. Eugene D ’Souza, the archbishop of Nagpur, speaking on behalf of the Catholic community of Madhya Pradesh, expressed his regret that it appeared that the ’whole community is on trial’ and that the fundamental rights stated in the Constitution were questioned, and declared that the Catholic community would not cooperate with the enquiry committee any longer (Niyogi Report II/B: 20-38). In a lengthy appendix to his letter, he insisted that conversions are not initiated by the missionaries but that it was the ‘would-be convert himself, who, by a personal act of free-will, chooses to adhere to a given religion’, therefore the question of undue influence was not relevant in the process of conversion. However, because of their love of others for the sake of God, the missionaries care not only for the spiritual but also for the economic and cultural needs of the people, which are ‘inseparable’ since no spiritual life is possible without material comfort and security. While the act of conversion is based on individual faith, the missionary’s concern lies in the well-being of the person—these two aspects do not and should not depend on each other. In spite of the opposition and non-cooperation of the Catholics, the committee continued to conduct the questionnaire as well as tour different regions to cross-examine the written responses.14 They eventually submitted the first volume of their report, which contained the main findings and recommendations of the enquiry, to the government on 18 April 1956. It was published in July, and the second volume (parts A and B) was published later the same year, which made a 939-page document in all.15

The findings o f the Niyogi Report The enquiry employed a vast amount of published books, pamphlets and periodicals, utilized the results of extensive interviews, questioning, and cross-examination, and exhibited remarkable knowledge of Christian 14 The committee received a total of 385 questionnaires, of which 55 were from Christians and 330 from non-Christians. In total they visited 77 centres, interviewed 11,360 people, and received a further 375 written statements. 15 Volume II, Part A, contains mainly ‘Exploratory Tour Notes’ and some replies to the questionnaire (13 from Christians and 5 from non-Christians). Part B consists mainly of oral statements from people before the committee.

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documents on missionary activities. The committee also thoroughly examined Christian critiques of missionary activity, Hindu rereading of history, and documents produced by Christian conferences. Roland Allen’s criticism of the attitude of Western missionaries towards the people of the mission fields, the dependency of the national Christians on the missionaries, and the ‘professionalism’ of the missionaries was fiequendy referred to (Niyogi Report I: 102-3; Allen 1962a; 1962b). The committee made much use of the contents and also adopted the methodology of the report of William Hocking’s ‘Laymen’s Enquiry’, which particularly questioned the exclusive claim of Christianity in spite of the existence of other religious traditions and the use of social and educational means for conversion (Hocking 1932; Niyogi Report I: 51, 57, 152, 156). For a Hindu critique of Christian mission, the recent publication of K.M. Panikkar’s Asia and Western Dominance (1953) was used to substantiate the committee’s view of contemporary missionary activities as a continuation of Western imperialism (Panikkar 1953:4546, 484). Volume I of the report, which comprises the findings of the enquiry, tried to establish the case that the various missionary activities were aimed not only at the conversion of the Indian people, but were also part of a Western Christian agenda to further their influence in India. A brief summary of the report is needed in order to discuss the debates with Christians that followed. In their discussion of religious liberty under the Indian Constitution, the committee pointed out that although the Constitution guarantees the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, it is not without conditions. It argued that, since the preamble o f the Constitution begins ‘We, the people of India . . .’, the fundamental rights are meant for its citizens primarily and that the rights of citizens and of foreigners ought be different—as are their duties. On the issue of the secular state, the committee insisted that, in India, secularism keeps ‘equal regard for all religions and no discrimination in favour o f any other’ and the Constitution guarantees ‘equality to all religions’ but at the same time it warned that if the followers of any religion deny this equal right, it is the ‘duty of the state’ to keep public order and solidarity (I: 134, 160).16 The committee found that most Christian work depended on foreign money received by the various mission organizations and churches from 16 See AIR (1953, Bombay), 242-52, which stated that religious freedom is not unrestricted freedom in the context of a secular state. Also see AIR (1954, Supreme Court), 282-97.

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the West, and it was with this considerable financial assistance that the mission organizations were ‘carrying on proselytization amongst backward tribes, especially in areas freshly opened’.17 It was particularly noted that the money brought into India was not merely for educational or medical work: a large share went to ‘professional proselytizers, foreign and indigenous’. The committee found that almost all the missions employed national pracharalcs (instructors or preachers) whose main role was securing converts. Their entire livelihood depended on the mission from which they received a salary (I: 116-7). The committee argued that the missionaries’ intention was conversion through evangelism using the various means of schools, hospitals and orphanages. They examined the number of the patients who were convened in various Christian hospitals and orphanages and concluded that most conversions were brought about in ‘expectation of social service benefits and other material considerations’. Moneylending practices carried on by some Catholic missions were strongly attacked in the report. However, the main problem of the methods of propagating Christianity was the abuse of Hindu deities by the missionaries and the pracharaks as they tried to convince people of the truth of Christianity. Furthermore, it appeared to the committee that attacks on Hindu religion and its deities were not occasional but ‘an important and integral plank of Christian propaganda’ and that they therefore provoked the Hindu violence against them (I: 106-22). The committee insisted that ‘the only motive that brings Christian Missionaries away from their homes . . . is the urge to carry out Christ’s command [to convert others]’. They acknowledged the Christian claim that conversion was an act of God, and that religion should be an individual matter of free choice, but objected to it on the grounds that they had discovered the large majority had not converted in ‘the real sense o f the term’ but from ulterior motives (I: 123-4).18 This was underlined in their assessment of the motives of conversion: 17 See the detailed figures of funds received from foreign countries between 1950 and 1954, and some examples of those funds being used to do evangelistic work (Niyogi Report 1:96-8). See also the self-critical quotations by a number of Christians (Niyogi Report I: 100-3). 18 In their study, they alleged that about 4,000 Uraons were converted in two years but were struck by their ‘total absence of religious feeling’. They also quoted the testimonies of Christians as to the high degree of backsliding of converts— in some cases only 50 out of 200 converts remained Christians.

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It is true that material inducements are not offered in all cases direcdy but by a systematic parading of their wealth and power, grants o f liberal loans, preferential treatment to Christians in hospitals and schools and various other methods of propaganda, a general impression is created in the minds of simple aboriginal [sic] that the only way to escape from material penury is to embrace Christianity (I: 124). The strongest argument of the report against Christian missionary activity was that it was motivated by the fear of the spread of communism. The Cold War, together with the limitation of religious freedom and the persecution of Christians in communist countries, led the churches to condemn and oppose communism, which gave rise to Hindu suspicion of an anti-communist motive behind their vigorous attempts to convert people in the non-Western world.19 Moreover, some of the literature produced by both missionaries and national Christians explicitly proclaimed their objective of converting people to Christ in order to prevent the spread of communism (I: 52-60). The verbal and written testimonies of the local people, contemporary world politics, and Christian writings promoting conversion gave enough evidence to the committee to justify this finding. On the basis of these findings, the report recommended that (1) missionaries whose main object was conversion ‘should be asked to withdraw’ and their entry to the country should be monitored; (2) use of any professional services as a means of making converts should be prohibited by law, (3) an amendment of Article 25 of the Constitution was needed, to limit the fundamental rights to Indian citizens only, and clarify that it does not include conversion brought about by undue means; (4) suitable controls should be implemented on conversions brought about through illegal means and, if necessary, legislative measures should be enacted; (5) distribution of literature for propaganda without the approval of the state government should be prohibited (I: 163-5). The report demonstrated the thoroughness of the committee’s research and their dear objection to Christian mission in general and to Christian conversion in particular. However, the report’s serious shortcomings— such as its unclear objectives and terms of reference, its partisan approach 19 George Hood points out that Western Christian leadership feared that communism would ‘fill the vacuum left by the retreating imperialisms in South-east Asia’ (Hood 1991: 185-98).

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to the subject, a lack of fair treatment of the material and questionnaires, and the uncritical use of witnesses— led to furious criticism from Christians, especially from Catholics.

Christian responses to the Niyogi Report When the report was made available to the public, the Catholic community responded vigorously. The editor of The Examiner expressed his regret that the report only ‘reproduces the usual charges about unfair methods of proselytization and political activity’. He was dismayed that the committee found no evidence of the harassment of Christians by Hindus or state authorities and alleged that Hindu objection to conversion was due to their concern for the numerical strength of the majority (The Examiner, 21 July 1956: 361-2). Furthermore, the fact that the report recommended the amendment of the Constitution was a serious challenge not only to ‘the very fundamentals of Christianity’ but also to the Constitution itself, which guarantees the fundamental rights of the people (The Examiner, 4 August 1956: 385-6). The report appeared to Catholic Christians to target not only the foreign missionaries but also the Catholic church particularly, even though the written material used by the committee was almost entirely from Protestant sources. There was no positive appreciation of Catholic mission work and the report deliberately and strongly criticized the Catholic church and their missionary policy on many occasions (The Examiner, 11 August 1956: 397-9).20 These grievances of Catholics were articulated in a statement o f the Catholic Bishops Conference in India (CBCI) that expressed ‘profound regret’ at the report and discarded its findings. It insisted that freedom of religion was the very foundation of Christianity and was also guaranteed in the Constitution (The Examiner, 15 September 1956: 465-6). The deep resentment of the Catholic community over the report was articulated in several books the following year. Oscar Sevrin, the Bishop o f Raigarh-Ambikapur disputed the information collected by the committee, which he regarded as either false or distorted—at least in Raigarh and Surguja districts—to suit the purpose of the committee to criticize the Christian community (Sevrin 1957). Against the assertion 20 Note the allegation that Catholic missions used political power to convert Hindus and that, in the post-colonial era, the Catholic church engaged in converting activities to ‘extend its religious empire’ (Niyogi Report I: 34-41, 56-60).

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of the report that conversion must be an act of individual, internal conviction and must be based on purely spiritual motives (Niyogi Report I: 151, 160), he argued that there were undeniably complex motives in conversion, including temporal advantages such as ‘freedom from caste oppression, education of children, a lift in the social scale, deliverance from the tyranny of Rajas and Zamindars’, and that Christians need make no apology for the conversion of people in such circumstances. He highlighted the dangers of government imposing its power on personal and religious matters: ‘Who has a right to ask whether another man’s motives are pure?’, and furthermore insisted that: the question is not what motive first turned this man’s mind towards Christianity. It may have been the desire (in itself legitimate, but insufficient to warrant a change of religion) to rise in the social scale. The question is: Does this man, at the present moment, have faith in Christ, a true internal, personal conviction? . . . The Tribals and the untouchables have a right to look for relief in their sad condition. The missionary gives them relief, in which there is nothing unfair, nor a temptation. But this assistance happens to be the occasion of the conversion. The real conversion is the act of faith, made freely and personally by the convert. . . . The truth is that God does give the grace of faith and that conversions are real...(Sevrin 1957: 170-5). In his leading article in a collection of papers by various Catholic leaders and academics criticizing the report, A. Soares, vice-president of the Catholic Association of Bombay, insisted that the purpose of Christian missions was evangelization— ‘the presentation of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ’—which may not necessarily lead into conversion (Soares 1957: 1-38). Conversion is an act of the individual will, motivated by the grace of God; thus it is not something imposed from outside and is beyond the work of missionaries. He divided religious tolerance into three categories: dogmatic, civil and political. While he regarded the latter two as necessary in the Indian situation, he believed dogmatic toleration was not possible since one should refuse to tolerate ‘error’ and ‘falsehood’. Therefore he saw conversion as the only possible response to truth and as non-negotiable. He also argued that, unlike Hinduism, Christianity is a social religion that concerns the whole person and that

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the social activity of the church is of the ‘very essence of our faith’ as it is the ‘radiation of a living faith’. Sevrin and Soares’s arguments represent the two main contemporary Christian justifications for conversion. Sevrin’s argument was that, whereas there are many motives for conversion, not all of which can be described as ‘spiritual’, conversion is undeniably an act of faith because, contrary to the Hindu expectation of a purely spiritual and individualistic conversion, he understood Christianity to embrace material and community aspects of life as well. For Soares, conversion is inevitable where truth is encountered and, in Christianity, truth has social ramifications. These arguments will resurface again in succeeding chapters, especially Chapters Seven and Eight. Though they had been less outspoken during the enquiry, faced with its outcome, Protestant leaders too responded. The editor of NCCR pointed out that the committee used historical material out of context, that it had not followed any accepted juridical procedure, and that it was far from impartial. He argued that the report, without acceptable evidence, undermined the entire missionary contribution as a political one, and furthermore, its recommendation to limit the freedom of people would ‘pave the way for the end of democracy in India’ (NCCR, September 1956:318-21; see also Thomas 1956:394-7). At the triennial meeting of N CC I in November 1956, the participants called for Christians to stand up and protest not only because of ‘the absolute Christian obligation to preach the Gospel, but because of the fundamental rights o f every man’. They denounced unfair methods of evangelism, but further asserted that ‘evangelism is the very heart of the Gospel’ and that calling for conversion is ‘the affirmation and not the denial of human integrity’ (NCCR, December 1956: 485-9). While the response of the Catholic community was to protest strongly against the enquiry during its course, and to directly oppose almost all the charges of the report, Protestants, who were a more disparate group and not the main target of the report’s criticism, responded on the whole more cautiously. Whereas Catholics argued from theological first principles, Protestants took the pragmatic view that the real problems were the involvement of foreign missionaries in the process of conversion and the alien identity of Indian converts in relation to Indian culture and tradition created by a radical understanding of conversion, both of which problems they saw as surmountable. Therefore, Protestants, especially as reflected in a Protestant symposium in the following year, took the report as a challenge

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to develop new patterns of mission compatible with Indian traditions and cultures (Levai 1957). As will become apparent in the next chapter, this Protestant understanding of the issue was also influenced by theological changes taking place in the wider Christian churches and the view that Hindu objections to Christian conversion were on a socio­ cultural and political level.

The Debate Over the Niyogi Report The debate over the report focused on two main issues: the conversion of the adivasis—their motives for conversion, their identity as converts, and the socio-political implications of their conversion; and the activities of the foreign missionaries in independent India—the motives and methods o f their activities, and their relationship with the Indian church. These issues are inseparable and complicated so that they need to be examined from various different perspectives. The fact that the enquiry coincided with the launch of a Hindu nationalist political party in Madhya Pradesh and its attempt to promote the ideology of Hindutva resulted in a Christian interpretation of the enquiry as a political strategy to intimidate religious minorities ( Jaffrelot 1996:132-57). And indeed, in spite o f the thorough work done by the committee, their findings pictured the issues as entirely political, and ignored the spiritual and religious dimensions of conversion and missionary activities. In any case, since the enquiry committee failed to gain the confidence and cooperation of Christians, particularly Catholics, it could not present a full picture of the situation. The report was significant because it gave historical and social justification for Hindu objections to Christian conversion by providing factual evidence of problems surrounding the Christian campaign of conversion, adding to the theological groundwork against conversion laid in the previous century by Roy and the moral, religious and philosophical basis on which, at a later date, Gandhi had challenged Christian conversion. Even more significantly, the report also implicitly promoted the idea that the people of India should conform to Hindu ideology. Hindu nationalists regarded communal struggle in India as arising from Hindu tolerance towards other religions which have flourished in Hindu lands, and they claimed that only Hindus have rights in the land of India. Christophe Jaffrelot argues that Nehru’s nationalism embodied a territorial and universalist version of nationalism

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whereas Hindu nationalism was a variant of ‘ethnic nationalism’ and the leaders of the RSS required ‘religious minorities to owe allegiance to Hindu symbols of identity’ (Jaffrelot 1996: 55—8). This meant that within India conformity to Hindu ideology was expected since it was identified with Indian-ness. This idea is evident in the report, which insisted that every Indian must accept and conform to Hindu values, regardless of religious and cultural background, and that by becoming or remaining Christian one not only forfeits one’s religious identity but also stands in the way of one’s society’s collective duty (dharma). The report failed to gain support from moderate Hindus because of its obvious bias towards Hindu nationalist opinions and its unwillingness to give credit for the recognized contributions of missionaries. And as discussed above, it caused deep resentment among Christians, who were already in a vulnerable position in the face of the overwhelmingly Hindu majority. Both Catholics and Protestants were alarmed at the recommendation o f the committee on amendment of the Constitution. The Christian defence of conversion and missionary activities largely relied on the argument that it was guaranteed in the Constitution as a fundamental right. However, the report contested the Christian claim as a misreading of the text of the Constitution since the word ‘conversion’ does not appear in it and argued that any such right is limited to converting oneself to another religion. Although there were some positive responses from Protestant sources about the usefulness of the report for self-reflection on missionary activities, by and large, it was regarded as biased and politically motivated, and therefore rejected by most Christians. Thus what could have been a significant document for both Hindus and Christians in their search for mutual understanding on conversion only served as a proof-text for a Hindu nationalist position on conversion. Its recommendations were implemented in the ‘freedom of religion’ acts of Orissa (1967) and of Madhya Pradesh (1968), and caused Christians to be deeply suspicious of the growing Hindu ideology which called for conformity to a Hindu state regardless of religious and socio-cultural diversity. I I . T h e DEBATE OVER ‘ FREEDOM OF RELIGION* LEGISLATION,

1967-1979

Mahatma Gandhi’s warning, ‘If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop them proselytizing’ (Harijan, 11 May 1935) found its

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fulfilment after Independence in the attempts of Hindus to prohibit the conversion activities of Christians and foreign missionaries. From the mid-1950s there were three legal matters which imposed serious restrictions on conversion and caused tension and debates between Hindus and Christians: the elimination of certain rights o f the caste Hindu converts through the making of Hindu ‘personal laws’; the exclusion from certain rights and privileges of converts of Scheduled Caste origin; and the ‘freedom of religion’ legislation. Most debates took place over the last of these three, which is the main concern of this section, but mention will also be made of the other two. Hindu ‘personal laws’ were made up of a series of acts passed in the mid-1950s that were applicable only to Hindus. Though generally progressive as far as democratization and the status of women were concerned, they had serious negative implications for conversion including loss of identity in Hindu society and loss of certain marital, parental and inheritance rights for converts and their children (Saldanha 1981:115—38; Derrett 1968:438-48). The Hindu Marriage Act (1955) states that a partner ceasing to be a Hindu by converting to another religion gives legitimate ground for divorce. The Hindu Succession Act (1956) lays down that although a convert retains the right to inherit, the children born to that person after conversion and their descendants are disqualified from inheriting the property of their Hindu relatives unless the children remain or become Hindus. The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (1956) disqualifies a convert from being the guardian of his own child and from being the natural guardian of his wife if she is a minor.21 The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956) states that a convert does not have any say over his/her partner adopting a child; one parent can give his/her child in adoption without the consent of the partner if he/she has converted; and no one can claim maintenance if he/she has converted to another religion.22 It is important to note that in these acts, in legal terms, a Hindu was defined as ‘a Hindu by religion in any of its forms or developments’ which included Buddhist, Jaina or Sikh by religion and also included any person who is a ‘convert or reconvert’ to the Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina or Sikh religion, but excluded 21 A minor is under 18. years and the minimum age for a bride in a Hindu marriage was 15 years according to the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956. 22 The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (Act 78 of 1956), Clauses 7, 8,9, 18(2) (f)& 1 8 (3 ).

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Muslims, Christians, Parsis or Jews by religion.23 There is no doubt that this legislation made it extremely difficult for caste Hindus to change their religion. As far as converts with a Scheduled Caste background were concerned, the President’s Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order issued on 10 August 1950 stated that ‘no person who professes a religion different from Hindu religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste’, which meant that converts from these castes were outside the scope o f state aid applicable to members.24 The special rights and privileges of the Scheduled Castes included political representation, educational opportunities and economic aid, and exclusion from them generated considerable tension and economic hardship.25 Christians argued that the economic and educational aid should continue for converts since they lived in the same economic and social conditions as non-Christian Scheduled Castes. After a Christian campaign against the order began, various state governments made changes to the legislation to grant benefits, but this led to further ‘inequality’ by geographical location. Hindus argued that the rights and privileges of the Scheduled Castes were designed to address the problem of caste, and since converts had opted out of the caste system, there was no reason to offer them benefits. The Hindu laws and the withdrawal of special provisions for the Scheduled Castes amounted to what Christians saw as ‘discriminatory’ measures against both caste Hindu and non-caste Hindu converts. However the ‘freedom of religion’ acts represented direct Hindu attempts to prevent conversion and, as such, were vehemently challenged by Christians. The controversy over the use of state power to prevent conversion started with a bill, known as the Indian Converts (Regulation and Registration) Bill, applicable to the whole of India, which was presented to the Lok Sabha in December 1954 by Jethalal Joshi, who 23 See Clause 2 (1) of the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession A ct, and the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. 24 This was amended in 1956 to include the Sikh religion, and in 1990 Buddhism was also included. This was reconfirmed by Govind Ballabh, the home minister (31 October 1958) and then Jawaharlal Nehru (7 November 1958). 25 See the Constitution, Articles 330,332 and 334. For a detailed discussion, see Webster (1992: 164-90); Smith (1963: 311-26); Devadason (1974: 70-8); Raj (1998: 161-90).

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explained that it was meant to ‘regulate conversion and to provide for registration and licensing of persons aiding any person to become a convert’. But it was strongly opposed by Pocker Saheb, a Muslim member, on the basis of the fact that, as a result of the bill, registration of any conversion would be dependent upon the discretion of the state authority, which he regarded as a ‘virtual denial of the right’ in the Article 25 of the Constitution (LSD 2/9, 24 December 1954: 4075-83). The debate continued in the following year in the Lok Sabha (LSD 2/8, 30 September 1955:15975-16016) and on 2 December 1955 Nehru spoke out against it, reminding the house that various efforts to regulate conversion had been made at the time of the Constituent Assembly but as yet an adequate solution had not been found. He cautioned the members that legislating against conversion would cause ‘great harassment to a large number of people’ by giving local authorities too much power. He urged that the real solution for the uneasy feelings between religious communities was to create an atmosphere of tolerance by ‘respecting the other person’s religion and avoiding any coercion’, and he suggested the mover of the bill should drop it. The bill was eventually rejected by the members of the Lok Sabha (LSD 2/9, 2 December 1955: 10931119; see also NCCR, January 1956: 6-7, 19-21).

The debate on the Orissa Freedom o f Religion Act and the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1967—1968 The Hindu desire to legislate on the subject of conversion gained support at the state government level when the findings and recommendations of the Niyogi Report were published in 1956. There were several attempts to implement the recommendations of the report in Madhya Pradesh but it was only in 1967 that the government of the neighbouring state eventually passed the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, which was intended ‘to provide for prohibition of conversion from one religion to another by the use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means’. The statement of objects and reasons in the act reads: Conversion in its very process involves an act of undermining another faith. The process becomes all the more objectionable when this is brought about by recourse to methods like force, fraud, material inducement and exploitation of one’s poverty, simplicity and ignorance. Conversion or attempts to conversion in the above manner

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besides creating various maladjustments in social life, also give rise to problem of law and order. It is therefore, of importance to provide for measures to check such activities which also indirectly impinge on the freedom of religion. The bill seeks to achieve the above objectives.26 The following year, the state of Madhya Pradesh adopted the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam (Freedom of Religion Act), which was almost identical to the Orissa act but added clauses on the reporting of any conversion ceremony to the district magistrate.27 Christians strongly criticized these states for passing these acts. The editor of the NCCR responded to the concept of conversion raised in the acts by stating that conversion is wider than the issue of changing one’s religion: it is about freedom of individual choice, which is fundamental to human nature and closely related to the ‘right for the search for Truth* (NCCR, March 1968: 120-2). Eugene D ’Souza, the Catholic archbishop of Bhopal, wrote a strong letter against the act to the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, in which he described it as a direct attack on the constitutional fundamental rights and something that had certainly ‘shaken the confidence of the Christian community’ (77le Examiner, 12 October 1968: 651). Christians in various parts of the country protested against the acts (The Examiner, 26 October 1968: 677), concentrating on the following issues: First, although it was stated that the acts were meant to prohibit conversion by undesirable means, it was clear in the Orissa act that conversion itself was regarded as objectionable since it was said to undermine another’s faith. Therefore it appeared that, in spite o f the Hindu claim of there not being any objection to ‘genuine conversion’, the acts were intended to regulate or limit not only conversion done by undesirable means but also conversion in general. Second, the fact that the definitions o f the terms used in the acts were wide and open to abusive interpretation led to serious fears among Christians that what they regarded as a personal matter v/ouid be under the scrutiny of government officials without sufficient safeguards against the abuse. Probably the strongest case against the acts from the Christian point of 26 The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967. 27 The Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968. For the full texts of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh Acts, see Zachariah 1979.

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view was that, as Nehru warned, the acts could create more problems than they solved. As the texts of the acts show, especially in the case of Madhya Pradesh, they were aimed to regulate the activity of the instigator of conversion rather chan the one who him/herself converts to another religion. Therefore, when Christians insisted that the acts were ultra vires the Constitution, they had to establish that the fundamental right ‘to propagate’ meant a fundamental right to seek the conversion of others. This was the key point in the debate.

High Court and Supreme Court verdicts on the ‘Freedom o f Religion’ Legislation, 1972-1977 As a result of the enactment of the Orissa act, the authorities arrested some Christians28 which resulted in others engaging in legal action against the acts. The Catholic Union of India filed a case against the Orissa Freedom o f Religion Act on the grounds that the act violated the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution, and that it was beyond the competence of the state legislature.29 In their decision on 24 October 1972, the Orissa High Court acknowledged, on the basis of the petitioners’ arguments, that ‘it is the religious duty of every Christian to propagate his religion’ and, as far as the scope of Article 25 (1) of the Constitution was concerned, stated that: The true scope of the guarantee under Art. 25 (1 ) of the Constitution, therefore, must be taken to extend to propagate religion and, as a necessary corollary of this proposition, conversion into one’s own religion has to be included in the right so far as a Christian citizen is concerned (AIR, Orissa, 1973: 120). They therefore concluded that the act was ultra vires the Constitution, that the term ‘inducement’ was vague, and that the state legislature had no power to enact it since only the Parliament could act in matters related to religion (AIR, Orissa, 1973: 116-23). The verdict was welcomed by the Christian community and effectively prevented other 28 These were a Catholic priest, three Catholic catechists, two Baptist evangelists (The Examiner, 4 January 1969: 4). 29 For a detailed account of the Catholic campaign of legal action, see The Examiner, 4 January 1969:4. For the Protestant campaigns, see NCCR, April 1969: 129.

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states from proceeding with similar acts (NCCR, December 1972:4858). However, in the case of the Madhya Pradesh act, Chief Justice P.K. Tare delivered a final verdict on 23 April 1974 which was in contradiction to the decision of the Orissa High Court. By arguing that the freedom of religion should not ‘encroach upon similar freedom o f other individuals’, the judges concluded that the disputed sections of the act, far from violating the Constitution, actually establish the equality of religious freedom for all citizens by prohibiting conversion by objectionable activities such as conversion by force, fraud and by allurement...[Tjhe provision relating to conversion by allurement cannot be challenged either on the ground of legislative competence or on the ground of violation of Article 25 (1) of the Constitution (AIR, Madhya. Pradesh, 1975: 163-74). The difference in the verdicts of the Orissa High Court and the Madhya Pradesh High Court inevitably led to the case being brought before the Supreme Court, which gave its final verdict on 17 January 1977. This was to uphold the decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. On the matter o f the charge that the acts violated Article 25 (1) o f the Constitution, Chief Justice A.N. Ray argued thus: [W]hat the Article grants is not the right to convert another person to one’s own religion, but to transmit or spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets.... there is no fundamental right to convert another person to one’s own religion because if a person purposely undertakes the conversion of another person to his religion... that would impinge on the ‘freedom of conscience’ guaranteed to all the citizens of the country alike (AIR, Supreme Court, 1977: 908-12). Since the Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Constitution, the decision was of crucial importance to the Christian community. It not only authenticated the Orissa and Madhya Pradesh acts but it also paved the way for other states to enact such legislation if they so desired. In response to the verdict of the Supreme Court, E.D. Devadason, a wellknown Christian lawyer, pointed out that the chief justice’s ‘devastating’ judgement was one of many such pertaining to the fundamental rights of the people made during the Emergency.30 He also disputed the 30 Fromjune 1975 to March 1977, under the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the central government assumed emergency powers.

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definition of ‘secular state’ in the Supreme Court decision, especially as it related to the equality of religions: Equality of religions does not mean one should not seek to convert one from his religion to another...when the Constitution guarantees equality of religions, it does not require that all citizens should accept equality of religions. It only means that the state cannot discriminate one religion from another and the state is bound to treat all religions alike. It does not impose an obligation that the citizens should treat all religions alike... (Devadason 1977: 433-7). While Christians saw the right of the person who propagates (which might lead to the conversion of others) as a fundamental right, the Supreme Court had returned a verdict that those who are subject to the propagating efforts of others should be able to maintain ‘freedom of conscience’ in their decision, and that this is the fundamental right clearly guaranteed in the Constitution (see also Basu 1979: 285-302). This decision meant that, in spite of repeated Christian questioning o f the legitimacy of the verdict on the basis that it was delivered in the midst of the Emergency, in India, at least in legal terms, there is no fundamental right to seek the conversion of others. In other words, Christians as citizens of a democratic nation, have to accept the fact that propagation aimed at conversion is not guaranteed as a fundamental right in the Constitution but is under the discretion of the local legislature. The decision of the Supreme Court was based on the questionable assumption that in the process of conversion, the one who is converted is merely passive and the one who propagates the faith is the active party. In the case of one actively seeking to convert to another religion as the result of a personal religious search, the acts still required anyone who conducted a conversion ceremony to report it to the authority for investigation. So, though the acts rightly safeguarded the freedom of the one receiving propagation not to be converted by unethical means, at the same time they inevitably restrained those who propagated their faith, even by the limited definition of the court, since the criteria for adjudicating unethical means in religious activities were unclear and therefore the scrutiny by the local authority was open to abuse. The decision not only put enormous pressure on those who propagated a religion, who now feared that any of their words or actions would be scrutinized by officials, it also infringed on the freedom of conscience to

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convert. While the verdict guaranteed ‘freedom of conscience’ not to change one’s religion, in practice, it severely limited ‘freedom of conscience’ to change one’s religion by denying the other’s right to propagate. As Nehru had warned, these acts could be used to intimidate those who wished to change their religion and therefore encroached on the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The Supreme Court decision was just in a sense: by clarifying the meaning of the word ‘propagate’, it protected the people of India from aggressive campaigns of conversion by either Christian or Hindu groups. But it was unjust in that, by endorsing the ‘freedom of religion’ acts, it opened the way for political abuse of the legislation to intimidate people involved in conversions. Therefore in the final analysis, not only did the verdict fall on only one side of the meaning of religious freedom, the Hindu interpretation, but more significandy, it limited freedom of choice and therefore had wider implications for choice in other areas of life.

The debate over the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom o f Indigenous Faith Act and the all-India Freedom o f Religion Bill, 1978-1979 The fears of the Christian community that the verdict of the Supreme Court would trigger the adoption o f similar acts by other state governments were affirmed when the Government of Arunachal Pradesh passed the Freedom of Indigenous Faith Act on 19 May 1978. It is important to notice that, although the Arunachal Pradesh act is similar to the Madhya Pradesh act, it specifies ‘indigenous faith’ as ‘religions, beliefs and practices’ which have been ‘sanctioned, approved, performed’ by indigenous communities, and this, in their view, included certain forms o f Buddhism, Vaishnavism, and ‘Nature worship’. In this way many o f the indigenous communities of the state were included under the umbrella of Hinduism. The presentation of an all-India Freedom of Religion Bill to the Lok Sabha by O.P. Tyagi on 22 December 1978 caused great anxiety among Christians and intensified the Hindu-Christian debate. The bill was almost identical to the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, except that Tyagi justified it by stating that, although conversion by ‘free consent and will’ cannot be questioned, ‘state protection’ is required in the case of conversion by undesirable methods and especially for people of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Catholic response to the bill is illustrated by the response of the editor of The Examiner who wrote, that ‘[t]he worst fears of the Christian community in India have alas

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now been confirmed’ and that it would not only make even genuine conversions illegal and prevent each and every conversion, it would also lead to a totalitarian state. He alleged that this was a systematic challenge by the Hindu majority to the Christian minority backed by the central government and therefore urged Christians to ‘rise up as one man in protest against the glaring injustices’ (The Examiner, 20 January 1979: 33—4; 7 April 1979: 209-10).31 In February *1979, the Catholic bishops of the western region of India made a statement on the bill, which they described as a ‘subde and deceptive move to stop all conversions’ to the Christian faith, and as giving the state leave to ‘encroach in the sacred realm of conscience of the human person*. They insisted that, contrary to the Supreme Court decision, the freedom to propagate guaranteed in the Constitution includes ‘the freedom to persuade others to join that religion...to be converted’ and that preventing people from ‘converting others’ would be against the fundamental rights (The Examiner, 10 February 1979: 81). As the debate went on, Hindus supported the legislation and attacked the arguments of the Christians. In a debate on the Arunachal Pradesh act, Savyaksh responded to the claim that Christianity is indigenous because it has been in India for two thousand years. In his article in The Organiser, the RSS weekly, he argued that Christianity is not an ‘indigenous faith’ because it did not fit into any of his versions of what indigenous faith meant. These were that it must rise from within the people; it must not be dependent on external, financial, ideological or political support; and it should not oppose the prevailing ‘cultural norms’ which have been practised by the majority. He put forward the view that Indian tradition upholds the principle o f ‘[f]reedom of thought in religion and respect for the religious beliefs of others’ which is based on ‘Vedic Truth’ and is vital to Indian identity to the extent that the destruction of it would be the destruction of India. He further argued: The duty of the state today is not merely to keep aloof from religious controversies, but also to prevent them from endangering social order and public peace. In India the state has this added problem: How to maintain equality of treatment between the majority religious oudook 31 The Examiner continued to deal with the ‘Freedom of Religion Bill’ in almost every issue until August 1979.

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—which respects all religious beliefs—and a minority religion which denounces all religious beliefs except its own and is determined to ‘convert’ others (Savyaksh 1979: 8-9). The Vivckananda Kendra Patrika devoted its August 1979 issue to ‘Christianity in India: A Critical Study, dealing mainly with the problem of conversion caused by Christian missionary activities.32 The editor identified ‘fundamental’ differences between Hinduism and Christianity, the former embodying for him a philosophy of toleration and the latter a fervent desire to seek converts. He saw that the encounter of these two ideas was bound to create tension and that the traditional Hindu policy of toleration would be disadvantageous to Hindus. He identified the problem as the intolerance of orthodox Christianity—‘religion being identified with belief in particular principles or historical facts or modes of worship or codes of behaviour’ and from which ‘[d]eviations were regarded as anti-religious and anti-social’. However, in his conclusion, he called for mutual understanding on conversion from both Hindu and Christian points of view. The 48 articles in this issue represented various Hindu approaches to conversion. First, some articles attempted to address the Indian ‘connection’ of Jesus, suggesting that Jesus lived and died in India and that there are many similarities in the teachings of Christ and Krishna. They argued that conversion is not necessary since there is common ground between Christianity and Hinduism and both need to see commonality rather than differences. Second, many argued that the problem of conversion is an historical one of missionary expansion in connection with the imperialism of the West, with examples o f ‘forceful conversion’ in the past. Therefore conversion is ‘subversion’ and Indians must reject it. Third, some saw the problem of conversion as lying in the misunderstanding of some Western Christians and missionaries who took certain passages literally. Therefore Indian Christians should be free from the influence o f Western missionaries and their teaching, which is irrelevant to an Indian understanding of faith. Fourth, a number of articles strongly supported the Freedom of Religion Bill as a way to prevent communal problems caused by the conversion activities of Christians. 32 Later in the same year all the arudes, except the editorial, were published in book form and entided Christianity in India: A Critical Study (Madras: Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan, 1979).

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Most of the articles were Hindu attempts to solve the problem of conversion, in which the arguments were based on the supremacy of the Hindu philosophy of tolerance as preached by Vivekananda, and accused Christianity of being intolerant. As the Lok Sabha session for discussing the new bill drew near, the debates intensified, and both Hindus and Christians called for mobilization for action, especially during the months of May and June 1979, but this was rather abruptly called off and the bill was never discussed due to the fall of the government in July 1979 (The Examiner, 14 July 1979).33 III.

H in d u t o l e r a n c e , la w , a n d c o n v e r s io n

The debates on conversion in the 1960s and 1970s were focused on the legal implications of conversion in the struggle between fundamental rights and religious tolerance, between majority Hindus and minority Christians, between law and religion. The new laws meant that converts were not treated as a part of the Indian community but as ‘outsiders’ if they continued to uphold their identity as Christians. Christians felt that Hindus were alienating the Christian community and its members from Indian society through the powerful means of legislation. They insisted that conversion was a personal and private decision in nature but the legal debates in the courts resulted in it becoming a public matter, especially in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, so that Christians in these states had to abide by the ‘freedom of religion’ acts. Although the Freedom of Religion Bill brought to the Lok Sabha did not in the event become law, there was always the possibility that other state governments may pass similar acts or that another ‘Freedom of Religion Bill’ may be introduced in the Lok Sabha because the Supreme Court decision on the state acts still stood. The Christian resentment was not so much against the letter of the legislation as against the spirit that they perceived to be behind it. Christians particularly feared that the bill in the Lok Sabha was intended to prohibit conversion altogether and that it would apply to the whole of India. This they saw as leading eventually to a totalitarian 33 The editor of The Examiner gave a detailed account of the party’s division and suggested that one of the main reasons was that the party leadership had lost the confidence o f its members because of the controversy over the bill.

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central government where the Hindu majority would determine state policies. More immediately, the bill would pave the way for the endorsement of the Hindu view of conversion as well as the conduct of religious matters as a whole. In other words, as happened in the cases of the legislation of the Hindu laws and the state benefits for the Scheduled Castes, the bill would provide a precedent for settling other similar religious matters in favour of the Hindu majority. Despite the Hindu claim that the bill was intended to regulate undesirable conversions only, the potential misuse of the law was great and Christians were not prepared to give in. Their fears were exacerbated by violent attacks on Christians and missionaries in the North-East and by the passing of the Arunachal Pradesh act in 1978, which implied that Christian activities had provoked the violence (see The Examiner, 30 December 1978:851,854; 6 January 1979: 5). As the debate continued, Christian arguments increasingly shifted their basis from the fundamental right in the Indian Constitution of all persons to propagate their faith to the human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to practise their faith as a minority religious community. That is, the problem was now seen in terms of Hindus determining to enforce their influence over religious minorities using state power and legal authority. The arguments o f the Hindu nationalist movements against conversion were focused on presenting the supremacy of the Hindu philosophy of tolerance and persuading Christians of the ‘openness’ of Hindu thought. This was expressed particularly vividly in the articles in the Vivekananda Kendra Patrika where the fundamental difference between Hinduism and Christianity was seen in the assertion that there is freedom of thought within Hinduism whereas Christianity has no freedom within it but confines its members to its particular doctrines. In other words, as Savyaksh argued, Hinduism ‘tolerates’ other beliefs, modes o f worship or codes of behaviour since it teaches that divine revelation must be understood in pluralistic terms. Therefore, Hindus argued that Hinduism, having this ideology of the plurality of the truth, embodied a ‘philosophy o f toleration’ which exhibits a mature understanding of God and nature as against the exclusive claims to the truth by Christians. In Hindu understanding, then, it is not necessary to convert to Christianity to find truth since within Hinduism there is a built-in provision and scope for finding the truth in various religious forms and ways. Conversion confines the convert to one particular side

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of the truth, hindering his/her search for the whole truth.34 While Christians call Hindus to a conversion to Christianity— a particular religious tradition—regardless of race, gender, and caste, and as a result, to affirm an identity distinctive from others who are not Christians, Hindus call Christians to conform to a particular Hindu view of the truth, regardless of the different history, doctrines and practices of Christian tradition, and as a consequence, to endorse values which can operate only within the Hindu world view. Therefore, one cannot say that Hindus are tolerant and Christians are intolerant, because each has its own distinctive claim to truth and the ways of approaching it— Hindus, at least on the conversion issue, are equally exclusive in their claims. The problem of conversion then does not lie in the supposed tolerance of Hindus and intolerance of Christians. It is rather the clash or mismatch of areas of tolerance between the two religions. The enactment of the Hindu laws, the state benefits for the Scheduled Castes, and the legislation against conversion made clear distinctions between Hindus and non-Hindus, and Hinduism and other religions. It is important to note that these distinctions drew definite boundaries for Hindu religious affiliation, belief and practice. Both caste and non­ caste Hindus were required to remain in their own fold, for there were now serious penalties for those who deliberately moved out through conversion to another religion. However, these boundaries were not completely closed from the other side for those who were willing to assimilate into the wider Hindu family. For non-Hindus, to be associated with Hindus became an attractive option, as is suggested by the inclusion of various ‘indigenous faiths’ in the Arunachal Pradesh act. More significandy, the interpretation of Christian conversion was no longer confined to the Christian community but open to the scrutiny of the law, and it had to be approved by the majority Hindus. Although both Hindus and Christians called for tolerance from the other party in their debate on the legislation of conversion, because they were operating in an overwhelmingly Hindu context, it was the Christians who were under pressure to make adjustments with respect to Hinduism. So during the 1970s, while Western theologians were more interested in religious pluralism and the question of the uniqueness of Christ, Indian theologians were most concerned with the problem of conversion. This eventually 34 The argument that Hinduism offers a superior way to Christianity was also that of the early nineteenth-century pandits (see Chapter Two).

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led to the debates on conversion among Christians (examined in the next two chapters), of which that between M.M. Thomas and Lesslie Newbigin in 1971 is the outstanding example. But these debates were limited by the awareness that the Hindu majority were determined to see that the boundaries should allow passage in one direction only and that the Christian reinterpretation of the meaning of conversion would have to fit into a Hindu religious ‘compartment’ if it was not to be rejected by the majority.

5 The Debates on Conversion Among Protestant Theologians in India, 1966-1971 In this setting the Church must move away from being a communal entity to become an open fellowship, present ro and possibly in all religious and secular communities to witness to Christ as the bearer of both true human life and salvation. — M.M. Thomas (1971b: 70) True conversion involves both a new creation from above, which is not merely an act of extension of the existing community, and ¿Iso a relationship with the existing community of believers. — Lesslie Newbigin (1969a: 107)

The topic of conversion rose to prominence in Indian Christian theology particularly during the second half of the 1960s and the early 1970s as the strength of Hindu opposition to it became evident in the findings of the Niyogi Report and the various attempts to regulate conversion in central government and local states. As shown above, these provoked strong reactions from Christians on the basis of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the conviction that conversion was at the heart of Christian belief and practice. However, this opposition to conversion also forced Christian theologians to rethink the meaning and practice of conversion, and resulted in intra-Christian debates. Mission theologian David Bosch has shown that since the 1960s, theologia religionum has become the most important discipline in mission studies and, along with secular humanism, it has become a major challenge for

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Christian theology (1992: 474—7). Therefore the debate in India cannot be seen in isolation but as part of a theological debate in the wider Christian world. The aim of this chapter is to appraise the attempts of some Protestant theologians to reinterpret conversion both in the light of worldwide discussions and also in the face of Hindu opposition to conversion. I. T

h e PROTESTANT DEBATES ON CONVERSION IN T H E

1960s a n d 1970s Protestant Christians and missionaries had debated the meaning of conversion during the Tambaram Conference in 1938. Indian theologians responded powerfully to Hendrik Kraemer’s book, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, which was the keynote of the conference. Where Kraemer emphasized the discontinuity of Christianity with other religions, the Madras ‘Rethinking’ group stressed its continuity and criticized his Barthian standpoint, which they found irrelevant to the Indian context.1 Pandipeddi Chenchiah questioned the choice of the church as the central theme of the conference. He asked openly ‘by what right Christendom has all but jettisoned the kingdom of God which occupies so central a place in the message of Jesus and substituted in its place the Church of which the Master said so little’ (Chenchiah 1938: 81-2). Furthermore, he asked, ‘Why should Hindu converts join the Church?’ He criticized the dogmatic views of missionaries and insisted on the necessity of continuity in the life of Indian Christians in a Hindu context (47-9). He went on to discuss the questions which Kraemer raised concerning the church. He concluded that the problem of the church in India was that it had become ‘the centre of influence, the source of salvation, the object of loyalty’ and that it was ‘identified with the core and acquired as it were the same value as the original nucleus [of the gospel]’ (53-62). In the church’s place, he insisted, Indian Christianity needs, ‘Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Kingdom of God’ (: 99). In a similar vein, Vengal Chakkarai, another key figure in the ‘Rethinking’ group, regarded the church as an ‘inspiration’ not an institution, and the institutionalized church as ‘the tents put up by our Western friends’ which ‘can never be our permanent habitation’ (119-23). 1 For the responses to the conference of P. Chenchiah, V. Chakkarai and other Indian members of the ‘Rethinking’ group, see Devasahayam and Sudarisanam (1939); Ariarajah (1991: 69-88); Jathanna (1981).

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Chenchiah saw conversion as a change of life without involving affiliation to the church because he viewed mission as a ‘movement in the Hindu social fold’ rather than the creation o f ‘a solid society outside’ (44). He strongly objected to either individual or mass conversion to the Christian church, but supported a Christian mission in India that was ‘prepared to see the gradual infusion of Hinduism by Christian ideals and above all Christian life’, creating ‘a powerful Christian atmosphere within Hinduism’ (50-2). Towards and after Independence, the main concern of Indian Protestant theologians was more to do with the relationship between the Christian community and the Hindu community, particularly the question of whether converts should leave the Hindu community and join the Christian community, and what joining the church entailed. During the 1940s, Manilal Parekh who had been baptised but later declined to identify himself with any church, became a prime opponent of the church on the conversion issue. He strongly condemned Christians for forming a community that he saw as a distincdy social and political body, anti-national, and not spiritual in character. He believed this was the direct result of the ‘proselytizing’ activities of the missionaries (Parekh 1924: 324-9). Parekh’s radical approach was to advocate a ‘Hindu Church of Christ’ as ‘the only possible Church of Christ in Hindustan’. His attempt to bring ‘harmony and synthesis’ between Hinduism and Christianity caused controversy and led to a debate with Bishop Azariah who rejected Parekh’s ‘pure spiritualization’ of baptism and Christian life (Parekh 1928: 145-54; see also Azariah 1928: 154-9). Parekh’s objections to Christian conversion were underlined in Christian Proselytism in India: A Great and Growing Menace (1947), but in Robin Boyd’s opinion, his bitter opposition to the church and his syncretistic approach did not lead ‘to a positive stage o f Indian theological construction’ (1975: 267-71). On the other hand, it had considerable influence on the thoughts of M.M. Thomas and Kaj Baago in their approach to conversion, and these then played major roles in advocating new approaches.

The debates between Kaj Baago and Lesslie Newbigin and around the Nasrapur Consultation, 1966 In 1966 an article by Kaj Baago, Professor of Church History at United Theological College, Bangalore, triggered controversy among Christian

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theologians in India. Baago argued that, in the light of the contemporary post-colonial situation, Christian mission must rethink its objectives and goals, and that the most important issue should be the Christian attitude to other religions, especially the ‘problem of conversion’, Baago strongly questioned the legitimacy of conversion: ‘Shall they [people of another religion] be converted at all?’ and ‘Do they have to be incorporated into church organizations which are utterly alien to their religious traditions?’. He alleged that Christian mission was carried on with ideas o f‘expansion’, ‘victory’, ‘progress’ or ‘religious conquest’ in a way contrary to the practice of Jesus and the Early Church (1966: 322-32). He not only called for the abandonment of the conversion activities of Christian mission, but also declared: The missionary task of today cannot, therefore, be to draw men out of their religions into another religion, but rather to leave Christianity (the organized religion) and go inside Hinduism and Buddhism, accepting these religions as one’s own, in so far as they do not conflict with Christ, and regarding them as the presupposition, the background and the framework o f the Christian gospel in Asia. Such a mission...might lead to the creation of Hindu Christianity... (1966: 331-2). Although the idea o f ‘Hindu Christianity’ was not a new one (see next chapter), Baago’s suggestion of Christians ‘converting’ into Hinduism was contentious. Baago saw Christianity as tainted by the institutionalized church, a colonial Jegacy, which he wished to separate from Christ, the ‘norm and rule’ of Christian faith. Since Christ transcends all things, including culture and religion, he thought Christ must be free from Christianity and particularly from the church, which is neither compatible with their culture nor acceptable to modern Hindus because of its historical past in India. He identified the solution to be not an attempt to find a meeting point between Christianity and Hinduism, but a rejection of Christianity as a legitimate vessel to hold the gospel. Instead the gospel should be allowed to grow within Hinduism since, as he tried to show in his historical analysis of the mission history of the church, Christ and his gospel are not bound by Christianity. This attempt at reinterpreting conversion inevitably caused debate and this was evident in the Nasrapur Consultation organized by the National Council of Churches in March 1966, at which conversion was

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the subject of one of the five main commissions. In his address entitled ‘Conversion’, Lesslie Newbigin, then Bishop of the Church of South India in Madras, defined conversion as a ‘return to the covenant’ in order to ‘recognize and participate in’ God’s rule in this world, which involved not only the inward relationship of faith but also a way of behaviour and visible companionship (1966: 309-12). He disputed Baago’s biblical exegesis, and emphasized particularly that the Pauline concept o f ‘one body’ had never been a merely spiritual one but a visible one to the extent that visible commitment to Christ’s people was intrinsic to the character of the revelation itself. He further argued, following Hendrik Kraemer’s position in this regard, that conversion implies a real ‘discontinuity’ between Christian faith and other faiths (1966: 31520; 1964:147-8; 1969a: 88-115). This means it requires a commitment to belong to the Christian community and acceptance of a new pattern of conduct according to gospel principles: There is a radical discontinuity and therefore the possibility of a certain radical independence of the newly converted over against the old, an independence as radical as the independence that is all demanded for the gentile churches vis-à-vis those of Jerusalem. But, the N T (New Testament) knows nothing of a relationship to Christ which is a purely mental relationship and involves no visible solidarity with those who share that relationship (1966: 320). Although Newbigin was also conscious of the difficulty of the church in India over the issue of conversion, he believed Baago’s attempt gave in to the Hindu conception of conversion—that it is spiritual and by implication not visible or communal. Newbigin believed that, although Christ is Lord of all and therefore transcendent over all peoples and cultures, the converts and their faith have to be rooted and exhibited in a visible form, which is the Christian community. Baago’s radical approach to conversion was taken up by M.M. Thomas, Director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, Bangalore, who also questioned the role of the church in the contemporary situation. In his DufF Missionary Lectures, he argued that the revolutionary changes taking place in Asia were in God’s plan for preparing the Asian people for the gospel. The ‘revolution’ was raising the most ‘fundamental spiritual questions about God’ to which ‘Christ is relevant’ and, in order to meet the need, the church needs to be

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‘convened’ so that Christians can ‘develop their own confessions to Christ in their own historical situations’ (1966l: 29-34). In presenting contemporary theologians’ approaches to the Hindu context,2 he insisted that in the case of even a partial acknowledgement of his [Christ’s] Lordship, however strange its religious or secular expression may be, the underlying faith must be considered as taken into the salvation-history, the history of New-Creation. Certainly the boundary of the new humanity in Christ is not the same as that of the empirical Church of Christ which is but the witness of the new creation. The new creation, the Kingdom, cuts across the Church and the world (1966a: 102). Thomas strongly criticized the ‘minority consciousness’ of the Christian community in India and urged Christians to overcome their isolation from the national mainstream and live for the larger community. It is only as Christians overcome their isolation from the main national stream and shed being minority-conscious that they can affirm their character as a people ‘in Christ’, living for the large human community as its servant, and it is only thus that the Church can become an open community which is the bearer of meaning for all men. In fact, the Church can recover its prophetic being and ministry only along these lines (1966a: 108). The goal of Christian mission, he argued, should not be to create a ‘Christian’ culture but an open’ culture. Christianity has to accept its place in modern society as one among many, and furthermore Christians should help to provide a common humanity in which ‘men of many faiths and no faith’ would have ‘common assumptions’ and be ‘open to the insights and inspiration of all faiths, both religious and secular’. He envisaged a coexistence of religious and secular faiths on the basis of the freedom and equality of persons in their personal commitment (1966a: 113-4). In the Nasrapur Consultation, Thomas further developed his thoughts on conversion and raised the question of the ‘form’ of the Christian 2 For example, the approach« of Newbigin, A.G. Hogg and P.D. Devanandan (Thomas 1966a: 93-103).

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community within the human community. He argued that the most urgent task for contemporary Christian mission was to participate in the people’s struggle for the ‘realization of humanity’ rather than follow the traditional missionary task of conversion. He further insisted that the secular fellowship was the ‘point of contact’ and could be in ‘partnership in the struggle’ and called on the church to break the communal structure and build up a new partnership of Christians and non-Christians—the ‘human koinonia (1966b: 356-59). The findings of the Commission on Conversion of the Nasrapur Consultation clearly exhibited this tension between Baago and Thomas on the one hand, and Newbigin on the other. The Commission defined conversion as ‘primarily a transition from one faith to another’ and its characteristics as not only ‘personal faith in Him’ but also ‘public confession’, a ‘pattern of behaviour’ and ‘continuing visible companion­ ship’, which puts a strong emphasis on the outward demonstration of faith. On the other hand, the Commission insisted that conversion did not mean moving from one culture or community to another, and its emphasis was on a ‘return to the Lord’ applicable to Christians as well as non-Christians (NCCR, May 1966: 208—11). The findings begged the question: if conversion means a change from one faith to another, and if it involves a public confession and visible companionship, is it possible, given the Indian context, not to change from one community to the other? Soon after the Nasrapur Consultation, a special edition o f Religion and Society focused on ‘Religious Conversion’ and voiced growing concern over the radical approach. The editor, although he acknowledged God’s work within Hinduism, raised questions over Baago’s approach: do Asian religions provide a fitting framework for the Christian gospel? What does ‘go into Hinduism’ mean? What is the theological meaning of the church? Newbigin’s address at Nasrapur was reproduced and so were the findings of the Consultation together with a number of articles (R&S, December 1966: 1—4). In line with Newbigin, Mathai Zachariah insisted that conversion was not a purely personal experience but one that includes a rearrangement of one’s values which will result in the service of one’s fellowmen. Therefore conversion means ‘involvement’ and not the ‘detachment’ that Baago accused the Christian community in India of. He strongly insisted, responding to Baago, that conversion is not merely a conversion into a certain kind of life, it is conversion into a fellowship, the church (Zachariah 1966: 47-54). In addition, Ian H.

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Douglas and John B. Carman, in an article in IRM, responded to Baago by identifying the issue as a theological one and claiming that Baago’s theology was unclear and inadequate, especially in its doctrine of the church. They made a convincing case against Baago’s controversial stance when they argued that a Christian representing himself as a Hindu ‘will deceive no one but himself and questioned whether it was possible for any Christian ‘to disassociate himself from the Christian Church, and find acceptance in another religion, while still holding to Christian presuppositions’. They concluded that in spite of the church’s failure, or rather because of it, Christians should not ‘alter or abandon the Church’s task of proclaiming God’s redemption in Christ and inviting men to join the fellowship of Christ’ because the church is still the Body of Christ whose members ‘are pan of the Gospel of God and His redemptive plan for the world’ (Douglas and Carman 1966: 483-9). Baago’s response to this was to ask them how the Reformers would have felt about such an exclusive view of the church (Baago 1967: 99-103). Baago articulated the difficulty of the Christians in India over their identity, especially in the context of post-colonial India. In spite of arguments that being a Christian does not mean renouncing Indian identity, the increasingly powerful Hindu movements towards the identification of Indian with Hindu called for a choice of allegiance— either Indian or Christian. This increasing alienation from Hindus tended to push the Christian community into becoming ‘outsiders’, and forced Baago and other missionaries to the conclusion that their attempt at the mere indigenization of Christianity— ‘Indian Christianity’—was not enough: they were called to ‘leave’ Christianity and ‘go inside’ Hinduism bringing Christ there. However, as Newbigin and others pointed out, this radical ‘conversion’ of Christians and acceptance of Hinduism as ‘one’s own’, far from proving Baago’s claim that Christ is Lord of all, tended to lead to a limitation of Christ’s influence to the spiritual and individual realm of life only.

The debate on conversion in the wider Christian community, 1966-1968 Conversion is not an issue limited to the Indian context since it touches on the wider theological questions of the Christian approach to other religions and of the secularization of the gospel. In the 1960s many Western theologians regarded secularization as inevitable and believed

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the proper Christian response was to express the gospel in secular terms. ‘Secular theology’ or ‘secular Christianity’ was expressed, for example, in Paul van Buren’s The Secular Meaning o f che Gospel (1963), John Robinson’s Honest to God (1963) and especially Harvey Cox’s The Secular City (1965), which led to a theology of building ‘the new humanity, the new secular city of humankind’ (Grenz and Olson 1992: 164-5). In his reference to India, Cox urged that Indian Christians should not only accept secularization but should also actively support it in the context of possible Hindu sacralization of India (1965: 86-9). While the debate on the secularization of Christianity was dominated by Western theologians, some non-Western theologians also contributed, most notably M.M. Thomas, who became a leading figure in W CC attempts to apply the theology and principles of secular theology to the solution of the problem of the Christian response to the other religions. In his opening address at the meeting of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the W CC at Mexico City in 1964, he developed P.D. Devananclan’s idea of a ‘creative fellowship’ (Devan andan 1987: 1-13). Thomas forcefully presented the challenge o f both the religious and secular quests for humanization and argued that the role of Christian mission was to find a ‘new pattern of human society’ and search for ‘an adequate spiritual dynamic’ for this pattern by participating in common human struggles (Orchard 1964: 11-9). The debate on secularization continued beyond Mexico City. In 1965 Paul Loffler, secretary in the Division of World Mission and Evangelism o f the WCC, arranged a debate between Thomas and Hendrikus Berkhof, professor of systematic theology at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, on questions of the form and content of the salvation which Christ offers people in the secular world and the form and content of the conversion with which they respond in the context of the secular age (Loffler 1968: 14-23).3 Dealing with the question of conversion, Thomas argued that the meaning of the gospel for a contemporary person ‘comes alive at the cutting edge between the Gospel and the quest of modern man for a truly human existence’ (italics original). Conversion requires a commitment to the Christ-event, which is unique, but in order for it to be universal, it must be understood and lived out in the present historical situation; thus the church must adapt a ‘new pattern’ for the conversion of secular Hindus (in Loffler 1968: 14-23). However, this search for a 3 The debate by correspondence took place between March and November 1965.

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‘new pattern’ outside the church faced considerable opposition. Even though the section report of the Mexico City meeting recognized that there were ‘secret believers’ and those who are influenced by Christian truth sometimes do not commit themselves, it made it clear that ‘to be a Christian necessarily involves being brought by Christ into the visible, witnessing community of faith’ (Orchard 1964: 145). In 1967, in the run-up to the WCC Uppsala Assembly, the Ecu­ menical Review took up conversion as a theme as a part of its response to the contemporary debate on secularization. In his introduction, Löffler argued that conversion belongs to the very nature of the Christian faith since it calls for ‘response to God’s presence in history, for personal commitment and human participation’ and it is a force of renewal in both the church and society. Therefore, in view of the theme of the Assembly, ‘Behold I make all things new’, renewal of the world and the church cannot be understood without individual conversion. In his closely argued article, he insisted that conversion requires both personal experience and the entry into new fellowship with other Christians and these cannot be regarded as alternatives. Starting from biblical principles, Löffler considered conversion as primarily an individual and personal decision, regarded the church as representative to God for all, and saw personal commitment and social responsibility as in ‘tension’ (Löffler 1967: 249-51). However, this did not seem to answer the questions that Indian theologians were asking—questions relating to the communal nature o f conversion in India, the relationship of Christians and Hindus, and of the church and Hinduism (see Singh 1967: 302-6). In the theological discussion of secularization, many evangelicals particularly felt that the emphasis of mission had shifted from ‘salvation’ through conversion to ‘humanization’ by means of social service. The collective evangelical response to what they saw as the weakening of conversion in the conciliar ecumenical movement was first clearly articulated from North America at ‘The Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission’ convened at Wheaton, Illinois, in April 1966. ‘The Wheaton Declaration’ included a section on ‘Mission— and Proselytism’. While repudiating ‘forced conversions’ and the use of ‘unethical means’ to achieve conversion, it declared that ‘all followers of Christ must disciple their fellowmen’, and ‘[w]hen we seek the conversion of unregenerate men, even though they may be attached to some church or other religion, we are fulfilling our biblical mandate’. This was because of the belief

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that ‘if men are not born again they will be subject to eternal separation from a righteous, holy God* (Lindsell 1966: 221-5). Anticipating a preoccupation with social issues at the forthcoming WCC Assembly at Uppsala, 1968, rather than a concern for ‘that great number of men, at least two billion, who have either never heard of Jesus Christ or have no real chance to believe in Him as Lord and Saviour’, Donald McGavran published an article in which he charged that the WCC would ‘betray’ the unevangelized. McGavran believed that the drive for conversion had all but evaporated from the ecumenical movement (McGavran 1972:233-41). For many evangelicals subsequent events at Uppsala justified McGavran’s views: the Assembly, while incorporating some of the critique, consistently played down ‘world evangelization’ in favour of ‘humanization’. Declaring ‘the church in mission is the church for others’, Uppsala asserted the solidarity of the church with all who ‘wait for the new humanity’, whether Christians or not (Goodall 1968: 30). The difficulties of this position were felt by many participants and the debate on salvation and humanization in Christian mission proved to be one of the most controversial of the Assembly. Despite the opposition, the debate at Uppsala gave room for Indian theologians to explore a ‘point of contact’ for Christians and Hindus.

The Debate between M.M. Thomas and Lesslie Newbigin, 1971 Thomas, reflecting on Uppsala, published a booklet, Salvation and Humanisation, which was the outcome of his search for the ‘point of contact’, and perhaps represents his most mature thinking on the issue (Thomas 1971a); it brought about a direct confrontation with Newbigin.4 Thomas insisted that the mission of the church must take into account the ‘religious and secular movements which express men’s search for the spiritual foundations for a fuller and richerihuman life’ in the present ‘revolutionary’ period (1971a: 1-4). In his critique of 4 The discussion first started when Newbigin made his critique on Thomas’s comments during his 1965 debate with Berkhof (Newbigin 1969b: 254-65). In Salvation and Humanisation, Thomas was responding to Newbigin’s comments. After its publication, Newbigin wrote a review of Thomas’s booklet (Newbigin 1971: 71-80). The ensuing correspondence between Thomas and Newbigin from October to December 1971 was published as ‘Baptism, the Church and Koinonia’ in RScS, March 1972: 69-90.

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dichotomic approaches that separated salvation and humanization— concepts he saw as ‘integrally related’—he alleged the main problems of Indian Christianity were ‘pietistic individualism’, which emphasized dogmatic belief and the inner experience of conversion, and the communal tendency of the Christian community, which isolated and closed off Christians from others (1971a; 4-12). He then introduced the concept of the ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship outside the Church’, a koinonia which was the ‘manifestation of the new reality o f the Kingdom at work in the world of men in world history’. He perceived that the Indian understanding of Jesus Christ was as the ‘Divine Head o f Humanity’ through whom the Holy Spirit brings all men into sonship o f the Father, ultimately uniting all their struggles for humanization. Therefore, ‘[s] alvation itself could be defined as humanization in a total and eschatological sense’ (1971a: 12-9). In order to cultivate the fellowship or koinonia, overcoming the ‘form’ o f the church was of vital importance for Thomas. Therefore he stressed that the church must ‘move away from being a communal entity to become an open fellowship able to witness, in all religious and secular communities, to Christ as the bearer of both true human life and salvation’ (1971a: 40-1). As a result, he envisaged a ‘new pattern of combining Christian self-identity and secular solidarity with all men’ (1971a: 60), in that conversion to Christ does not necessarily imply conversion to the Christian community isolated from the communities in which they live but rather...it implies the building up of a Christ-centred fellowship of faith within the society, culture and religion in which they live, transforming their structures and values from within (1972: 72-3). Therefore, he insisted that ‘the Church must be bearer of Christ in all Indian communities’ as it ‘extends’ into both religious and secular society, and saw this as the only way in which the form of church life in India could be renewed’ (1972: 74). As Baago had done, Thomas rejected the idea of a Christian mission of calling people to convert to Christianity and also saw the limitations of attempting a synthesis by finding a meeting point between and within Christianity and Hinduism. However, he differed from Baago in that he tried to find the common ground in the emerging secular Hindu

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society. He believed that, by secularizing itself, Christianity could meet the needs o f the people in India, which were caused by the rapid secularization of Hinduism. The main concern for Thomas was not the conversion of individual Hindus to Christianity nor creating a ‘Hindu Christianity’ but rather a perceived need for a conversion o f both Christian and Hindu faiths into the common ground which he saw as a ‘human koinonia or as he later called it, ‘the Christ-centred secular fellowship’. It is important to notice that for Thomas, ‘secular fellowship’ does not mean making the gospel secular. What he intended was not for Christians to lose the religious or spiritual aspect of the gospel, nor for Christianity to be absorbed into Hindu religion but for the secularization of the Christian community in order to bridge the gap with the wider Hindu community and identify with Hindus. Secular for him meant the Christian community becoming ‘truly “religious” without being “communal” ’ (1972: 88). Thomas wanted to overcome the problem of the Christian community becoming more and more isolated from the main community in India, especially because of the insistence on a radical discontinuity between the gospel and Hindu religion through the means of conversion. This led to the exclusion of Christians by the Hindu majority as ‘outcastes’, which resulted in the Christian community being no longer able to make an impact on Hindu society—as was plain especially in the case of the Hindu personal laws. He was confident that secularism would override religious differences and shatter the values which Christianity and Hinduism held as religions, but that the ‘human koinonia’ would remain as the meeting point and that, since Christ is in all, he is to be found there too. Newbigin’s response to Thomas was focused largely on the visible commitment of the convert in which he believed the church plays a vital role (1971: 71-80). As he responded to Thomas’s suggestion that the Christian mission produced not only the Christian congregation, but also a large number of ‘secular fellowships’, Newbigin contended that ‘the acknowledgement of his vision and standard can never become a substitute for the actual experience of liberation through the grace of the Lord Jesus accepted as personal saviour’. Therefore, the ‘secular fellowship’ could not be a ‘substitute for the fellowship rooted in Christ’s work as Saviour’ (1971: 74-6). Although Newbigin shared the concern Thomas raised over the communal tension caused by conversion involving a change of

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community, he convincingly argued that the ‘secular fellowship’ would not solve the problem since the problem does not lie with the Christian community alone. He saw the inconsistency in Thomas’s view, on the one hand, Thomes accepted the fact that there should be a Hindu religious community and advocated the formation of a ‘secular fellowship’ within it, whereas on the other hand, he rejected the existence o f a Christian religious community. Newbigin defended the church, pointing out that the tendency of the church to ‘self-regard’ was a temptation of all organized bodies and therefore the church needs to be reformed rather than rejected. He also pointed out that it is almost inevitable that some common cultural forms and a common society will develop among those who are united by a strong faith in Jesus. He insisted that the communal problems of the Indian church had been ‘forced upon it by the communal character of Indian society’ (1971: 76-8). Newbigin’s approach can best be summed up in his response to Thomas’s attempt to forge an explicit link with Jesus but remain religiously, culturally and socially pan of the Hindu community: A man who is religiously, culturally and socially pan of the Hindu community is a Hindu. If, at the same time, his allegiance to Christ is accepted as decisive, as—therefore—over-riding his obligations as a Hindu, this allegiance must take visible—that is social— forms. He must have some way of expressing the fact that he shares this ultimate allegiance with others— and these ways will have to have religious, social and cultural elements...You [Thomas] seem to envisage a form of Christian corporate entity which never has existed and which never could exist (1972: 78). Newbigin, by giving priority to Christ’s saving work over the positive impact o f Christ’s life and his teaching on Indian society, regarded the Hindus who know Christ but do not commit themselves to him—and therefore do not join a visible Christian fellowship— as still ‘under the law’ without the experience of the saving reality of his grace. Whereas Thomas insisted that for Hindus knowing Christ was sufficient for being under grace and that asking Hindus to commit themselves to a visible community was in fact unnecessarily imposing ‘law’ upon them. The debate continued when the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society chose as the theme for their consultation in December 1971, ‘The Meaning of Conversion and Baptism in the

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Cultural Context of India’. In his study of the history of conversion in India together with the observations of Indian theologians on the issue, Richard Taylor, in line with Thomas’s approach, argued that conversion viewed as a radical shift from one community to another had been ‘a very Indian thing’ (italics original). But he alleged that the problem of conversion had become worse when missionaries conducted the radical kind of social conversion, especially in the case of lower-caste Indians. Because conversion was done for socio-cultural reasons, rather than religious ones, he saw the promotion of a ‘non-communal koinonia as an Indian solution (1972: 59-68). J.R. Chandran argued that baptism brings the converts out from the ‘exclusiveness and divisiveness’ o f the fallen state of human beings and helps them to identify themselves with the Hindu community. Since through conversion Christians are already in the larger community, it makes no sense to talk of moving out into it (1972: 51-8). It was the critique by D A Thangasamy of various approaches by Indian theologians to conversion that broke new ground. First, he pointed out that these attempts to bridge the divide between Hindus and Christians were made by those who are familiar with Brahmanical Hinduism and were ‘inapplicable’ to most converts, whose background as dalits meant they were alienated from it. Second, he argued that the missionaries in the past had called for radical renunciation of Hinduism by converts not because they were unaware of the good features of Hinduism but because they saw the need of deliverance from evil practices of Hindus which clearly contradicted gospel principles. Third, Indian theologians tended to separate their spiritual experience from conversion, assuming that there must be a personal experience before conversion, but Thangasamy insisted that the two were integrated (1972: 37-50). He questioned: And would Hinduism become completely secularized...and be left with only Christian spiritual content in the end? Could that be a sufficiently strong and worthy motive for Christians to leave the Church and ‘convert’ themselves to Hinduism as Baago would advise them to do? In all this is there an assumption that only Christianity and the Incarnation validate conversions and salvation taking place in other religions so that even the solicitousness for the transformation of Hinduism is only inverted self-importance? (1972: 49).

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s e c u l a r iz a t io n , a n d c o m m u n it y

The Protestant debate on conversion in the 1960s and the early 1970s was a part of the wider Christian discussion in the face of the political and social revolutions taking place in many parts of the world and urgent calls for the church to take part in the struggle for humanization. There was a conscious shift: of emphasis in mission from evangelism (leading to conversion) towards social involvement. In India, Christian theologians faced increasing challenges from the Hindu nationalist movement, especially as it started to gain support from certain states and pressured the central government for the rights of Hindus over other minority communities. As discussed above, some Indian Protestant theologians searching for a solution suggested that the Christian community in India should be part of the wider Hindu community in an apparendy rapidly secularizing India, for they believed that not only was secularization an inevitable process o f modernity but also that it would gradually overcome communal tensions. They insisted that a ‘point of contact’ between the Christian community and the Hindu community must be established so that Hindus would not need to convert to the Christian community. This point of contact must be located inside the wider Hindu community since the Christian community was either a stumbling block in this process (Baago), or an entity that naturally transcended religious divides to produce a secular fellowship (Thomas). The Thomas-Newbigin debate represents most of the issues in the Protestant debate on conversion in this period and its implications for the understanding and practice of conversion in India are considerable. More recently, this debate has been studied in detail by George Hunsberger. Hunsberger focuses on Newbigin’s perspective—justifiably since his study is on Newbigin’s theology—but this results in a rather sketchy account of Thomas’s point of view. Furthermore, in many cases he relies on Newbigin’s interpretation of Thomas’s argument without much critical analysis and therefore does not deal fairly with Thomas’s intent, especially when it comes to the Indian context. However, he gives in-depth perspectives on the debate and righdy identifies the key issue as ‘conversion and community’ (1998: 176-89). Thomas, as he himself repeatedly pointed out, was interested in the ‘form’ of the church in the context of secularization in contemporary India. He therefore envisaged the creation of a common environment

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or unbounded Christ-centred fellowship within the larger Hindu community that would eventually transform the whole. Then Hindus would not need to convert to the Christian community nor leave the Hindu community since the boundary between the two would soon be meaningless. On the other hand, Thomas did not disregard the call for conversion, which he himself admitted was vital to Christian faith and practice. He argued that, instead of converting individual Hindus and moving them out of their community, by extending the Christ-centred fellowship, the whole Hindu community would experience the ‘True Humanity’ by entering into the process of humanization offered by Christ through the Christ-centred secular fellowship. He eventually expected the conversion of the whole Hindu community to Christ by this means, although the ‘form’ of Christian faith would be different. Therefore, in Thomas’s view, conversion for both Christians and Hindus to the common secular realm was necessary and he saw this conversion as already taking place in the secular movements of Indian society. The responses of Newbigin, Thangasamy and others to Thomas’s and similar views were focused mainly on the Christian fellowship as the body of Christ and the argument that, as an integral part of the Christian gospel, conversion involves both a personal experience and a ‘visible companionship’ with fellow Christians. They did not believe that a ‘point of contact’ within the Hindu community was capable of accommodating the whole Christian gospel, nor did they find it practically viable for any individual Christian to pursue the task of bringing Christ to the Hindu community. Rather, they argued that it is because the church is a visible community that it can make an impact on the Hindu community, and more importandy, as Newbigin insisted, that the Christian community should not be understood merely in a functional way, but as the body of Christ and therefore of the essence of the gospel. They, therefore, also saw conversion not as ‘detachment’ from but as ‘involvement’ in the world; the difference was that they believed this involvement should take place primarily in the Christian community, which participated in God’s work in the wider community. One of the key points at issue in the debate among the Protestant theologians was the question of whether the church is a legitimate ‘point of contact’ for Christians and Hindus. Thomas (and Baago) rejected the church and found the ‘point of contact’ outside the church. In contrast to Catholic theologians (see next chapter), many Protestants were ready to discard the church as an essential part of the gospel. This was also

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evident in conciliar debates of the 1960s, swayed by J.C. Hoekendijk, in which the church tended to be understood as merely functional.5 The problem of the association of the church with the colonial authority and, even after the Independence, the continued dependency of Indian churches on Western churches, particularly in the area of leadership and finance, made it difficult for Thomas and others to treat the church as an essential part o f the gospel. However, though it was a sincere search for a solution to the problem of conversion in India, Thomas’s work has serious shortcomings, the most obvious of which was that he assumed that secularization would prevail in India and that the ‘secular fellowship’ would not only be possible, but also be the only possible means of Christian witness in secular society. His optimistic predictions of the disappearance of differences between religious communities, the demise of religious fanaticism, and the placing of greater value on humanization over religious matters did not materialize. Instead, in spite of modernization, religious values, religious communities, and fundamentalist groups were to play an ever more important role in the daily socio-political lives of the Hindus. In fact, this tendency was quite evident in the 1960s, as shown by the Niyogi Report and the emergence of various Hindu nationalist movements into the mainstream of political power in India. Thomas failed to read the driving intention o f the Hindu objections to Christianity, particularly Christian conversion. Along with many other contemporary Indian Protestant theologians, he thought that the main Hindu objections were the foreignness of the Indian church, the communal aspect of Christian experience, and the exclusive interpretation of the Christian gospel. He did not foresee that the Hindu nationalist movement would grow and exhibit strong opposition towards anything that did not fit into Hindu socio-cultural and religious compartments. The objections to conversion by Parekh, Baago and Thomas were directed largely against ‘proselytism’— that is joining a Christian community, which they regarded as different from conversion—that is giving personal and individual allegiance to Christ—which they accepted. There were consistent attempts among Indian theologians to separate these two in Christian vocabulary because of the problems caused by the 5 Hoekendijk put it blundy: ‘The nature of the Church can be sufficiendy defined by its function, i.e. its participation in Christ’s apostolic ministry’ (1952: 334-5). See also Bosch (1992: 382-5); Yates (1994: 196-7).

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communal nature of conversion in India. These moves were supported by the wider Christian debate led by the Catholic church and Orthodox churches which opposed the activities of some Protestant groups attempting to form their own churches by ‘converting' their adherents, and denigrated this as ‘proselytism’.6 However, in the Indian context, as Newbigin pointed out, this distinction was ambiguous and unrealistic, and based on the assumption that conversion takes place only in the spiritual realm of human experience and does not necessarily involve moral behaviour and visible fellowship (1969a: 88).7 It is true that conversion is a spiritual and personal experience but the insistence that the visible expression of the human response to Christ was either irrelevant or unnecessary or even counterproductive to Christian faith inevitably to lead to more serious theological and sociological problems for Christian converts. For Thomas and others, communalism was the main enemy and was seen as the root of the problems of Indian society. Hence they rejected the separation o f converts from their communities, which was conventional missionary practice, as contrary to the gospel principles of peace and love and the unity of all things in Christ. However, although the Protestant missionaries in the early nineteenth century had made renunciation of caste the main proof of conversion, it was not entirely their initiative to do so. Duncan Forrester has shown that there was systematic discrimination by the Hindu community towards the new converts, an attitude that made it extremely difficult for them to survive in the community. Thus caste was seen by the missionaries as the ‘most effective and powerful [Hindu] defence against the risk of conversion’ (1980: 25-7; see also Stanley 1992: 141-4). Converts therefore were pushed out from the main Hindu community, even though they wished to remain in the fold. Furthermore, the attempts of Thomas and others at creating a ‘secular fellowship’ within the Hindu community led to an identity crisis for caste Hindu converts who found themselves neither fully belonging to the Hindu community nor the Christian one. The dilemma was even more acute for Christians from a dalit background, who made up the 6 See ‘Common Witness and Proselytism—A Study Document’, ER XXIII/1 (January 1971), 9-20. 7 He remarked cynically that the only disunction he could think of was that ‘evangelism is what we do and proselytism is what others do’.

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vast majority of the Indian churches. They had not regarded themselves as Hindus before conversion nor had Hindus treated them as such. For them, conversion to Christianity was pan of a struggle for religious and social identity that they had previously lacked and now they were being expected to deny this identity. The problem of Thomas’s approach was that Indian Christians would become individuals who follow Christ but have no ground for their social and religious interaction with their fellow believers. In the midst of communal tension and rising Hindu nationalist movements, Christian converts would find themselves rootless individuals fearing that any support of the Christian community would be understood as communal and therefore unethical. There was a tendency to think that anything particular to Christianity and against the interests of the larger Hindu community was incompatible with the search for a ‘common humanity’ and must therefore be rejected, not on the grounds of whether it was right or wrong but on the grounds that it contributed to communal tension. Religious conversion was certainly viewed as in this category: among all the Christian teachings and practices it was regarded as most destructive for Indian society in general and for communal relations between Hindus and Christians in particular. The reluctance of Protestant Christian leaders to be seen to be seeking the sectional interests of the Christian community may have contributed to the lack of a collective Protestant voice in response to the Niyogi Report and the movement towards the legislation of conversion by Hindus. A critical comment in 1969 by the well-known writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri deserves close attention: it seems to me, that the Indian Christian is not confident about himself, and is too timid to assert his legitimate rights. I would suggest that this fear comes to him, not from any correct idea of what the Hindus will do to him, but from a sense of weakness generated by his position and antecedents in British times... They are now trying to disarm that suspicion [on the part of Hindus] by being too yielding... On all scores, the Indian Christians, in contrast with the Muslims in India, tend to be too submissive... ... There is only one way in which a small minority can make itself respected by a majority. That is, by maintaining its integrity and showing a legitimate spirit of independence. The Indian Christian has to show more of this spirit in religion, social life, and politics. His future in India depends in the last analysis on his strength of character

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and energy. If he does not possess or develop them he will remain the member of a client community (1970: iv-vi). In spite of their honest search for an answer to the communal problems supposedly caused by conversion, Indian Protestant theologians appear, by limiting the implications of conversion to the individual and spiritual realms of life, to have caused a weakening of the ‘character and energy’ of the Christian community. Any theology that encouraged Indian Christians to conform to Hindu society left them in the dilemma that they were neither accepted as Hindus nor able to identify themselves with a Christian community.

6 The Catholic Debates on Conversion in the 1980s [T]here is no contradiction in being a Catholic Hindu, that is, a person may profess the Catholic faith and at the same time remain socially in the Hindu community... — Hans Stafiner (1973: 242) Conversion is nothing but turning to the action of God in history which works through human realities and panidpating in the revolution that God is effecting in favour of the poor. — Felix Wilfred (1983: 66)

While Protestant attempts to solve the problem of conversion involved finding a ‘meeting point’ within Hindu society, such as that expressed by M.M. Thomas in his ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’, Catholics in India initially found it hard to share this theological premise because of the traditional Roman emphasis on the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla solus (no salvation outside the church). As Robert Schreiter explains, traditional Catholic missiology focused on the ‘winning of converts’ (conversio animarum) and the ‘establishing of the local church’ (plantatio ecclesiae), and these methods of mission were supported by ‘God’s universal salvific will’ and the ‘church as the concrete manifestation of that will’ (Schreiter 1994: 114—16). Consequendy in the first half of the twentieth century, until the Second Vatican Council opened up new possibilities for exploring the issue, the theology of religions, at least in India, was led by Protestant theologians (Sharpe 1977: 118-31J. The impact of Vatican II on the life and mission of the Catholic church was

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immense and nowhere more so than on its ecclesiology. In its wake, Catholics developed new and more sympathetic approaches to other faiths and also challenged the authority of the church hierarchy through various liberation theologies. I shall look at the effect of these changes in the Indian context below. In the 1970s and 1980s, the development of Indian Catholic thinking on conversion was gready influenced by two competing approaches to contextualizing the gospel, the inculturation model and the liberation model (Bosch 1992: 420-1) representing the ‘double confrontation’ of contemporary Christianity ‘with the great world religions on the one hand and with the non-Christian “secular” humanisms on the other’ (Kiing 1977: 25). In Asia these were responses to the dominant realities of the context: religiousness and poverty (Pieris 1988: 45-50; GispertSauch 1997: 460-1). The tension between these two loose movements in the 1980s was due to a number of factors, chief among which was the fact that inculturationists tended to relate to the upper castes and Brahmanical religion, whereas liberationists were concerned for the interests of the outcastes, whom they believed were victims of caste Hinduism. Liberationists thus accused inculturationists of indifference to matters of social justice and even of complicity with high-caste oppression, whereas inculturationists saw liberationists as insensitive to Hindu religion and as a threat to communal harmony.1 Applied to the issue of conversion, the inculturation movement attempted to synthesise Christian faith with Hindu religion and culture to make change of religion and community avoidable in conversion, and the liberation movement tended to see conversion as a social ‘protest’ of dalits and their ‘liberation’ as a legitimate aim of conversion. Although these two reinterpretations of the meaning of conversion were by no means exclusively Catholic, Catholics took the lead in the debates with Hindus in this period, and there were debates between those who held each position within the Catholic church. It is important to notice that, as in the case of Protestants, the conservative Catholic understanding of conversion, which is dealt with in Chapter Seven, also persisted alongside the inculturation and liberation models, and that there were many who 1 These issues are illustrated in, for example, the criticism of the Christian ashram movement by George Soares-Prabhu (1991: 55-99), and the letter from SoaresPrabhu and response from the leaders of the ashram movement in Vandana (1993: 153-60).

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sought to combine both models, so that within the Catholic church there was great diversity of views on the issue. In this chapter I shall first examine the debate on the Hindu-Catholic approach of some theologians in this period, beginning with a necessary overview of theological changes fostered by the Vatican II. I shall then attend to the debate over mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu in the 1980s of dalits to Islam, apparently for socio-economic reasons, a movement which was sympathetically interpreted by several Catholic theologians. I. T H E THEOLOGY OF INCULTURATION AND T H E DEBATE ON T H E H IN DU-CATH O LIC APPROACH TO CONVERSION

The inculturation model can be traced back to the work of Roberto de Nobili, who first tried to relate the gospel to Hindu beliefs and practices in the seventeenth century.2 In more recent times, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (1861-1907) was an Indian Catholic convert who attempted to find a ‘meeting place’ between Hinduism and Christianity, describing himself as a ‘Hindu-Catholic’, a concept he actively promoted through extensive writings. Julius Lipner describes Upadhyay’s contribution as ushering in ‘a new mode of thinking’ which gave Indian Christians the ‘impetus to reassess their faith in a new light, to search for religious identity rooted in their native culture’ (1988: 33-54; see also Lipner 1999). Upadhyay based his ‘Hindu-Catholic’ concept on a Thomistic separation of body and soul such that: By birth we are Hindu and shall remain Hindu till death. But as dvija (twice-born) by virtue of our sacramental rebirth, we are Catholic; we are members of an indefectible communion embracing all ages and climes. In customs and manners, in observing caste or social distinctions, in eating and drinking, in our life and living, we are genuine Hindus; but in our faith we are neither Hindu, nor European, nor American, nor Chinese, but all inclusive. ...In short, we are Hindus so far as our physical and mental constitution is concerned, but in regard to our immortal souls we are Catholic. We are Hindu Catholic. (Upadhyay 1991: 24-5). 2 Though the approach of de Nobili and his fellow Jesuits was suppressed by the hierarchy, William Burrows argues that this ‘radical inculturation paradigm’ was continuous in Catholic missionary practice (1996: 121-38).

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Changes in Catholic understandings o f conversion around Vatican II At and around the Second Vatican Council, Karl Rahner’s theology had a great impact on the Catholic approach to the salvation of the people of other religions. Rahner emphasised the universality of God's grace such that every individual, regardless of religious background, would have an opportunity o f‘partaking in a genuine saving relationship to God’ (1966 V: 115-34).3 He explains this grace: In Christ God not only gives the possibility of salvation, which in that case would still have to be effected by man himself, but the actual salvation itself, however much this includes also the right decision of human freedom which is itself a gift from God.. And hence we have every right to suppose that grace has not only been offered even outside the Christian Church (to deny this would be the error of Jansenism) but also that, in a great many cases at least, grace gains the victory in man’s free acceptance of it, this being again the result of grace (124). He further argued that the non-Christian religions are ‘a positive means of gaining the right relationship to God and thus for attaining salvation, a means which is therefore positively included in God’s plan of salvation’. He posited a ‘Christianity of an anonymous kind’, of which the members may be called ‘anonymous Christians’ (121-5, 131-3). The Church will not so much regard herself today as the exclusive community of those who have a claim to salvation but rather as the historically tangible vanguard and the historically and socially constituted explicit expression of what the Christian hopes is present as a hidden reality even outside the visible Church (133). Rahner’s theory o f‘anonymous Christianity’ had many followers (Knitter 1985: 120-44), but at the same time it faced serious criticisms, which have been well elaborated elsewhere (Kiing 1977:97-104; Straelen 1966). However, it did allow the possibility of the salvation of individuals outside the Catholic church within the traditional Catholic theological 3 1961.

In his lecture on ‘Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions’, delivered in

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framework and therefore broke new ground in Catholic theology of religions. Though Vatican II marked a significant change in Catholic ecclesiology when the church was defined as the People of God, the doctrine of the church in relation to people of other faiths and their salvation was ambiguous.4 Regarding the conversion of people of other faiths, the Council affirmed that ‘it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained’ (UR 3) therefore everyone ‘ought to be converted to Christ’ (AG 7). At the same time, it opened up the possibility that those ‘outside’ the church, who do not receive the gospel, are ‘related to the People of God in various ways’ and ‘may achieve eternal salvation’ (LG 16; see also Bosch 1992; 371-6; Yates 1994: 16675). So it appears that the statements of the Council represent both traditional and new thinking on conversion. Although, as Miikka Ruokanen rightly argues, the documents do not explicidy endorse the non-Christian religions as means to salvation, the affirmation of possibilities for salvation (Ruokanen 1992)5—at least for individuals— without conversion to Christian faith and the positive attitude towards the other religions were a highly significant step. In the open climate fostered by the council, an attempt to deal with the problem of the relationship between Christianity and Hinduism was presented in the shape of Raymond Panikkar’s well-known work, The Unknown Christ o f Hinduism (1964). Panikkar was convinced that there must be a ‘meeting place’ between Christianity and Hinduism in the religious sphere (11-18). He then argued that this meeting place must be Christ, because Christ is the ‘ontological meeting point of any religion’ and the ‘only one mediator between God and the rest’ (19-28, 119-31). He insisted that ‘Christ is already there in Hinduism in so far as Hinduism is a true religion’ and that the Christian mission was to unveil the ‘unknown Christ’ in Hinduism. Hence conversion * For example, on the salvation of the people of other iaiths, Lumen Gentium (LG) says, the church is ‘necessary for salvation: the one Christ is mediator and the way o f salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church’— LG (14)— whereas, Nostra Aerate (NA) says ‘The Catholic Church rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions...Yet she proclaims...Christ who is the way, the truth and the life...in him., .men find the fullness of their religious life’— NA (2). 5 See the debate between Miikka Ruokanen and Paul Knitter in IBMR, April 1990: 56-63.

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does not mean, speaking from a Christian point of view, a changing ‘over’ to another culture, another tradition or even ‘another’ religion, but a changing ‘in’, a changing into a new life, a new existence, a new creation, which is precisely the old one— and not another— but transformed, lifted up, risen again (18). As the outcome of his careful study of the relationship between Hinduism and Christianity from philosophical and theological perspectives, he concluded: God is at work in the ‘pagan’ religions, the Christian proclamation does not preach a new God but just the mirabilia of God of which the mystery of Christ hidden in God is the first and last one. In the footsteps of Saint Paul, we believe that we may speak not only o f the unknown God of the Greeks but also o f the hidden Christ of Hinduism. Hidden and unknown, indeed! Yet present there, for he also is not far from any one of us (137). Although the work of Panikkar was in many ways in line with the new thinking o f Vatican II and with Rahner’s theology, there was a significant difference in that Panikkar affirmed Hinduism itself as a way o f salvation, which neither the Vatican documents nor Rahner did. Both Rahner and Panikkar attempted to bring Christianity and Hinduism (and other religions as well, in Rahner’s case) together in a normative salvation, though in different ways. For Rahner, salvation was through God’s grace offered to ‘anonymous Christians’, and for Panikkar, it was by acknowledging the ‘unknown Christ’ within Hinduism. In Rahner’s theology of religions, the non-Christian religions were not really the focus of discussion, which was on individuals of other faiths; this led to Hans Kung’s criticism that he was reaffirming the doctrine of extra ecclesiam nulla solus through the ‘back door’ (Kiing 1977: 98). Panikkar, on the other hand, believed that Hinduism can be and should be a vehicle for salvation because of the presence of the ‘unknown Christ’ within it, and this rendered conversion unnecessary. Christianity and the church were not his concern since it is Christ who mediates and brings salvation. However, although he may have appeared to solve the problem of conversion of Hindus, his approach was still based on the concept of Christ and relied on the acceptance by Hindus of the need for one mediator. Although Panikkar’s combination of Thomistic and Vedantic

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terminology very much impressed Boyd and others (Boyd 1975: 2225), many critics saw him as still holding the superiority of Christianity over Hinduism,6 which pleased neither those theologians who wanted to acknowledge the legitimacy of Hinduism on a par with Christianity, nor Hindus, who felt insulted. For some he was a follower of the ‘fulfilment’ theory set down by J.N. Farquhar a half-century before (Sharpe 1977: 118-31), and for others his approach lacked genuine ‘respect’ for Hinduism and he was only trying to ‘interpret’ it according to his own perspective (Kiing 1977: 98). Nevertheless, Panikkar’s acceptance of Hinduism as a legitimate way of salvation laid the groundwork for Catholic theologians in India to move from ‘Indian Christianity’ to ‘Hindu Christianity’ (Pieris 1986: 83-7).

The Hindu-Catholic approach to conversion It was Hans Staffher, an Austrian Jesuit, and Bede Griffiths, an English Benedictine, who applied the inculturation approach to the problem of conversion in India by attempting a synthesis of the two religions. Staffner, following Upadhyay’s Hindu-Catholic approach, looked for complementarities in the two faiths that do not conflict with the vital belief and practice of either. Staffner’s theological synthesis clearly originated in the struggle of Indian Christians over conversion. It was his conviction that conversion was a ‘purely spiritual event’ and that therefore changing one’s community should not be any part of it (Staffher 1973: 235-48). He argued that, since Hinduism is the religion of the Hindus and is defined by race or geography (like Greek or Roman religions), membership of the Hindu community was not based on definite creeds or beliefs. Echoing Upadhyay, he regarded religions as having two dimensions: samaj dharma (social customs, ritual purity, diet, etc.) and sadhana dharma (the way of salvation). Hinduism, he believed, falls primarily into the former category but, since the essence of Catholic Christianity is doctrine and faith in God and it is quite accommodating of social customs and culture, Christianity is primarily sadhana dharma. Therefore, Christianity and Hinduism complement 6 Panikkar described Christianity as ‘a risen Hinduism’ and Hinduism as ‘a vestibule of Christianity’ with Christianity providing the ‘essential contents’ to Hinduism (1964: 17-19). Notice his revised edition (1981) in which he omitted these sentences.

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each other and can be synthesized. Conversion is then no longer necessary, since adherents of each can ‘embrace’ rather than ‘renounce’ the essence of the other’s religious tradition while remaining in their own community.7 Hindu-Catholic theology was very influential among Indian Catholic theologians in the 1970s and stimulated the Catholic ashram movement (Vandana 1993). Although there had been some Protestant ashrams (Taylor 1979: 28193), the leading proponents of ashrams after Vatican II were Catholics, led by Fr Jules Monchanin and Swami Abhishiktananda, who were both French Benedictines.8 In the 1970s, Griffiths became a leading figure in the Catholic Ashram movement and engaged in debate with Hindus.9 The theological understanding of Griffiths is clearly expressed in his book, Christ in India (1966), a collection of his papers.10 Like Panikkar, he believed that the meeting place between Christianity and Hinduism must be in Christ, insisting that Christ is ‘reality’, whereas Christianity and Hinduism are religions, that is manifestations of the reality and not reality itself. He sought to present Christ by adapting the sarvodaya or ‘service of all’ movement popularized by Gandhi’s disciple Vinoba Bhave. It is based on the Hindu philosophy of self-realisation, that is, Christ is found by entering into a deeper realm of spiritual reality, and conversion to Christianity is not required (9-37). While, in his interpretation of Hinduism, he exhibited a great sense of respect and appreciation of Hindu culture, in his theological thinking, like StafFner, he held a ‘fulfilment’ approach to Hinduism, separating Hindu religion from Hindu culture. He wrote, Christ did not come to destroy these religions; he came to correct, complete and fulfil them. It can even be asserted that these other religions are a providential preparation for Christianity, by which 7 See also StafFner’s later publications (1985 and 1988) where he continued to argue for a synthesis of Christian faith and Hindu culture, envisaging them in a seed and soil relationship. 8 Monchanin, also known as Swami Param Arubi Anndam, started Saccidananda Ashram at Tiruchirapalli in south Tamil Nadu in 1950. Abhishiktananda, formerly Dom Henri Le Saux, worked with him there and later lived the life o f a sannyasin. For a summary of their theologies see Boyd (1975: 218-22, 287-97). 9 Griffiths founded Kurisumala Ashram in Kerala and later became the leader of Saccidananda Ashram. 10 For a critical appraisal, see Aleaz (1996: 148-55).

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the people of the East have been led through the course of their history towards their ftilfilment in Christ. Thus Buddha can be viewed as a ‘forerunner’ of Christ; Krishna as a ‘type’ of Christ... (92). He regarded the Hindu deities as ‘symbols of the divine mystery’, having no ‘reality in themselves’ but only as ‘shadows of the mystery of Christ’, the true reality. He concluded that the church’s mission is to identify the ‘true place of Christ in India’ for the purpose of ‘saving’ anything good and true in Hinduism and ‘purifying’ anything erroneous or corrupt so that Hindus could learn to ‘discover Christ as the true fulfilment’ (77-111).

Hindu Responses to the Hindu-Catholic Approach The Hindu response to the Christian ashram movement was initially either to ignore it or to tolerate it. However, in the mid-1980s Hindus started to raise objections and this led to vigorous debates between Griffiths and three Hindus: Swami Devananda, Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel. Debate was triggered by an article in Hinduism Today (November/December 1986) which criticized the Christian ashram movement,11 and several articles written in response to an article in Indian Express (18 March 1987) that quoted W. Robert Teasdale’s praise for the work of Griffiths. These articles elicited mixed responses from both Catholics and Hindus (Goel 1994: 111-8), and soon Swami Devan anda and Griffiths were engaged in a rather heated debate by letter.12 Devananda objected to Griffiths’s appropriation of the term sannyasin,13 which he argued could be applied only to Hindus, and his use of the pranava symbol14 on top of the cross, which he regarded as a ‘perversion’ which ‘impugn[ed] Hinduism’. He felt that, far from bringing Hindus and Christians together, Griffiths only hurt Hindu religious sentiments with his ‘original iconography’. He was particularly uneasy, not only about Griffiths’s insistence that the true reality was in Christ, but also about his claim to know what most Hindus believe about the truth. He 11 Entitled ‘Catholic Ashrams: Adopting and Adapting Hindu Dharma’. 12 The debate between Devananda and Griffiths was published by Sita Ram Goel (1994: 118-44). 13 A person who renounces all ties to family, caste and property; the last stage of life of the twice-born Hindus. 14 The most sacred symbol in Hinduism, Om.

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expressed his resentment: ‘We do not need Christian priests to interpret and teach us our dharma’ and accused Griffiths o f‘patronising Christian arrogance’ (Goel 1994: 136). In response to Griffiths’s argument that religion and culture need to be distinguished, Devananda insisted that Indian culture cannot be divided from Hindu religion, that in fact any such distinction between culture and religion is false, and furthermore that there can be no unity of religions since each is a ‘distinct entity’. He dismissed the motive and means of the Catholic attempt to synthesize Hinduism with Christianity as merely another approach to convert Hindus (Goel 1994: 121-39). Ram Swarup, a noted Hindu writer, was very sceptical of the Christian approach of ‘fulfilment’, that is, of Christianity as ‘revealed’ religion and Hinduism as ‘preparatory’ to Christianity. He saw the appreciation of Hinduism in the ashram movement as merely ‘a pointer to her [Hinduism’s] conversion to Christianity’ (1994: 182-98). He argued that this approach still held to the superiority of Christianity, only ‘conceding certain subordinate spiritual qualities and attributes and values to Hinduism’. Therefore, for him Catholic appreciation o f Hinduism was not ‘spontaneous or genuine’, it simply meant that, as he put it cynically: You [Hindus] are too good to remain what you are. Your destiny is to become Christians. We see in your country spiritual things deep and uncommon. But God could not have planted these things amongst you in vain. He must have been preparing you for Christianity, for blessing you with the truth he blessed us with; in short, he must have been aiming to make you as good as we are (Swarup 1994: 195-6). He regarded the Christian ashram approach as the outcome of ‘a mind prejudiced, self-centred and self-righteous’ and not as evidence of the spirituality of respect and genuineness Christians claimed to have (1994: 197-8). Therefore, later in 1990, in his review article on the book, The Myth o f Christian Uniqueness (Hick and Knitter 1987) Swarup welcomed the Christian attempt at accepting the plurality of religions but asked whether the majority of Christians did not still hold the attitude of converting others— an attitude that he saw as an inbuilt problem of Christianity:

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A true pluralist would demand that Christianity liquidates its missionary apparatus. What does it matter what theory is propounded as long as this apparatus is intact... How could Christianity live without pluralism for the last 2,000 years? ... Is it an accidental lapse or does it rise from a serious defect in its fundamental spiritual vision, from an inadequate view of man and deity (Swarup 1990a)? Sita Ram Goel, a Hindu writer and publisher, in his analysis of the above debate and his examination of Christian inculturation, alleged that Catholic ashrams were yet another ‘assault’ on Hinduism, and that the attempt to exclude any religious dimension from Hindu culture was a ‘deliberate and calculated design’ to implant the Christian meaning of Christ into Hindu culture. He pointed out that in the planting process, what happens to the Hindu religion is not the missionary’s concern (1994: 3-13). He insisted that Hindu culture grew out ofHindu religion and thus any attempt at separating religion and culture is damaging to both, and he questioned whether any Hindu practices, so deeply rooted in Hindu theological concepts, could be adopted by Christianity without hypocrisy. He claimed that Christian use of Sanskrit terminology ‘implies a close relationship ofHindu theology to Catholic theology, a relationship which does not really exist’. Further he claimed that Such missionaries speak authoritatively on Hindu scriptures and argue that their [Christian] teachings are consonant with everything Hindu, but add a finishing touch, a ‘fullness,’ to the traditional faith...Hindu spiritual leaders and intellectuals are open to the dialogue Catholics seek, but not if cooperation and brotherliness opens Hindu families to unethical conversion strategies (1994: 88—9). The above criticism makes it clear that the Hindu-Catholic approach, as an effort to solve the problem of conversion, faced serious objections from Hindus. The main objection made by Hindus in the debate was to the Christian insistence that Hinduism is primarily a cultural and social concept and not a ‘religion’. The radical separation between spiritual and socio-cultural elements and the attempt to create a religious synthesis was unrealistic in the context of the caste system, Hindu worship of many deities, and Hindu monism, as Staffner himself admitted. These

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aspects o f Hinduism clearly contradict Christian principles, and moreover, they are not only socio-cultural phenomena but are entrenched Hindu beliefs (Staffner 1988: 230-3). Behind this there also seemed to be an assumption that the Catholic faith could be a truly world faith by adopting and adapting its content to different cultural forms, whereas Hinduism had cultural forms but needed the content which Christianity could provide, and therefore would remain a territorial religion. The inculturation theologians’ synthesis of Christian faith and Hindu culture had a theological basis in the concept of fulfilment but it was also supported by Catholic anthropologists in the 1980s, led principally by Louis Luzbetak, who distinguished gospel and culture as meaning and form respectively, and argued that the former transcends the latter. Therefore conversion in the sense of a radical change of religion or ‘cultural pattern’ was undesirable; instead Luzbetak advocated ‘dialectic’ inculturation, that is integration by the ‘blending of the Gospel message with the rest of culture by insiders’ (Luzbetak 1988: 75-83). However, this Catholic ‘blending’ was questioned on anthropological grounds by David Mosse in his study of Catholic-Hindu synthesis in a village in Tamil Nadu. Mosse observed that the local Jesuit attempt—dating back to de Nobili— to accommodate Hindu culture on the basis o f the superiority and universality of the Christian religion, had led in practice to a large measure of retention of Hindu religious beliefs which were embodied in and not separate from cultural forms (Mosse 1994: 8792). This was particularly so in the case of the caste system. The net result, Mosse suggests, was that both the Catholic missionaries and the caste leaders ‘accommodated’ each other in order to sustain their own political influence in the village, and therefore Dalit theology is strongly critical of forms of inculturation which draw on high-caste or Brahmanical traditions, and would probably characterize the Hindu-Catholic synthesis arising from de Nobili’s mission as simply a Christian form of high-caste Hindu hegemony ( 101). Mosses work illustrates the dilemma of the Catholic church in India: in their attempt to ‘inculturate’ the gospel in Hindu society, they had tolerated the caste system, but the resulting Christian community had a membership which was overwhelmingly low caste or tribal, who strongly objected to caste discrimination, and moreover resented the approach

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of inculturation because it drew on high-caste or Brahmanical traditions. Moves to eliminate caste from Catholic ritual alienated caste-Hindus and raised communal boundaries; at the same time, interfaith dialogue initiatives were viewed with suspicion by dalit groups. The debate over mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu that is examined next also reveals, among other things, this intra-Catholic debate between those who seek to obviate the need for conversion through accommodation to Hindu philosophy and those who affirm conversion as a legitimate means of protest and an affirmation of identity by outcastes from the Hindu community. II.

L ib e r a t io n t h e o l o g y a n d t h e d e b a t e o v e r m a ss c o n v e r s io n in

S o u t h T a m il N a d u

The liberation model of inculturation in India emerged from a critical analysis of development projects in which many Catholic workers were involved and a consciousness of the oppression of dalits and tribals. It was influenced by other contemporary liberation theologies, particularly from the Americas, and focused on issues of human dignity and identity as well as economic concerns (Clarke 1999; Michael 1999a; Jayakumar 1999; Gispert-Sauch 1997: 460-61). The emergence of liberation theology in Latin America had led to a major reinterpretation of conversion in the Catholic church. The document produced by the Latin American Bishops’ meeting at Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, regarded as foundational to liberation theology, stated that the church should follow the example of Christ who demonstrated the ‘preference to the poor’ and called for a ‘sincere conversion in people’s outlook, from individualistic self-concern to a concern for the common welfare’ of others. Furthermore, the bishops affirmed ‘the value and legitimate autonomy of temporal tasks’, which means what was regarded as outside the scope of ‘spiritual salvation’ was no longer treated as secondary or inferior.15 Thus the focus of conversion to God became ‘conversion to the neighbour’ as a vital part of any ‘spirituality of liberation’. In his classic A Theology o f Liberation, Gustavo Gutiérrez claimed:

15 ‘Medellin Document on Poverty’ (9, 17, 18) in Maryknoll Documentation, Between Honesty and Hope (Maryknoll, NY: Maryknoll Documentation Series, 1970), 211-6.

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Conversion means a radical transformation of ourselves; it means thinking, feeling, and living for Christ—present in exploited and alienated persons. To be converted is to commit oneself to the process of the liberation of the poor and oppressed... (1973: 118). For liberation theologians, redemption relates to liberation in the context of present historical reality but the exact relationship between the two is unclear (Chopp 1997:409-25) and in practice liberation theology tends to treat social liberation as a visible manifestation of redemption. The liberation understanding of conversion appeared to be an answer for the problem of the mass conversion of the depressed classes in India in that the motivation for their conversion was put down to their search for social justice or a social protest against caste-dominated Hindu society. In this view, the conversion of dalits was due neither to the proselytizing activities of ‘outsiders’, nor to the depressed classes being swayed by ‘ulterior motives’, but rather to their own search for a liberation that involved social equality. Because their conversion was a move towards liberation from caste-bondage, the church, which proclaims liberation, must not only accept this movement but the church itself must also ‘convert’ towards these people who are in need of solidarity. This idea of accepting the motives of converts as the legitimate ones in Christian conversion was not new, as the arguments of V.S. Azariah in Chapter Two and Oscar Sevrin in Chapter Four show, but the liberation view on conversion tended to see conversion as entirely due to social problems of Indian society and set aside any religious convictions o f converts. This understanding of conversion was evident when what were described as ‘mass conversions’ took place in south Tamil Nadu.

Hindu responses to mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu, 1981 In 1981, the conversions that took place in several villages in south Tamil Nadu caused unprecedented public controversy. The first mass conversion took place in Meenakshipuram on 19 February when about 200 families of the Pallan16 community converted to Islam.17 This developed into a nationwide religious and political scandal as 27 more 16 Also called Pallar. 17 The news of dalit conversion in Meenakshipuram appeared on the front page of The Times o f India, 2 1 March 1981.

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families from the same village converted to Islam on 23 May and the movement spread to other villages in Tamil Nadu. There was also a threat of conversion from various dalit communities in the north.18What seemed to be a major ‘movement’ of dalit communities in their struggle against injustice drew the attention of politicians, scholars of sociology, and Hindu, Muslim and Christian leaders. This was widely discussed in the media and, although there were various interpretations, most were in agreement that the main cause of this conversion was the social inequality and discrimination experienced by the dalit community. This view was shared by Muslim scholars who examined the situation, such as Mumtaz Ali Khan, whose detailed research led him to conclude that the conversion was the result neither of alleged outside interference nor of inducement, but of deep resentment on the pan of the dalit community, and that the decision was made after‘careful consideration’ (1981: 37-50; Kalam 1984:153-67). Imtiaz Ahmad also found that the conversion was due to ‘status anxiety’ in the villages, but he also suggested it was a result of the recent mobilization of local Muslim missionary activities; the emphasis of Tamil Islam (Shaft’i) on social egalitarianism and the simplicity of their religious practices; and the status of the Muslim community as economically strong and stable. He believed that the political strategy of the threat of conversion had ‘limited utility’ but that the dalits were the ‘principal gainers’ as a result of the ‘conversion episode’ (1984: 118-29). Muslim writers on the issue saw conversion to Islam as due to dalit searching for respect and dignity, and accepted that the choice of Islam was not necessarily a spiritual one. The initial Hindu interpretation of the conversion of the dalits to Islam was also to recognize the movement as a protest against caste discrimination after long years of ‘harassment, humiliation and civil disability’ ( The Hindu, 30 May 1981) or ‘social inequality and persecution’ by the caste Hindus (The Hindu, 27 June 1981) and to see it as a challenge to the caste problems of Hindu society. Hindus reformers were sympathetic towards this movement of a deprived section of society and saw this as an opportunity for a ‘new awakening’ and ‘new sense of camaraderie’ for caste-Hindus (The Hindu, 25 July 1981) or a ‘new 18 For example, a community in Kanpur Uttar Pradesh threatened to embrace Islam (The Hindu, 15 August 1981).

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revolution’ among dalits (Indian Express, 15 July 1981). Therefore the Hindu response was to campaign against untouchability among Hindus and urge the government to raise more aid for dalits.19 However, as the mass conversion spread to other villages in south India and some dalit communities in north India threatened local governments with conversion unless their conditions were improved, it appeared to Hindus that there was a clear ‘politicization o f conversion’ on behalf of dalits with Muslim aid. They claimed wider Islamic involvement ( The Hindu, 3 October 1981)20 and believed this was a Muslim attempt to ‘attack’ or ‘ruin’ Hindu society {The Times o f India, 21 March 1981, 22 November 1982). Hindu groups such as the Arya Samaj alleged the conversions were due to ‘undue influence, bribery, power o f foreign money’ ( The Hindu, 30 May 1981) and drew conclusions about the outside interference of a pan-Islamic movement to destabilize Indian society. As K.V. Lingam made clear, while individuals could convert to Islam, mass conversion was regarded as ‘pernicious and should be fought’ ( The Hindu, 25 July 1981). Therefore the three-fold response of the Hindu leadership was: to call for legislation to ban conversion; to withhold the concessions available to dalits from those who deliberately abandoned the Hindu community; and to try to reconvert the newly converted dalits to Hinduism through shuddhi (The Hindu, 25 July 1981, 22 August 1981).21 Hindus complained that the dalits who chose to change their religion exhibited no sign of any spiritual motive. Their conversion appeared to Hindus neither to be motivated by appropriate spiritual concerns nor to show courage to take the moral consequences; as it was said, ‘they want to have the benefit of change without experiencing change’ ( The Hindu, 15 August 1981; see also Express Magazine 13 September 1981). This objection to the alleged politicization of conversion was strongly voiced 19 They organized the ‘Hindu Solidarity Conference’ in Meenakshipuram and other villages and it was reported that considerable funds were raised, both from government and individuals, to meet the demands of dalits for uplifting their condition (The Hindu, 25 July 1981). 20 Hindus claimed that various Islamic organizations were involved in convening Hindus, for example, ‘Motamar Al-Alam-Al-Islami’, which set the target of converting 50,000 Harijans in the year 1981 and 200,000 by the end of the next year. 21 B. Kishanla of the Arya Samaj claimed that more than fifty dalits underwent shuddhi.

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in the Hindu press and later published as Politics o f Conversion (Swarup 1986).22 The editor, Devendra Swarup argues that the mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu was not the result of individual ‘inner faith and spiritual quest’ on the part of dalits, but rather due to the ‘organized efforts of some external agency’: [T]hey [dalits] are allured [sic] into conversion not through an appeal to their religious consciousness, but to their social and economic needs...religion seems to have lost its grip over the self-appointed leaders of these backward sections and for them the so-called religious conversion means, perhaps, nothing more than a change of clothes Cl986: 5). In a leading article, Dev Dutt, separating dharmic (spiritual) and dedharmic (secular) views, accused dalits of lacking a spiritual dimension in their approach to conversion because they were using conversion as a ‘powerful weapon’ to achieve their political means. He described it as merely a ‘secular approach to achieve a very secular objective’ and he saw the recent conversions as: part of this process of de-dharmification of the Indian psyche. The way common people were prompted to change their faiths, the facility with which the changes took place and the petty uses to which the conversion processes were put to, indicates that the hold of dharmic world view as a regulation of life is being relegated to the background... ...the sense o f awe and reverence, the sense of the sacred and the sublime which is a characteristic of the dharmic attitude of mind is vanishing among the common people (1986: 44—5). Dutt represents a movement within the Hindu resurgence which holds that the secular ideology of Indian politics has failed; therefore, Hindu society needs to find an alternative philosophy which is based on Hindu dharma. This, together with the increasing political weight of the Hindu nationalist movement, emerged in the Indian intellectual scene in the 1970s. The dalit conversion in 1981 became yet another ‘proof of the 22 The book contains twenty-six articles criticizing the conversion activities of both Muslims and Christians together with various documents, quotations and statistics on the issue, including major newspaper articles.

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caste-Hindu claim that dalit conversions were ‘secular’ and therefore invalid by their measure, which set their ‘spiritual’ world view above any secular one.

Christian responses to mass conversion in South Tamil Nadu, 1981-1984 Meanwhile, the mass conversion in south Tamil Nadu led to Christian reflection on what were the reasons for the Hindu conversion to Islam (instead of Christianity) and, even more seriously, why there were considerable numbers of Christian converts to Islam in the same movement. Like the Muslim writers, Christians saw the reason as the social injustice of the Hindu caste system. The conversions were not only ‘an act of revolt against society’ but also ‘against religious practices legitimized by religion’ (Augustine 1981: 51). They saw a ‘protest movement aimed at disowning the existing inequality structures in society’ and, believing that conversion was an option for the repudiation of caste, found that in this case it had caused a ‘repudiation of religion’ (Raj 1981: 59, 64). Andrew Wingate, in his studies of the Christian conversions to Islam, found ‘no evidence of anyone who claims to have had any experience we can liken to a so-called “conversion experience” as in Christianity’; but he maintained that Islam’s emphasis on the oneness of God appealed to the people, though faith was not the guiding factor but only followed thereafter (1981: 32-4; 1997: 164-5, 175-9). George Mathew, in his comprehensive analysis of the issue, described the motives for conversion as: the economic independence of the group; critical awareness through education; the inadequacy of the political process of Sanskritization; and the presence of an ‘alternative’ which offers ‘brotherhood and sense of equality’ (1982: 1032-3, 1068-9). The question of why the dalits preferred Islam to Christianity was answered by many by pointing to the caste discrimination within the Christian community. S. Albones Raj, for instance, pointed out that dalit Christians experience a double disillusionment: The Harijan Christian, so to speak, is disillusioned not only because Christianity has failed to make him socially mobile but also because the injustice perpetrated on him by his Hindu brethren is being repeated by his fellow Christians (1981: 65).

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The Indian Missiological Review, a Catholic journal, treated the issue of conversion in 1983 and in 1984, the most significant articles being those by Felix Wilfred and Walter Fernandes. Wilfred, a leading liberation theologian, insisted that the church should reinterpret the meaning of conversion in the context of the socio-economic situation of India. For him, conversion is not ‘a turning of our minds to some salvific events o f the past and subscribing to some ideological system connected with it’ nor ‘a question of Church trying to win more members to her fold from other religious groups to assure them a place in heaven’ but a ‘response of commitment to the voice of God speaking through the yearnings and aspirations of the millions of our countrymen, through their misery and want’ (1983: 61-73). He concluded that the church in India should convert herself to the poor rather than aiming to convert the poor to her fold. Conversion of the Church to the poor is the concrete sign today of her fidelity to the Gospel...To the degree of her conversion to God’s poor, she proportionately becomes an environment for conversion to God’s Kingdom which is different from being just an institution or agent (1983: 69). In the same vein, Fernandes, a Catholic sociologist, argued that conversion in India has to be understood as a caste struggle of the dalits against their inhuman treatment and that, although conversion involves both spiritual experience and social change, it is the latter that primarily motivates them (1984: 289-306). Therefore, he discarded some Christians’ insistence on conversion being spiritual and the Hindu accusation of its being material, insisting that conversion in India was a ‘social movement’ in the process of ‘awakening [dalits] to the reality of their oppression’ in the social context o f‘caste mobility’.23 He criticized the Catholic missionary view for giving positive value to the caste system in order to bring about conversion and, in so doing, allowing the unjust system of caste in the church. Since salvation had to be ‘real’ to dalits in their sub-human condition, in his view, conversion was a by-product of the movement among dalits for their uplift that took a ‘religious form’. He saw it as the church’s duty to be part of a movement to liberate 23 In his earlier writing, Walter Fernandes argued that caste mobility had already begun before the Christian missionaries started work among dalits (1981: 261-90).

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people who are oppressed and believed this was the true meaning of conversion in India. For both Wilfred and Fernandes, conversion was regarded as a means to achieve the social end of socio-economic justice for the dalits and the poor in Indian society. The realization by Christians that the injustices of the caste system were also practised by Christians encouraged both Wilfred and Fernandes to call for the church to ‘convert’ to the world, to their neighbours, to the dalits themselves, to identify with them and bear their burdens. They criticized the church’s preoccupation with salvation as redemption through a spiritual experience of conversion that was confirmed by baptism, and saw liberation through breaking any form of oppression as the vital part of God’s salvation. The shift in the definition of conversion in the Indian context to mean a protest against social injustice or the church’s turning to the world to be part of the people’s struggle was evident in the writings of these and other Catholic theologians. Perhaps George Mathew best summed up the new Catholic understanding of conversion as the ‘politicization of religion’ (understood in the sense of ‘using religion as an instrument for changing the power balance’) describing conversion in India as ‘part of the proliferation of an ideology which questions the status quo’ and as a ‘structural question’ (1982: 1071-2).

The Problem o f the socio-political interpretation o f Conversion However, this reduction of conversion to a ‘structural question’ fails to reflea the complex nature of Indian society and the fact that dalits, like other human beings, have mixed motives that may have to do with more than just the socio-economic problems o f their present life. In emphasizing the liberation motive so strongly, conversion almost loses any spiritual meaning to people under oppression. In other words, any religion or ideology, which is willing to be part of the dalit struggle, regardless of its ‘spiritual dimension’, could be chosen. As noted above, it is striking that neither Muslim nor Christian commentators found that the conversions in south Tamil Nadu had any religious motives behind them, only sociological ones. It is entirely possible that this interpretation may not reflect the full picture of what was going on in the hearts and minds of the dalits, and that this may have been due to the particular methodological framework used by scholars to deal with social issues, or to the desire to play down religious differences for political

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reasons. Deryck Schreuder and Geoffrey Oddie have shown that studies of conversion in India during the 1970s and 1980s tended to focus on socio-economic factors rather than ‘religious ideas and conviction’. This was because the methodological difficulties of discussing motives meant that scholars could do little more than ‘leave room for some spiritual factors and religious beliefs in the conversion process’ (Schreuder and Oddie 1989: 512-3). Socio-economic theories of conversion, by definition, can give only limited recognition to the religious awareness of the converts and the religious appeal of the missionary message. Moreover, in a political context of increasing opposition from Hindus, conversion appeared as disrespectful to Hinduism, so Christians were under pressure to find a different justification for it. The argument that it was a manifestation of the common struggle against the social injustices of Indian society avoided the religious issue since caste could be argued to be a social, and not a religious problem. Dhirendra Vajpeyi’s study of Muslim fundamentalism in India shows how social and religious motives went hand-in-hand in the conversion movement. Towards the end of the 70s, increasing numbers of Indians found employment in Arab countries, among them a predictably higher proportion of Muslim Indians than Hindus. They brought back home more than financial wealth. Vajpayi makes an important observation: Being away from home and family, religion brought them closer. Their leisure was spent in discussing the ‘commonality’— Islamic heritage. When they returned to India they not only brought money, watches, and expensive transistor radios, they also came back with a new awareness and assertive spirit, the spirit of din-e-ilahi [the religion o f light]. The new money gave them confidence, new mosques, and new madarasas for religious education for children which were deemed necessary to thank Allah (God) for their prosperity (1989: 66-7). This new consciousness of their religious heritage and confidence in the Islamic faith undoubtedly led to a new zeal to spread their religion. Imtiaz Ahmad attributed the rise of the Islamic missionary movement in the 1970s in south Tamil Nadu to this new enthusiasm (Ahmad 1984: 121-2). It would be an oversimplification to say that these Islamic missionary groups were presenting only the egalitarian principles of the Muslim community and not Islam as a religion, and it is evident that

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the converts to Islam had at least been exposed to— and plausibly also embraced— both Islam as social organization and Islam as a faith. The sociological interpretation o f the conversion o f dalits is problematic for Christians in two respects. First, it provides validity to Hindu accusations that conversion of dalits is political rather than religious. Hindus can argue that conversion, especially mass conversion, lacks spiritual motives; it is merely a means to escape injustice or a social protest. Hindu resentment is not that dalits and adivasis are protesting against socio-economic injustice, nor do they deny the existence o f social problems within the Hindu community: what they object to is the fact that the converts choose to abandon Hinduism. Moreover, Christianity (or Islam) has been shown not to be free of caste and class inequality either, so this confirms their view that conversion is being used as a tool to increase Christian political power. That this is the case is confirmed when they find that ‘spiritual’ motives are lacking in Christian interpretations of conversion and that a this-worldly approach is supported by Christian theology. Secondly, and more seriously still, the result is that in their sociological interpretations, Christians and Muslims, just like caste-Hindus, give the impression that dalits are motivated only by desire for their own material betterment or social uplift. The obvious inference is that dalits lack spirituality. Hence conversion itself is seen negatively as opportunism and not as the outcome of an active and considered search by a community for an answer to a spiritual quest. When theologians themselves argue that dalit conversion must be understood sociologically, dalits are in danger of being deprived again, this time of a fully rounded conversion, which has both sociological and spiritual, both temporal and eschatological dimensions. Before moving on to the next chapter, it is worth mentioning that in the 1990s there was a rapprochement between the inculturation and liberation approaches to conversion. Criticism by Hindus, and debates between the two groups in the 1980s, resulted in increasing recognition by both groups of the need for Indian Catholic theology to address the religious and social realities o f the context together. Many inculturationists took on board the dalit critique that the Hindu-Catholic approach may endorse caste oppression, and many liberationists paid increasing attention to liberation’s spiritual and religious expressions. Contemporary advocates of the approach do not necessarily separate religion from culture in the way Upadhyay did, or propound a fulfilment

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theology o f religions. Under the influence of the later work of Abhishiktananda, Hinduism and Christianity have both been seen as offering true experience of the Ultimate—a trend that has alarmed the Vatican (Kanjamala 1996: 195-205; Burrows 1993: 244). There have also been attempts to reread advaita as being socially oriented because ‘the self may be identified with the collective self of society. Liberation theologians have sought a ‘spirituality of liberation’ and have studied the ‘little tradition’ of the popular religiosity, particularly of dalits and tribal peoples, to use it in the struggle for liberation (Wilfred 1992: 18).25 The theological theme of the kingdom has been used to redefine conversion as ‘a call to turn to God’ rather than ‘joining a particular social structure’ (Amaladoss 1996: 31-48). Attention has also focused on the theology of the Spirit as the medium of shared spiritual experience on the one hand and the free source of liberation power on the other (Kunnupuram 1997: 389-404). The ecclesiology envisaged in these theologies of conversion is of an open community with a kernel of baptized Christians focused on a mission of peace and liberation. The church is understood as a movement rather than an institution (Puthanangady 1991), based on a model of the inner core of the twelve disciples of Jesus and wider circles of followers who were more loosely allied to his mission (Kavunkal 1996a: 53-72). In addition to these further developments in Catholic theology, it should also be noted that, as an indirect result of the liberation and synthesizing approaches of Catholics and the secular fellowship approach of the Protestants, there was a resurgence of ‘conservative’ Christians who wanted to reaffirm the importance of radical spiritual conversion and the social distinctiveness of the church. Many of these were supported by worldwide Christian mission organizations and were often aggressive in their campaigns for conversion and in their attitudes towards Hinduism. These Christian campaigns for world evangelization, together with the movement for Hindutva and the active campaign of shuddhi that met them, will be the themes of the next chapter. In the midst of this, Arun Shourie’s book, Missionaries in India: Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas (1994), triggered a renewed Hindu-Christian debate on conversion which revealed the entrenched positions of both Hindus and Christians and also the diversity of understandings within each community on conversion in the 1990s. 24 Note the prominence given to him in Gispert-Sauch (1997: 463-6) and in Thomas (1997: 202-12). 25 Wilfred’s book includes papers exemplifying these initiatives.

7 World Evangelization, Hindutva, and the Debate Provoked by Arun Shourie, 1994-1995 What is the target? It is the whole world. It is the tribal world, the world of the poor, the world of Islam, the Buddhist world and the Hindu world... Most specifically, it is the world of those people who have never heard the gospel clearly enough to make a decision for Christ. — Luis Bush (1989: vii) And I do not say that I want to ‘make’ India a Hindu nation. I believe that India is a Hindu nation. It was even when Nehru was there; it is today; it will remain tomorrow. —Lai Krishna Advani (Newsweek, 26 April 1993: 13)

During the 1970s and 1980s some Protestant and Catholic Christians made significant efforts to bring Hinduism and Christianity together, to find common ground between the two. Recognizing that conversion was a source of tension, Indian Christian theologians redefined the concept, hoping this would ease the situation and produce a positive response from Hindus. But at the same time, and partly in reaction to these perceived concessions to Hindu sensibilities, there was a renewed emphasis in some Indian Christian groups on the importance of conversion without ‘compromising’, together with a zeal for the evangelization of the world inspired by Christians from the West in the run-up to the end of millennium. During the mid-1980s the Hindu attitude towards minority communities— especially Muslim and

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Christian communities—became increasingly hostile and aggressive as India witnessed a resurgence of Hindu nationalism, this time involving the promotion of Hindutva. Furthermore, Hindus actively engaged in ideological arguments criticizing Islam and Christianity as ‘Semitic’ religions limited by a narrow and exclusive ideology in contrast to the supposedly inclusive and tolerant approach of Hinduism. This chapter focuses on the heightened tension in India brought about by the rise of Christian campaigns for world evangelization and radical Hindu nationalism, and evaluates the fierce Hindu-Christian debate provoked by Arun Shourie in 1994-95. I. C h r is t ia n c a m p a ig n s f o r e v a n g e l iz a t io n OF T H E WORLD

Within certain Protestant groups towards the 1990s there was a growing tendency to make AD 2000 a milestone for world evangelization. To reach the ‘unreached’ for the Christian gospel before the end of the millennium became an urgent goal of the church’s missionary work. The AD 2000 and Beyond movement, formed in 1989 by some members of the World Evangelical Fellowship and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, was a plan to mobilize all ‘Great Commission Christians’ and unite existing evangelization plans in a concerted effort to bring the gospel to all people by the year 2000 (Wang 1989: xixiii).1 The ‘target’ of the movement was defined as ‘the world of those peoples who have never heard the gospel clearly enough to make a decision for Christ’, specifically including Hindus (Bush 1989: vii). The International Congress on World Evangelization held in Manila in 1989 provided a platform for this ambitious movement. The Congress was claimed by its organizers to be the widest gathering of evangelicals ever held and there was a conscious effort to take account of modernity. But the doctrines regarding the uniqueness of Christ and relationship between Christianity and other religions were firmly anchored in the Lausanne Covenant written in 1974, which took a conservative line. The ‘Manila Manifesto’ affirmed the ‘uniqueness, indispensability, and 1 Note also Barrett and Reapsome who made a detailed analysis of some 700 such plans and challenged Christians to cooperate in a single ‘strategy’ o f world evangelization by the year 2000 (1988:65-6). This book has been quoted by Hindus as ‘proof of a worldwide plan to convert people of other faiths.

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centrality’ of Jesus Christ, declaring that ‘religious people’ of other faiths are ‘in need of Christ’s redemption’: We, therefore, have no warrant for saying that salvation can be found outside Christ apart from an explicit acceptance of his work through faith... There is only one gospel because there is only one Christ, who because of his death and resurrection is himself the only way of salvation. We, therefore, reject both the relativism which regards all religions and spiritualities as equally valid approaches to God, and the syncretism which tries to mix faith in Christ with other faiths (Douglas 1990: 29). Furthermore, the Manifesto included a section on ‘The Challenge of AD 2000 and Beyond’ which urged Christians to be actively engaged in bringing the gospel to those who ‘have not yet acknowledged him’, and concluded with a call to the ‘whole church’ to proclaim the gospel with ‘all necessary urgency’ (Douglas 1990: 25-38).2 In India, the All India Congress on Church Development held in 1989 was attended by some 1200 missionaries, church and mission leaders. It was organized by the Council on National Service (CONS), which claimed to have a ‘single vision of planting a church in every village and colony of every town and city of India by the year 2000 AD’ (Gupta 1992: 439-55). Another major event, ‘Mission India 2000’ was launched through a large conference in January 1992 and resulted in the publication of Mission Mandate, a compendium of articles, case studies, and comprehensive data on mission organizations, institutions and people groups in India (Sargunam 1992). The editor called for churches in India to involve themselves in the movement and to make every effort as AD 2000 drew near. He urged them to ‘proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all urgency and disciple all the millions of responsive peoples as though this is our last and final chance’ (Sargunam 1992: 6-12). Most of the fifty-six articles were written by leaders of mission organizations and exhibit strong confidence and enthusiasm that ‘Yes! it can be done by AD 2000’ (title of an article). The use of military phrases such as ‘strategy’, ‘like a mighty army’, ‘task force’, and ‘action plan’ was not uncommon. 2 For a critique of the AD 2000 approach at Lausanne, see Coote (1990: 10-7).

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As optimism grew among evangelical Christians in India, so did awareness of the problem of religious pluralism and the difficulty of maintaining conversion as the goal of their mission work due to opposition from Hindus and, more importantly, from Christian theologians and leaders who held a more sympathetic attitude towards Hinduism and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Christian conversion. Ken Gnanakan, a leading evangelical theologian, discusses the theological problem in the context of India in his book The Pluralistic Predicament (1992a). Although throughout his discussion he expresses his openness to truth in other religions, in his concluding remarks he insists that conversion to Jesus Christ is vital for a person or community to be saved: Although we may speak of God revealing himself to religious people even outside of Jesus Christ, this revelation does not direcdy bring salvation...A person or a community may genuinely experience the revelation of God outside of Jesus Christ, but the test of its genuineness is that the Holy Spirit will lead the individual or the community to an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom alone salvation is available for all who believe (1992a: 227). Sunand Sumithra argues that Christian conversion is a personal ‘relationship’ and ‘response’ to Christ. It is an ‘unrepeatable decision’ before God and this rules out the widening of the concept (Sumithra 1992a: 79-97; 1992b: 75-92;).3 Roger Hedlund also reaffirms the importance of incorporation into the Christian fellowship for regeneration in spite of the sensitive situation in India (1992: 83-100).4 In their theological search for a response to religious pluralism, the question of salvation in other religions was a major concern for evangelicals and this led to ‘Salvation in Asian Contexts’ being chosen as the theme for the 1990 Theological Consultation of the Asia Theological Association (ATA), an evangelical body. In its statement, ‘Confession of Faith’, the participants articulated the dilemma of trying to be ‘sensitive to the people of all faiths without compromising the uniqueness of Jesus Christ’, but affirmed that ‘salvation is only in the cross of Christ and is efficacious for all time’. Although it leaves open some possibilities of 3 Sumithra lectures in theology in various Indian evangelical institutions. 4 Hedlund is a leading expatriate evangelical missiologist and the managing editor of a journal, Dhorma Deepikx

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God’s grace for the ‘lost’, the statement makes it dear that the desire of the delegates was for people of other faiths ‘to find salvation in Jesus Christ and be incorporated in His body, the Church’ (in Gnanakan 1992: 183-6). There were dissenting voices among evangelicals on how to approach world mission towards AD 2000 in the context of religious pluralism and some objected to what they saw as a reduction of the Christian task to ‘an exercise in management and logistics’ (Samuel and Sugden 1991: ix).5 In the statement of the Stuttgart Consultation on Evangelism (1987) some evangelicals reached considerable consensus with conciliar ecumenicals on seeing evangelization as broader than the conversion of individuals and including involvement in ‘struggles for justice and peace’ (Samuel and Sugden 1989: 212-25). However, the urgency o f the evangelization of ‘unreached’ peoples and their conversion by AD 2000 dominated the vocabulary in evangelical circles. What appeared to be a concerted Christian plan for world evangelization must have been for Hindus a threat to their identity. Nor did an influx of foreign missionaries and the mobilization of Indian missionary organizations go unnoticed by Hindu leaders. Meanwhile within the Catholic church, the project ‘Evangelization 2000’ was launched in 1987. Although this was not an official organization of the Holy See, being initiated by charismatic groups within the church, it gained wide support. Its objective was similar to its Protestant counterpart: the mobilization of Catholics, in cooperation with other Christians, for the evangelization of the world with the year 2000 as the target date. To ‘save the world for Jesus’ by the year 2000 was described as the best birthday gift for Jesus (Henriques 1989: 135— 43).6 Because of its fixation on the millennium and its narrow 5 Samuel and Sugden insisted that the Christian task towards AD 2000 should be ‘more than an exercise in management and logistics’, it should be ‘theological and missiological reflection’. See also Michael Nazir-Ali who, while affirming the preaching of the gospel to bring about the conversion of non-Christians, insists that ‘evangelization has to be recognized as a process in the formation o f the People of God’ (1991: 26-38). Vinay Samuel is against both ‘pluralism and exclusivism’ and calls for an ‘end to religious conflict and a commitment to tolerance’ for which a ‘radical change’ is necessary since ‘Christ belongs to all, including our neighbours of other faiths. In presenting his claims we are inviting people to accept him who already belongs to them’ (1991: 148-66). 6 The group published a magazine, New Evangelization 2000 and operated a broadcasting project, Lumen 2000.

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understanding of evangelization as bringing converts into the church, the Evangelization 2000 movement was heavily criticized, particularly by Indian theologians (Pereira 1992: 13; Kavunkal 1996: 26-35). At the official level, the ‘new evangelization’ movement, originally launched by Pope John Paul II in the context of Latin America in 1983, was ‘new in its ardour, methods and expression’ (VOsservatore Romano, 18 April 1983). This represented a growing commitment to evangelization within the Catholic church and particular efforts were made to bring about more active participation from non-Western churches (Degrijse 1984: 1-22, 71-92). In his address to the Bishops of CELAM at Santo Domingo in October 1992, on the occasion of celebrating 500 years of the evangelization of Latin America, the Pope affirmed the theme of the ‘new evangelization’ as a main focus of the conference. He explained that ‘evangelizing means proclaiming a person, Christ’, and to do that the gospel must be preached in ‘total fidelity and purity as it has been preserved and handed on by the Church’s tradition’ (L ’Osservatore Romano, 21 October 1992). Although afterwards the theme o f ‘new evangelization’ was less prominent and the preparations for the new millennium were more a celebration of the jubilee than setting certain targets to achieve, nevertheless, the missionary nature of the church, firmly based on the uniqueness of Christ for salvation, was clearly evidenced in documents issued by Pope John Paul II. This traditional attitude to other religions and calling for evangelization of the people of other faiths was most noticeable in the encyclical Redemptoris Missio, issued in December 1990, which reasserted the importance of conversion and the incorporation of converts into the church. It stressed the ‘ urgency o f missionary activity as the second millennium drew near and urged all Christians to engage in their ‘supreme duty’ which is to ‘proclaim Christ to all people’ (RM 1,3, 92). Although there was an openness to and an affirmation of new ideas for missionary activity according to different contexts, the theology of religions in Redemptoris Missio was exclusive. To the question ‘why mission?’ in the context of other religions, the answer was that the affirmation of the early Christians that ‘Christ is the one Saviour of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God’, has ‘universal value’ since ‘salvation can only come from Jesus Christ’ and furthermore, ‘In him, and only in him, are we set free from all alienation and doubt, from slavery to the power of sin and death’ (RM 4, 11). Redemptoris

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Missio also emphatically stated that ‘the Kingdom cannot be detached either from Christ or from the Church’ (RM 18). Dialogue with people of other faiths, though valuable, ‘should be conducted and implemented with the conviction that the Church is the ordinary means o f salvation and that she alone possesses the fullness of the means of salvation’ (RM 55). Proclamation was ‘the permanent priority of mission’ and it had ‘Christian conversion as its aim’, which meant, ‘accepting, by a personal decision, the saving sovereignty of Christ and becoming his disciple’. On the grounds of the individual ‘right to hear the “Good News” o f the God’, the encyclical explicidy opposes contemporary trends to weaken this priority: Nowadays the call to conversion which missionaries address to nonChristians is put into question or passed over in silence. It is seen as an act of ‘proselytizing’; it is claimed that it is enough to help people to become more human or more faithful to their own religion, that it is enough to build communities capable of working for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity. What is overlooked is that every person has the right to hear the ‘Good News’ of the God who reveals and gives himself in Christ, so that each one can live out in its fullness his or her proper calling (RM 46). The explicit affirmation of salvation only in Christ and the necessity of conversion to the Catholic church expressed in Redemptoris Missio brought mixed responses,7 and some Indian Catholic theologians openly expressed their dissatisfaction with it. Their response was led by Augustine Kanjamala, secretary for Proclamation and Communication of CBCI, who saw it as merely a reaffirmation of traditional mission theology, ignoring the situation of religiously pluralistic societies. He regarded it as addressed to the missionary crisis in the West and as taking no account of ‘Asian and Indian theological reflections’. It was seen by Indian theologians as ‘aggressive’, ‘heavy criticism’, inadequately addressing the ‘problems and life experience’ of people in the field (1993: 195-205). 7 For example, Eric J. Sharpe comments that it is ‘positively old-fashioned’ (Sharpe 1993: 161-72), while the editorial of IBMR describes it as a ‘refreshingly positive document, breathing confidence, optimism and encouragement’, which will ‘strengthen and guide’ Catholic mission well into the third millennium (15/2, April 1991< 49). See also Burrows (1993).

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II. N a t i o n a l i s t H in d u r e s p o n s e s t o w o r l d EVANGELIZATION AND TH E CAMPAIGN OF H lN D U T V A

The increasing religious tension of the 1980s and 1990s involved violence by the Hindu majority towards the Muslim and also the Christian communities, though it was less in terms of both scale and consistency in the latter case. This tension was largely due to the increasing political influence of the RSS and its ‘associate’ organizations, the BJP, VHP, and Bajrang Dal, which were determined to achieve their ideal of Hindutva at the expense of the security and welfare that Indian secularism had promised to provide to other religious communities. The success of the BJP in the election of 1989 gave Hindu nationalist leaders confidence to assert the failure of ‘secular India’ to respond to Muslim separatism and to promote their own agenda. Paul Brass observes the rise in this period of a new ideology of Hindu nationalism and describes it as ‘an ideology of state exaltation, which the BJP wishes to infuse with Hindu symbols in order that a united India may come to occupy a respected place among the great states in the modern world’. Its ultimate goals were to ‘consolidate Hindus and to bring the backward and Scheduled Castes and Tribes as well into the political Hindu fold’ (Brass 1994: 264—6). The communal violence was evidence of an increasing fundamentalist element in the movement. Furthermore, the VHP and Bajrang Dal asserted that any ideology or religion other than their version of Hindutva—notably the ideologies of secularism and communism and the religions of Islam and Christianity—should be excluded for the sake of a united Hindu national identity. The more moderate sections of the Hindu nationalist movement, who were eager to maintain their, recendy gained political power by projecting an acceptable image of the party, could not keep control of the militant groups, which attacked Muslim and Christian communities. The strength of fundamentalist Hindu ideology was highlighted when India witnessed the demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992 and the ensuing Hindu-Muslim communal violence in Bombay and other cities. It was evident that, as the BJP (with its explicit religious Hindu identification) became the major political opposition in the early 1990s, the secular ideology that had hitherto dominated Indian politics was increasingly threatened by communal tensions caused by religious issues and fomented for political purposes (Jaffrelot 1996: 450-8; Mathew 1999: 148-230).

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Hindu approaches had earlier focused on the ‘protection’ of Hindus against religious conversion by Christian missionary activities through enactment of Hindu laws, prohibition of various benefits to the converts from Scheduled Caste and Tribe backgrounds, and enforcement of ‘freedom o f religion’ legislation in three states, as discussed in previous chapters. During the 1990s, militant Hindus were departing from the idea of the protection of Hindus towards active reconversion of Christian or Muslim converts, as well as bringing tribals into the Hindu fold, through shuddhi. Shuddhi was a ceremony used to demonstrate the return to the Hindu fold of those whom they regarded as Hindus but who had been converted to another faith. It had been practised by the Arya Samaj mainly in response to Christian and Muslim conversion movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and it was accepted by mainstream Hindus only with reluctance (Jordens 1991: 215-30; Seunarine 1977). In the late 1980s and early 1990s the VHP and RSS (and Bajrang Dal) actively applied shuddhi to reconvert dalits, adivasis and other backward classes as a part of their pursuit of Hindutva. It was reported that thousands of Christian tribals had been reconvened to Hinduism and similarly that Muslims had convened to Hinduism in Rajasthan.8 This created considerable tension within these communities. Another phenomenon was the emergence of written Hindu attacks on Islam and Christianity. Islam and Christianity were criticized for their exclusive claims of truth and their ‘dogmatism’, and Christian missionaries for conversion activities. These writings attacked Nehruvian secularism and also communism as well as Islam and Christianity and accused these as sharing the same ‘Semitic’ premises. However, their main aim appeared to be to promote Hindutva as a theological and practical alternative by finding fault with Islam and Christianity and particularly with their practice of conversion of Hindus. One such critic of Christianity was Ram Swarup, who studied Christian publications in the West and made sharp observations on them. In his critique of David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), he pointed out that the editor definitely gives the impression that world evangelization is of prime importance to Christians and, further, that the process of Christianization is described in terms of its converts. From Barrett’s book he also found that, especially in recent years, the Third World countries had been the 8 India Today, 15 May 1992; Illustrated Weekly o f India, 9-15 May 1992.

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special target of missionary activities (Swarup 1985). He drew the attention of Hindus to some new elements of the Protestant missionary strategy such as ‘tentmaking’ missionaries, increasing ‘service’ missions in the more ‘resistant’ areas, and the rapid rise of Third World or ‘indigenous’ missionaries. He also found that the practice of attacking Hinduism as ‘Satanic* and the zeal for conversion was continued by missionaries of the non-Western world (Swarup 1988a).9 In his review of Seven Hundred Plans to Evangelize the World, Swarup noted that Protestant world evangelization was supported by considerable funds, mainly from North America, and questioned the ethics of the strategies used (Swarup 1990a). The main protagonist was Sita Ram Goel, a former writer for the Organiser, the official RSS journal and founder of the Voice of India, a publishing house, the purpose of which is ‘providing an ideological defence of Hindu religion and culture’ whose ‘deeper spiritual vision and values’ have been under attack by ‘the monolatrous creeds claiming to be the only true religions’ (Swarup 1992: back cover; see also Goel 1993: 91-102). Goel saw the major causes of the communal problems in India as Christian and Islamic ‘imperialism’, the doctrines of which are foreign and whose allegiance is not to Indian soil, and as a solution he promoted the self-confidence of Hindus (Goel 1995: 109-10). He argued that conversions have been forced or fraudulent and found that Western imperialism ‘acquired its self-righteousness and the strength of conviction from Christianity’, claiming that Christianity ‘at its core has always been an ideology of imperialism’ (Goel 1986: 4—11). Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel were not officially associated with mainline Hindu nationalist groups because their Voice of India publications and articles in daily newspapers were considered too forthright. Nevertheless, through their extensive research and reading of Muslim and Christian material, they provided important sources for Hindus in their opposition to Islam and Christianity in general and conversion in particular. Both authors related Islamic and Christian missionary work to imperialism so that conversion seemed to be political aggression by the followers of these ‘Semitic’ religions, and both saw Islamic and Christian claims to exclusive truth as the root problem. They highlighted Muslim and Christian attacks on Hindu religions and deities 9 See also his debate with Kuruvilla Chandy who responded to Swarup’s article by asserting that proselytizing is ‘normal to life’ (Swarup 1988b).

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and their undermining of the Hindu culture and customs, and noted that the recent attempts at conversion of tribals and Scheduled Castes were becoming more systematic and were being made on large scale. They repeatedly argued that the root cause of the communal tension between Hindu and Christian communities was the Christian campaign of conversion. As I have demonstrated above, Christian campaigns of conversion and condemnation of Hindu deities and customs did give ample evidence to radical Hindus for their justification of violence, and furthermore they appeared to confirm their accusation that the churches— Catholic and Protestant—still operated in the same manner as they had done for centuries, despite claims of a change of attitude towards Hinduism. As the writings of Ram Swarup and Sita Ram Goel show, Hindus were aware of what had been said among Christian campaigners for world evangelization and this evidently furthered inflamed Hindu feelings against Christian conversion. III. T

he

DEBATE BETWEEN ARUN SHOUR1E and

C h r ist ia n

lea d er s

Following the publication of Redemptoris Missio, discussion of Christian attitudes towards other religions continued to be the main agenda within the Catholic church in India, particularly in relation to Hinduism, and there was increasing tension between the Vatican and Indian theologians on Indian Christian approaches to Hinduism.10 This prompted CBCI to organize a National Consultation on Mission in order to evaluate and reflect on Catholic missionary work in India since Vatican II and provide a forum for clarifying ‘disturbing’ and ‘confusing views and practices’ which caused ‘contradictions and tensions’ (Anathil 1996: 213). It was held in Pune in January 1994 and the Consultation organizers invited newspaper editor Arun Shourie to present a Hindu ‘assessment’ of the situation.11 Shourie’s presentation, which called for an end to 10 Cardinal JosefTomko, the president of the Vatican Secretariat for Evangelism, in an address in 1991, accused India of being the epicentre of the two theological tendencies he denounced (Tomko 1991: 4; see also Kanjamala 1996: 221-3). 11 Arun Shourie is a former editor of the Indian Express newspaper. The consultation was organized by the CBCI Commission for Proclamation and Communication, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of CBCI and twenty-five years since the ‘All India Seminar on Church in India Today’. There were 101 participants including eighteen bishops. See Kanjamala (1996: 7-8).

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Christian calls for conversion of Hindus, received a mixed response from the participants at the actual Consultation (Shourie 1996: 65-83; see responses from the floor, Kanjamala 1996: 83-92). However, when his paper started to appear in some of the daily newspapers12 and was eventually expanded and published as a book (Shourie 1994), it sparked widespread debate between Christians and Hindus. In order to assess Shourie’s critique and Christian responses to it, a brief summary o f his book is necessary.

Shourie’s criticism o f Christian conversion In the critical mode characteristic of his writings, Shourie observed the ‘changes and dilemmas’ of the Christian church but nevertheless argued that there were significant ‘continuities’ in contemporary Christian missionary work in India. The product of a Christian education himself,13 Shourie praised Christian missionaries for their dedication, exemplary lifestyle, and study of the Hindu scriptures, but argued that in the process of their work, they had ‘completely destroyed not only [the] self-confidence but also [the] self-respect’ of Hindus and even made them ‘feel ashamed’ of their traditions. Furthermore, Shourie insisted that the missionaries’ ‘ultimate object’ had always been and continued to be to convert Hindus because they believed that their salvation depended on conversion, and that conversion was ‘the keystone of the Christianity of the Church’ and its ‘principal preoccupation’. This ‘premise’ of Christianity, as Shourie saw it, was based on the exclusive Christian claims o f ‘one Prophet, one Text, one Church’ in which ‘[t]he Prophet becomes The Last Word on Everything, the Text becomes dogma, and the organization takes over’ (7-18). Shourie was particularly critical of missionary work among dalits and in north-east India. He alleged that the missionaries were presenting, and that the dalits and tribals were looking for, an ‘earthly paradise’ of equality and justice. The fact that this turned out not to be fulfilled in the Christian community made the converts doubly disillusioned. Shourie argued that this pattern had continued throughout the history of Christian missionary work in India, and as a result, ‘the pursuit of conversions has not helped 12 Maharashtra Herald, 29 January, 5 February, 13 February, 26 February and 5 March, 1994; Deccan Chronicle, 30 January, 6 February, 13 February, 20 February, 27 February and 6 March, 1994. 13 Shourie was educated at St Stephen’s College, Delhi.

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the converts’ and it ‘fomented bitterness towards Christians, in particular towards the missionaries’, from both Hindus and converts— as he saw demonstrated in the Meenakshipuram case (19-37). In the light of this, Shourie urged that the church had no option but o f‘giving up conversion altogether’ and concentrating on living the pious life of Jesus, which he contrasted with ‘the life of the Church’. He added that Christians should not work where there is political unrest— as in north-east India— and that, to avoid any misuse of religion, conversion should be scrutinized through legislation (37-40). In the section on ‘the division of labour’, added to his original paper for the book to form its longest section, Shourie put forward his thesis that the administrators of the British Raj, the missionaries and the ‘orientalists’ had worked hand-in-hand for the conversion o f Hindus (55-176). This theory of conspiracy during the time of British rule in India was by no means a new one in the history of mission debate (see Stanley 1990: 11-31). Shourie, however, tried to prove his argument by extensive quotations from sources in the British administration, missionaries and compliant Indian Christians and Indologists. It is important to notice that the quotations Shourie chose not only serve to support his thesis but also reveal Christian views of Hindus and the Hinduism of the time that are highly insulting for modern Hindus. In the third section, which contained the main thesis of his argument, Shourie dealt with the contemporary situation in which the churches in India, particularly the Catholic church, faced ‘changes and dilemmas’. Although he affirmed positive changes in attitudes to Hinduism taking place within Catholic circles, he urged ‘completing the change’. In Shourie’s view, though there was much adaptation in post-Independence India, the church still operated on the same ‘colonial’ premise, namely that salvation depends on conversion. Therefore, the missionaries saw conversion of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes as necessary for ‘liberating’ them, and this undermined Hindu majority rule. Shourie asked, ‘If salvation is possible in each religion, what is the ground for conversion?’ and, conversely, if the church still calls for conversion, whether there has been any change in the church’s position. For him, whatever the church said about contextualization, inculturation and dialogue—which he saw as merely a change in methods of evangelism—the change was incomplete and therefore invalid as far as Hindus were concerned unless what they saw as the basic premise of traditional doctrine was rejected and conversion stopped.

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In his concluding remarks, Shourie advises the church, first, to examine the ‘calumnies’ on India and on Hinduism done by the Christians and, in the light of current new theological thinking, to decide whether they were justified; second, to ask whether it can be claimed, in the light of contemporary scholarship, that the Bible is free of error and the Pope infallible; third, to explain to its adherents and would-be converts the consequences of these critical studies on Christian faith; fourth, to welcome the reality of salvation in Hinduism rather than regard it with ‘condescension and grudging admission’ (211-30). Finally, Shourie concludes with the question of conversion: In view of the fact, now proclaimed by the Church, that salvation is possible in each religion, what is the ground for converting people to Christianity, in particular by the sorts of means which we saw are in use in the North-East to this day? The litmus test of the new ecumenism would therefore be the extent to which the Church brings its traditional zeal for saving souls through conversion in line with this new acknowledgement (230). Shourie’s extensive use of the arguments of Vivekananda, Gandhi and the Niyogi Report (see, for example, 4-17, 41-53, 200-10) shows that he stands in the long tradition of Hindu arguments against conversion examined in earlier chapters of this book. By using the Pune consultation materials and connecting them with colonial documents, he was able to convince Hindu readers that these objections still held, and call for a moratorium on Christian conversion activities.

Christian debate with Arun Shourie The responses from the participants at the consultation to Shourie’s original paper were initially appreciative, though some clearly expressed their disagreement, and Shourie himself was clearly impressed by the moderation of his audience (Shourie 1994: 241-2). However, when Shourie published his paper in daily newspapers and took the liberty of including in his book an extra 48 pages of material distributed at the consultation that was intended only for internal discussion and not for public scrutiny,14 Christians became hostile and there were heated 14 Shourie commented that the full text of the documents in the consultation would ‘enable the reader to glimpse the condition in which the Church is today as an

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exchanges between Hindus and Christians. Some Christian and moderate Hindu respondents were very critical of Shourie and his motives in publishing the book, believing that he was setting up Christians as a new ‘target’ for Hindu fundamentalism after Ayodhya (D’Cruz 1994; Valiaveetil 1994). They termed his attitude towards Christian mission as one of ‘sheer ingratitude’ for the contributions the missionaries had made to India and to his own education (K. Singh 1994). Others criticized Shourie’s highly selective use of quotations from the colonial period because they were ‘inconsistent’, ‘outdated’, ‘out of context’ or ‘exaggerated’ (Clausen 1994; Sankeethamony 1994). Some defended the missionaries, arguing that Christian schools and hospitals could not have ‘ulterior motives’ since, in spite of the alleged efforts o f the missionaries, the numbers of converts were low (for example, D ’Cruz 1994). Some regarded the nineteenth-century missionary critique of Hinduism as justified by the inhumanity of the Hindu customs of those days (K. Singh 1994). Most respondents resented the fact that Shourie’s criticism was based on the history of the missionary movement, which they believed they neither shared responsibility for, nor continued in their present practice, and insisted that, especially since Vatican II, the church’s attitude towards Hinduism and conversion had radically changed. However, there was also some acceptance of Shourie’s critique as providing an opportunity for dialogue between Hindus and Christians and as helpful to Christians for self-evaluation (Pawar 1994a; Clausen 1994; Lesser 1994). Augustine Kanjamala, the main organizer of the Pune consultation, responded to Shourie in a series of newspaper articles putting forward Christianity as a ‘legitimate alternative’ to Sanskritization for the Scheduled Castes and tribals.15 He argued that much of their misery was due to an ‘unjust social structure legitimized by Hindu religious tradition’ which ‘compelled’ them ‘to look to Christian missionaries for protection of their land and promotion of their human dignity’ (Deccan Chronicle, 10 July 1994; Maharashtra Herald, 27 July 1994). Therefore, Christian conversion is ‘a protest movement against the dominant castes organization’ (244). See the correspondence between Kanjamala and Shourie (Voice of India, 1995: 1-10). 15 Maharashtra Herald, 13 July, 20 July, 27 July, 3 August 1994; Deccan Chronide, 10 July 1994. These articles are based on his earlier article (Kanjamala 1984: 307-31; see also 1995: 303-43).

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as well as the acceptance of an alternative path to social progress and liberation’ (Maharashtra Herald, 31 August 1994) and in this context the conversion of the communities of Scheduled Castes and Tribes into a religious system which is ‘rationally more tenable’ was inevitable. The traditional Hindu view, that changing one’s religion is against one’s own Dharma, presents a narrow vision of religion. It is founded on the deterministic and fatalistic life view based on the belief in Karma and Dharma. But in a pluralistic society, together with the growth of reason and freedom, each person should be free to choose one’s own Dharma, irrespective of his state of birth, according to his disposition, need and understanding of religion... Acceptance of such alternatives should be understood as the consequence o f the development of human freedom of choice and self-determination (Deccan Chronicle, 10 July 1994).16 On 4 September 1994 Prajna Bharati, a Hindu forum, organized a public debate between Shourie and Kanjamala. The proceedings were published by the Voice of India (1995). Kanjamala, the first to speak, alleged that Shourie’s critique was of a concept of mission belonging to ‘another age’. He described his book as ‘exaggerated’ and ‘aggressive’ and even having a ‘hidden agenda’ to undermine all activities of the church by treating them as a tool for conversion of Hindus. He pointed out Shourie’s omission of any reference to contemporary theologians of religion in India such as Griffiths and Abhishiktananda. He claimed that during the last half century the church had been through a radical change and was now entering an age of ‘mutual mission’: We have rejected the exclusive idea that salvation is possible only within the Christian churches. On the contrary, we have an inclusive concept of salvation, which says that generally and for all the people, 16 See also S A Godbole who disputes Kanjamala’s claims arguing that Christianity is not free from the caste system and that it has not really changed the ‘ground realties’ of the converts, and therefore it cannot be justified as an ‘alternative’ to Hinduism (Godbole 1994). See also Vinod Pawar who alleges that the missionary endeavour in India was in the first place for evangelism, not social justice, that the latter was employed only to serve the former, that conversion is essentially a ‘spiritual activity’, and that social injustice in India is to do with poor governance, not religious tenets (1994b).

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the means of salvation is their religion and life, according to their good conscience (Kanjamala 1995b: 11-19). Kanjamala produced statistics purporting to show that 85 per cent of Indian Catholics no longer saw conversion as the primary motive of missionary activity, which was now directed not at the other-worldly salvation o f the soul but at liberation from social injustice. The fact that so few Hindus had been converted in nearly 2000 years of Christianity in India showed, in Kanjamala’s view, that Christianity was not a threat but that Christians were offering a social service to India far out of proportion to their numbers, and he directed the audience’s attention to the urgency of the social task (1995b: 19-25). In a lengthy response Shourie agreed that the missionary movement had inspired social reforms, that it had been exemplary in education and medicine, that individuals had undoubtedly been dedicated, and that everyone had the right to propagate their faith. He objected that his positive appreciation of Christianity had not been returned by Kanjamala in his assessment of Hinduism, which he found ill-mannered, and he refuted Kanjam ala’s arguments. He insisted that m issionary denunciations of Hinduism could not be regarded as a mistake— he thought them deliberate. The low figures for conversion, he said were an indication of the inner strength of Hinduism, not proof of a lack of any conversion motive on the part o f Christians. Shourie rejected Kanjamala’s argument that conversion was not the motive of Christian service, insisting that the institutional church had not denounced the old doctrine and still expected conversion, therefore impugning even such ‘saintly efforts’ as Mother Teresa’s. He regarded the justification for conversion as the crucial question whereas he found Kanjamala had only discussed the theoretical purpose of missionary work (Shourie 1995: 27-38). Shourie’s argument was that contemporary missionary work was essentially continuous with the colonial mentality; the change was only in the circumstances. Quoting the CBCI documents, he pointed out that the notion of salvation in other religions was ‘a matter of concern* for many Christians precisely because it weakened the motive for conversion. He regarded the change in the attitude of missionaries to conversion that was revealed in Kanjamala’s survey as problematic for Christians because: first, it had not been fully accepted by the church; secondly, it would, if actually accepted, obviate the need to convert others;

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and thirdly, it would render Christian opposition to the Freedom of Religion Bill incomprehensible. The fact was, as fir as Shourie was concerned, that ‘force, fraud and allurement’ continued in Christian conversion activities because Christianity had lost its foundational beliefs in the face of the progress of science and technology and had been further undermined by biblical scholarship. The church in India had not been able to accept these changes and continued with the same methods— though force was now disallowed—as evidenced in an intelligence report he had obtained on missionary work in north-east India (1995: 39—44). Not only were the methods unchanged but Shourie found ‘a new deviousness’ in Kanjamala’s own articles in the Maharashtra Herald and Deccan Chronicle. Kanjamala used the supposed social uplift of dalits after conversion to prove to them the superiority of Jesus whereas the Catholic documents Shourie had obtained showed litde or no change in the status of the converts and that the caste system continued in the church. Furthermore, he found the Catholic practices of the converts no better than Hindu ‘superstitions’. He dismissed Kanjamala’s theory that conversion was a protest movement against Hinduism on the grounds that large-scale conversions were not taking place. Shourie claimed that since Christianity had failed in Europe, Christians were foisting a pre­ modern, uncritical faith on India. He ended by urging that Christianity emulate Hinduism and ‘[g]ive up this obsession with yourselves’ (1995: 45-55). The documentary evidence Shourie had produced for his conspiracy theory was indisputable and it certainly indicated some Christian complicity in imperial attitudes toward Hindus. But the relationship between British officials and missionaries was far more complex than his theory allowed and the application of the material to the Catholic church was highly questionable. On the other hand, our studies of intra-Catholic debates on conversion and of Redemptoris Missio certainly give credence to Shourie’s criticism that Kanjamala was misrepresenting Catholic Christianity by claiming that the aim of mission was liberation not conversion. By focusing on conversion, Shourie succeeded in demonstrating a measure of commonality between colonial and contemporary missionary attitudes in India. Shourie was correct in arguing that if Kanjamala’s ‘personal belief that salvation is possible in all religions’ were the practice of the whole church, ‘there would be no problem at all’, since this accords with his own Gandhian view (Shourie 1995:60-61). But Kanjamala could not convince Shourie and the Hindu

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audience that this was the case in the face of Catholic documents to the contrary and, by insisting on his own understanding of conversion as a protest, he failed to represent the multiple dimensions o f Christian understanding of conversion, even within the Catholic church. Another critique of Shourie relevant to our discussion is by the Protestant writer Vishal Mangalwadi who, in his collections of (unanswered) letters to Shourie, saw him as a ‘Post-modern Hindu’ who neither sought the ‘Truth’ nor regarded finding it as possible (Mangalwadi 1996: 11-7). Consequendy Mangalwadi asserted that it was impossible for Shourie to understand the missionary movement of the nineteenth century, which was part of the modern age of certainty. Contrary to Shourie, Mangalwadi insisted that there were fundamental differences between the administrators and the missionaries, the former bringing ‘rule and ruin’ and the latter ‘blessings and modernity’ to India. However, he conceded an ‘open conspiracy’ in that, under the theology o f the providence of God, it was in the interests and duty of both groups to ‘bless’ India (125-30, 172-80). Mangalwadi’s views on missionaries and evangelicalism are uncritical and in many ways naïve;17 his opinion of Hinduism and other Indians is very negative;18 and much of his argument was intended to demonstrate the positive contribution of the missionaries. However, in his discussion on ‘truth and tolerance’, he argued that the reason some Hindus objected to conversion was not because o f a commitment to pluralism but a cosy relativism: Honest recognition of pluralism admits that there are religious differences and that they run deep. But belief in serious differences between religions provides a logic to the idea of conversion, and drops hard choices into our laps. It is far more comforting to believe the relativism which assures us that all roads lead to the same place. This 17 For example, ‘A missionary, by definition, is one who serves the interests of a group or a country, other than his own’ (125); ‘personal sacrifice for India’; ‘great men and women...demolish forever the idea of a British conspiracy behind missions’ (159); ‘freedom of religion, conscience and expression are a gift o f Puritan Fundamentalism’ (41). 18 Examples of this include: ‘Like our [Indian] gods, they [Indian inspectors], too, will use their power to harrass the suppliers, unless appeased with bribes’ (62); ‘we cannot trust the Indian character’ (176); ‘Hindusm (as a hierarchical social order) and Democracy (as an equalizing social force) are antithetical to each other’ (220). Conversely he is very positive about Westerners (see 61-4).

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means that there is no need to be anxious about real commitment to any one God or ultimate truth (57). Mangalwadi, though responding to Shourie, seemed more concerned about presenting his own reasons for rejecting other Christian views on conversion—what he saw as ‘pseudo sociological conversion’— and asserting his own definition of conversion as a ‘radical change of world view’, which involves ‘forgiveness, love and respect’ and, first and foremost, ‘accepting God and our Saviour’ (229-33). This exclusive approach with its strong presupposition that the ultimate truth lies only in Christianity failed to impress Hindus and the intended dialogue never took place (17; see also Goel 1996: 480-2). Among the Christian respondents to Shourie, Catholic historian, J. Rosario Narchison appeared most willing to receive his critique (Narchison 1996: 185-219). He believed Shourie’s book ought to have received more favourable attention and described it as ‘a veritable masterpiece, a literary repast’. However, like other respondents, Narchison concentrated his arguments on what he saw as the ‘venom’ in Shourie and tried to discredit him. He saw the major problem of Shourie’s thesis as historical and thus most of his effort was spent in defending the administrators, missionaries, and orientalists, and proving that the relationship between them was not as simple as Shourie suggested (1878, 195-207). Narchison paid close attention to Shourie’s points and admitted the dilemmas the church laced in the relationship between activities directed at conversion, appreciation of other religions, social involvement, and inculturation. However, he accused Shourie of failing ‘to hear the cry from the depth of the heart of the Catholic Church for a new vision’ and regarded it as ‘a pity and a tragedy’ that Shourie chose to ignore ‘the painful struggle the Church is going through’ in the present and to use the occasion of the meeting at Pune ‘to harp on a past’ (21114). In order to judge whether these criticisms are valid, I will examine Shourie’s argument more closely in order to understand the circumstances around the time of the debates. IV .

T h e p a st a n d p r e s e n t o f H in d u a n d C h r is t ia n u n d e r s t a n d in g s o f c o n v e r s io n

The Christian respondents by and large focused on Shourie’s conspiracy theory and his use of historical material, which they thought was not

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properly interpreted or fairly treated. They tried to de-link colonial administrators from missionaries, or to bring out the positive contributions of the missionaries and mission work, or to disconnect the past from the present as a ‘bad dream’ or ‘mistake’ o f earlier missionaries. The Christian objection to Shourie’s critique was one of resentment that, in contrast to the efforts of Christians to share a common identity with Hindus, Shourie had brought out Hindu prejudices against Indian Christians. By relating conversion and colonial oppression, Shourie had accused Indian Christians of continuing to pursue conversion as part of the colonial legacy. Christians, who were mindful o f the Hindu slogan o f targeting religious minorities— ‘first M uslim s, next Christians’—and for whom the memory of the demolition o f the Babri Masjid and the ensuing violence which had swept the country were still vivid, felt this was a deliberate attempt by Shourie and his associates to isolate Christians from sharing a common identity with other Indians. However, the Christian response towards Shourie neither convinced Hindus o f the church’s new spirit of humility nor learned from the critique of one of the best-known journalists in contemporary India. It was a missed opportunity to engage in conversation for a better understanding of Christian mission and conversion not only by Hindus but also by Christians themselves. Careful examination of his book and his public debate with Kanjamala shows that Shourie’s argument was, in contrast to what most Christian respondents saw, a theological one. He called for the church to espouse a Hindu understanding of truth, which he characterized as affirming salvation in all religions. Although he went to considerable lengths to try to convince readers of a ‘conspiracy’ during imperial history, he neither established this nor was it his main intention to do so. This is clear from the facts that the paper he presented at the Consultation made no mention of a missionary relationship with administrators and Indologists and that, in response to Christian criticism in the ensuing debate, he defended his use of the historical documents but did not mention the theory. Shourie’s main allegation against the missionaries was not their collaboration with the imperial power per se but their campaign of conversion. He articulated Hindu resentment of the fact that missionaries, with all their good intentions, chose to convert Hindus to Christianity rather than reform Hindu society and Hinduism itself, and he saw this as resulting from the attitude that Hinduism was primarily responsible for the injustice and problems of Indian society and that conversion therefore required renunciation of the ‘past’. What

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Shourie established was that there had been a strong intention by missionaries to convert Hindus for their ultimate salvation, and that this was based on an exdusivist doctrine. Shourie further challenged both the exclusive claims of Christianity and the call for a radical conversion, arguing that they represented a failed theology that even many Christian theologians had rejected, though changes in Christian theology of other religions were as yet incomplete since the church was still locked into her ‘obsession’ with herself (Shourie 1995: 53-5). Shourie (and many of his Christian respondents) seemed to assume that there should be one theology of conversion in one Christian church and that change should be total. He failed to allow for the diversity of Christian theologies of religions and approaches to conversion. The Christian diversity Shourie saw was for him a ‘contradiction’ or a sign that the church had not yet ‘completed the change’ by giving up conversion. Shourie believed that there was a common Hindu identity in India and that, in spite of the diversities of race, culture, belief and caste, all should conform to the greater cause of Hindutva. He insisted that Christians should abandon conversion because of the exclusive claims that he associated with it. He saw a way forward for Hindu-Christian relations if Christians were all to adopt a theology of ‘salvation in all religions’, which he found compatible with a Gandhian understanding of the ‘equality of religions’. The problem of Shourie’s argument against Christian conversion is that, when it comes to its application, at least in India, it is not pluralistic, as he claimed, but a demand for the adoption of a Hindu understanding within what he regarded as Hindu territory. In contrast to his claims of Hindu tolerance on the basis of equality of religions, this approach is intolerant towards those who hold other faiths and towards those who wish to change their Hindu faith and convert to another religion. Shourie started from the premise that Hinduism is a unified philosophy with only one acceptable expression, Hindutva. He not only tried to make Christianity conform to this mould but also ignored the changing nature and diversity of Hinduism. Kanjamala’s justification for conversion was based on his argument that Christian conversion provides justice and dignity for dalits and tribals, and that it is not based on the exclusive claim of Christian doctrine, which he insisted, was a theology o f‘another age’. However, Redemptoris Missio and other papal documents clearly state that conversion to Christian faith is required not only for liberation from present injustice and deprivation but also for eternal salvation, which depends on

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acceptance of Christ and association with the church. As Kanjamala himself made clear when he criticized Rcdemptoris Missio, there is a diversity of Christian understandings of conversion, even within the Catholic church. What he presented in debate with Shourie was his own view, which neither satisfied Hindus nor gave a full picture of Christian belief. By failing to admit this reality, Kanjamala not only appeared disingenuous to Hindus, who were well informed about Christian belief, but he also misrepresented Christianity in the same way as Shourie misrepresented Hinduism, as a unified and total system, thereby ignoring or marginalizing the theologies of other Christians. What seemed to be missing among the Christian leaders in the 1990s was intra-Christian discussion on conversion; and instead, there was a dismissive attitude towards those who held different understandings. In the same way Christian leaders were dismissive of the past. In the face of the Hindu critique on conversion, they tried to drive a wedge between past and present, between the theologies brought by the missionaries and current thinking. But, as Shourie pointed out, there was a continuity between past and present, the past had not simply evaporated but persisted in the present and contributed to the diversity of understanding of conversion within the Christian churches. The following chapter will reveal that more aggressive approaches to conversion were vibrant and widely held so that Christians could not blame Hindu ‘fundamentalists’ alone for the increasing Hindu-Christian clashes in tribal areas which provoked the national debate on conversion in 1998-99.

8 The Debate on Conversion Initiated by the Sangh Parivar, 1998-1999 When the one who is in an advantageous position seeks to force his conception of God and the Universe on the other who is in a vulnerable position, when the one strikes at that which is deepest and most precious in the heart of the other, he invites resistance. — Shripaty Sastry (1983: 6)1 Despite their dismissive attitude, what the Hindus certainly cannot ignore any more is the fact that the two communities [Hindu and Christian] are heading for a showdown. And given the volatility o f the situation, the clash is likely to come sooner rather than later. — N.K. Singh (1992: 97)2

In the first half of the 1990s, India witnessed the rise of political power both in local and central governments of the RSS ‘family’ of organizations, collectively referred to as the Sangh Parivar, often abbreviated to ‘the Parivar’ or ‘the Sangh’ (Nandy 1995: 69-99; Basu 1993). As a result of the election in March 1998, for the first time a BJP-led government held power at the centre, though as part of a coalition it had to accept the logic of consensus politics to a certain extent. Where their Hindutva ideology encountered the Christian campaign of world evangelization, considerable tension was the result, as in the debate between Arun Shourie 1 Sastry, a prominent RSS leader, made this speech tp a Christian audience at De Nobili College, Pune, on 8 July 1983. 2 Singh deals with the conflict between Christian and non-Christian tribals in Madhya Pradesh.

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and his Christian interlocutors. This tension was particularly acute in tribal areas as Christian missionaries and Parivar activists often confronted each other over the issue of conversion (Shah 1999: 312-18; see India Today, 25 January 1999, 30 March 1999). During the second half of the decade the situation noticeably worsened as the Parivar activists started to instigate violence against Christian communities, culminating in 19989 in a series of attacks ( Communalism Combat, April 1998: 16-18, October 1998: 10, January 1999: 12; Martin 1999: 13-20; AIFODR Report 1999: 95-8). The tension continued as a result of the prime minister’s call for a ‘national debate on conversion’ in January 1999 and the visit of the Pope John Paul II to Delhi, 5-8 November 1999. Indeed in this period conversion became a major socio-religious and political issue and was openly debated in the national press. In this chapter I will consider the historical setting to discover why and how the issue of conversion became so controversial in India at the close of the twentieth century; I will then analyse the debate itself. I . H i n d u - C h r i s t i a n TEN SIO NS OVER CO NVERSION

The 1998-99 debate on conversion was sparked by the controversy surrounding conversions of tribal communities. During the 1990s, the Parivar focused their attention on tribal areas where Christian missionaries had already established educational institutions and medical facilities and conversions were taking place. In the case of the Dangs district of Gujarat, Ghanshyam Shah points out that, despite census statistics showing that overall the population of Christians in India was actually falling, the Christian growth rate in the area was remarkably high and, particularly in the last few decades of the twentieth century, there was increasing competition between Christian organizations and Hindu societies for conversion or reconversion respectively. This resulted in various clashes over tribal customs, which the converts to Christianity had ceased to observe (Shah 1999: 312-5). While Christians argued that tribals were not Hindus, the Parivar, who renamed the tribals vanvasi (or vanavasi, forest dwellers) rather than adivasi (original inhabitants), argued that they were part of the Hindu family as they shared many o f the cultural and religious aspects of Hindu religion. The Parivar adopted a programme of gbar vapsi (ghar vapasi) or ‘homecoming’ to counteract Christian missionary activities and they also started schools and other

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social activities in the tribal areas (Indian Express, 13 February 1999).3 Occasional conflicts between Hindu activists and missionaries and between tribal converts and non-converts escalated and, by the close of the decade, some tribal areas were being described as a ‘battleground’ for conversion (Banerjee, 1998).4 The rise of BJP as a political power at both local state and central government levels inevitably brought about a strong suspicion among religious minorities that the Sangh Parivar would use this political influence to achieve their religious purposes of Hindutva at the expense of minority rights. The removal of the exemption from income tax of educational and medical institutions by the Finance Act 1998 and suggestions that churches be disqualified as places of worship because wine is ‘served’ on the premises were regarded by Christians as a misuse of political power (Martin 1999: 21-9). During the 1998 election campaign, some Hindu activists in tribal areas allegedly threatened that, if they won the election, they would withdraw Scheduled Tribe concessions for Christian tribals in an effort to persuade them to reconvert (Shah 1999: 316). While strongly denying the alleged inducements to conversion in the tribal areas, Christians protested that the intimidation by Hindu activists was a clear breach of the secular nature o f the Constitution. However, the threats increased and Hindu activists, particularly in the state of Gujarat, started to attack Christian communities in what appeared to be a pre-planned and deliberate action on behalf of their organizations. Christians responded with a large-scale demonstration and by issuing statements to raise awareness and support among the general public (Martin 1999: 27-9). A statement by both the Catholic church and Protestant churches on 12 July 1998 condemned the actions of the Parivar as ‘systematic attacks’ not only on the minorities but also on the fundamental rights of the citizens of India, which were creating ‘an atmosphere of fear’ (Martin 1999: 25-6). But attacks on Christian communities further intensified during Christmas 1998.

The call for a national debate on conversion On 10 January 1999, after visiting the Dangs district, the prime minister and leader of the BJP, Atal Behari Vajpayee, called for a ‘national debate 3 In this period ‘homecoming’ became preferred over the term shuddhi in response to Christian criticism that the latter implied a form of conversion. 4 The article reported that no less than thirty clashes had occurred in Orissa in the preceding year. See also Express Magazine, 11 October 1998.

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on conversion’; on the grounds that it is ‘in everybody’s interest that a general consensus be formed on the issue’ (Indian Express, 11 January 1999). The Sangh Parivar leadership, insisting that the violence was caused by the Christian campaign of conversion in the tribal areas, declared their intention to ‘combat conversions’ (New Indian Express, 9 January 1999; The Times o f India, 2 January 1999). Furthermore, they asked the government to take a number of measures including issuing a ‘total ban on conversion’; ensuring that converts were returned to the Hindu fold; withdrawing Scheduled Tribe concessions given to the tribal converts; banning the foreign funding of Christian missionaries; and tabling a constitutional amendment to prevent conversions (Indian Express, 6 January 1999; The Times o f India, 6 January 1999; Maharashtra Herald, 12, 13 January 1999; New Indian Express, 20 January 1999). They accused the Christian campaign of conversion of being ‘deliberately provocative’ because it involved ‘attacking and abusing’ Hindu deities, and described it as the ‘politics of minoritism’ (Shenoy 1999a). In the arguments forcefully presented by some Hindu writers during the debate, there was a gradual but sure shift in the position of the Parivar from objection only to conversion by force or inducement to objection to conversion per se. The call for a national debate was met by generally negative responses from the Christian communities. It was seen as ‘adroidy hinting that Christians are ultimately responsible for their own woes’ and as a ‘wellthought-out Sangh Parivar strategy’ to alter the fundamental right of freedom of religion in the Constitution (Sarkar 1999: 77, 96; Martin 1999: 42—3, 69). Christians maintained that the problem was not conversion, since there was no evidence of the alleged ‘forced conversion’ taking place in tribal areas: it was the Parivar’s aggressive approach to minorities that was causing trouble. In the midst of this debate, the killing of Graham Staines, an Australian missionary who had been in charge of a leprosy home in Orissa, and his two sons on the night of 22 January 1999 not only shocked the people of India but was also much publicized worldwide and raised deep concern for the deteriorating situation. It also seemed to support the Christian insistence that the Hindu argument on conversion was faulty because the missionary concerned appeared not to have been involved in converting tribals. The statement of the joint meeting of the CBCI, NCCI and other Protestant churches on 2 February 1999 condemned the violence towards the Christian minority, which it saw as perpetrated

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by ‘fundamentalists’ with an ideology o f‘intolerance, cultural exclusivism and dominion’: Denying the pluralistic cultural heritage and the right of the poor to developmental resources, these forces strike out against anyone who disturbs the status quo. The church and the Christian community is a special target because of its long-standing work in empowerment of the poor, the marginalized, the Dalits, women and tribals (Martin 1999: 53). Christians, together with the English-language media blamed the violence on Parivar attempts to ‘forcefully’ reconvert Christians in tribal areas and saw the issue of conversion as a ‘constructed’ justification for the recent violence, which was an attempt by high-caste Hindus to retain their hegemony and dominate Indian society ( Communalism Combat, January 1999). At the National Consultation on Religious Liberty and Human Rights held in August, Christians emphasized the constitutional right of religious freedom and even suggested a political coalition with other minority religious communities to protect their rights (NCCR, August 1999: 607-12). On the other hand, the VHP, the Parivar organization most vehemently against conversion, placed a commitment to ‘curbing conversions’ at the top of their agenda in their large meeting held in Ahmedabad in February 1999. They also claimed that the total number of Christian missionaries in post-Independence India had drastically increased, a claim largely substantiated by Christian figures (The Times of India, 6 February 1999; Indian Express, 6 February 1999).5 They argued that Hindu religion and culture were ‘facing a grave threat’ as missionaries were ‘exploiting the social inequalities in the Hindu society’, and urged Hindus to reconvert those who had left the Hindu fold (Indian Express, 6 February 1999; Maharashtra Herald, 6 February 1999; The Times o f India, 6 February 1999). This was followed by a muchpublicized homecoming ceremony of tribals in a village in Madhya 5 The Parivar claimed that the numbers of missionaries had increased from 1744 in 1947 to 15,000 in 1999. Patrick Johnstone (1993: 274-5) gives a figure of 3143 for expatriate missionaries (Protestant and Catholic) and 11,284 for Indian (Protestant) missionaries working in different parts of India. For statistics of recent Catholic personnel, see Kanjamala (1995: 608-10).

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Pradesh in which Dilip Singh Judeo, a member of the Rajya Sabha and the leading protagonist of ghar vapsi, washed the feet of some o f those who had reconverted ( The Times o f India, 15 February 1999; Indian Express, 15 February 1999). The report of the Justice D.P. Wadhwa Commission of Inquiry into the killing of Graham Staines, published on 21 June 1999, seemed to endorse the Parivar’s argument.6 The report praised the dedication and sacrificial work of Staines and recognized that preaching the gospel is both an integral part of Christian faith and a fundamental right ( Wadhwa Report 1999: 90-1). However, it also found clear evidence that this particular missionary was ‘involved in active propagation of his religion apart from his social work’ and concluded that his missionary work ‘did lead to conversions o f tribals to his faith’ (32). It argued that the killing was not an isolated incident but was motivated by the ‘misplaced fundamentalism’ of the individuals who believed that the missionary was ‘instrumental in convening poor adivasis into Christianity’ (55, 90). While Christians and the Englishlanguage media were sceptical of the findings of the report (Indian Express, 7 August 1999; The Times o f India, 13 August 1999; The Asian Age, 27 August 1999), the Parivar saw it as vindicating their view that Christian conversion was the key factor in provoking HinduChristian communal tension (Shourie 1999a, 1999b). The friction continued during the elections in September, when Christian leaders openly campaigned against the BJP (Martin 1999: 69-72).

The controversy surrounding the visit o f Pope John Paul II to India As the fever of the election began to fade, the VHP launched a campaign against the visit of Pope John Paul II to India due that November and focused on the issue of conversion as the most controversial aspect of it. The VHP and the RSS demanded that the Pope apologize for the Goa Inquisition and ‘forced conversions’ in Goa during the Portuguese period and that he should withdraw the claim of salvation only through Christianity (The Asian Age, 10, 12, 17 October 1999; Outlook, 25 October 1999:18-9)7 In response to this the archbishop of Delhi insisted that the Pope has ‘full freedom to assert his belief in saying that Jesus is 6 The Commission was appointed by the central government on 29 January 1999. 7 It was also reported that a Freedom of Religion Bill had been submitted to the Gujarat government for discussion (The Asian Age, 16 October 1999).

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the saviour of mankind and it is up to the people to accept it or reject it’ (The Asian Age, 15 October 1999). The Pope’s visit excited such vigorous debate that for a few weeks articles appeared in the press daily, either critical of the Pope and Christianity on the one side or defending the Catholic church’s position on the other.8 Although John Paul II’s previous visit to India in 1986 had also met with Hindu opposition (Seshadri 1985), on this occasion the VHP campaign for an apology received much heavier media coverage and triggered a wider public debate on conversion. By drawing attention to atrocities by the Catholic church under Portuguese rule, the VHP both embarrassed Christians about their past and also succeeded in awakening the religious sentiments of Hindus. The Goa Inquisition (1560-1812) was carried on not only against Christian heretics but also against Hindus and other non-Christians, who were accused of obstructing conversion or infringing on some of the laws directed against their religions (Thekkedath 1988: 406-8; Priolkar 1961: 50, 159, 189). The Parivar were able to persuade the public that the past attitude of the church, portrayed in the terror of Inquisition, still persisted in the Roman Catholic approach to Hindus, despite the claim by some Catholics of a decisive shift after Vatican II. Hindu fundamentalists drew a parallel between contemporary missionaries and those of the time of the Inquisition, arguing that they had the same agenda and the same motive to convert Hindus, the only difference being that the current methods did not use physical force (Kamath 1999). Contemporary Christian missionary portrayals of Hinduism as evil were brought to the notice of Hindu leaders in the 1990s and gave them ample evidence that Christians still held the same attitudes towards Hindus and Hinduism as in the colonial period.9 For the Parivar, the important link between the Inquisition and the late twentieth century was the church’s insistence on conversion, and they argued that as long as Christians held the view that only Christianity provides salvation, their ‘aggressive’ campaign of converting Hindus would continue. As they made clear, a mere apology would not be enough: conversion activities must be stopped and the church must denounce conversion (Indian Express, 3 November 1999). 8 For a highly critical view of the Pope, see S. Prasannarajan (1999). 9 See Menezes and Menon (1999) and the response from Ashok Chowgule in T he Zealots Who Would Inherit (and a Response)’, http: //www.hvk.org/artides/ 0299/0056.html (date accessed: 26 September 2000). See also The Times o f India, 11 November 1999; Mozumder (1999).

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At his meeting with religious leaders on arrival in India, Pope John Paul II emphasized the need for a deeper understanding and dialogue among the people of different religions and at the same time, stressed the importance of religious freedom: No state, no group has the right to control either direcdy or indirecdy a person’s religious convictions, nor can it justifiably claim the right to impose or impede the public profession and practice of religion, or the respectful appeal of a particular religion to people’s free conscience (L’Osscrvatore Romano, 10 November 1999: 4). During his visit, the Pope offered no apology for the excesses o f the Goa Inquisition; instead, in the apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Asia released during this visit, he reasserted the traditional view of the relationship of Christianity towards other religions of his encyclical Redempcoris Missio (1990). Ecclesia in Asia had been produced as the outcome of the All Asia Bishops’ Synod; therefore it did not address the theological quests of India alone. Nevertheless, it is significant that it was delivered in India in the midst of the conversion debate; hence it is necessary to look at it more closely. John Paul II began Ecclesia in Asia with the following exhortation: With the Church throughout the world, the Church in Asia will cross the threshold of the Third Christian Millennium marvelling at all that God has worked from those beginnings until now, and strong in the knowledge that ‘just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that o f the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest o f faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent’ (EA 1). He further reminded the bishops of Asia that evangelism was their ‘absolute priority’ because ‘Christ is the one Mediator between God and man and the sole Redeemer of the world’ (EA 2). He insisted that although the church respected other religious traditions and their ‘soteriological character’, and sought to dialogue with them, their religious values ‘await their fulfilment in Jesus Christ’ (EA 6). Particularly in the chapter on ‘Jesus the Saviour: A Gift to Asia’, he stressed that the unique contribution of the church to the people of Asia is ‘the proclamation of

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Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the one and only Saviour for all peoples’ (EA 10,13,14). In the chapter on ‘Jesus the Saviour: Proclaiming the Gift’, it was made clear that there is ‘no true evangelization without the explicit proclamation of Jesus as Lord’, and furthermore that the ‘primacy of the proclamation’ should be maintained ‘in all evangelizing work’ (EA 19). Although he acknowledged the importance of inculturation in evangelization, John Paul II nevertheless insisted on the unchangeable and universal nature of Christian doctrine and he affirmed that the Catholic church is ‘the ordinary means of salvation’ (£A 2, 23, 31). Ecclesia in Asia was very much criticized by the secular media, who ‘expected [John Paul II] to unfold a new doctrine that takes into account the religious and cultural diversities that the Asian continent represents’, because they, perceived ‘no further progress’ since Vatican II. They complained that, according to the document, conversion remains the ‘cardinal objective of the church’ and that the inter-religious dialogue promoted by Indian theologians was discarded in favour of ‘motivated dialogue’ (Indian Express, 9 November 1999). There was furious criticism from the Parivar, who vowed to ‘finish’ conversion.10 Shourie declared that the Pope had ‘silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists’ by explicidy declaring the church’s intention towards other religions and their plans to evangelize not only India but the whole of Asia (1999c). The only reference to conversion in the document was the phrase ‘a call to conversion’, which was much quoted by Hindus but was in fact a call to Christians to become worthy of God (EA 4). However, the content of the document made it more than clear that there was a continuing call by the church hierarchy to the explicit preaching of the Christian gospel in the Asian continent with a view to the conversion of nonChristians. Therefore, Hindus were correct in interpreting it as a call for the conversion of Hindus.

II.

C o n v e r s io n fr o m t h e p e r sp e c tiv e o f H in d u s

Throughout the debate on conversion during 1998-9, the Parivar consistently asserted that the root cause of Hindu-Christian tension was the Christian campaign of conversion. It is therefore necessary to examine 10 Acharya Giriraj Kishore, the VHP vice-president reported in Outlook, 22 November 1999: 14-6.

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the truth of this claim. The prominent historian, Sumit Sarkar, located the root of the violence generally in the Parivar’s aggressive campaign of Hindutva, which needed ‘enemy Others’ for their reaction to the threat of globalization and to the spread of liberation theologies, which sought to empower the downtrodden in Hindu society against the interests of a dominant minority o f high-caste Hindus (1999: 98-101). Supporting Sarkar, K.N. Panikkar insisted that blaming Christian conversion was an ‘afterthought, a convenient pretext’. He added that the violence was due, first, to the Parivar’s search for political support from tribal areas and the necessity of displacing the considerable Christian influence on tribals, and secondly as retaliation against the secular position taken by several Christian organizations in the face of Parivar politics (1999: xvxix). This view was also shared by the report of the All India Federation of Organisations for Democratic Rights, first published in April 1999, which saw conversion as ‘a manufactured issue, a deliberate diversion and a trap’ and a ‘justification for its sudden decision to attack Christians’ in order to ‘sway the majority of people with a hate campaign against a minority’ (AIFODR Report 1999: 6-9, 90-1). The implication was that Hindu politicization of religions must be checked and that religion and politics should be kept within the framework of secular ideology. However, though the above arguments may have explained the socio­ political dimensions of the situation, they neglected to examine the religious dynamics of the contact in which the Parivar operated and failed to register what Peter van der Veer calls the ‘narration by the aggressor’ (1996: 263—8). In this case the aggressors constandy expressed resentment towards the Christian campaign of conversion, particularly in the tribal areas. Indeed, conversions to Christianity were taking place, tensions were being created by Christian conversions in tribal areas, and the leaders of the Parivar did have evidence of Christian campaigns for the evangelization of India which actually ‘targeted’ the tribals with what seemed to be careful planning to achieve their goals of converting them. Moreover, there were many examples of Hindu objections to Christian conversions both in their writings and in their campaign of shuddhi or ghar vapsi. Explaining the Parivar’s resentment of conversion, Pran Chopra forcefully states the Hindu argument: Historically, most conversions to Islam and Christianity took place under the shadow of the power of Muslim and Christian conquerors of India . . . the vast majority of Hindus, who had remained faithful

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to their religion despite defeat in battle . . . saw the converts as people who had betrayed the nation by going over to the other side of the conqueror, and they saw conversions as the convener’s device . . . for subverting Hindu society by dividing it against the higher Hindu castes, which had resisted what many Hindus saw as a religio-cultural invasion by foreign conquerors (Chopra 1999). Furthermore, in their examination of the situation, Christians failed to grasp that the nationalism that the Parivar advocated was deeply religious. In his study of the events at Ayodhya, van der Veer has convincingly argued that the Hindu violence resulted not because of the rise of politically motivated fundamentalists but rather from the shift of power to ‘religious nationalism’. Unlike Ashis Nandy (1988: 177-94), who argued that the recent violence was due to the failure of the ideology of the secular state and that a return to the traditions of Hinduism was the way forward in the context of communal violence, van der Veer insisted that what was taking place was a shift from the ‘religious notion of sacred space’ to ‘nationalist notions of territory’ (1996:253-60). In other words, it was not that religion was used by politically motivated Hindus but rather that the religious pursuit of ‘sacred space’ was expressed in a claim on the territory of the sacred place. Hindu leaders regarded tribals as at the boundary of the Hindu fold, and it was interference with this space that provoked them to react. It is apparent from the above discussion that the issue of conversion was not just ‘manufactured’ by the Parivar to justify their actions towards the Christian community, but was a key issue for them to deal with in the course of their campaign o f Hindutva. In 1998-9 the Parivar used the national media to argue for the illegitimacy of conversion in a pluralistic society like India. They produced an unprecedented number of articles and books during the period, but some of their most forceful arguments are found in the writings of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, Ashok Chowgule, David Frawley, and Arun Shourie. These characterize conversion as violence against humanity, an attack on Hindu nationhood, and an inherent problem of Christianity.

Conversion as violence against humanity The most important development in the Parivar’s argument against conversion in the 1998-9 debate was the identification of conversion as

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violence against humanity and therefore evil and unacceptable. In the Parivar’s view, as ‘social and religious violence’ ‘all conversions are wrong’ and ‘there is no justification for conversion in this age’ (Maharashtra Herald, 13 January 1999; The Times o f India, 16 January 1999). The most vigorous argument was presented by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the head of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, who wrote an ‘open letter’ to the Pope presenting Hindu views on conversion. He contended that all should have ‘the freedom to pursue’ their own religion, each of which has some beauty and something to contribute to the enrichment of humanity. However, he claimed: Religions that are committed by their theologies to convert... are necessarily aggressive, since conversion implies a conscious intrusion into the religious life of a person, in fact, into the religious person. This is a very deep intrusion, as the religious person is the deepest, the most basic in any individual.... Thus, conversion is not merely violence against people; it is violence against people who are committed to non-violence (Saraswati 1999). David Frawley (or Vamadeva Shastri), a Hindu convert from the Catholic faith, offered a vigorous critique of ‘organized conversion’ by Christian missionaries as perpetuating ‘psychological violence’ towards people of other faiths, and insisted that conversion is an ‘ideological assault’, a form of ‘religious violence and intolerance’, and an ‘attempt o f one religion to exterminate all others’: Conversion is a sin against the Divine in man. It refuses to recognize the religion of another as valid. Above all, the organized conversion business is one of the meanest and most underhanded activities of the human being, on par with war. It seeks to undermine and discredit the natural faith of people.11 Similarly, Ashok Chowgule presented conversion as part o f the ‘destructive’ effect of missionary activities on the local people, exploiting and undermining the local culture and religion, as illustrated in the case of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the Americas. He also argued, 11 David Frawley, ‘T h e Missionary Position’, http: //www.bjp .o rg/news/ febl799.html (date accessed: 24 February 2000).

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using V.S. Naipaul’s analysis (Naipaul 1998: 1-3), that conversion is used as an effective tool to destroy a people’s history, as it serves to prevent converts from returning to the past (Chowgule 1999: 17-25). This identification of conversion with violence was echoed in a memorandum submitted by a group of Hindus to the prime minister, which condemned conversion as ‘an explosive socio-religious activity capable of igniting centrifugal forces’ (New Indian Express, 6 November 1999). This was not entirely new since many Hindus already connected conversion with perversion and colonial aggression, but what was new in the context of the late 1990s were Hindu attempts to club the past history of the Inquisition and ‘forced conversions’ by Christian and Muslim rulers in the context of colonial aggression with the present campaign for the conversion o f Hindus in the context of the global expansion and economic supremacy of the wealthy nations. Summarizing the arguments, Frawley concluded that the question of whether conversions are carried out by ethical means or not is redundant since conversion itself is ‘inherendy an unethical practice’, which ‘inevitably breeds unethical results’.12

Conversion as an attack on Hindu nationhood The ideology of Hindutva strongly asserted that the rights of the majority Hindus must be respected as opposed to the Christian and moderate Hindu argument of the freedom of choice of individuals. From this perspective, Christian conversion was regarded as ‘fundamental contempt for Hinduism’ and a force to ‘semitize Hindus’. ‘Tolerance,’ Shenoy argued, ‘is being preached to one section when other religions are teaching intolerance’ (Shenoy 1999a). A.N. Dar pointed out that, despite the difficulties, especially the birth of Pakistan, Hindus had kept India as a secular, not a Hindu, state. For him, conversion was an attack on majority Hindu generosity, which had been able to uphold the rights of other minority religious communities and that, though the rights of minorities in India should be respected, there were clear limits on this (Dar 1999). Presenting this problem of conversion versus ‘Hindu rights’, Ashok Chowgule, the president of VHP Maharashtra, challenged Christians not only to accept the notion that ‘the Hindu’s way of salvation is as valid as the way through Christ, and that salvation is possible in other 12 David Frawley, ‘The Missionary Position’ , http: //www.bjp.org/news/ febl799.htm l (date accessed: 24 February 2000).

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faiths as well’, but also to accept their position as a minority group and conform to the framework set by the Parivar: The Christians in India have to learn to accommodate their philosophy within the Hindu paradigm, which is also the paradigm o f their biological ancestors. This accommodation has been made by others who have come from outside, and not only have they survived, but have also prospered. It is not only what the Hindutvavadis13 expea of Christians that is important. Indian Christians have to determine their own place in the society in India (1999: 74—8). Abhas Chatterjee explained the Parivar understanding of the term ‘minority’ in the following terms: ‘the residents of this land who have alienated themselves from her national attribute—Sanatana Dharma— are no more part of this nation, but minorities’ and not ‘nationals’ (1995: 24-30). According to this way of thinking, people are defined not in terms of numbers but by their attitude towards Hinduism. And this is based on the notion that in India, Hindu ways should prevail and, just as within the territory of a secular state, one has to be abide by its law. Therefore, in the Parivar’s understanding, conversion lay ‘beyond being a communal issue’ and was considered an attack on the Hindu nation ‘as it exists’ (Chowgule 1997: 7-8).

Conversion as an inherent problem o f Christianity During the 1998-9 debate, the Parivar’s objections were not just limited to Christian conversion, but extended to attacks on Christianity and its theology. Hinduism is generally regarded as a non-proselytizing religion, a view based on the philosophy of equal respea for all faiths. In presenting ‘pluralistic Hinduism’, Hindus inevitably compared their theology favourably with exclusivistic Christianity’, which they clearly regarded as narrowly dogmatic and inferior. For example, Frawley claimed that ‘Hinduism has a much broader scope of spiritual and yogic practices, philosophies and mystical teachings than does Christianity’.14 Sita Ram Goel writes more strongly: 13 Proponents of Hindutva. 14 David Frawley, ‘The Missionary Position’, http: //www.bjp.org/news/ febl799.html (date accessed: 24 February 2000). See also Chowgule (1999: 9-12).

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Hindus are committing a grave mistake in regarding the encounter between Hinduism and Christianity as a dialogue between two religions. Christianity has never been a religion; its long history tells us that it has always been a predatory imperialism par excellence. The encounter, therefore, should be viewed as a batde between two totally opposed and mutually exclusive ways of thought and behaviour (Goel 1998: 2). Conversion was seen as the symbol of ‘intolerant’ Christianity and of ‘lack of respect’ towards other religions (Jois 1999). In the words of T.V.R. Shenoy, ‘[C]an you imagine a greater act of disrespect than converting someone? Isn’t a missionary effectively saying, “Your faith is flawed, but mine is not’1?’ (Shenoy 1999b). As in Ecclesia in Asia for example, Christians insisted that their missionary endeavour was rooted in their scriptures and that it is every Christian’s duty to share the gospel, as well as the fundamental right of any citizen to convert. But at the same time, they asserted that their attitude towards other religions had changed, in the Catholic case since Vatican II. For Hindus this was a theological paradox. The obvious conclusion Hindus drew was that aggressive forms of conversion were still an integral pan of the character of Christianity, though expressed in more subde ways. In other words, the Parivar saw Christianity, both in its historical development and its theology, as incapable of accepting any ideology of tolerance or pluralistic philosophy. In the late 1990s, in an attempt to prove that conversion was an inherent problem of Christianity, its source documents were examined more closely, particularly in the writings of Arun Shourie, Sita Ram Goel and Ashok Chowgule, who studied the Vatican II documents, to which Catholics kept referring, and the Bible, which Protestants relied on. Shourie claimed that, far from the supposed change of Christian attitude, the exclusive nature of Christian theology and the desire for the conversion of non-Christians is very clear even in Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents. He drew attention to the more conservative statements on salvation within the conciliar documents to the effect that Christ is the only way to salvation and that the Catholic church is the necessary means to achieve it. Quoting the affirmation that ‘the essential mission of the church is to evangelize all men’ from Evangelii Nuntiandi (EN 14), Shourie noted that the encyclical not only asserts the right to convert Hindus but also that it is the duty of Christians to do so.

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Observing that the new convert has to be engaged in convening others as a mark of his or her genuine conversion, he cynically remarked that Hindus, by not convening, are ‘preventing Christians from being saved’ (2000: 34-53). These arguments were echoed by Chowgule, who also noted the Pope’s description of Protestants aiming to conven Catholics in Latin America as ‘rapacious wolves’ and his cautions about adopting cenain ideas of other religions. Chowgule regarded these as contradicting the Christian claim that conversion is a matter of individual choice and a fundamental right (1999: 29-31; see also John Paul II 1994: 89—90). Christian insistence that preaching the gospel is an inherent duty, according to the Christian scriptures, led Sita Ram Goel to examine the biblical text itself and to conclude that Jesus Christ is an ‘artifice for aggression’, Christianity is a ‘big lie’, and the papacy is the ‘vehicle of Western imperialism’ (1994: 76-9, 80-5; 1986: 44-52). Shourie, in a more sophisticated approach to analysing the Bible, drew attention to the problem of the historicity of Jesus Christ. He saw the gospels not as ‘objective repons but propaganda’ written with ‘a specific purpose’ in mind, which was in fact the conversion of the readers (2000: 206—11). Shourie argued that the Christian God was ‘obsessed’ with himself and that this self-centredness was passed on to his Son and again to the church. This led him to conclude that the church could not possibly be ‘broad­ minded, ecumenical, tolerant’ (360-70). On the contrary, in his book pointedly entitled Harvesting Our Souls, Shourie urged Hindus: . . . we should be alert to the feet that missionaries have but one goal—that of harvesting us for the Church, and they have developed a very well-knit, powerful, extremely well-endowed organizational network for anaining that singular goal. Their ‘spiritual’ quest, their quest for power and control, their commercial interests are all entwined with, they are in fact dependent on that one goal— conversion (404). In this way, criticism of conversion resulted not only in assertions of the superiority of ‘pluralistic Hinduism’ over ‘exclusivistic Christianity’ but also in attempts to discredit Christianity. III. C h r i s t i a n r e t h i n k i n g o f c o n v e r s i o n IN t h e c o n t e x t o f H i n d u t v a

In the context of what was seen by Christians as a systematic attack on their community, both locally in tribal areas and nationally in the media,

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Hindu moves to blame Christian conversion for the troubles were bound to be regarded as an attempt to divert attention away from the aggressive attitude of the Sangh Parivar and put the responsibility for communal unrest on the religious minorities. Christians and moderate Hindus focused their contribution to the 1998-9 debate on the political development of the Sangh Parivar, relating the current violence to the case of Ayodhya, to argue that Hindu fundamentalists were responsible for the violence and that Christians were only victims of aggressive Hindutva ideology. By interpreting the attacks on their community as due not to Christian conversion but to politically motivated and aggressive campaigns by the Parivar, Christians not only tended to portray their communities one-sidedly as innocent victims of persecution but also misread Hindu arguments. It became dear in the course of the debate that the Parivar’s campaign hinged on the problem o f conversion, both past and present. Furthermore, Hindus were provoked by Christian calls for conversion per se and not only by ‘forced’ or ‘induced’ conversions, a point which Christian protagonists largely failed to recognise when they continued to stress that their intention was only to care for the poor and bring justice to the tribals. While Christians treated the situation as politically motivated and thought that the Parivar were interested in their political numbers, they also largely missed the religious nature of the Parivar’s arguments. Recognizing that Hindus were concerned about Christians converting others, the response of Christians in the 1998-9 debate was to focus instead on converting oneself as a fundamental right of any individual enshrined in the Constitution. While Hindus argued that conversion was violence, being something imposed upon people from ‘outside’ of their socio-cultural and religious sphere, Christians argued that conversion was the result of a search to satisfy their needs, and that ‘outsiders’ were merely instruments to help people make a personal decision to change. As in the case of dalits (see Chapter Six), Walter Fernandes and others used sodological methods to show that the religious conversion of tribals was an ‘effort to recover the security and identity lost through colonial and upper caste interventions’. Fernandes justified evangdization among the tribals as a struggle for the ‘liberation of the victims of injustice’ and blamed the Parivar for attempting to ‘demonize Christians in the name of conversions’ (Fernandes 1999; Michad 1998, 1999b). Others also regarded the conversion of tribals as a ‘socio-religious movement’ against

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their Hinduization (Abel 1999:29-30; Philip 1999a). This intcrpretadon was shared by many writers, who urged social reform and pointed out the strong desire of tribals to assert their own identity, distinct from Hindus (Kang and Mishra 1999: 22-4; Sathe 1999; Chowdhury 1999; Aiyar 1999; Burman 1999: 7—11; Dubey 1999). However, as seen in Chapter Six, this interpretation of conversion as social protest not only reduced conversion to a socio-political activity, but also provided legitimization for Hindu campaigns of reconversion as ‘homecoming’ as a mainly socio-political event. Hindus criticized Christian conversions on the basis that they lacked a ‘spiritual dimension’ but there were also studies that showed that tribal motivation to convert appeared to have more to do with their daily struggle with problems of illness and fear of evil spirits, and with attraction to Christian faith, than with hopes of social liberation (Shah 1999: 315). Although there were some examples of tribals seeking social justice en masse, these studies also demonstrated that conversions in tribal areas were taking place on an individual or family basis and that the needs of the individuals concerned were the primary motive for conversion. Taking these findings seriously, there were fresh Christian attempts to uncover the motives of conversion, particularly of tribals. At a consultation on ‘Re-Reading Mass Movements in India’ held in 1997, participants were asked to address the questions of the motives and processes of mass movements in certain groups, mainly tribals (Hrangkhuma 1998). Most of them cast doubt on whether the commonly held sociological interpretations of conversion gave a full explanation, and instead emphasized the ‘religious (belief) dimensions’ in conversion, and some redefined conversion movements as ‘Spirit movements’ (Oommen 1998: 138-54; Massey 1998: 1-13). The participants treated the tribals as deeply religious people and took the view that it was the ‘pre-existing tribal belief system’ in contact with the Christian faith, more than any social factors, that triggered the tribal response, and furthermore, they insisted that in most cases conversion was the outcome of a decision based on spiritual or religious considerations. They concluded that it was primarily because faith in Jesus gave the people a sense of freedom and self-confidence that they embraced it, though they did not rule out other factors (Minz 1998: 14-38; Oommen 1998: 154). On the basis of his study, George Oommen argued that conversion of tribals followed careful thought about the implications of their decision.

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It was evident that the conversion move was done after deep and continued consideration o f the implications related to their pre­ existing system of beliefs. Questions related to the land, ancestors, their spirits, new Sanskritic gods were part of their considerations. Furthermore, the issues raised consisted of theological categories, concepts and patterns of thinking from their pre-existing way of understanding the supernatural and natural dimensions of their existence (1998: 150-1). Therefore the findings o f the consultation, using anthropological methodology, gave Christians grounds to argue that, though conversions of tribals were large in numbers, they were the result of the conscious decisions of individuals and families, and that the conversions were primarily religious and spiritual. While this appeared to provide a ‘spiritual’ aspect to the conversion of tribals, the Parivar insisted that Christian missionaries ‘exploited’ the fear and vulnerable situation of the tribals by giving them ‘false promises’ of healing and casting out demons. The emphasis on conversion being initiated by the people themselves, for whatever motive, and not due to outside interference, could not disguise the fact that Christian missions were active in tribal areas, and Hindus insisted that these were instrumental in bringing about conversions. S.K. Chaube’s work shows that, though there had been ‘tribal solidarity movements’ initiated by the tribals themselves since Independence, these owed a great deal to the activities of Christian missions or Hindu activists (1999: 524-6).15 And the fact that a considerable number of tribals were reconverting to Hinduism, following Hindu campaigns, reinforced the Hindu claim that conversion was being carried out by outside agencies. Uneasy feelings were expressed by some within the Christian community towards Christians who were actively engaged in converting tribals and held a hostile attitude towards Hinduism. ‘Mainline’ Christian theologians saw both the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva ideology and Christian campaigns for the evangelization of India as having a fundamentalistic attitude and an aggressive methodology to achieve their goals (The Times o f India, 15 January 1999; The Asian Age, 17 February 1999). Both Protestants and Catholics were increasingly embarrassed 15 Chaube compares Manipur, ruled by the British, with Tripura, a princely state, and points out that the former has a large number of Christians (34.11 per cent) and the latter, where Christian missionary work was severely restricted, very few (1.68 per cent).

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by ‘fundamentalist’ Christians, especially when Hindus described their campaigns as ‘imperialistic’ in their approach and unethical in their portrayal of Hinduism (Abel 1999: 30). The following is typical: A small percentage of the 23 million Christian community in India, aggressive breakaway fringe groups are what feed Hindu fundamentalists’ anti-Christian sentiment. An embarrassment to the mainstream church, they continue to propagate their own brand of Christianity. Which, though not violent, is hardly in keeping with the tenets of the church ( Outlook, 8 November 1999: 60). There was an evident desire in some Christian writings to distinguish ‘mainline churches’ from ‘fringe group churches’ who claim that Jesus is the only saviour and use derogatory language about Hindu deities, and to present the latter as a small portion of Indian Christians (The Asian Age, 17 February 1999; Kremmer 1999: 60). Ishanand Vempeny, a Catholic theologian, argues that the objections towards Christians by the Parivar are not based on a fair picture because the work of the majority of missionaries is based on ‘compassion and love’. The majority are engaged in ‘bearing witness’ and are not ‘interested in making people change their religions’; it is only a small portion of missionaries from ‘fringe group churches’ who hold ‘outdated Christian doctrine’ and engage in converting people (1999: 24-45). Such writers generally avoid the term ‘conversion’ or, if they do use it, they insist on separating it from proselytism. That conversion should not be understood as involving a change of religious community was the dominant feeling in a meeting held at United Theological College on the theme of ‘Religious Conversions in the Pluralistic Context of India’ in September 1999. S.J. Samartha, in the keynote address, criticized those Christians who make ‘exclusive claims’. Samartha found the reaction against missions and conversion based on such claims unsurprising because they ‘lead to theological contempt towards people of other faiths’. His solution was that, in the pluralistic context of India, one has to acknowledge a plurality of missions and conversions and that Christians are called to participate in ‘a ministry of minority’, that is ‘cooperate with people of other communities of faith for common purposes in society’.16 16 S.J. Samartha, ‘Towards A Ministry of Minority’, 2—4 (unpublished paper presented at the above meeting).

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However, mainline Christian attempts to distance themselves from controversy by dissociating themselves from ‘fringe groups’ were resisted internally as these groups in their turn insisted that their faith and practice were in line with biblical teaching and that the apparent numerical weakness in India did not mean weakness in influence or theology (The Asian Age, 17 February 1999). Furthermore, the assumption that these groups of Christians were backed by outside churches is less than satisfactory nor are the adherents of evangelizing groups necessarily small. Lionel Caplan argues that, though the influence of North American Christian fundamentalists is undeniable, the pietism o f ‘fundamentalist’ groups in India could be traced back to nineteenth-century conservative evangelical missionary attitudes. What is more, in the urban mainline churches he studied, though the middle-class leadership espoused a ‘social gospel’, the majority of Christians, who were poor, held conversion and the work of the Holy Spirit as key features in their faith and practice and were enthusiastic about active evangelism (Caplan 1989: 72-93). So though, in terms of their influence on theology and leadership, these Christians could be described as a ‘fringe group’, in terms of numbers, they represented the Christian majority in the mainline churches. For the Sangh Parivar, unless the mainline churches declared a stop to conversion and dissociated themselves from these ‘fringe groups’, the latter must be considered pan o f the Christian community (Hindu Vivek Kendra 1999: 12-3). Furthermore, it was clear to them that the traditional Christian doctrine of salvation through Christ by means of conversion, in spite of supposed changes in Christian theology, still remained a vital teaching of some Protestant groups in India. What is more, it was explicitly affirmed in the Ecclesia in Asia, a document representing the Catholic church worldwide. IV . T

h e PROBLEM

OF CONVERSION AS SYMPTOMATIC

OF A CLASH OF RELIGIOUS FRAMEWORKS

During the 1998-99 debate, the Parivar was not only trying to convince the public that conversion was the main stumbling block between Hindus and Christians but also insisting that the Christian pursuit of conversion of Hindus was still deeply rooted in an exclusive theology in spite of changes in their approach. Indeed, more conservative sections of the Christian community agreed that conversion was part and parcel of their

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Christian practice. This view was most clearly expressed in the apostolic exhortation Ecclcsia in Asia. Nationalist Hindus tried to show that Hinduism also provided an answer to the meaning of life and confidendy asserted that Hindu religion provided an understanding of salvation differing from the Christian notion. The arguments against conversion put forward by the Parivar, perceived by Christians as socio-political ones, reflected this struggle to provide an answer to the Christian theology of salvation through conversion. In Hindu thought, keeping one’s dharma is vital. Therefore conversion as change of religion (dharma) can only originate from outside one’s religious sphere as a form of interference with one’s right to pursue the religious quest defined by one’s birth. The problem of conversion for Hindus runs deeper than concern about changes of religious affiliation: it is to do with the perceived incompatibility of the Christian call to conversion with the Hindu idea of keeping one’s own dharma. In the course of the debate, comparison of Hindu and Christian understanding of the ways to achieve salvation was inevitable, and despite their ideology of ‘equality of religions’, Hindu nationalists made unfavourable comparisons of Christianity with Hinduism. Paradoxically, while they strongly objected to contemporary Christian attacks on Hinduism on the basis of religious tolerance, they also resorted increasingly to verbal abuse against Christianity. They asserted the superiority of Hindu religious thinking and attempted to discredit the Christian scriptures and the traditions of the church as part of their attempt to win the batde over conversion. From their new yet fragile political strength, the Parivar promoted a Hindu ideology based on the traditional Vedic philosophy of tolerance in their encounter with other religions. However, this tolerance was not applied within what was perceived to be Hindu territory. In other words, the Parivar defined a Hindu nation within which Indians are protected from what was seen as outside theological interference by other religions such as Christianity or Islam. In such a Hindu nation other patterns of thought could be tolerated only on the terms set by existing Hindu norms. Religious conversion was a threat to this concept of nationhood and the communities that promoted it were seen as subversive. The ideology of Hindutva has been criticized not only by religious minorities but also by moderate Hindus for several reasons: it is a ‘majoritarianism’ of power-driven ‘minority’ high-caste Hindus over the other sections of society (Sarkar 1999: 101; Philip 1999b); it is ‘untrue

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both to Hiiiduism and to Indian nationalism’ and, in defining ‘Indianness’ along religious lines, it is fundamentalists (Tharoor 1999). Whereas to the secularist, Indians should be defined on the ‘basis of common participation in the body politic known as India—regardless of their caste and religion’, Hindutva thinking legitimizes social hierarchies that guard the privileges of the powerful (Setalvad 1999: 810; Bidwai 1999). The Parivar’s pursuit of Hindutva, as David Ludden points out, is a ‘majoritarian idea that does not espouse communal conflict in principle’ but sees communal conflict as a by-product of reactions from minority communities and secular forces in the course of their cultural and ideological search for Hindu national self-identity. And it may be argued that, in many cases of communal conflict in India, the problem did not lie entirely with the majority Hindus (1996: 15-6). But the combination of this ‘majoritarian idea’ with the politics of numbers in a modern democratic electoral system became so dominant that the religious minorities had limited space to locate their own selfidentity, let alone to uphold any conflicting ideology against the dominant Hindu groups. Indeed, Robert E. Frykenberg questions whether India has ever had ‘a single, self-conscious, unified majority community’ and regards the concept of ‘majority’ as misused by some Hindu leaders for their political gain at the expense of minorities (Frykenberg 1987: 267-74). It is not surprising then that conversion in this context was understood as a way for dalits and adivasis to ‘protest’ against what was perceived to be overwhelming ideological aggression. In her sophisticated studies on the significance of the personal laws and uniform laws for the conversion of religious minorities and women particularly, Kumkum San gari saw the problem of the views presented by the Parivar on conversion. For her, the Hindu high-caste intervention on conversion by means of the legislature was not appropriate because, as she argues, conversion did not create the clear-cut divisions between different commmunities that the Parivar leadership complained it did. On the contrary, [b]oth temporalities of conversion—sudden and gradual—have thus produced ‘partial conversions’ and created linked or overlapping religious networks by altering the relationships between belief systems and by propelling reconfigurations within belief systems through tangible procedures of accretion, overlayering, reinterpretation, substitution or fusion of gods, beliefs and practices (316).

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Therefore, she continues: We need to imagine laws that under- rather than over-define religious identity, cease to be preoccupied with fixity of religious definitions or communities, honour principles of exit and entry, the individual’s right to choose where to belong, recognize existing diversity, processes of change within and between denominations, maximize certain types of choice and flexibility rather than collude in sealing what may in practice be more elastic religious boundaries (317-8). It is ironic that the Parivar, in their assertion that the self-identity of Indians must be founded on Hindutva rather than any other ideology, not only failed to appreciate the struggle of other religious groups to define their own identities but imposed their ideology on them as the only means of being part of the ‘Hindu nation’. As they reject the universality of the Christian theology of salvation through Christ, the Parivar needs to consider whether their ideology of Hindutva is necessarily applicable to all in India regardless of their socio-religious understanding of Indianness. In the context of systematic attacks on Christian communities during 1998-99, Christians were bound to be suspicious of any Hindu argument and regard it as part of an aggressive Hindu ‘majoritarianism’ that Christians could not yield to. The conversion issue then, for Christians, was not just a matter of the freedom to change religious affiliation: it was to do with whether to conform to a Hindu system of thought. The theological struggle for Christians was whether Christian faith provides ‘salvation’ outside Hinduism so that one has to reject it, or within its boundaries so that one remains inside it. And Hinduism in this case signifies not so much the cultural boundaries of India as the ideological boundaries of Hindu identity. What Christians resented most was the pressure from dominant Hindu groups that sought to impose the rights of Hinduism over both the territorial and the sacred space of Christians. Conformity to the former involved the adoption of the Indian socio­ cultural heritage, in which Christians had made significant progress over the years, but conformity to the latter meant giving up Christian distinctiveness altogether. It was not only a question of whether salvation is in Hindu or in Christian faith; it was to do with preserving Christian religious and communal identity. Christians asked Hindus to respect this in the same way as Hindus expected Christians to respect Hindu religion.

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The Hindu-Christian debate of 1998-99 helps us to see that interpretion of religious conversion requires more than an examination of personal changes of religious commitment or the socio-political changes taking place in a community. Study of the debate exposes the religious complexity of the problem of conversion in India and suggests that it is also due to a clash of two radically different religious frameworks in Christianity and Hinduism. The religious dimension is of vital importance in Parivar pursuit of Hindutva ideology, which is described as a ‘desire to restore the centre of faith of the Hindus’ (Sinha 1998). It is ironic that both the Parivar and Christians accuse each other’s practice of conversion of being politically motivated and lacking in spiritual dimensions, while both are clearly religious movements and their arguments are based on their own understanding of religious conversion. The theological dimensions of the problem imply that, though the debate is conditioned by the particular historical and socio-religious background of India, it is not unparalleled. Consequently debates arising from other contexts and the resulting theological formulations may be of relevance here. In the final chapter, by way of conclusion, I shall look at the problem of conversion from a religious perspective and put forward suggestions for a Christian theology of conversion.

9 Conclusion: Human Rights, Tolerance, and Religious Conversion in India The unity of our Nation is not based on any monolithic idea, but on our age-old tradition of tolerance which is at once a pragmatic concept of living together and a philosophic concept of finding truth and goodness in every religion. — K.R. Narayanan1 For its pan, the Church has always upheld national honour, patriotism and individual’s freedom of choice. This includes the freedom to practice and propagate one’s faith. While the Church strives to preach the Gospel, conversion is a free personal responsible act through the grace of God. —Alan de Lastic and K. Rajaratnam2

The above speech of K.R. Narayanan, the president of India, and the joint statement by Alan de Lastic, the archbishop of Delhi and president of CBCI, and K. Rajaratnam, president of NCCI, both made at the height of the controversy over conversion in early 1999, show the contrasting Hindu and Christian approaches to the problem of conversion in India based on tolerance and religious freedom respectively. Scholars have regarded the complexity of the problem of conversion in India as largely due to the historical background of colonial power and missionary work, Indian society and caste distinctions, and also the 1 President’s address on the eve of Republic Day, The Hindu, 26 January 1999. 2 Statement made at a meeting of leaders of the Catholic church and various Protestant denominations on 2 February 1999 (Martin 1999: 53—4).

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political dynamics in the colonial era and post-Independence India. Numerous studies have been done on the issue of conversion from these perspectives and these have made significant contributions to our understanding of the problem. While taking these findings into account, the present study has focused on the question of why conversion is so problematic in India by examining the theological and philosophical foundations of the major debates that took place from Independence to the end of the twentieth century. The Hindu arguments against conversion during the time of the British Raj and towards Independence were summarized by Roy, the pandits and Gandhi. These positions can be characterized respectively as affirming continuity between Hindu and Christian faiths; asserting the particularity or superiority of Hindu religion as against the universal claim of Christianity; and giving equal respect to all religious traditions. In addition, Nehru’s secular view that the state should be equidistant from all religious communities was dominant in the time of the Constituent Assembly and continued among politicians and intellectual secularists. As the debates between Hindus and Christians intensified over various issues relating to conversion in post-Independence India, Hindu arguments were based largely on the above positions, which were not necessarily distinguished from each other. Hindu arguments, particularly those of Roy, Gandhi and Nehru, have in turn influenced the Indian Christian reinterpretation of conversion, as both Catholic and Protestant theologians have wrestled with the problem in view of both the changing political context of India and the theological discussion of the wider Christian communities. However, in post-Independence India the leaders of the Hindu nationalist movements took up the pandits’ insistence on the particularity of Hindu religious traditions for Hindus and sought to impose their ideology of Hindutva on the people of India, irrespective of their religious allegiance and traditions. The nationalist Hindu objections to conversion at the time of the Niyogi Report and over the ‘freedom of religion’ legislation focused on the methodological problem of the motives of both Christian missionaries and converts, but they were based ideologically on the understanding of the superiority of Hindu religion over Christianity, at least for the people of India. Furthermore, as the nationalist Hindu reaction to the Catholic ashram movement, the HinduChristian debates during the 1990s and their active campaign for reconversion showed, the Parivar leaders had not only condemned

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conversion as violence against humanity or an act of aggression against Hindu nationhood, but also identified conversion as an inherent problem of Christianity and found it necessary to attack Christianity itself. This critical examination of the debate in twentieth-century postIndependence India shows the following: first, analysis of the Hindu arguments against Christian conversion has demonstrated that the controversy over conversion in India is due to factors deeper than a change of political climate or disturbances in the socio-cultural and economic hierarchy of Indian society. It also shows that the view that Hindu accusations about Christian conversion were grounded in the political agenda of extreme Hindu groups to intimidate the religious minority is less than satisfactory. Although the issue of conversion cannot be examined in isolation from those factors, Hindu arguments must be taken more seriously. Close examination of the debate reveals that these are based on understandings of faith and practice, and more importandy, the ways to achieve their own dharma, which are deeply rooted in Hindu philosophy and religious practice. Hindu traditions are very diverse, and any particular view (for example, the Hindu nationalist view) is not invalid just because it does not fit into a pre-conceived understanding of Hinduism. On the contrary, it represents a particular tradition and needs to be respected and listened to, although critical evaluation is also required. Moreover, on the issue of conversion, the study reveals that Hindu resentment towards conversion is not confined to ‘fundamentalists’ but is widely shared by a majority of Hindus. Though this is often expressed in the form of resentment over colonialism and concern about the threat caused by contemporary globalization, it is evident that there are also religious understandings of conversion underlying it. Second, I have shown how Indian theologians and missionaries struggled to meet the challenges as they engaged in debate with Hindus and fellow Christians. The influence of theological changes in the wider Christian community on their arguments has been recognized and integrated into the discussion. However, the issue of conversion for Indian theologians and missionaries is part of their daily struggle as members of a minority community to discover what it means to be Christian in the midst of a Hindu-dominated society. Therefore, their reflections and findings are important and relevant to the Christian community and individual Christians. Furthermore, this theological quest for

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understanding of conversion contributes to Christian mission in other parts of the world because, as this study reveals, the issue of conversion in India is not primarily due to a particular historical or socio-cultural environment: it is more to do with a clash between two radically different religious systems. In addition, though there have been several opportunities for Christian leaders to engage in frank discussion with Hindus, they did not in this period find a constructive way of approaching the problem of conversion, due largely to their assumption that the problem of conversion is primarily socio-cultural, and also to their perception that the Hindu objections were a political tactic. Despite the complexity of the history of Christian mission in India, the socio­ economic systems, and the political changes in contemporary India, the problem of conversion has to be seen as primarily the religious problem of an encounter between Christianity and Hinduism. While efforts at dialogue, seeking common ground between the two, should continue, the widely diverging views on conversion need to be acknowledged and addressed. Thirdly, Hindu and Christian arguments have been critically assessed in the light of the counter-arguments and also the historical and theological validity of their justification. This assessment is implicit in the way I have presented the emerging theological problems in the Hindu-Christian debate on conversion in the categories of religion and community, human rights and religious freedom, and religious tolerance. This study reveals that, even within these categories, there are such vast differences in understanding within the communities that intra­ community as well as inter-community discussion on the issue of conversion is needed. By way of conclusion, I will examine closely the themes of human rights and tolerance, terms that are used by both communities in different senses—senses rooted in the theological and philosophical understandings o f their respective faiths. This is perhaps the greatest point of disagreement and therefore the most important area to be dealt with, as the two communities must live side by side. The importance given to tolerance in Hindu religious tradition and the stress on human rights by Christians have contradictory implications, and this study suggests that the interaction of these may be the starting point for a fresh understanding o f religious conversion in India. Finally, I will develop the work of the Indian theologians discussed in the previous chapters towards a theology o f conversion in India.

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h r ist ia n it y a n d h u m a n r ig h t s

Christian arguments for conversion of Hindus in this period were largely based on the notion that the right of conversion was not only the kernel of the Christian faith but also a key issue in the matter of religious freedom, which Christians regarded as a vital part of fundamental human rights. This was particularly evident during the Constituent Assembly debate, the debate over the ‘freedom of religion’ acts, and the 1998-99 debates on conversion. The Christian arguments were met by counter­ arguments of Hindus who consistendy challenged the Christian position, not only on the basis of a Hindu understanding of conversion, but also on the basis of the problems involved in applying a universal understanding of religious freedom in multi-cultural contexts. The broader context of the issue of religious freedom and human rights was discussed widely at an international level and in Christian churches worldwide and so this needs to be considered in our study. During the first half of the twentieth century, and particularly towards the end of World War II, Western nations raised concerns about human rights in international politics, especially in relation to communist countries and nationalist movements, and there was a consensus for an ‘International Bill of Rights’, which would have a universal basis and be acknowledged by all nations (Van Boven 1985: 345-55). Christians in the West were actively involved in drafting the bill and ensuring that religious freedom was counted as an integral part of human rights (Houtepen 1998: 295). Some Christians also insisted that the freedom to propagate religion or persuade others to convert is part of religious liberty and that this right should be universally acknowledged (Northcott 1948: 85; Wood 1949: 5). The outcome of these collective AngloAmerican Christian efforts, the ‘Charter of Religious Freedom’ in a statement on ‘Human Rights and Religious Freedom’ (March 1947) affirmed that freedom of religion is an ‘essential and integral aspect of human freedom’, and includes ‘freedom to choose...religious beliefs’ and to ‘propagate and to persuade’ others.3 The British draft of the International Bill of Human Rights (June 1947) and the first Assembly of the WCC (August 1948) in its ‘Declaration on Religious Liberty’ also affirmed this (WCC 1948:229-32). These Christian efforts to ensure 3 ‘Human Rights and Religious Freedom’ issued by the Joint Committee on Religious Liberty of Great Britain in Wood, Religious Liberty To-day, 133—4.

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religious liberty were reflected in the formation of the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights (December 1948), which declared, in Article 18, the universal right of the freedom to ‘change’ and to ‘manifest’ one’s religion or belief in ‘teaching, practice, worship and observance’. However, the relationship of religious liberty with human rights came under strain within Christian churches, especially in the 1960s. First, there was increasing pressure from the non-Western world not to limit Christian concern for human rights to individual freedom only but to widen it to include economic, social and cultural rights. This was particularly in evidence in the WCC at the Uppsala Assembly (1968) and Nairobi Assembly (1975) where there was a shift from a ‘Westerncivil-liberal view of human rights and the social rights of the human community to a perception of the life-interests of the “Third World”’. And this recognition was paralleled by a shift in the understanding of conversion to encompass liberation from socio-economic and political oppression, which could be said to be the right of every human being regardless of their faith commitment (Moltmann 1980: 184-5). Second, as Chapter One has revealed, the challenge to the priority of religious freedom over human rights was also due to the objections raised by Orthodox and Catholic leaders against the proselytizing of their members by some Protestant groups, who justified their activities on the basis of religious freedom (Houtepen 1998: 296-302). It is worth noting here that tension over the issue of religious freedom and proselytism caused much debate at ecumenical meetings in this period. Third, there were strong objections from adherents of non-Christian religions, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, against the inclusion of the right to change one’s religion among universal human rights. In particular, they regarded the issue of religious freedom as part of a Christian missionary agenda to evangelize people of other faiths and insisted that the right to keep one’s faith should also be respected (Houtepen 1998: 291-3). As a result of these factors, the following clause was included as Article 18(2) in the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966): ‘No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice’. This addition was regarded as ‘protection both for the individual’s right to change his religion and against zealous proselytizers and missionaries’ (Scheinin 1992:267). In a similar vein, the strength of WCC pronounce­ ments on religious liberty was much reduced during the fifth WCC

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Assembly in Nairobi (1975), which stated that the right to religious freedom ‘should never be seen as belonging exclusively to the Church’ and that the church has an ‘obligation to serve the whole community’. In the report, the right to religious freedom was limited to ‘worship, observance, practice, and teaching’ (Paton 1976: 106). Furthermore, the statement of the next Assembly at Vancouver acknowledged the complexity of human rights and the struggle for justice was emphasized (Gill 1983: 138—40). Both in ecumenical Christian documents and in international politics, religious freedom now tended to be limited to freedom to maintain or to change one’s own religion. In other words, the freedom to change one’s own faith remained the fundamental human right, but the initial Christian insistence on the right to ‘propagate’ one’s faith in a way which involved the conversion of the other proved increasingly unacceptable in both domestic and international law. When it comes to the debates in India, after the Supreme Court decision of 1977, Christians could no longer claim that the word ‘propagate’ justified their attempts to bring about the conversion of others. Although both Christians and Hindus continued to anchor their arguments in the right of freedom as defined by the fundamental rights of the Constitution, their concepts of freedom were mutually opposed: the right to propagate, for Christians, and right to retain one’s own religion, for Hindus. The difficulty of respecting and safeguarding the conflicting Hindu and Christian interpretations of conversion, of reconciling the right to retain one’s own religion and the right to try to persuade others to change theirs, is a major obstacle in any attempt to resolve the problem o f conversion on the basis of human rights ideology. Although there were attempts to find a satisfactory theological basis for human rights (for example, Moltmann 1980: 182-95), the notion still derives from an Enlightenment liberal understanding of individual sovereignty over a domain of beliefs and behaviour circumscribed only by the potential of that sovereignty to be exercised in a manner which invades the like sovereignty of other individuals. On these grounds, the attempt to marry Christian theology to human rights ideology has been challenged by scholars of other religious traditions and also questioned by Christians. Furthermore, in view of our studies on human rights, it seems quite clear that the Christian argument on religious freedom and human rights was not effective in debate with Hindus. Therefore, the justification of Christian mission that includes the call to conversion is in need of an alternative foundation.

Conclusion: Human Rights, Tolerance, and Religious II.

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While Christians tended to approach the question of conversion from the perspective of human rights, Hindus insisted that conversion was against their notion of keeping one’s dharma and therefore a challenge to Hindu tolerance. S. Radhakrishnan, the prominent Indian philosopher, portrayed tolerance as a hallmark of Hinduism and a sign of maturity, and insisted that it should be adopted ‘not as a matter of policy or expediency but as a principle of spiritual life’ and a ‘duty’ rather than a ‘concession’. He saw tolerance as based on the belief that ‘every community has inalienable rights which others should respect’, which resulted in ‘equal treatment for others’ views’ (1927:21-36; 1940: 313-17; 1975: 70-2). Throughout the debate over conversion, Hindus described Christianity as intolerant and identified its insistence on the conversion of others to Christian faith as the major cause of communal tension. For Christians, this question of truth and tolerance was an awkward one. Some Christians regarded tolerance as compromise with an alien doctrine and therefore to be avoided. Others were acutely aware that Christian history, including recent history in India, posed undeniable evidence of Christian intolerance. As George M. Soares-Prabhu comments, compared to the ‘aggressive, intolerant and powerful missionary religions’ of Christianity and Islam, Hinduism certainly appeared tolerant and Christians were falling ‘between the intolerant truth [Christianity] professes and the unrestrained love it tries to live’ (1991: 143-5). At the same time, when it comes to the conversion of Hindus to other religions, the limitations of Hindu tolerance has been revealed in actions including the Hindu personal laws, withdrawal of concessions for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, ‘freedom of religion’ legislation, and above all, physical attacks on Christian communities by the Sangh Parivar. As Julius Lipner points out, although ‘a genuine doctrinal tolerance’ is evident throughout traditional Hinduism, the practice of Hindus often shows otherwise (1994: 180-90). This paradox of ‘tolerant’ Hinduism was well explained by P.D. Devanandan, first director of the Christian Institute for Religion and Society in Bangalore, who saw that the tolerance of Hinduism had developed and was mainly operational within Hinduism. However, during the course of its encounter with other religions, he argued, the tolerance that was manifested within its geographical and ideological sphere of influence, was not exhibited to other religions unless they also

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conformed to its framework (1961: 439-49). Similarly, Ainslie T. Embree, writing on ‘the question of Hindu tolerance’, provides a convincing argument that Hindu civilization has grown self-content through centuries of development and has established its own distinctive ‘endurance and persistence of its style and its patterns’, and that the Hindu approach is not best described as ‘absorptive, synthesizing, or tolerant’ but that it ‘encapsulates’ other cultural and religious traditions (Embree 1990: 19-37). It is evident that the Hindu policy of toleration, which had developed over centuries within its geographical and philosophical sphere, was not equipped to accommodate the challenge of the ‘intolerant’ doctrine and practice of conversion brought by Christianity. As discussed in Chapter Four, the debate over conversion between Hindus and Christians should not be seen as between ‘tolerant’ Hindus and ‘intolerant’ Christians. The problem is the mismatch in the scope and understanding of tolerance between the two religions. In the process of the debate over conversion, many socio-political problems became attached to the issue of conversion. These included, for Hindus, the problem of its association with colonial power, ecclesiastical extension, political manipulation, social disturbance, and for Christians, its relation to social uplift, caste mobility, and the search for justice. The tendency was to blame the problem of conversion on the socio-political difficulties of India caused by colonial occupation and post-Independence power struggles; many religious leaders accused others of being politically motivated and therefore sidestepped the religious issue. Although all these socio-political factors contributed to the problem of conversion in India, and were therefore unique to India, nevertheless this study shows that the problem had more to do with a clash between two different and opposing religious systems. Well aware of the limitations of Hindu toleration, at the time of Independence, Nehru and others set up the political scheme of secular India to safeguard the interests of different religious groups and communities, allowing them to ‘live and let live’ (LSD 2/9, 2 December 1955: 1113). This secular society was based on the ideology of ‘equal distance from all religions’ and therefore regarded religion as a private matter not to be dealt with in public. However, this attempt to safeguard religious communities by political means could work only if all the political parties were ‘neutral’ in their policy-making. But as ‘religious nationalism’ entered Indian politics, the motivating factors of political parties became deeply religious and Hindus, particularly the Parivar,

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pushed hard to protect the rights of their community and promote Hindutva ideology, and left litde room for religious toleration. Ironically, in treating Christian conversion as a socio-political issue concerned with the protection of Hindu society, they used Hindu notions of tolerance to suppress the freedom of individuals, who were pressured to conform to society and Hindu ideology. When Christians experienced Hindu ‘toleration’ in the context of violent attack, it was not only Christian communities that were in trouble but also the Hindu virtue of tolerance that was at risk. The making of the Constitution on the basis of a secular ideology and its preservation through the political and social turmoil of post-Independence India has been a remarkable achievement. However, it is clear that, as well as the political and legal protection given it, Indian religious tolerance needs to be drawn from religious sources.4 This is also the conclusion of Ashis Nandy, who raised the question of religious tolerance in the Indian politics of secularism in the context of communal violence, particularly between Hindus and Muslims. In his vigorous attack on secular ideology, he put forward the importance o f‘religion as faith’ over ‘religion as ideology’ and claimed that the Indian secular-state had failed to acknowledge the importance of the former since it was easier to deal with the latter. Furthermore, he found that, by regarding communal clashes as the result of socio-economic problems, the supporters of secularism had failed to realize the deeper problem of ‘conflicting interests and a philosophical encounter between two metaphysics’. He insisted that because Indian secular politics suppressed the public role of religious faith, it was not able to meet the needs of a people ‘to whom religion is what it is precisely because it provides an overall theory of life, including public life, and because life is not worth 4 There have been some attempts to deepen the meaning of tolerance or toleration. Bernard Williams defines toleration as a tension between the elimination of people’s ‘desire to suppress or drive out the rival beliefs’ and the ‘commitment to their own beliefs, which is what gave them that desire in the first place’. Tolerance or toleration means neither the capitulation of one party nor indifference to the beliefs and practices of others but involves a measure of respect and recognition of the other group (1996: 18-27). David Heyd suggests a ‘perceptual shift’, that is a ‘shift of attention rather than an overall judgement’ in which one perceives the other as a human being and not merely ‘the subject of certain beliefs or the agent of a particular action’. For this, tolerance requires ‘respect, involving restraint’, but it does not result in ‘any weakening of certainty, confidence, or commitment to our own beliefs and values’ (1996: 1117).

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living without a theory, however imperfect, of transcendence’ (1988: 177-94). While Nandy’s critics accused him of naivety about post­ colonial India and political leaders (including Gandhi), and of an over­ reactionary attitude to secular politics (Bhargava 1998: 486-542), he nevertheless drew attention to the impossibility of marginalizing religion from society in India. He suggested that the solution ought to include exploration not only of ‘tolerance of religions but also tolerance that is religious’ (1988: 192). III . T o w a r d s a t h e o l o g y o f c o n v e r s io n fo r

C h r is t ia n m is s io n in I n d ia

To play their part in searching for a religious solution to communal problems in India, Christians will need to formulate a theology of conversion. In doing so, Christian theologians need not only to express their theology in ways appropriate to the culture and socio-political context of India, but also to see their attempts through the eyes of people of other faiths (Mattam and Kim 1996: 8). A Christian theology of conversion for India needs to be open to the scrutiny of those who do not profess Christianity. It is therefore important that Christians respond to Nandy’s suggestion and consider what ‘tolerance that is religious’ means in Christian terms. In spite of the vastly different opinions on, and practical approaches to the socio-political issues of India held by the Parivar and moderate Hindus, the arguments by Hindus against conversion had common ground: Hindus identified Christian conversion as proselytism, that is encouraging people to leave their community and join the Christian community with attendant communal tension, use of unethical methods, and dubious motives on the part of Christian converts. These provoked strong reactions from Christians on the basis of the fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and the conviction that conversion was at the heart of Christian belief and practice. However, this opposition to conversion also forced Christian theologians to rethink the meaning and practice of conversion. The responses to this from Indian theologians took three distictive approaches to the problem: the integration of the Hindu and Christian communities (the secular approach); reinterpreting the motives for conversion (the liberation approach); and emphasizing continuity between the two religious traditions (the inculturation approach). They also represent three theological strands respectively:

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the theology of the secular gospel, liberation theology, and the theology of ‘fulfilment’. In this section, I shall discuss these theologies further and their implications for theology of conversion in India.

Secular approach to the integration o f Hindu and Christian communities The rigid caste structure of Indian society and the integral nature of religion and society meant that any change of religion bore serious consequences for the relationships of converts with family and wider community. Christian campaigns for conversion were met by strong reactions from Hindus who valued this social integrity as of vital importance. Indian theologians tried to apply the findings of the wider Christian churches regarding proselytism and conversion to solving the problem of communal tensions caused by Christian conversion. Manilal Parekh, Kaj Baago and M.M. Thomas engaged in this theological reinterpretation of conversion, expressed respectively in the ideas of ‘unbaptized Christians’, ‘church-less Christianity’, and ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’. That is, they came to the conclusion that conversion need not require a change of religious affiliation and membership of the Christian church, but meant pursuing Christian living within the context of Hindu society. The debate among the Protestant theologians was an attempt to find the meaning o f the ‘body of Christ’ and what it entailed for the Christian community in relation to the church. This was particularly clear in the debate between Thomas and Lesslie Newbigin in which the question of identity in conversion was the key issue. This study of the debates associated with the Constituent Assembly, the Niyogi Report, the Hindu personal laws and the legislation of conversion in post-Independence India shows that there was a cumulative and conscious attempt by nationalist Hindus to identify Indianness and Hindu-ness. The nationalist Hindu arguments that the assertion of Christian identity through conversion was a disturbing factor in forming a wider Indian identity assumed that Indian identity was a static and unified concept, and moreover somewhat ‘neutral’ so that all Indians could share it, regardless of their religious orientation. They argued that common identity as Indians must be based on the Hindu heritage, and within that the religious dimension was vital. Despite repeated attempts by many scholars to interpret Hinduism not as a religion primarily but as a socio-cultural and territorial philosophy, since Independence

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Hinduism has increasingly revealed itself as a religious movement. It challenges not only any theology or philosophy contradicting Hindu dharma but also tries to embrace all other religious minorities into the Hindu fold by imposing Hindutva. In post-Independence India, in the context of the prevailing dynamics of the Hindu majority, conversion has to be understood as the struggle of the Christian minority in their protest against the imposition of a common identity by Hindus, who are armed on the one hand with the arguments of the equality of religions and Hindu tolerance, and on the other hand with means of legislation. The struggle of Indian theologians was to find a common identity as Indians and yet keep a self-identity as Christians within the dominant Hindu community. The theological problem was the relationship of the Hindu and Christian communities and the place of individual Christians in the Hindu context. The ‘Christ-centred secular fellowship’ approach to conversion relies on the theological presupposition that the spiritual experience of God can be separated from the act of conversion— in other words, the inner commitment to Christ need not extend to sociological change for an individual. However, in the case of independent India, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, nationalist Hindus increasingly called for total allegiance from the religious minorities to a common Hindu identity. This necessitated giving up not only their self-identity as a community but also their individual faith as Christians. Contrary to the optimistic view of the above theologians that their approach would lead to the penetration of the Hindu community with the gospel, it led to a weakening of the self-identity of the Christian community, and furthermore of each Christian. It is questionable whether, despite the sincerity of the search of Indian Protestant theologians for a common Indian identity, it was justifiable to pursue it at the expense of the selfidentity of the Christian community. Other Protestants have suggested approaches that seek to combine commitment to one’s own faith and respect for the other. Andrew Walls, a well-known mission historian, sees conversion as a process of ‘translation’, that is, the expression of a new meaning using the existing system of thought and conduct. This is not substitution of new for old but a transformation of the old, ‘the turning, the reorientation, of every aspect of humanity’ to God (1996: 26-36; see also Sanneh 1989) . Walls describes a tension in Christian experience between the ‘indigenizing principle’—the tendency to express faith in terms of one’s own culture or context, and the ‘pilgrim principle’—the awareness of being separate

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from one’s own culture and part of a universal faith (3—15). Though converts adopt a different religion, Walls stresses the importance for their sense of identity and for Christian mission of a continued sense of ‘belonging’ to their culture. In his view, ‘Conversion to Christ does not isolate the convert from his or her community; it begins the conversion of that community’ (45-53; see also Bediako 1992). Plamthodathil S. Jacob, a scholar of Hindu philosophy, acknowledges the spiritual and cultural heritage of both Hindu and Christian traditions and believes that, though different from one another, or rather because of the differences, each tradition can enrich the other. In this sense he sees a clear continuity in Christian conversion, because he regards it not primarily as a change of religion, since both religions cut across socio­ cultural boundaries, but as a transformative process within a particular religious tradition. Jacob prefers to use the term ‘transformation’ in place of conversion, since the latter term has such negative connotations, and defines it as ‘new life’, which is ‘new being’ in Christian tradition and ‘self-realization’ in Hindu tradition (2000: 86-111).

Liberation and reinterpreting the motives for conversion One of the prime objections against conversion voiced by Hindus was the alleged problem of the motives: the ‘ulterior motives’ of those who convert to Christian faith, and the ‘political motives’ of the missionaries who try to convert others, especially in the case of the conversion of dalits and adivasis. These objections were consistent throughout the debates and many Hindus refused to accept any genuine motivation in Christian conversion. The Hindu answer to the question of why people convert and what makes them convert is that it is largely due to ‘outsiders’ who impose their faiths on to the people of India, making the latter merely passive victims. This was especially evident when the Parivar portrayed conversion as ‘violent’ or ‘evil’ because they accused those who were involved in the propagation, not the converts themselves. However, there are complex socio-cultural undercurrents in the process of any conversion so that it is impossible to identify any single motive, let alone the ‘pure’ motive that Hindus seemed to expect from Christian conversion. The notions of conversion as ‘social uplift’, ‘caste mobility’ or ‘social protest’ are evidently influenced by the understanding of conversion as primarily a social phenomenon. Indian liberation theologians asserted that conversion is not an encounter between Hinduism and Christianity,

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but a protest against social injustice on the part of dalits and adivasis. In their argument, as in Robin Horton’s thesis described in Chapter One, conversion was the outcome of the search of these groups for release from their oppression and they stressed that, in this process, the church becomes a ‘catalyst’ in a wider process of liberation. But as Humphrey Fisher’s critique of Horton shows, the liberationist interpretation of Christian conversion in India excluded motives for conversion that lay outside the search for social justice. Christians from north-east India were particularly strong in insisting that their conversion was not merely the outcome of social-economic struggle, though such undeniably took place: they claimed it was the outcome of their search for the truth and salvation. They were attracted to the Christian faith and they made a conscious decision to convert to it; for them it was a faith commitment more than anything else. The motivations behind Christian conversion— in fact any religious conversion—are undoubtedly complex and have to be examined according to individuals and their wider context, but this needs to be done in a way respectful of the struggle of the people themselves, who possess the willingness and ability to meet the challenge of religious conversion. Though they may not be aware of the wider socio-political context and theological implications at the time of their decision, conversion represents their decision to change or not to change according to their own understanding of truth, salvation and liberation. While Hindus cast doubt on the motives of the Christian converts, they also saw conversion as engineered by missionaries with their own ‘political’ agenda, and further expressed their resentment at the missionaries’ portrayal of Hinduism and the aggressiveness of their campaigns. Hindu objections to conversion were not ‘manufactured’ ones, but were signs of what was a real issue to them, and moreover uneasy feelings towards Christian campaigns of conversion were not limited to ‘fundamentalist’ Hindus. The debate is reminiscent of that between Hindu pandits and Protestant missionaries in the early nineteenth century. The claim that the Christian gospel is universal was met by affirmations of the particularity of Hinduism inherent in Hindu spiritual understanding. Contemporary Christian campaigns of conversion were seen as yet more attempts, informed by Christian imperial attitudes, at the expansion of the Christian faith in the Hindu world. On the other hand, many mainstream Christians were reluctant to acknowledge that conversion in the sense of change of community

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has any pan in Christian mission and tried to distance themselves from ‘fringe’ groups who called for conversion in this sense. Indian theologians are not alone in their attempts to define a Christian mission without change of community in a situation where conversion is a highly sensitive issue. Writing in the context of Jewish-Christian relations, Martin Goodman is a recent Western example. In his 1994 study on mission and conversion in the Early Church, Goodman argues that, unlike other contemporary religions, the early Christian mission led by the Apostle Paul was ‘proselytizing’, though there is no evidence in Jesus’ teaching of a command to compete with other religions for converts, nor any clear evidence of a Jewish origin for this. Goodman divides mission into four types, ‘apologetic’, ‘educational’, ‘informative’ and ‘proselytizing’ and argues that the latter is not a necessary or essential (or by implication desirable) element in any religion and assumes it can be disconnected from the rest (1994: 1-19, 154-74). Goodman’s thesis has been vigorously disputed on grounds of biblical interpretation by James Carleton-Paget (1996: 65-103) but following Goodman’s argument, Petros Vassiliadis, an Orthodox theologian, calls for the ‘abandonment of any effort to proselytize, not only among Christians of their denominations, but even among peoples of other religions’ (1996: 257-75). David Kerr, although sympathetic to such a position, points out that opposition to proselytism may not necessarily be in the interests of the Christian gospel but may rather be a means by which established churches seek to preserve their hegemony over new and growing Christian movements (1999: 8-14). Brian Stanley makes the point that the tendency to dismiss proselytism from mission entirely leads logically to a purely territorial or tribal understanding of religion (2001). Indian Christian attempts to counter Hindu accusations that Christianity was inherendy proselytizing were unsuccessful because of the manifest evidence that they were not very representative of Christian views, and the fact that they even contradicted authoritative statements o f the Catholic church. Christians are called to acknowledge the presence o f ‘the other’ in the existence of Hinduism, which is for Hindus their age-long religious and cultural heritage. Hindus and Christians are becoming more aware that the question of conversion has to do with the theological frameworks of Hinduism and Christianity. In calling for a denunciation of conversion in the sense of change of religion in order to safeguard Hindu traditions, Hindus have at the same time focused attention on the importance of conversion in Christian belief, and the

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fact that the invitation to join the Christian community is deeply rooted and may not easily be detached from its mission.

Inculturation and continuity between Hinduism and Christianity The Christian and Hindu traditions each have a unique theological understanding of faith and practice and a distinctive historical development. But though the differences are great, similarities are also perceived, not only at the level of human commonality, but also at the theological level of two religions. The question of continuity and discontinuity between the two faiths was one of the major concerns of both Indian theologians and missionaries. Similarly, relating the Christian faith to other religions and cultures was a primary concern for those engaged in Christian mission, especially in the ‘contextualization’ approach of Protestant evangelicals and in the ‘inculturation’ theology of Catholics. In the latter case, though Staffner, Griffiths and others were motivated by their genuine appreciation of Hinduism, they necessarily selected the common ‘meeting points’ between the two different religious systems and, in the process, they split the religious system of Hinduism into the concepts of sadhana dharma and samaj dharma. This Hindu-Catholic synthesis has been criticized at various points: on the one hand, by dalit Christians who saw its exclusive association with Brahmanic Hinduism as rendering it unable to demonstrate the liberative nature of the Christian gospel; and on the other hand, by Hindu nationalists who reacted strongly, claiming that synthetic approaches are a subtle way to convert Hindus and undermine Hindu religions by appropriating their sacred symbols and religious practices. Furthermore, they refused to accept ‘outside’ interpretations of their religions and insisted that Hinduism, without the help of Christianity, does provide salvation for the people of India. There were also reactions from conservative sections within Christian churches, particularly from the Vatican, who saw a danger of compromising the Christian gospel. In the course of the intra-Catholic debates, it became increasingly clear that many Indian Christians wished to distance themselves from the decisive renunciation of Hinduism that was demanded by the doctrine of extra ecdesiam nulla solus. However, at the other extreme, an uncritical synthesis of Hindu and Christian traditions was found to be faithful to neither. Neither radical discontinuity in conversion from one religion

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to another nor radical continuity between religions was satisfying. The imposed discontinuity of Christian campaigns of conversion and the imposed continuity of Hindutva are attempts to obliterate a tension that must necessarily exist between the two. The Hindu-Catholic approach can be developed beyond creating a meeting point. Julius Lipner, in his ‘personal’ essay, emphasizes the immense importance of faith, saying that its ‘shaping, growth and meaning are both complex and profound’ because ‘faith is a living perspective, a constructive interpretation of the world’. In his theological search for a ‘new synthesis in Christ’, he accepts the differences as well as the similarities of both Hinduism and Christianity, but argues that a Hindu Christian, while holding a firm faith in Christ, is at the same time being ‘enriched’ and ‘transformed’ by the Hindu meaning of life (1995:167-75). The extent o f‘enreligionization’ of different individuals, communities, and religions varies and both continuity and discontinuity coexist in the experience of another religion. At the meeting point of faiths, conversion may be experienced both as a change of religion and as a transformation within a religious tradition.

Acknowledgement and respect o f the differences In framing a theology of conversion in India, I suggest that Christians need to engage in two further debates. The first is an intra-Christian debate on the motives and agents of conversion, mindful of Hindu criticisms. The focus of the controversy over conversion in India has been on two factors: the role of external agents, such as foreign missionaries or evangelists; and the role of the wider socio-political context, including colonialism, post-colonial problems of globalization and the socio-cultural particularity of the converts. Whilst these undoubtedly play a part in the process of conversion of individuals or communities, the faith commitment of the converts should not be overlooked. What is needed is for Hindu critiques of missionary activities leading to conversion, including the Sangh Parivar’s, to be heard by Christians and taken seriously. What Hindus vehemently object to is that conversions seem to be a purely human enterprise and not a spiritual transformation, and Christians are called to demonstrate their faith commitment as individual Christians and communities. Contemporary Christian mission theology emphasizes missio Dei, the idea that mission belongs to God not to the church. The church is

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seen as an instrument, a sign, and a first-fruit of mission but not its origin. David Bosch uses the term ‘transforming mission’ to describe how, in God’s mission, Christians both give and receive, they are both catalysts of change and they are also being changed in the process (Bosch 1991: 389-93, 374-6). Christians both serve this transforming mission of God and are also transformed by it. The testimonies of individuals and communities who have experienced this transformation cannot just be dismissed as socio-political movements or the results of missionary ‘campaigns’. Despite the complexity of the socio-political situation of India, the question of the motivations of converts and of missionaries, and the less-than-ideal nature of Christian communities, the ‘genuine’ or ‘spiritual’ conversions that Hindus are asking for do take place and these cannot be disregarded by onlookers but only testified to by the converts themselves. Christian testimonies to conversion will continue to challenge Hindu— and some Christian—notions of the nature of a religious community. Intra-Christian debates on the dynamics of the process of conversion— the faith commitment of converts, the role of evangelists, and the socio-political context— are necessary to frame a theology or theologies of conversion in the Indian context. The second debate needed is between Christians and Hindus on the scope and limit of religious tolerance, its meaning in their respective religions, and what it implies in contemporary India. The reciprocal nature of the ‘golden rule’, ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’, would mean that, even though Christians believed that conversion was needed by Hindus, in their approach they would need to show the same respect for Hindu identity and faith that they ask Hindus to show towards Christian identity and faith. Christian campaigns for conversion that treat Hindus as ‘targets’ and involve verbal attacks on Hindu deities, such as those discussed in Chapter Seven, are not compatible with the ‘golden rule’ and should be denounced by Christian communities themselves. Christian evangelism would be justified only to the extent that Christians were also willing to listen to Hindus and learn from them. In the more recent debates Christians did acknowledge a limit to their propagation where it met the boundaries of Hindu concepts of religious freedom. In the spirit of toleration, such restraint is to be interpreted as an act of genuine respect for Hindu beliefs and practices, and not as a capitulation to Hindu objections nor a gesture of concession. Hindus are also bound by their principle of tolerance to

Conclusion: Human Rights, Tolerance, and Religious

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show a spirit of ‘equal treatment of others’ views’ or ‘respect, involving restraint’ to Christians in regard of conversion. As noted in Chapter Four, the problem of conversion lay in a mismatch in the scope of tolerance in Christianity and Hinduism. Tolerance understood as ‘respect, involving restraint’ implies rather more active concern for the other party than the interpretation ‘live and let live’, but ‘do unto others’ is still more outgoing and proactive. The Christian desire to share their religious experience needs to be respected and appreciated as well as the Hindu sense of faithfulness to dharma. The different understandings of conversion need to be recognized as both communities accept each other as they are without imposing their own ideas on others. This requires accommodation from both sides, and it is possible only when both make an effort to examine their differences without necessarily agreeing with each other. Diana Eck, reflecting on her own spiritual journey in India, sees the problem of religious pluralism as a ‘question about the destiny of our human community and our capacity to listen with openness and empathy to people of faith very different from ourselves’ (167). The aim of all this religious thinking is not to find the lowest common denominator or the most neutral religious language. Far from it. The aim is to find those particular places within each tradition that provide the open space where we may meet one another in mutual respect and develop, through dialogue, new ways of speaking and listening— not mutual understanding but mutual self-understanding and mutual transformation (189). Eck argues persuasively that active engagement with people of other religious traditions, without losing one’s own commitment and with respect for different understandings on a particular issue, is vital in our multi-religious and socio-cultural contexts (191-9). The search of both communities is for a common identity, while also affirming self-identity. To achieve this a fresh start in the debate between Hindus and Christians is more than necessary. What Hindus call for from Christians is a clear demonstration of spirituality in Christian conversion,'respect for their religion, and frankness in approaching Hindus. On the other hand, what Christians call for from Hindus is appreciation of the religious dimensions of Christian conversion, recognition of both the distinctive identity of the Christian community

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and its place within Indian tradition, and trust in Christians as fellow Indians. The struggle between Hindus and Christians on the issue of conversion is undoubtedly due to the socio-political problems of the Indian context but, more fundamentally, it is also due to different theological searches for the meaning of life and the way to achieve it— a common quest but answered in widely differing ways. Acknowledgment that this is an encounter of two radically different religious systems and respect for these differences are necessary steps towards untangling the problem of conversion. It seems the debate over religious conversion is set to continue, and indeed it should continue as a positive feature of a multi-religious society in which Hindus and Christians respect each other’s faiths and neither is forced to yield to the other.

A p p e n d ix I

The Proceedings of the Debate on Conversion in the Constituent Assembly, 1947-9. The Constituent Assembly President: Rajendra Prasad Vice-President: H.C. Mookherjee Constituent Advisor: B.N. Rau

i

Advisory Committee on Fundamental Rights, Minorities, etc. Chairman: Vallabhbhai Patel

Drafting Committee Chairman: B.R. Ambedkar

i Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee Chairman: J.B. Kripalani

Minorities Sub-Committee Chairman: H.C. Mookherjee

1. D raft articles by K. M. M unshi (17 March 1947): VI (1) All citizens are equally entided to freedom o f conscience, and to the right freely to profess and practise religion in a manner compatible with public order, morality or health: Provided that the economic, financial or political activities The following are the original sources for appendices : 1. The Proceedings of the Debate on Conversion in the Constituent Assembly, 1947-9. Sebastian C.H. Kim 2. Summary of Recommendations o f the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee (Niyogi Report) Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee Vol I (Nagpur: Government Printing, Madhya Pradesh, 1956). 3. The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967 (Orissa Act II of 1968) Lalit Mohan Suni (ed), The Current Indian Statures, 1968 Jan-Dee (Part VI: Orissa Acts, Ordinances and Notifications; Punjab Law Reporter Press, 1968). 4. The Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968 O.P. Tiwari (ed), The Madhya Pradesh Law TimesVo1. XI (Part IX: Madhya Pradesh Acts; Allahabad: Allahabad Law Publications, 1969). 5. The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Indigenous Faith Act, 1978 Zachaiah, Mathai (ed), Freedom o f Religion in India (Kottayam: NCCI, 1979). 6. Freedom of Religion Bill Introduced in the Parliament, 1978 Zachaiah, Mathai (ed), Freedom o f Religion in India (Kottayam: NCCI, 1979).

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associated with religious worship shall not be deemed to be included in the right to profess or practise religion. VI (6) N o person under the age o f eighteen shall be free to change his religious persuasion without the permission o f his parent or guardian. VI (7) Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion, undue influence or the offering o f material inducement is prohibited and is punishable by the law o f the Union. 2. Draft articles by B. R. Ambedkar (24 March 1947): (14) The State shall guarantee to every Indian citizen, liberty o f conscience and the free exercise o f his religion including the right to profess, to preach, and to convert within limits compatible with public order and morality. (15) N o person shall be compelled to become a member o f any religious association, submit to any religious instruction or perform any act o f religion. Subject to the foregoing provision, parents and guardians shall be entided to determine the religious education o f children up to the age o f sixteen years. 3. Report o f the Sub-Com m ittee on Fundamental Rights (16 April 1947): (16) All persons are equally entided to freedom o f conscience, to freedom of religious worship and to freedom to profess religion, subject to public order, morality or health and to the other provisions o f this chapter. (21) N o person under the age o f eighteen shall be made to join or profess any religion other than the one in which he was born or be initiated into any religious order involving loss o f civil status. (22) Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognized by law and the exercise o f such coercion or influence shall be an offence. 4. Suggestions from the M inorities Sub-Com m ittee (19 April 1947): (16) All persons are equally entided to freedom o f conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality or health and to the other provisions o f this chapter. (21) (a) N o person under the age o f eighteen shall be made to join or profess any religion other than the one in which he was born, except when his parents themselves have been converted and the child does not choose to adhere to his original faith; nor shall such person be initiated into any religious order involving loss o f civil status. (b) N o conversion shall be recognized unless the change o f faith is attested by a Magistrate after due inquiry. 5. Advisory Com m ittee Reports on Fundamental Rights (23 April 1947): (13) All persons are equally entided to freedom o f conscience, and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion; subject to public order, morality or health, and to the other provisions o f this chapter.

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(17) Conversion from one religion to another brought about by coercion or undue influence shall not be recognized by law. 6. Amendment brought by K. M . M unshi in the Constituent Assembly (1 May 1947): (17) Any conversion from one religion to another o f any person brought about by fraud, coercion or undue influence or o f a minor under the age o f eighteen shall not be recognized by law. 7. D raft Constitution prepared by the Drafting Com m ittee (21 February 1948)

Article 19: (1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions o f this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom o f conscience, and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. 8. D raft Constitution as revised by the Drafting Com m ittee (in full) (3 November 1949). (See # 9) 9. Adopted into the Constitution o f India by the Constituent Assembly (26 November 1949).

Article 25. Freedom o f conscience and free profession, practice and propagation o f religion. (1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions o f this Part, all persons are equally entided to freedom o f conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. (2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation o f any existing law or prevent the State from making any law— (a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice; (b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open o f Hindu religious institutions o f a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus. Explanation I: The wearing and carrying o f kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession o f the Sikh religion. Explanation II: In sub-clause (b) o f clause (2), the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.

A ppendix II Summary o f Recommendations o f the Report o f the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee (Niyogi Report) The following is a summary o f the recommendations which we have made:— 1. Those Missionaries whose primary object is proselytization should be asked to withdraw The large influx o f foreign Missionaries is undesirable and should be checked (Paragraph 72, Chapter II, Part IV, Volume I). 2. The best course for the Indian Churches to follow is to establish a United Independent Christian Church in India without being dependent on foreign support (Paragraph 76 ibid.). 3. The use o f medical or other professional services as a direct means o f making conversions should be prohibited by law (Paragraph 82 ibid.). 4. T o implement the provision in the Constitution o f India prohibiting the imparting o f religious education to children without the explicit consent o f parents and guardians, the Department o f Education should see that proper forms are prescribed and made available to all schools (Paragraph 86 ibid.). 5. Any attempt by force o f fiaud, or threats o f illicit means or grants o f financial or other aid, or by fraudulent means or promises, or by moral and material assistance, or by taking advantage o f any person’s inexperience or confidence, or by exploiting any person’s necessity, spiritual (mental) weakness or thoughdessness, or, in general, any attempt or effort (whether successful or not), direcdy or indirecdy to penetrate into the religious conscience of persons (whether o f age or underage) o f another faith, for the purpose of consciously altering their religious conscience or faith, so as to agree with the ideas or convictions o f the proselytizing party should be absolutely prohibited (Paragraph 87 ibid). 6. Religious institutions should not be permitted to engage in occupations like recruitment o f labour for tea gardens (Paragraph 88 ibid.). 1. It is the primary duty o f Government to conduct orphanages, as the State is the legal guardian o f all minors who have no parents or natural guardians (Paragraph 89 ibid.). 8. Government should issue an appeal to authoritative and representative Christian Missionary Organisations and to Christian individuals to come together and to form an authoritative organization which should lay down and inform the Government in clear terms the policy which the Missions

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and Christians in general will follow in respect o f propagating their religion, the methods to be followed in conversions, the type o f propaganda which will be promoted and the attempts which will be made to confine their evangelistic activities within the limits o f public order, morality and healthy (Paragraph 90 ibid). 9. An amendment o f the Constitution o f India may be sought, firsdy to clarify that the right o f propagation has been given only to the citizens o f India

10.

11.

12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

and secondly that it does not include conversion brought about by force, fraud or other illicit means (Paragraph 91 ibid.). Suitable control on conversions brought about through illegal means should be imposed If necessary, Legislative measures should be enacted (Paragraph 92 ibid). Advisory Boards at Su te level, regional level and district level should be constituted o f non-officials, minority communities like Tribals and Harijans being in a majority on these boards (Paragraph 93 ibid.). Rules relating to the registration o f Doctors, Nurses and other personnel employed in hospitals should be suitably amended to provide a condition against evangelistic activities during professional services (Paragraph 95 ibid). Circulation o f literature meant for religious propaganda without approval o f the State Government should be prohibited (Paragraph 96 ibid). Institutions in receipt o f grants-in-aid or recognition from Government should be compulsorily inspected every quarter by officers o f the Government (Paragraph 97 ibid). Government should lay down a policy that the responsibility o f providing social services like education, health, medicine, etc., to members o f scheduled tribes, castes and other backward classes will be solely o f the State Government, and adequate services should be provided as early as possible, non-official organizations being permitted to run institutions only for members o f their own religious faith (Paragraph 98 ibid.). A sep-uate department o f Cultural and Religious affairs should be constituted at the State level to deal with these matters which should be in charge o f a

Minister belonging to a scheduled caste, tribe or other backward classes and should have specially trained personnel at the various levels (Paragraph 99 ibid.). 17. N o non-official agency should be permitted to secure foreign assistance except through Government channels (Paragraph 100 ibid.). 18. N o foreigner should be allowed to function in a scheduled or a specified area either independendy or as a member o f a religious institution unless

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he has given a declaration in writing that he will not take part in politics (Paragraph 100 ibid.). 19. Programmes o f social and economic uplift by non-official or religious bodies should receive prior approval o f the State (Paragraph 100 ibid.).

(B.P. Pathak) Member-Secretary

(M.B. Niyogi) Chairman

(Ghanshyam Singh Gupta) Member

(S.K. George) Member

(Ratanlal Malviya) Member

(Bhanu Pratap Singh) Member

A p p e n d ix I II

The Orissa Freedom of Religion Act 1967 (Orissa Act II of 1968) An Act to provide for prohibition o f conversion from one religion to another by the use o f force or inducement or by fraudulent means and for matters incidental thereto. Be it enacted by the Legislature o f the State o f Orissa in the Eighteenth Year o f the Republic o f India, as fellows: 1. Short title, extent and commencement: 1. This Act may be called the Orissa Freedom o f Religion Act, 1967. 2. It shall extend to the whole o f the State o f Orissa. 3. It shall come into force at once.

Note: Object: ‘Conversion in its very process involves an act o f undermining another faith. The process becomes all the more objectionable when this is brought about by recourse to methods like force, fraud, material inducement, and exploitation o f one’s poverty, simplicity and ignorance. Conversion or attempts to conversion in the above manner besides creating various maladjustments in social life, also give rise to problems o f law and order. It is therefore, o f importance to provide for measures to check such activities which also indirectly impinge on the freedom o f religion. The Bill seeks to achieve the above objectives.’ [Vide Statement o f Objects and Reasons printed in the Orissa Gazette, Ext., N o 1592, dated 13 December 1967.] 2. Definitions: In this Act unless the context otherwise requires: (a) ‘conversion’ means renouncing one religion and adopting another, (b) ‘force’ shall include a show o f force or a threat o f injury o f any kind including threat o f divine displeasure or social excommunications; (c) ‘fraud’ shall include misrepresentadon or any other fraudulent contrivance; (d) ‘inducement’ shall include the offer o f any gift or gratification, either in cash or in kind and shall also include the grant o f any benefit, either pecuniary or otherwise; (e) ‘minor’ means a person under eighteen years o f age. 3. Prohibition o f forcible conversion: N o person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religious faith to another by the use o f force or by inducement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any person abet any such conversion.

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4. Punishment for contravention o f the provisions o f section 3: Any person contravening the provisions contained in section 3 shall, without prejudice to any civil liability, be punishable with imprisonment o f either description which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees or with both: Provided that in case the offence is committed in respect o f a minor, a woman or person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, the punishment shall be imprisonment to the extent o f two years and fine up to ten thousand rupees. 5. Offence to be cognizable: An offence under this Act shall be cognizable and shall not be investigated by an officer below the rank o f an Inspector o f police. 6. Prosecution to be m ade with the sanction o f D istrict M agistrate: No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be made without the sanction o f the Magistrate o f the District or such other authority, not below the rank of Sub-Divisional Officer, as may be authorised by him in that behalf. 7. Power to make rules: The State Government may make rules for the purpose o f carrying out the provisions o f this Act.

A ppendix IV The Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968 An Act to provide for prohibition o f conversion from one religion to another by the use o f force or inducement or by fraudulent means and for matters incidental thereto. Be it enacted by the Madhya Pradesh Legislature in the Nineteenth Year o f the Republic o f India as follows:

Note: It is observed that iarge scale conversions are taking place mosdy among the Adiwasis and persons belonging to other backward classes o f the State. The illiteracy and poverty o f the people is exploited and promises o f monetary, medical and other aid are given to allure them to renounce their religion and adopt another religion. The Bill seeks to prohibit such conversions by use o f force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means. [Vide Statement o f Objects and Reasons published in Madhya Pradesh Rajpatra (Asadharan) dated 6 September 1968 page 1391.] 1. Short tide, extent and commencement: 1. This Act may be called the M adhya Pradesh Dharm a Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968. 2. It shall extend to the whole o f the State o f Madhya Pradesh. 3. It shall come into force at once. 2. Definitions: In this Act unless the context otherwise requires: (a) ‘allurement’ means offer o f any temptation in the form o f (i) any gift or gratification either in cash or kind; (ii) grant o f any material benefit, either monetary or otherwise; (b) ‘conversion’ means renouncing one religion and adopting another, (c) ‘force’ shall include a show o f force or a threat o f injury o f any kind including threat o f divine displeasure or social excommunication; (d) ‘fraud’ shall include misrepresentation or any other fraudulent contrivance;

(e) ‘minor’ means a person under eighteen years of age. 3. Prohibition o f forcible conversion: N o person shall convert or attempt to convert, either direcdy or otherwise, any person from one religious faith to another by the use o f force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any person abet any such conversion. 4. Punishment for contravention o f the provisions o f section 3: Any person contravening the provisions contained in section 3 shall, without prejudice to any civil liability, be punishable with imprisonment o f either description which

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may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to five thousand rupees or with both: Provided that in case the offence is committed in respect o f a minor, a woman or person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, the punishment shall be imprisonment to the extent o f two years and fine up to ten thousand rupees.

5. Intimation to be given to District Magistrate with respect to conversion: 1. Whoever converts any person from one religious faith to another either by performing himself the ceremony necessary for such conversion as a religious priest or by taking part directly or indirecdy in such ceremony shall, within such period after the ceremony as may be prescribed, send an intimation to the District Magistrate o f the district in which the ceremony has taken place o f the fact o f such conversion in such form as may be prescribed. 2. If any person fails within sufficient cause to comply with the provisions contained in sub-section (1), he shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees or with both. 6. Offence to be cognizable: An offence under this Act shall be cognizable and shall not be investigated by an officer below the rank o f an Inspector o f police. 7. Prosecution to be made with the sanction o f District M agistrate: No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be instituted except by, or with the previous sanction o f the Magistrate o f the District or such other authority, not below the rank o f a Sub-Divisional Officer, as may be authorised by him in that behalf. 8. Power to make rules: The State Government may make rules for the purpose o f carrying out the provisions o f this Act.

A ppendix V The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Indigenous Faith Act, 1978 Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom o f Religion Act, 1978 T o provide for prohibition o f conversion from one religious faith to any other faith by use o f force or inducement or by fraudulent means and for matters connected therewith. Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly o f Arunachal Pradesh in the Twentyninth Year o f the Republic o f India as follows: 1. Short tide, extent and commencement: 1. This Act may be called the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom o f Religion Act, 1978 2. It extends to the whole o f Union Territory o f Arunachal Pradesh. 3. It shall come into force at once. 2. Definitions: In this Act unless the context otherwise requires: (a) ‘Government’ means the Government o f the Union Territory o f Arunachal Pradesh. (b) ‘Conversion’ means renouncing an indigenous faith and adopting another faith or religion. (c) ‘Indigenous’ means such religions, beliefs, and practices including rites, rituals, festivals, observances, performances, abstinence, customs as have been found sanctioned, approved, perform ed by the indigenous communities o f Arunachal Pradesh from the time these communities have been known and includes Buddhism as prevalent among the Monpas, M em bas, Sherdukpens, K ham bas, K ham tis, and Singphoos, and Vaishnavism, as practised by Noctes, Akas and Nature worships, including worships o f Doni-Polo, as prevalent among other indigenous communities o f Arunachal Pradesh. (d) ‘Force’ shall include show o f force or a threat o f injury o f any kind including threat o f divine displeasure or social excommunication. (e) ‘Fraud’ shall include misrepresentation or other fraudulent contrivance. (f) ‘Inducement’ shall include the offer o f any gift, or gratification, either in cash or in kind and shall also include the grant o f any benefit, either pecuniary or otherwise. (g) ‘Prescribed’ means prescribed under the rules. (h) ‘Religious faith’ includes any indigenous faith. 3. Prohibition o f forcible conversion: N o person shall convert or attempt to convert, either direcdy or otherwise, any person from indigenous faith by use o f

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force or by inducement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any person abet any such conversion. 4. Punishment for contravention o f the provision o f Sec. 3: Any person contravening the provisions contained in section 3 shall, without prejudice to any civil liability, be punishable with imprisonment to the extent o f two years and fine up to ten thousand rupees. 5. Intimation o f conversion to the Deputy Com m issioner and punishment: 1. Whoever converts any person from his indigenous faith to any other faith o f religion either by performing himself the ceremony necessary for such conversion as a religious priest or by taking part directly or indirecdy in such ceremony shall, within such period after the ceremony as may be prescribed, send an intimation to Deputy Commissioner o f the District to which the person converted belongs, o f the fact o f such conversion in such form as may be prescribed. 2. If any person fails without sufficient cause to comply with the provisions contained in sub-section (1) he shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees or with both. 6. Offence cognizable: An offence under this Act shall be cognizable and shall not be investigated by an officer below the rank o f an Inspector o f Police. 7. Sanction for prosecution: N o prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be instituted except by or with previous sanction o f the Deputy Commissioner or such other authority, not below the rank o f an Extra Assistant Commissioner as may be authorised by him in this behalf. 8. Power to make rules: The Government may make rules for the purpose of carrying out the provisions o f this Act.

A ppendix V I Freedom of Religion Bill Introduced in the Parliament, 1978 As Introduced in Lok Sabha on 22 December 1978. Bill N o 178 o f 1978 The Freedom o f Religion Bill, 1978 By Shri O. P. Tyagi M.P.

A Bill: T o provide for prohibition o f conversion from one religion to another by the use o f force or inducement or by fraudulent means and for matters incidental thereto. Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twenty-ninth Year o f the Republic o f India as follows: 1. Short title and commencement: 1. This Act may be called the Freedom o f Religion Act, 1978. 2. It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint. 2. Definitions: In this Act unless the context otherwise requires: (a) ‘conversion’ means renouncing one religion and adopting another, (b) ‘force’ shall include a show o f force or a threat o f injury o f any kind including threat o f divine displeasure or social excommunication; (c) ‘fraud’ shall include misrepresentation or any other fraudulent contrivance; (d) ‘inducement’ shall include the offer o f any gift or gratification, either in cash or in kind and shall also include the grant o f any benefit, either pecuniary or otherwise; (e) ‘minor’ means a person under eighteen years o f age. 3. Prohibition on conversion by force, inducement etc.: N o person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any person from one religious faith to another by the use o f force or by inducement or by any fraudulent means nor shall any person abet any such conversion. 4. Punishment: Any person contravening the provisions contained in section 3 shall, without prejudice to any civil liability, be punishable with imprisonment o f either description which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to three thousand rupees or with both: Provided that in case the offence is committed in respect o f a minor, a woman or person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, the punishment shall be imprisonment to the extent o f two years and fine up to five thousand rupees.

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5. Offence to be cognizable: An offence under this Act shall be cognizable and shall not be investigated by an officer below the rank o f an Inspector o f police. 6. Prosecution to be made with the sanction o f District M agistrate: No prosecution for an offence under this Act shall be made without the sanction of the Magistrate o f the District or such other authority, not below the rank of Sub-Divisional Officer, as may be authorised by him in that behalf. 7. Probation o f Offenders Act not to apply: The provision o f the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958 shall not apply to the punishment o f offences committed under this Act. 8. Power to make rules: The Central Government may make rules for the purpose o f carrying out the provisions o f this Act. Statement o f Objects and Reasons: One o f the Fundamental Rights enshrined in the Constitution is the right to profess, practice, and propagate religion o f one’s choice. Conversion from one religion to another, done by free consent and will, cannot be questioned. But State protection is required where it is sought to be attained by threat, undue influence, allurement or wrongful inducement. The importance o f providing this protection to persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is all the more necessary and cannot be ignored. The policy of the State should be directed to achievement this aim. Hence this Bill. New Delhi 21 November 1978 O. P. Tyagi

Bibliography

1. Archives Azariah, V.S. ‘All Heads o f Churches and Missions (Private Circulation)’, May 1936, Box 395/43, National Christian Council Correspondence, Joint Archives o f the International Missionary Council and Conference o f British Missionary Societies, School o f Oriental and African Studies, London. Azariah, V.S. Letter from V.S. Azariah to Harrison, 17 January 1937, Box 395/ 43, National Christian Council Correspondence, Joint Archives o f the International Missionary Council and Conference o f British Missionary Societies, School o f Oriental and African Studies, London. ‘Letter from Patel to the President [of the Constituent Assembly]’ in Dr Rajendra Prasad Papers I (l-F/47; #29; 25 August 1947), National Archives o f India, New Delhi.

2. Acts and Orders of the Indian Central and State Governments The President’s Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order N o 19 o f 1950. Hindu Marriage Act (Act 25 o f 1955). Hindu Succession Act (Act 30 o f 1956). Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act (Act 32 o f 1956). Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (Act 78 o f 1956). The Orissa Freedom o f Religion Act, 1967. The Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam, 1968. The Arunachal Pradesh Freedom o f Indigenous Faith Act, 1978.

3. Published Reports of the Indian Central and State Governments and Voluntary Organizations All India Reporter (AIR; N agpur All India Reporter). Constituent Assembly Debates: Official Report (CA D; Delhi: Manager o f Publications).

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Vajpeyi, Dhirendra and Yogendra K. Malik (eds.). Religious and Ethnic Minority Politics in South Asia (New Delhi: Manohar, 1989). Valiaveetil, Chacko. ‘A New Understanding o f Mission’, 7/ VAN, May-June 1994. Van Boven, Theo C. ‘Religious Liberty in the Context o f Human Rights’, ER 37/3 (July 1985), 345-55. Van der Bent, Ans. ‘The Concept o f Conversion in the Ecumenical Movement: A Historical and Documentary Survey’, ER 44/4 (October 1992), 380-90. Van der Veer, Peter. ‘Writing Violence’, in David Ludden (ed.), Making India Hindu: Religion, Community, and the Politics o f Democracy in India (New Delhi: OUP, 1996), 250-69. Van Straelen, H. The Catholic Encounter with World Religions (London: Bums & Oates, 1966). Vandana Mataji. Gurus, Ashrams and Christians (Delhi: ISPCK, 1978). Vandana Mataji (ed.). Christian Ashrams: A Movement with a Future? (Delhi: ISPCK, 1993). Vassiliadis, Petros. ‘Mission and Proselytism: An Orthodox Understanding’, IRM LXXXV/337 (April 1996), 257-75. Vempeny, Ishanand. Conversion: National Debate or Dialogue? (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1999). Viswanathan, Gauri. Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Vivekananda, Swami. ‘Christ the Messenger’, in The Complete Works ofSwami Vivekananda IV (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1992), 138-53. Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan. Christianity in India: A Critical Study (Madras: Vivekananda Kendra Prakashan, 1979). Voice o f India. Arun Shourie and His Christian Critic (New Delhi: Voice o f India, 1995). Walls, Andrew F. The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission o f Faith (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996). Wang, Thomas (ed.). Countdown to AD 2000 (Pasadena: AD 2000 Movement, 1989). Ward, Kevin and Brian Stanley (eds.). The Church Mission Society and World Chrisdanity, 1799-1999 (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans, and London: Curzon Press, 2000). Weber, Max. The Sociology o f Religion, trans. Ephraim Fischoff (Boston: Beacon Press, 1956). Webster, John C.B. The Dalit Christians: A History (Delhi: ISPCK, 1992). Weller, K.F. ‘Religious Liberty in Some Indian States’, NCCR LXVI/3 (March 1946), 80-1. Wietzke, Joachim (ed.). Paul D. Devanandan II (Madras: CLS, 1987). Wilfred, Felix. ‘Understanding Conversion in India Today’, IMR 5/1 (January 1983), 61-73. Wilfred, Felix (ed.). Leave the Temple: Indian Paths to Human Liberation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1992).

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Index

Abel, M., 172, 174 Abhishiktananda, 116, 147 Advani, Lai Krishna, 132 Advisory C om m ittee, debate on conversion in, 43—46, 201 ahimsa concept, 26 Ahmad, Imtiaz, 123, 129 Aiyar, Swaminathan S. Anklesaria, 172 Ali, Muhammad Mohar, 14, 21 All Asia Bishops’ Synod, 162 All India C on gress on C hurch Development, 134 All India Council o f Indian Christians, 39 All India Federation o f Organisations for Democratic Rights, 164 All India Freedom o f Religion Bill, 81-84, 213-14 All India Scheduled Castes Federation, 31 Allen, Roland, 66 Amaladoss, Michael, 131 Ambedkar, B.R., 31-32, 43, 48, 51,

201-02 Anathil, George M., 142 Anglo-Indian Association, 46 anonymous Christianity, theory of, 112-13 Anthony, F.R., 46-47

Appasamy, A.J., 22 Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, 166 A runachal Pradesh Freedom o f Indigenous Faith Act 1978,81-86, 211-12 Arya Samaj, 53 Asia Theological Association (ATA), 135 Asian Age, 160-^1, 173-75 Asian and Western Dominance, 66 Augustine, P .A , 126 Azariah, V.S., 10, 30-36, 90, 122 debate on conversion with M .K Gandhi, 30-36 BJP, 139, 155, 157, 160 Baago, Kaj, 90-95, 99, 103-05, 191 debate on conversion with Lesslie Newbigin, 90-95 Babri Masjid demolition issue, 139, 152 BajrangDal, 139—40 Banerjea, Krishna Mohan, 22 Banerjee, Ruben, 157 Barrett, David, 140 Basel Mission in India, 50 Basu, Durga Das, 80 Basu, Tapan, 155 Bates, M. Searle, 38, 57 Bayly, Susan, 3

Index Bediako, Kwame, 193 Bengal, debates on conversion in nineteenth century between, 1423 John Muir and pandits, 18-23 Ram Mohan Roy and Joshu Marshman, 15-18 Berkhof, Hendrikus, 96 Bevans, Stephen B., 6 Bhargava, Rajeev, 190 Bhatty, E.C., 61 Bhave, Vinoba, 116 Bidwai, Praful, 177 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 7 Bonino, Jose Miguez, 8 Bosch, David J., 7 ,6 8 ,1 1 0 ,1 1 3 , 198 Boyd, Robin, 17, 115 Brass, Paul, 37, 59, 139 Burckhardt, P.E., 50 Burman, B.K. Roy, 172 Burrows, William R , 131 Bush, Luis, 132-33 Buder, J.F., 40 Caplan, Lionel, 3, 175 Carleton-Paget, James, 195 Carman, John B., 95 Caste Disabilities Removal Act, 38 Castro, Emilio, 7 Catholic ashram movement, 116, 118-19, 181 Catholic Association o f Bombay, 70 Catholic Bishops Conference in India (CBCI), 63, 69, 138, 142, 146, 148, 158, 180 Catholic mission theology, 6 Catholic Regional Conference, 63 Catholic Union o f India, 39—40 Chakkarai, Vengal, 89 Chandra, Bipan, 38 Chandran, J .R , 102 Charter o f Religious Freedom, 184

241

Chatterjee, Abhas, 25, 168 Chaube, S.K., 173 Chaudhari, Rohini Kumar, 53 Chaudhuri, Nirad C., 107 Chenchiah, Pandipeddi, 89-90 Chopp, Rebecca, 122 Chopra, Pran, 164-65 Chowdhury, Ujjwal K., 172 Chowgule, Ashok, 165-70 Christ in India, 116

Christ of the Indian Road, The, 27 Christ-centred secular fellowship, idea of, 191-92 Christian Institute for the Study o f Religion and Society, 92, 101 Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, 89 C h ristian M ission ary A ctivities Enquiry Committee Report, see,

Niyogi Report Christian Proselytism in India : A Great and Growing Menace, 90 Christianity, conversion as problem of, 168-70 doctrin al differences with H in duism , 2 0 -2 3 , 83, 85, 113-14, 176-77, 183, 197-

200 Gandhi’s views on, 24-27 human rights and, 184-87 in cu lturation and continuity between Hinduism and, 19697 Indian interpretation of, 15-18 relationship with other religion, 5 role in process o f conversion, 2—4, 12 universal claim of, 18-23 Western civilization and, 21 church-less Christianity, idea of, 191 Clarke, Sathianathan, 121 Clausen, Felix, 146

242

Index

Collect, Sophia, 17 Comaroff, Jean, 3 Comaroff, John, 3 Commission on Conversion o f the Nasrapur Consultation, 94 Commission on World Mission and Evangelism o f the W CC, 96 communal violence, 139 Communalism Combat, 156, 159 communism, spread of, 68 community and secularism, 103-08 Conference on M ass M ovem ents (1936), 32 Constitution Assembly debates on, conversion o f minors, 46-51 conversion, 42-51, 201-03 propagation o f religion, 51-55 Constitution o f India, article 25, 68, 76, 78-79, 203 conversion, as an attack on Hindu nationhood, 167-68 as inherent problem of Christianity, 168-70 as symptomatic o f clash o f religious frameworks, 175-79 as violence against humanity, 165— 67 call for national debate on, 157— 60 Catholic understanding o f around Vatican II, 112-15 causes of, 2 Christian Mission and problems of, 1-12 Christian mission in India for, 190-200 Christian rethinking of, 170-75 Christian understandings of, 151— 54, 182-83 clash o f religious frameworks and, 175-79

community and, 103-08 conception of, 92 debates on, see, debates on conversion definition of, 92, 94, 128, 151 Depressed class and, 24-25, 31 from perspective o f Hindus, 16063 Gandhi and, 23-36 Hindu response to, 117-21, 182 Hindu tolerance law and, 84—87 Hindu understandings of, 151-54 Hindu-Catholic approach to, 11121 H indu-Christian tension over, 156-63, 183 in context o f Hindutva, 170-75 in Early Church, 195 in South Tamil Nadu, 121-31 liberation and reinterpreting motives for, 193-96 liberation theology and, 121-31 mass conversion in South Tamil Nadu, 121-31 mass conversions, 32-36, 62, 90, 121-31 moratorium on, 8 motivation for, 3 2 -3 3 , 35, 68, 193-96 movements, 2-3, 6, 25, 32 nature of, 35-36 objections to, 10-11, 41, 182 politics o f swaraj and, 38-42 problems in India, 4 -6 , 8 -1 2 , 175-79 process, 6-8 proselytism and, 7 Protestant debates on, 89-102 reinterpretations of, 11-12 Sangh Parivar and, 155-79 secularization and, 103-08 socio-culrural studies, 3-9

Index socio-political interpretation of, 128-31 studies on, 2-9 swaraj politics and, 38-42 theology of, 190-200 theology o f inculturation and, 111-21 under British Raj, 13-36 visit o f Pope John Paul II to India and, 160-63 Copley, 14 Council on National Service(CONS), 134 Coward, Harold G., 8 Cox, Harvey, 96 D ’Cruz, A.J., 146 D ’Souza, Eugene, 65 D ’Souza, Jerome, 46, 48-49 Dalrymple, William, 1 Dar, A.N., 167 Day, Lai Behari, 22 debates on conversion, among Protestant Theologians in India, 88-108 between, Arun Shourie and Christian leaders, 142-51 in Christian community, 9 5 98 John Muir and Hindu pandits, 18-23 Kaj Baago and Lesslie Newbigin, 90-95 M .K.Gandhi and E. Stanley Jones, 27-30 M.IC Gandhi and V.S. Azariah, 30-36 M .M . T hom as and Lesslie Newbigin, 98-102 Ram Mohan Roy and Joshna Marshman, 15-18 Catholic debates, 109-31

243

changes in Catholic under­ standing o f around Vatican II, 112-15 critical examination o f 182-83 Hindu-Catholic approach to, 111-21 Hindu response to,l 17-21 in Advisory Committee, 43-46 in Bengal, 14—23 in first h a lf o f nineteenth century, 14-23 in Indian Constitution Assembly, 37-58, 184, 191, 201-03 initiated by Sangh Parivar, 155-79 M .KG andhi and, 23-36 over mass conversion in South Tamil Nadu, 121-31 Protestant debates, 89-108 under British Raj, 13-36 Deccan Chronicle, 146-47, 149 Declaration o f Religious Liberty, 184 Degrijse, Omar, 137 Depressed Classes, conversion of, 2 4 2 5 ,3 1 -3 6 , 42 Derrett, J. Duncan, 74 Devadason, E.D ., 79-80 Devananda, Swami, 117-18 Devanandan, P.D., 96, 187 Devasahayam, D.M ., 22 din-e-ilahi religion, 129 Douglas, Ian H., 94-95, 134 Dubey, Muchkund, 172 Duff, Alexander, 18 D uff Missionary Lectures, 92 Dutt, Dev, 125

Ecclesia in Asia, 162-63, 169, 175— 76 Eck, Diana, 199 Ecumenical Review, 97

244

Index

Embree, Ainslie T., 188

Evangelii Nuntiandi, 169 Evangelization 2000 movement, 13637 evangelization o f World, 132-54 Arun Shourie and Christian leaders debate on, 142-51 campaign o f Hindutva and, 13942 Christian campaigns for, 133-38 H in du and C h ristian un der­ standing of, 151-54 nationalist H indu response to, 139-42 Examiner, 50, 69, 77, 81-82, 84-85 Express Magazine, 124 extra ecclesiam nulla salus doctrine, 109, 114, 196 Farquhar, J.N ., 115 Fellowship o f Indian Missiologists (FOIM), 8 Fernandes, Walter, 4, 127, 171 Finance Act 1998, 157 Fisher, Humphrey, 3, 194 Forester, Duncan, 2, 106 Forward Movement in Evangelism, 30, 32 Francis, G.X., 22, 61 Frawley, David, 165-67 Freedom o f Religion Act, 38 Freedom o f Religion Bill 1978, 149, 213-14 freedom o f religion legislation, debate over, 73-81 High Court and Supreme Court verdict on, 78-84 Friend o f India, 16 Frykenberg, Robert E., 5, 9, 177 Fundamental Rights o f Citizens, 43 Fundamental Rights Sub-Committee, 43-45, 201-02

Gandhi, M.K., 1 0 ,1 3 -1 4 ,2 3 ,5 5 -5 6 , 73, 113, 145, 181, 190 debate on conversion with E.Stanley Jones, 27-30 V.S. Azariah, 30-36 views on conversion, 24-27 George, S.K., 61, 206 Gill, David, 186 Gispert-Sauch, George, 110, 121 Gladstone, J.W ., 2 Gnanakan, Ken, 135-36 Goa Inquisition, 160-62 Goel, Sita Ram, 54-55, 57, 117-19, 141-42, 151, 168-70 Golwalkar, M .S., 63 Goodall, Norman, 98 Goodman, Martin, 7, 195 Goreh, Nilakantha, 19-20, 22 Great Commission Christians, 133 Grenz, Stanley J., 96 Griffiths, Bede, 115-18, 120, 147, 196 Gupta, Ghanshyam Singh, 206 Gutierrez, Gustavo, 7, 121

Harijan, 31, 33-34, 73 Harper, Susan, 24, 30, 32-34 Harrison, Agatha, 34 Harvesting Our Souls, 170 Hedlund, Roger, 135 Hefner, Robert, 3-4 Henriques, Gino, 136 Hick, John, 119

Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956) 74 Hindu and Christian communities, secular integration of, 191—93 H in d u -C a th o lic ap p ro ach to conversion, 111-21 Catholic understanding around Vatican II, 111-15 Hindu responses to, 117-21

Index Hindu-Catholic concept, 111 Hindu-Christian tensions, call for national debate on conversion, 157-60 over conversion, 156-63 Pope John Paul II visit to India and, 160-63 Hindu Marriage Act(1955), 74 Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act(1956), 74 Hindu nationalism, 139 Hindu nationalist movement, 181 Hindu nationhood, conversion as an attack on, 167-68 Hindu pandits, debate on conversion with John Muir, 18-23 Hindu Sabha o f Nagpur, 62-63 Hindu Succession Act(1956), 74 Hindu tolerance law and conversion, 84-87 Hindu Vivek Kendra, 175 Hindu, The, 27, 123-24 Hinduism Today, 117 Hinduism, in culturation and con tin uity between Christinity and, 19697 religious tolerance and, 187-90 Hindutva, campaign for, 139-42, 165 Christian rethinking of conversion in context of, 170-75 ideology of, 6 3 ,7 2 ,1 8 1 ,1 8 9 ,1 9 2 movement, 5, 12 Hocking, William, 66 Hodge, J.Z ., 31-32 Hoekendijk, J.C ., 7, 105 Honesr to God, 96 horizontal conversion, 27 Horton, Robin, 3, 194 Houtepen, Anton, 184-85

245

Hrangkhuma, F., 6, 172 Human rights and Christianity, 184-

86 Hunsberger, George, 103 Husain, Tajamul, 52 inculturation, concept of, 6 inculturation theology and HinduCatholic approach to conversion, 111-12 India as a Secular Scate, 56 India Today, 156 Indian Converts (Regulation and Registration) Bill, 75 Indian Express, 117, 124, 157-61, 163 Indian Missiological Review, 127 Indian politics, secular ideology of, 125 Indian Social Reformer, 41-42 International Bill o f Rights, 184 International Congress on W orld Evangelization, M anila (1989), 133 International Missionary Council, 6 -

7,22 Jacob, Plamthodathil S., 6, 22, 193 Jaffrelot, Christophe, 72-73, 139 Jana Sangh, 63 Jayakumar, Samuel, 121 Jesudasan, I., 26 Jharkhand movement, 62 John Paul II, Pope, 2 ,1 3 7 ,1 5 6 ,1 6 0 63, 170 visit to India, 160-63 Jones, E. Stanley, 10, 39, 55 debate on conversion with M .K Gandhi, 27-30, 35 Jones, Kenneth, 13, 21 Joshi, Jethalal, 75 Judeo, Dilip Singh, 160

246

Index

Kal am, Mohammed A., 123 Kamath, M.V., 161 Kang, Bhavdeep, 172 Kanjamala, Augustine, 2, 131, 138, 143, 146-49, 154 Katju, Kailas Nath, 61 Kavunkal, Jacob, 131, 137 Kerr, David, 8, 195 Khan, Mumtaz Ali, 123 Killingley, 15 Kim, Sebastian, 8, 190 Knitter, Paul, 119 koinonia, 99-100, 102 Kooiman, 4 Kraemer, Hendrik, 6, 89, 92 Kremmer, Janak B., 174 Kripalani, J.B ., 201 Krishnamachari, T .T ., 53 Kung, Hans, 110, 112, 114-15 Kunupuram, Kurien, 131

L ’Osservatore Romano, 137, 162 Lai, Jagat Narain, 48 Lastic, Alan de, 180 Lausanne Com m ittee for W orld Evangelization, 133 Lesser, R.H., 146 Levai, Blaise, 72 Lindsell, Harold, 98 Lingam, K V ., 124 Lipner, Julius, 14, 20, 111, 187, 197 Loffler, Paul, 96-97 Ludden, David, 177 Luzbetak, Louis, 6, 120 Madhya Pradesh, missionary activities in, 61—73 Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam (Freedom o f Religion Act), 76-78, 209-10 M adras R ethinking C h ristian ity group, 22

Maharashtra Herald, 146—47, 149, 158-59, 166 Malviya, Ratanlal, 206 Mangalwadi, Vishal, 150 Manikam, Rajah B., 39 Marak, Krickwin C., 6 Marshman, Joshua, debate on conversion with Ram Mohan Roy, 15-18, 20 Martin, Chandran Paul, 27, 156-60 Mass Meeting on Religious Freedom at Nagpur, 39 Massey, James, 172 Matapariksha (Test o f Doctrines), 19 Mathew, C.V., 139 Mathew, George, 126, 128 Mattam, Joseph, 8, 190 Mayhew, Arthur, 50 McGavran, Donald, 34, 98 McLeish, Alexander, 60 Meenakshipuram case, 144 Michael, S.M ., 2, 121, 171 Minorities sub-Committee, 42, 44, 201-02 minors’ conversion, debate on, 46-51 Minz, Nirmal, 172 Mishra, Neeraj, 172 Misra, Lokanath, 52 Mission Mandate, 135 Missionaries in India : Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas, 8, 12, 131 Missionary activity, argument against, 68 debates on Nyogi Report on, 6 0 73 freedom o f religion legislation and, 73-84 Hindu tolerance law and, 84—87 Moltmann, Jurgen, 185-86 Monchanin, Fr. Jules, 116 Mookherjee, H .C., 44, 201 Morrison, Karl, 3 Mosse, David, 3, 120

Index Muir, John, 33 debate on conversion with Hindu pandits, 18-23 Munshi, K.M., 43-47, 49, 54, 201, 203

Myth o f Christian Uniqueness, The,

247

making of, 62-65 recommendations of, 68-69,204— 06 Niyogi, Bhawani Shankar, 61, 206 Nobili, Roberto de, 111, 120 Northcott, Cecil, 184

118 Naipaul, V.S., 167 Nandy, Ashis, 155, 165, 189-90 Narayanan, K.R., 180 Narchison, J. Rosario, 151 Nasrapur Consultation, 90-95 National Christian Council o f India (N CCI), 3 2,158, 180

Oddie, Geoffery, 2, 9, 129 Olson, Roger E., 96 Oommen, George, 172 Orchard, Ronald K., 96-97 Organiser, 82, 141 Orissa Freedom o f Religion Act 1967, 59, 76-78, 81, 207-08 Oudook, 160, 174

National Christian Council Review, 41 National Consultation on Mission, 142 National Consultation on Religions Liberty and Human Rights, 159 National Council o f Churches, 40,91 N ational Council o f Churches o f India, Burma and Ceylon, 30 nationalist Hindu, response to world evangelization, 139—42 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 37, 56, 76, 81, 181, 188 Neill, Stephen, 17-18 New Indian Express, 158, 167 Newbigin, Lesslie, 8 7 -8 8 ,9 0 -9 5 ,9 8 104, 106, 191 debate on conversion with Kaj Baago, 90-95 Nichols-Roy, J.J.M ., 47 Niyogi Report, 10, 39, 88, 105, 107, 145, 181, 191 Christian responses to, 69-72 debate over, 60, 72-73 findings of, 65-69, 88 freedom o f religion legislation and, 76

Panikkar, K.M., 5, 60, 66, 164 Panikkar, Raymond, 113-14, 116 Parekh, Manila!, 90, 105, 191 Patel, Vallabhbhai, 42,45,49,55,201 Pathak, B.P., 206 Patna State Freedom o f Religion Act o f 1942, 39 Paton, David M ., 186 Pawar, Vinod, 146 Pereira, Aelred J., 137 Philip, A.J., 172, 176 Philip, T.V., 22 Pickett, 24 Pieris, Aloysius, 6, 110 Pluralistic Predicament, The, 135 Politics o f Conversion, 125 Potter, Philip, 8 Potts, E. Daniel, 14, 17, 38 Prasad, Rajendra, 201

Precepts o f Jesu s: the Guide to Peace and Happiness, The, 15 President’s Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 75 Priolkar, A.K., 161 proselytism and conversion, 7 Protestant Christian movement, 30

248

Index

Pushparajan, A., 26 Puthanangady, Paul, 131 Radhakrishnan, S., 37, 187 Rahner, Karl, 112, 114 Raigarh State Conversion Act o f 1936, 38 Raj, S. Albones, 126 Rajaratnam, K., 180 Ramabai, Pandita, 22 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 62-63, 73, 82,139-41, 155, 160 Rau, B.N., 51, 201 Ray, A.N., 79 Redemptoris Missio, 137-38, 142, 149, 153-54, 162 Regulation Law, 38 Religion and Society, 95 religion propagation , debate in Constituent Assembly on, 51-55 religious freedom and secular state, 55-56 religious tolerance, in Hinduism, 18790, 198-99 Right o f Conversion, The, 40 Robinson, John, 96 Robinson, Rowena, 3 Roy, Ram Mohan, 10, 13, 72, 181 debate on conversion with Joshua Marshman, 15-18, 20 Roy, Rammohun, see, Roy, Ram Mohan Ruokanen, Miikka, 113 Ruthnaswamy, M., 45

sadhana dharma concept, 196 Saheb, Pocker, 76 Saldanha, Julian, 54-55, 74

Salvation and Humanisation, 98 Salvation in Asian Contexts, 135 samaj dharma concept, 196 Samartha, S.J., 6, 25, 174

Samuel, S., 40 Samuel, Vinay, 136 Sangari, Kumkum, 177 Sangh Parivar, 1 8 7 -8 8 ,1 9 0 ,1 9 3 ,1 9 7 Sankeethamony, D.K., 146 Sanneh, Lamin, 192 Sanskritization, 2, 146 Saraswati, Swami Dayan and, 165-66 Sargunam, M. Ezra, 135 Sarkar, Sumit, 1-5, 158, 164, 176 sarvodaya (service for all) movement, 116 Sastry, Shripaty, 155 Sathe, Vasant, 172 Satya, concept of, 26 Savyaksh, 82-83, 785 Scheinin, Martim, 185 Schreiter, Robert, 6, 109 Schreuder, Deryck, 9, 129 Scott, Roland W., 60-61, Secular City, The, 96

Secular Meaning o f the Gospel, The, 96 secular state and religious freedom, 55-56 secularism and conversion, 103-08 self-reliance principle (swadeshi), 23 self-rule (swaraj), 23 Sen, K.C., 23 Serampore mission, 16 Seshadri, H.V., 161 Setalvad, Teesta, 177 Seunarine, J.F., 140

Seven Hundred Plans to Evangelize the World, 141 Sevrin, Oscar, 69-71, 122 Shah, Ghanshyam, 156, 172 Shah, T.IC, 52 Sharpe, Eric J., 109, 115 Shastri, Algu Rai, 48 Shastri, Nilakanth, 22 Shastri, Vamadeva, 166 Shenoy, T.V.R., 158, 167, 169

Index Shorter, Aylward, 6 Shoure, Arun, 8, 12, 131, 133, 155, 163, 165, 170 criticism o f Christian conversion, 143-54 debate with Christian leaders, 142-51 sii uddhi campaign, 131, 140, 164 Singh, Bhanu Pratap, 206 Singh, Herbert Jai, 97 Singh, K-, 146 Singh, N .K., 155 Singh, Sadhu Sundar, 22 Sinha, Rakesh, 179 Smith, Donald E., 39, 56 Soares, A., 70-71 Soares-Prabhu, George M., 187 Somanatha (Subaji Bapu), 19 South Tamil Nadu, mass conversion in, Christian responses to, 126-28 Hindu responses to, 122-26 liberation theology and, 121-31 socio-political interpretation of, 128-31 Srivastava, Dhirendra K., 39, 55 Staffner, Hans, 109, 115-16, 196 Staines, Graham, 158, 160 Stanley, Brain, 8, 21, 106, 144, 195 Straelen, 112 Stuttgart Consultation o f Evangelism, 136 Sugden, Chris, 136 Sumithra, Sunand, 135 Sun ariasanam, A.N., 22 Surguja State Apostasy Act 1945, 39 swadeshi concept, 23, 26, 29 swaraj politics and conversion, 38—42 Swarup, Devendrá, 125 S warup, Ram, 117-19, 140—42 Tandon, Purushottamdas, 47

249

Tare, P.K., 79 Tarkapancanana, Harachandra, 19 Taylor, Richard, 102, 116 Teasdale, W. Robert, 117 Teresa, Mother, 59, 118 Thangasamy, D.A., 102, 104 Thapar, Romila, 5 Tharoor, Shashi, 177 Thekkedath, Joseph, 161 Theology o f Liberation, A., 121 Thomas, M .M ., 17, 25, 54, 71, 8788, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98-103, 191 Tilak, Narayan Vaman, 22 Times o f India, 124, 158-60, 166, 173 Tyagi, O.P., 81, 213-14 U N International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 185 Udaipur State Anti-Conversion Act 1946, 39 unbaptized Christians, idea, of, 191 Universal Declaration o f H um an Rights, 57, 185

Unknown Christ o f Hinduism, The, 113 Upadhyay, Brahmabandhab, 111, 115, 130 VHP, 139-40, 159-61, 167 Vajpayee, Atal Behari, 2, 157 Vajpeyi, Dhirendra, 129 Valiaveetil, Chacko, 146 Van Boven, Theo C ., 184 Van Buren, Paul, 96 Van der Bent, Ans, 7 Van der Veer, Peter, 164-65 Vandana Mataji, 116 Vassiliadis, Petros, 7, 195 Vatican Council II, 109-10,112-15, 142, 161, 163, 169 Vempeny, Ishanand, 174

250

Index

vertical conversion, 27 Vishwanathan, Gauri, 31 Vivekananda, Swami, 23, 145 Vivekananda Kendra Patrikx, 83, 85 Voce o f India, 141, 147 Wadhwa, D.P., 160 Wadhwa Report, 160 Walls, Andrew, 192-93 Wang, Thomas, 133 Weber, Max, 3 Webster, John C.B., 2, 24, 31 Weller, K.F., 39 Wheaton Declaration(1966), 97 Wilfred, Felix, 2, 109, 127, 131 Willowbank Report, 6

Wingate, Andrew, 126 Wood, H .G ., 57,184 World Christian Encyclopedia, 140 World Council o f Churches (W CC), 96-98, 185 World Evangelical Fellowship, 133 W orld evangelization, see, evan­ gelization o f world Yates, Timothy, 113 Young, Richard F., 13, 19-20 Young India, 13, 26-27, 29 Zachariah, Mathai, 94 Zelliot, Eleanor M., 31

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