The Question of Conversion in India

The Indian debate on religious conversion has been an ongoing one for a few centuries now.
However, the mutual understanding between the advocates and the adversaries of conversion
has not advanced much. This paper suggests that this is due to the fact that Hindus and
Christians refer to two different objects when they discuss religion. The traits which the
Christians ascribe to religion account for the premium they put on the right to convert, while
the traits of the Hindu view of religion explain the opposition to conversion. As the two parties
attribute mutually exclusive properties to religion, they encounter difficulties while seeking to
make sense of each others claims about religion and conversion.
SARAH CLAERHOUT, JAKOB DE ROOVER

R
eligious conversion has become the subject of passionate
debate in contemporary India. From the early 20th century
onwards, it has surfaced again and again in the political
realm, in the media and in the courts. During the last few decades
the dispute has attained a new climax in the plethora of news-
papers, journals, and books whose pages have been devoted to
the question of conversion. Apparently, a large group of Indians
considers this to be an issue of crucial import to the future of
their country.
The positions in the dispute are clear. On the one hand, there
are those who plead for a ban on conversion, because it disturbs
the social peace in plural India. This group consists mainly of
Hindus. The aversion towards the proselytising drive of Chris-
tianity and Islam is widespread among various Hindu groups
from the radical spokesmen of the Sangh parivar to the moderate
Gandhians. On the other hand, there are those who argue that
conversion is a fundamental human right, which should be
protected in any democracy. Generally, the proponents of the right
to conversion are Christians and secularists. In spite of the clarity
of these two positions, which have remained unchanged through-
out the previous century, the debate has not seen significant
progress. The discussions are still governed by feelings of mutual
incomprehension, unease, and resentment. The participants in
the debate seem to agree on one thing only: the gap between
the different views on conversion is unbridgeable.
There is much to be said in favour of this conclusion, since
all attempts to settle the conflict have failed. The Indian Con-
stitution addressed the issue of conversion more than half a
century ago. In Article 25, it is stated that all persons are equally
entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess,
practise and propagate religion. Soon, it would turn out that
this piece of legislation was not able to resolve the problems
around conversion in Indian society. In 1954, the Madhya Pradesh
state government launched an inquiry into the proselytising
activities of foreign missionaries, which resulted in a report that
recommended legal restrictions on conversion. In the next de-
cade, the Orissa government endorsed a Freedom of Religion
Act that put such recommendations into practice. Other states
would follow. Recently, the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible
Conversion of Religion Ordinance added more confusion. The
ensuing polemics demonstrated that the question of conversion
is still as contentious as it was before.
The situation is growing worse today. The encounters between
the Hindu traditions and the proselytising religions of Christianity
and Islam are more explosive than ever. Little is needed, these
days, for hostile feelings to flare up. In recent years, a similar
enmity towards the proselytising activities of Christians has
surfaced in Sri Lanka. Conversion seems to play a crucial role
in these conflicts. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand
why so many south Asians are disturbed by the issue of religious
conversion. Why has this issue become a bone of contention?
As yet, our research does not allow for conclusive answers.
However, given the current weight of the issue, we would like
to submit some provisional results for consideration.
I
Religion and Conversion
The current explanations suggest that the cause for the conflict
is not to be located in the issue of conversion itself, but in some
hidden agenda of the dominant Hindu community. Some say that
high caste Hindus fear they will lose their grip on Indian society
if more and more members of the lower castes are converted away
from Hinduism [e g, Vyas 2002]. Others suggest that the attack
on Christian conversion is merely a convenient pretext of the
Sangh parivar to support its agenda of Hindu nationalism [e g,
Sarkar 1999; Menon 2004]. These explanations are not supported
by an analysis of the debate on conversion. They seem to consider
the viewpoints in this debate as side issues in the struggle between
the aggressive Hindutva movement on the one hand and the
religious minorities, the downtrodden castes, and their secular
protectors on the other. At the very least, a genuine explanation
of the clash over conversion in contemporary India should give
us insight into the viewpoints of the different parties. It should
tell us why so many Indians have invested so much time, energy,
and emotion in discussing this particular issue.
As Sebastian Kims recent overview (2003) illustrates, the
debates of the last 70 years or so have revolved around the same
concerns. One of the early 20th century debates on conversion
took place when Mahatma Gandhi was interviewed in 1931 by
The Hindu about the role of foreign missionaries in independent
India of the future. He said he would ask them to withdraw if
they engaged in proselytising by means of medical aid and
education. His arguments were clear: Every nations religion
is as good as any other. Certainly Indias religions are adequate
for her people. We need no converting spiritually (Collected
Works, Vol XLV: 320). Although Gandhi later pointed out that
the reporter had twisted his words, the modifications he made

3048 Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005

did not change the picture much. His true standpoint, he said,
was the following: Every nation considers its own faith to be
as good as that of any other. Certainly the great faiths held by
the people of India are adequate for her people. India stands in
no need of conversions from one faith to another (Young India,
April 23, 1931). An American missionary, E Stanley Jones,
replied in an open letter to Gandhi. He asserted that although
he agreed that hospitals and schools should not be used to
proselytise it is a fundamental human right and a fundamental
human duty to share what one finds precious in the spiritual
realm. Opposing Gandhis claim that every nations religion is
as good as any other, he said that religious truth like scientific
truth is by its very nature universal. Jones reproached Gandhi
for denying Christians the right to share the truth of Christ with
others [Kim 2003:28].
In the constituent assembly debates (CAD), similar views were
expressed during the quarrel regarding the question whether or
not Article 25 of the Constitution should grant Indian citizens
the right to propagate their religion. The Christian participants
had very strong feelings about this matter. They repeatedly
asserted that millions of Christians felt passionately about this
right to propagate their religion and that it is perhaps the most
fundamental of Christian rights [F R Anthony in the Constituent
Assembly Debates III: 489-90]. The Hindus involved in this
quarrel, on the contrary, did not at all agree that belonging to
a religion entailed a right to convert others. Purushottamdas
Tandon put it this way: We Congressmen deem it very improper
to convert from one to another religion or to take part in such
activities and we are not in favour of this and it is absolutely
futile to be keen on converting others to ones faith [CAD III:
492]. Nevertheless, they agreed to retain the formula about the
propagation of religion, because they desired to stay on good
terms with the Christian minorities in India. Tandon again:
Generally, we, Congressmen, do not think it at all right I say
so frankly that people should strenuously go about trying to
convert peoples of other faiths into their own, but we want to
carry our Christian friends with us [] [CAD III: 493].
The debates of the last few decades have been variations on
the same theme. On the one hand, there are Christians and
secularists who insist that conversion is a fundamental right,
which is part of the universal freedom of conscience: The right
of an individual to convert to another religion must be considered
a universal human right and should be vigorously defended by
Christians and other religious leaders. No state, church, or in-
stitution should stand in the way of an individuals pursuit of
religious truth [Christianity Today 1999:28]. On the other hand,
we have Hindus who say that conversion is an act of violence,
which violates religious traditions and disrupts families, com-
munities, and society in general: Religious conversion destroys
centuries-old communities and incites communal violence. It is
violence, and it breeds violence (Swami Dayananda Saraswati
1999). While it is obvious to one party that belonging to a religion
implies the need and the right to convert others to that religion,
the other party shows nothing but incomprehension towards this
professed link between religion and conversion.
These different stances bring about confusion. Consider the
following interpretation of the constitutional right to propagate
religion. In a 1977 Supreme Court judgment, chief justice A N Ray
said Article 25 does not grant the right to convert another person
to ones own religion. In fact, he continued, there is no fundamental
right to convert another person to ones own religion because
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
if a person purposely undertakes the conversion of another person
to his religion that would impinge on the freedom of con-
science guaranteed to all the citizens of the country alike [cited
in Kim 2003: 79]. From the very beginning, the Christians had
argued that freedom of conscience also implied the freedom to
convert: Freedom to believe without freedom to spread that
belief is nothing but bondage [Christianity Today 1999:28].
Justice Ray, however, thought differently. Religious conversion,
to him, is a violation of the freedom of conscience of the Indian
citizens. Thus, to one group, freedom of religion means to be
free to convert; to the other, it means to be free from conversion.
What is happening in the Indian debate on conversion? The
two parties do not seem able to make sense of each others claims
about religion and conversion. The Christians consider it self-
evident that conversion lies at the heart of what religion is all
about, while the Hindus cannot see how this could possibly be
the case. In the words of a participant in an internet discussion
on the topic: Indeed this whole notion of conversion seems all
wrong to me. What are they converting? Why cant anyone who
wants to practise Christian religion do so without converting?
I may be asking stupid questions here, but at this moment, the
whole premise of conversion strikes me as odd. In this article,
we take the first steps towards an explanation of the difficulties
the two parties have in making sense of each others claims. Our
tentative hypothesis is that Hindus and Christians are not talking
about the same object when they discuss religion and its relation
to conversion. Religion according to the Hindus is something
completely different from what the Christians refer to as religion.
On the one hand, we will look at how Christians have attributed
certain traits to religion throughout the history of their encounter
with the Hindu traditions. These traits explain why, according
to the Christian view, belonging to a religion entails the duty
and the right to convert others to that religion. On the other hand,
we show that Hindus have attributed a different set of properties
to religion in their encounter with the Christians. From this
perspective, the incomprehension they express towards the
professed link between religion and conversion becomes under-
standable. Finally, we come to the suggestion that Hindus and
Christians do not have the same object in mind when talking
about religion. If this turns out to be true, the current debate on
conversion is predestined to remain the dead end it is today.
II
Triumph of the Cross over Idolatry
From the earliest encounters, missionary zeal characterised the
way the European Christians approached Hindu traditions. The
Portuguese Catholics who conquered the isle of Goa were the
first to put the typical Christian stance towards the traditions of
the Indian subcontinent into practice. In 1545, King John III of
Portugal gave a series of detailed instructions to the governor
of Goa about dealing with Indian heathens:
In this brief the king orders that neither public nor private idols
be tolerated on the island of Goa and that severe punishment must
be meted out to those who persist in keeping them. The houses
of people suspected of keeping hidden idols are to be searched.
Heathen festivals are not to be tolerated and every brahman is to
be banished from Goa, Bassein and Diu. Public offices are to be
entrusted to neophytes and not to heathens; Christians are to be
freed from heavy labour at the port of Goa, such tasks in the
3049
 future being reserved exclusively for heathens. Portuguese,
under pain of severe punishment, are forbidden to sell heathen
slaves to Muslims, since heathens are converted more easily to
Christianity under the Portuguese and to Islam under Muslim
ownership. Revenues previously used for the support of mosques
and temples should be diverted to aid in spreading the gospel
[Lach 1965:239-40].
In the Portuguese view, the future of the indigenous traditions
was clear: these had to be eradicated. The idols could not be
tolerated and neither could the heathen festivals. Measures had
to be taken to spread the gospel and to promote the conversion
of heathens to Christianity. The Christian religion was something
to be spread, if not peacefully, then through force. Apparently,
there was something deeply wrong with the native traditions, and
the only way to right this wrong was to guide the natives into
the Christian faith.
What exactly was wrong? To answer this question, let us turn
from the Catholic Portuguese to a German Protestant who landed
in India a few centuries later. In the early 18th century, the
Lutheran missionary Bartholomeus Ziegenbalg composed a
pamphlet entitled Abominable Heathenism, which contains a
clear formulation of the reasons behind conversion. Originally
written in Tamil, this pamphlet was spread in Tamil Nadu in order
to convince the local Hindus that their lives were rooted in error.
Using the word a-jnana to convey the idea of sin or error,
Ziegenbalg told these Hindus the following: We have come to
you to save you from a-jnana. Make a study of the Christian
precepts and accept them in faith, and so become the people of
God [cited in Grafe 1972: 59]. In the eight chapters of the
pamphlet, Ziegenbalg told the heathens how the gospel would
save them from their ignorance:
(i) What is a-jnana? It is idol-worship and moral perversion
according to Rom 1: 21-32. (ii) How a-jnana spread in this world.
It did so because of the devils deceit and mens guilt and not
because of God. (iii) There is much a-jnana in the whole of Tamil
Nadu. (iv) How detestable a-jnana is Because by a-jnana soul
and body will be perverted and punished. (v) How God is helping
those in a-jnana to be saved. Jesus Christ took upon himself
the burden of a-jnana and delivers from a-jnana saving soul and
body. (vi) What the things are which those who wish to be saved
from a-jnana have to do Answer: Scripture reading, realisation
and confession of sin, faith in Jesus Christ, asking for baptism
with renunciation of a-jnana and acceptance of the triune God,
living in the communion of the Word of God and the Lords Supper,
living a life of witness and suffering and a life of love and justice.
(vii) The trials and tribulations which those who give up a-jnana
and enter the church experience in the world for the sake of
righteousness. (viii) The benefits promised to those who give up
a-jnana, accept the true religion and stand in the Christian faith
unshaken [cited in Grafe 1972: 59].
This summary discloses what type of a phenomenon religion
is to a Christian like Ziegenbalg. On the one hand, the false
religion of the heathens consists of sin and error. It perverts soul
and body. It is the religion of the followers of the devil. The
heathens should be saved from this false religion. On the other
hand, there is the true religion of the people of God. This Christian
faith is a divine gift to humankind. It is the only way to salvation
of body and soul. To escape from false religion, the heathens
have to turn to God: they have to read the scripture, accept the
triune God, confess their sins, have faith in Jesus Christ, etc.
In short, they have to give up false religion, accept the true
religion and stand in the Christian faith unshaken.
3050
Naturally, not all Europeans travelling to India in this
period shared the missionaries fanaticism to do away with
the heathen idolatry. Some of the East India Company officials,
for instance, gave more sympathetic accounts of the Hindoo
religion. Among the latter was Alexander Dow, who wrote a
dissertation on the Hindoos in his History of Hindustan (1768).
What struck him about these Hindus was that they did not try
to convert:
Contrary to the practice of all other religious sects, they admit
of no converts; but they allow that every one may go to heaven
his own way, though they perhaps suppose, that theirs is the
most expeditious method to obtain that important end. They chuse
(sic) rather to make a mystery of their religion, than impose it
upon the world, like the Mahommedans, with the sword, or by
means of the stake, after the manner of some pious Christians
[Dow 1768:110].
As he repeats a few pages further, the Hindus never tried to
convince others that theirs was the one true way to heaven:
It is, as we have already observed, a principle peculiar to the Hindoo
religion, not to admit of proselytes. But instead of being solicitous
about gaining converts, they always make a mystery of their faith.
Heaven, say they, is like a palace with many doors, and every one
may enter in his own way [ibid:115].
Many would later join Dow in pointing out the peculiar absence
of an urge to convert in the Hindu religion. This absence becomes
peculiar only if one expects each and every religion to convert.
How does one come to such a belief? On the one hand, Dow
could have reached this point through induction. All religious
sects he had encountered so far did convert, and thus he expected
the same to be true of the Hindus. Considering the limited number
of religions he could possibly have known in the 18th century,
this makes a rather weak case. On the other hand, Dow could
simply have assumed that all religions do proselytise. That is,
he may have held an image of religion which told him that there
is continuous competition among religions with respect to gain-
ing converts. Dow may not have been a fanatic or a missionary,
but of course he was a Christian. He shared this image with his
fellow Christians. It derived from the belief that religion revolves
around the struggle between God and the devil for the souls of
men and women. Satan seduces humanity with subtle lies; God
saves with the gift of truth. Given this background, the surprise
must have been great indeed when one came about a religion
that did not in the least bother about gaining converts.
To the more zealous Christians, the Indian subcontinent
literally appeared as a battleground of the clash between Gods
truth and Satans fraud. In the early 19th century, the evangelistic
missionaries of the London Missionary Society already knew
what to expect when they set foot on Indian soil. One of them,
George Gogerly, tells us an unusual feeling of solemnity
gradually crept over his mind as he caught his first sight of
India:
Before me was the land of idolatry, concerning which I had heard
and read so much; and I was now to come into contact with that
mighty system of superstition and cruelty which was holding
millions enslaved in its bonds; to see its hateful rites, and by the
exhibition of the Truth, to contend with its dreadful power [cited
in Kitzan 1970:29-30].
The missionaries had their expectations confirmed everywhere
in the traditional practices and stories of the Indians. When they
were confronted by the vaunted holy books of the Hindus, the
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
strongest terms of denunciation could not do. In the words of
William Campbell:
In what terms shall I describe the Hindu mythology? There was never,
in any age, nor in any country, a superstition so cruel, so atrocious
and so diabolical as that which has reigned over this people. It
is a personification of evil. Satan seems to have used all his
ingenuity, his malice and his gigantic power to create a system
which would represent all his own attributes upon the earth, render
its votaries as much like his angels as possible, and make Hindosthan
an image of the infernal regions [cited in Kitzan 1970:31].
When this is how one views the practices and the stories of
the Hindus, the desire to convert must be strong indeed: the
Hindus have to be liberated from the mighty system of super-
stition that holds them enslaved in its bonds. What should come
in its stead? Why, the Truth, of course! That is, the true message
of the atoning death of Jesus Christ has to replace the false Hindu
mythology. The worship of the true God must replace the honouring
of the false gods. For instance, when Christian Wolff arrived
at Goa on October 31, 1833 and saw the cross of Christ planted
and heard the church bells ringing, he could not help but exclaim:
Behold! the triumph of the cross over idolatry [excerpted in
Kaul 1998:56].
This was not just the victory cry of an aggressive religion out
to rule the world. Instead, these Christians were honestly and
deeply concerned about the souls of the Indian subjects of the
Empire. In his Letters on India: With Special Reference to the
Spread of Christianity (1840), for instance, Reverend William
Buyers writes the following:
The fact that nearly one hundred millions of our fellow-subjects
are living and dying in a state of awful estrangement from God,
and without the means of having that estrangement removed
the victims of error, superstition, pollution and horrid cruelty
while we possess every facility of access to them, involves a
responsibility the most tremendous that can possibly be conceived
[Buyers 1840:viii].
Another missionary, William Carey, also reminds the Chris-
tians of their obligations in his An inquiry into the Obligations
of the Christians, to Use the Means for the Conversion of the
Heathens. He asks rhetorically:
After all, the uncivilised state of the heathen, instead of affording
an objection against preaching the gospel to them, ought to furnish
an argument for it. Can we as men, or as Christians, hear that
a great part of our fellow creatures, whose souls are as immortal
as ours, and who are as capable as ourselves, of adorning the gospel,
contributing by their preaching, writings, or practices to the glory
of our Redeemers name, and the good of this church, are inveloped
(sic) in ignorance and barbarism? Can we hear that they are without
the gospel, without government, without laws, and without arts,
and sciences; and not exert ourselves to introduce amongst them
the sentiments of men, and of christians? [Carey 1792:69-70]
Why were the Reverend Buyers, the Reverend Carey, and their
Christian audience burdened by the responsibility to bring their
fellow-human beings back to God? In Christ, they believed, God
had disclosed His will to humanity. It is only through belief in
and submission to His revealed will that human beings can
be saved from the devil and eternal damnation. Thus, it becomes
the duty of the Christians to try and convert others. It would be
sheer cruelty and a violation of Gods will not to do so.
This background allows us to make sense of the claims of both
Indian and European Christians that conversion is a right and
a duty of the religious. They simply have to share the universal
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
truth of Christ with the rest of the humankind. They should at
least attempt to convince the heathens that the latters corrupt
beliefs ought to be replaced with pure Christian doctrine. This
explains why E Stanley Jones reacted so strongly to Gandhis
claim that every nations religion is as good as any other. And
it also accounts for the position of the Indian Christians in the
constituent assembly debates. Listen to how two Christian authors,
J F Butler and S Samuel, summed up the issue in a pamphlet
entitled The Right of Conversion, issued shortly before the
inauguration of the constituent assembly:
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 (sic) 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 (cited in Kim 2003:40).
As the true religion conveys the will of God for the humankind,
its truth should be spread among all the nations. Although God
and Satan are not always explicitly present in the contemporary
pleas for the right to convert, the notion of turning from false
to true religion presupposes the opposition between the true God
and the false god. This remains the implicit background that
propels demands for the right to convert.1
From the 16th to the 21st century, the Christians have viewed
their encounter with the Hindu traditions as a battle between
Christianity and idolatry. This theological framework attributes
certain characteristic properties to religion: it is conceived of as
a struggle between the true and the false. The struggle has
different aspects to it. Firstly, it involves rivalry between religions
with regard to the truth of doctrines. Insofar as different religions
are either true or false, they revolve around a set of doctrines
or beliefs. Therefore, the Christians oppose the Hindu traditions
to the Christian religion in terms of the beliefs these rival
religions proclaim. The main issue of religion is to make a choice
between these different sets of beliefs the message of the atoning
death of Jesus Christ and the related precepts on the one hand
or the errors of false religion on the other. Secondly, the com-
petition between religions revolves around the gaining of con-
verts. The true religion strives to save the souls of men and
women, while false religion keeps them in the command of the
devil. This can also be put in terms of their respective ends. The
true religion is the only path to salvation. Hell is the fatal
destination of all other religions. Thirdly, the rivalry does not
only concern the life to come, but is also expressed in the conduct
of the followers of the different religions here on earth. As false
religion, Hinduism embodies immorality.2 And the true religion
of Christianity exemplifies morality. Conversion, then, cannot
but be a fundamental right, since it allows individuals to be guided
from falsity to truth and from depravity to the good.
III
Countless Rivers Flowing Seaward
The attacks of the Christian missionaries on the native tradi-
tions provoked reaction among the Indians. Surprisingly, this did
not take the form of a plea for the truth of the Hindu religion.
Nor did the response consist of a counter-attack on the Christian
teachings. We can move back to the 18th century to get a flavour
of Hindu resistance to the missionary zeal. In 1719, Ziegenbalg
published reports of some conferences in which he had discussed
the truth of the Christian religion with the Malabarian natives.
3051
The first conference gives an account of Ziegenbalgs attempt
to convince one of the local brahmins of the falsity of his religion.
When the missionary urged him and his fellow Hindus to break
off the Cords of inveterate Errors, and save your own Souls,
seeking diligently the knowledge of the One only True God,
the brahmin gave the following retort; Our Religion is Venerable
for its Antiquity, and has been professed by many pious Kings
and holy prophets, thro an Uninterrupted Succession of many
incircling Ages [Ziegenbalg 1719:4-5]. His religion could
not be an imposture, the brahmin continued, since so many
generations had continued its practice. In Ziegenbalgs opinion
this was a ridiculous argument:
Uninterrupted succession, and great throngs of proselytes are no
characteristicks of the truth of any religion; else it would follow,
that the devil is very orthodox: For he is as famous for the multitude
of his disciples, as he is for his hoary venerable antiquity. But
you must judge of the goodness or badness of religion, by the
Fundamental Articles thereof, agreeing or disagreeing with the
revealed word of the true God; but you Malabarians having no
Knowledge of Gods Word, can take no Cognisance of what is
true Worship, believing with an implicit Faith, the Fables and
Reveries of Tradition-mongers, your Poets and Doctors [ibid:5].
The brahmins conclusion that his religion must be true,
because it had existed for so many ages, was altogether illogical
and an unjust Way of arguing, according to Ziegenbalg [ibid:6].
Nevertheless, the Hindus consistently defended their tradition
in terms of its antiquity, rather than in terms of truth. In another
conference, while Ziegenbalg was heaping ridicule on the Hindu
deities, a Venerable Old Man stood up and said: that we
have no True, but false Gods in our Country, this you are still
to demonstrate: For tho the Christians call us Heathens, we are
not so in Reality; but we are a very Ancient Nation, whose
Religion is as Old as the World itself [ibid:103].
To a Christian missionary, these claims to antiquity provided
no proof for the value of a religion. The European heathens
had also worshipped the devil for thousands of years before
they were enlightened by Christianity. Besides, Ziegenbalg
asserted, God had from the beginning of time given to human
kind the promise of sending his son as the redeemer: And thus
you see, that the Christian Religion has been professed from the
Beginning of the World, and is certainly the most Ancient of
all Religions; and your Religion is nothing else but the
Corruption of ours [Ibid: 11]. But when Ziegenbalg explained
the promise of Gods grace in Christ, his brahmin opponent was
equally unimpressed:
I believe all you say of Gods Dealings with you White Europeans,
to be true; but his Appearances and Revelations among us Black
Malabarians, have been quite otherwise: And the Revelations he
made of himself in this Land are as firmly believd here to be
true, as you believe those made in your Country: For as Christ
in Europe was made Man; so here our God Wischtnu was born
among us Malabarians; And as you hope for Salvation through
Christ; so we hope for Salvation through Wischtnu; and to save
you one way, and us another, is one of the Pastimes and Diversions
of Almighty God [Ibid:14].
The Christian religion might be fine for the Europeans, the
brahmin suggested, but the Hindu traditions were as good for
the Indians. In other words, the Hindus simply refused to see
Christianity as a rival to their own traditions. No matter how much
the missionaries stressed the falsity of the Hindu religion, their
3052
subjects of conversion maintained that every one may be saved
by his own religion, if he does what is Good, and shuns Evil
[Ibid: 15]. And when Ziegenbalg tried to show how wicked and
ridiculous their Gods were, one of the Malabarian Hindus stood
up and told him that it does not become an holy Man to
blaspheme our Gods; for true Piety despises no Man upon
Account of Religion; and tis therefore we Malabarians do neither
condemn nor despise the Christians upon the Account of their
Religion [ibid:107].
Over the next few centuries, the Christian colonials would make
more attempts to convince the Indians that Jesus Christ was the
only way to salvation. In 1839, the East India Company servant
and Orientalist John Muir published the Matapariksa, a Sanskrit
tract that as always was to prove that Christianity was true
religion while Hinduism was false. When three Hindu scholars
wrote rejoinders to this tract, they opposed the idea that one single
religion was to be followed by all human beings. One of them,
Nilakantha Goreh, pointed out the many different ways of
attaining moksha:
If someone located in Gaya wants to go to Kasi, he asks people
there and they tell him, You must go west, whereas an inhabitant
of Prayaga, wanting to go to Kasi, asks people there and is told,
to the contrary, Go east. Going both east and west, which is by
all means contradictory, yields one result on account of being
located in different places. By the same token, one way (to
salvation) would not be rewarding to (all) men, whose aptitudes
are different, on account of the unarguable maturation of their good
and bad deeds. Reflecting in these terms, Bhagavan, an ocean of
compassion, made various kinds of margas by which everyone
may attain salvation. For instance, among all the scriptures, the
Sankhya, Vaisesika and others, likewise the devotional margas
of Vaishnavas, etc, in which their faults are completely done away
with by means of much examination and meditation, some people
esteem the Vaisesika, some the Sankhya or others, some the
Vaisnava marga, and others the Saiva, etc. This indicates that
people have different aptitudes Yet only one among the margas
yields a direct result, it alone is followed by people whose aptitude
is pure [excerpted in Young 1981:123].
As there are various kinds of people with different capacities
and skills, so there are several paths they can take to arrive at
moksha. This is not to say that all paths are equal. As another
critic of Muirs, Somanatha, wrote:
Men who travel on other roads are not said to be competent for
the Vedic marga. It is for this reason that Hari would be displeased
when someone spurns his own religion. When men who dwell
in various quarters are going to a certain city, in no way whatsoever
would they reach it by [travelling] only on one path. Likewise,
those men, whom the all-creator made to possess different quali-
fications (adhikara) and (put into) different situations, would be
unable to attain God by means of any single path. For each person
his own religion is best; the same religion would be perilous for
another person. Now, therefore, praise be to those who worship
Hari according to their religion without reviling other [paths]
[excerpted in Young 1981:145].
The religion one should follow depends on ones specific
situation. Therefore, persons belonging to different religions
should neither dismiss their own religion nor that of others. In
fact, the deities would be displeased to see this happen. If this
is basic to religion, this religion is different from the pheno-
menon the Christians were describing. In one case, the diversity
of religions is said to consist of one path through which God
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
saves humanity from eternal damnation, while the other paths
are the devils snares. In the other case, the diversity of religions
corresponds to the innate diversity among human beings. Various
valid paths exist, which have been developed for and by
different groups of people.
In the 18th and the 19th century, the Hindus had not as yet
adopted the tendency of the Christians to conceive of religion
in terms of truth and falsity. This would change in the 20th
century, when Mahatma Gandhi began to expound his views on
the relation between religion and truth. In a discussion on
fellowship between Gandhi and some members of the Council
of International Federation, which was published in Young India
in 1928, Gandhi explained his position on this issue:
I came to the conclusion long ago, after a prayerful search and
study and discussion with as many people as I could meet, that
all religions were true and also that all had some error in them,
and that whilst I hold my own, I should hold others as dear as
Hinduism, from which it logically follows that we should hold
all as dear as our nearest kith and kin and that we should make
no distinction between them. So we can only pray, if we are Hindus,
not that a Christian should become a Hindu, or if we are Musselmans,
not that a Hindu or a Christian should become a Musselman, nor
should we ever secretly pray that anyone should be converted,
but our inmost prayer should be that a Hindu should be a better
Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim and a Christian a better Christian
[Gandhi 1986:536].
Different Paths to Realisation
All religions are true, Gandhi suggests, and all have some error
in them. Again, we can only note how strongly this notion differs
from that of the Christians. If no religion is false, there is simply
no point in religious conversion. There is no question of turning
from falsity to truth by converting from one religion to the other.
So, even if Gandhi appropriates the Christian vocabulary of
religion and truth, the statement a religion is true has a goal they pursue, nor where it concerns the morality of their
completely different meaning to him. It does not mean that this
particular religion is the unique gift of God that leads humanity
to salvation. Rather, it means that this religion is one of various
roads human beings can take to reach the goal. In his own words:
Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What
does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach
the same goal? Wherein is the cause for quarrelling? [Gandhi
1942: 2] When all religions lead to the same goal, one should
not try to have others follow ones own path. One should rather
strive to improve ones own practice of religion and stimulate
the devotees of other religions to do the same.
Gandhi was not the only one to translate the Hindu view that
human beings could follow various paths to moksha into the
proposition that all religions are true. In the Gospel of Sri
Ramakrishna, Ramakrishna is recorded to have made the same
point about the variety of paths: God can be realised through
all paths. It is like your coming to Dakshineswar by carriage,
by boat, by steamer or on foot. You have chosen the way according
to your convenience and taste; but the destination is the same.
Some of you have arrived earlier than others, but all have arrived
(cited in Neufeldt 1987:67). And he also presented the claim that
all religions are true as the equivalent of this point: God can
be realised through all paths. All religions are true. The important
thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or
wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also
climb up by a bamboo pole (cited in Neufeldt 1987:68).
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
What does it mean for these Hindu sages to say that all religions
are true? When the Christians attribute truth to their religion,
they are referring to a particular set of doctrines including, for
instance, that humanity is tainted by original sin and can be saved
only through Christs redemptive death which is god-given truth
according to them. Other religions consist of deviant sets of
doctrines and therefore they are necessarily false. If the Hindu
thinkers were addressing the same issue of doctrinal truth, the
claim that all religions are true would render them inconsistent.
That is, if this means that all doctrines of all religions are true
even when standing in plain contradiction then it also implies
each and every statement about the world is true. This was not
the message the Hindu thinkers intended to convey. As yet, we
cannot argue conclusively what truth did mean to them. But
it certainly does not concern the truth of doctrines or claims about
the world. In their view, this kind of truth predicate does not
apply to religion. In Radhakrishnans words: The Hindu attitude
to religion is interesting. While fixed intellectual beliefs mark
off one religion from another, Hinduism sets itself no such limits.
Intellect is subordinated to intuition, dogma to experience, outer
expression to inward realisation [Radhakrishnan 1969:131].
When religion does not revolve around the truth of a particular
set of beliefs, it becomes futile to compare different religions
in terms of their respective truth or falsity. Or, as Swami
Vivekananda put it, only those who do not properly understand
religion, insist that religions be compared in order to decide
which is the best. Religion, according to him, has nothing
to do with the truth of certain views, but everything with the
great universal truth. Instead of being contradictory, religions
are supplementary, said Vivekananda, each religion, as it
were, takes up one part of the great universal truth and spends
its whole force in embodying and typifying that part of the great
truth [Vivekananda 1963:365]. Different religious traditions are
not conceived of as rivals, neither when it comes to the ultimate
followers:
We do not say that ours is the only way to salvation. Perfection
can be had by everybody, and what is the proof? Because we see
the holiest of man in all countries, good men and women every-
where, whether born in our faith or not. Therefore it cannot be
held that ours is the only way to salvation. Like so many rivers
flowing from different mountains, all coming and mingling their
waters in the sea, all the different religions, taking their births from
different standpoints of fact, come unto Thee. This is a part of
the childs everyday prayer in India. With such everyday prayers,
of course, such ideas as fighting because of differences of religion
are simply impossible [Vivekananda 1964:210].
It is not as though the Hindu spokesmen were ignorant of
Christianitys claims to universality. But even after spending
many years on the comparative study of religion, the philoso-
pher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan did not consent with the Christian
notion of true and false religion. In fact, he went so far as to
say that the idea of one single religion for the humankind is
illogical:
The illogical idea of one single religion for all mankind, one set
of dogmas, one cult, one system of ceremonies which all indi-
viduals must accept on pain of persecution by the people and
punishment by God, is the product of unreason and intolerance.
A religion represents the soul of the people, its peculiar spirit,
thought, and temperament. It is not a mere theory of the super-
natural which we can put on or off as we please. It is an expression
3053
 of the spiritual experience of the race, a record of its social
evolution, an integral element of the society in which it is found
[Radhakrishnan 1969:81-82].
The religion of a people is a record of its social evolution and
an expression of its spiritual experience. To understand what
Radhakrishnan means, we can turn back to the Hindus who told
Ziegenbalg that they had venerable antiquity on their side, since
they were a very Ancient Nation whose Religion is as Old as
the World itself. Religion, both to these 17th century Indians
and to a 20th century Indian philosopher, is the tradition of a
people or a community. It consists of the practices, customs, and
stories that have been passed on by the ancestors of this com-
munity from ancient times.3 Therefore, the older it is, the more
respectable. When they are accused of being followers of false
religion, the Hindus reply that their religion is tradition, so how
can it be false? As tradition, religion represents the past expe-
rience of a people, and hence the idea of one single religion for
humankind becomes illogical or even inconceivable.
The foregoing permits us to sum up some of the properties
which Hindus attribute to the phenomenon they have called
religion since colonial times. On the one hand, religion consists
of a variety of paths an individual can take to attain moksha.
On the other, religion is the ancestral tradition of a people, viz,
the system of practices, customs, and stories a particular com-
munity has passed on over time. In both aspects, different re-
ligions are not rivals with respect to gaining converts nor competi-
tors with respect to truth. Religion does not revolve around the
belief in a system of doctrines, which is either true or false.
Therefore, truth predicates do not apply to the object that religion
is. All religions may be true in the sense that they all lead to
the same goal of moksha, but no religion can possibly be false.
Finally, the various religions are not rivals when it comes to the
morality of their followers. All religious traditions produce good
men and women.
These traits of religion, as the Hindus view it, allow us to take
a first step in understanding the antagonist position in the
conversion dispute. For instance, in December 1946, a conference
of the heads of various Hindu institutions issued a memorandum
to the constituent assembly, in which 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 and aggression, letting the people
continue in the faith in which they were born, free from
proselytising interference [cited in Kim 2003:42]. Or, as the
Constitution of the Hindu nation of Nepal puts it: Every citizen,
subject to the current traditions, shall practice and profess his
own religion as handed down from ancient times. Provided that
no person shall be entitled to convert another person to his
religion. When religion is the tradition of a community and one
of various valid paths, this advocacy of non-interference makes
perfect sense. The proselytising drive of the Christian religion,
then, indeed becomes one-sided violence, as Swami Dayananda
Saraswati (of the Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Coimbatore, Tamil
Nadu) wrote in his Open Letter to His Holiness The Pope John
Paul II. This document composed on the occasion of the popes
visit to India in 1999 voices the hurt conversion causes to those
who conceive of religion as tradition:
Any protest against religious conversion is always branded as
persecution, because it is maintained that people are not allowed
to practice their religion, that their religious freedom is curbed.
3054
The truth is entirely different. The other person also has the freedom
to practice his or her religion without interference. That is his/
her birthright. Religious freedom does not extent (sic) to having
a planned programme of conversion. Such a programme is to be
construed as aggression against the religious freedom of others.
Religious conversion is violence and it breeds violence, the
Swami concludes. Thus, when religion is the tradition that makes
a people into a people, conversion becomes a disrupting inter-
ference in the life of a community.
IV
Misunderstanding Religion and Conversion
To conclude this interim research report, we will formulate
a hypothesis to account for the lack of mutual understanding in
the Indian debate on conversion. In the foregoing, it has become
clear that the Christians and the Hindus attribute mutually exclusive
properties to religion. The former claim that some religions are
false, that different religions are rivals, and that one religion leads
to heaven and all others to hell. The latter say that no religion
is false, that religions cannot be rivals, and that all religions
lead to the same goal. These are contradictory predicates that
cannot be ascribed to one and the same object.4 Therefore, we
are compelled to conclude that the Hindus and the Christians
are talking about two different things when they discuss reli-
gion. The implications for the dispute on conversion need further
investigation. However, one implication is clear. If it turns out
to be true that the advocates and the opponents have different
objects in mind when discussing religion (and its relation to
conversion), they should continue to have great difficulties in
making sense of each others statements and arguments.
This raises several problems. How come the two parties in-
volved in the debate have not seen that the term religion as
they use it does not refer to the same object? This cannot be
answered hastily. The conversion debate has gone on for a few
centuries and the participants have been as gifted as they come.
Thus, the lack of understanding they show towards each other
becomes all the more difficult to explain. Likewise, why have
they continued to engage in this debate with such vigour, in spite
of the mutual incomprehension? Our future research on the
question of conversion in India will focus on these and other
questions. -29
Email: jakob.deroover@UGent.be
sarah.claerhout@UGent.be
Notes
[The authors would like to thank Balu and the members of the Research
Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap for their constructive criticisms.]
1 We have tried to elaborate this point in our ongoing work on conversion,
truth, and violence.
2 For an analysis of the impact which the Christian view of Hinduism as
an immoral and false religion has had on the contemporary understanding
of the Indian caste system, see Raf Gelders and Willem Derde (2003).
3 For a scientific account of the dynamic of religion and its implications
for the relation between religion and tradition, see S N Balagangadhara
(1994).
4 For a further analysis of this aspect of the Indian debate on conversion
and its implications for the neutrality of the secular state in India, see
S N Balagangadhara and Jakob De Roover: Secular State as the Harbinger
of Religious Violence (forthcoming).
Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005
 References
Balagangadhara, S N (1994): The Heathen in His Blindness: Asia, The
West and the Dynamic of Religion, E J Brill, Leiden.
Buyers, Reverend William (1840): Letters on India: With Special Reference
to the Spread of Christianity, John Snow, London.
Carey, William (1792): An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to
Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, Leicester.
Christianity Today (1999): Protecting the Right to Convert in Christianity
Today, 43(3), p 28.
CAD (1946-1950): Constituent Assembly Debates: Official Report, Manager
of Publications, Delhi.
Dow, Alexander (1768): A Dissertation Concerning the Customs, Manners,
Language, Religion and Philosophy of the Hindoos in P J Marshall (ed)
(1970), The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century,
Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, pp 107-39.
Gandhi, Mohandas K (1942): To the Hindus and Muslims, Anand T Hingorani
(ed), Hingorani, Karachi.
(1960-1993): The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Government of
India, Publications Division, New Delhi.
(1986): The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol I,
Raghavan Iyer (ed), Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Gelders, Raf and Willem Derde (2003): Mantras of Anti-Brahmanism:
Colonial Experience of Indian Intellectuals in Economic and Political
Weekly, 38(43), pp 4611-17.
Grafe, Hugald (1972): Hindu Apologetics at the Beginning of the Protestant
Mission Era in India in the Indian Church History Review, 6(1), 43-69.
Jordens, J F T (1987): Gandhi and Religious Pluralism in Harold G Coward
(ed) (1987), Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism, State
University of New York Press, Albany, pp 3-18.
Kaul, H K (ed) (1979): Travellers India: An Anthology, Oxford University
Press, Delhi.
Kim, Sebastian (2003): In Search of Identity: Debates on Religious
Conversions in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
Kitzan, Lawrence (1970): The London Missionary Society and the Problem
of Conversion in India and China, 1804-1834 in Canadian Journal
of History, 5(2), pp 13-41.
Lach, Donald F (1965): Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol I: The Century
of Discovery, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Menon, Nivedita (2004): All Ye Faithless: Why Is Religious Conversion
any Different From Other Conversions? in The Telegraph, May 6.
Neufeldt, R W (1987): The Response of the Ramakrishna Mission in Harold
G Coward (ed) (1987), Modern Indian Responses to Religious Pluralism,
State University of New York Press, Albany, pp 65-84.
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli (1969): Radhakrishnan Reader: An Anthology,
P Nagaraja Rao, K Gopalaswami and S Ramakrishnan (eds), Bharatiya
Vidya Bhavan, Bombay.
Sarkar, Sumit (1999): Hindutva and the Question of Conversions in
K N Panikkar (ed), The Concerned Indians Guide to Communalism,
Viking, New Delhi, pp 73-106.
Swami Dayananda Saraswati (1999): Open Letter to His Holiness The Pope
John Paul II, at URL: http://hindunet.org/conversions/pope99/
to_pope_from_swami_dayananada_sa.htm
Swami Vivekananda (1963): The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,
Volume II, Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata.
(1964): The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume VIII, Advaita
Ashrama, Kolkata.
Vyas, Neena (2002): When Their Gods Failed Them in The Hindu, Sunday
October 20.
Young, Richard Fox (1981): Resistant Hinduism: Sanskrit Sources on Anti-
Christian Apologetics in Early Nineteenth-Century India, Publications
of the De Nobili Research Library, Vienna.
Ziegenbalg, Bartholomeus (1719): Thirty Four Conferences between the
Danish Missionaries and the Malabarian Bramans in the East Indies,
Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion, Trans by Philipps, London.

ECONOMIC
AND POLITICAL WEEKLY
SPECIAL ISSUE
NATIONAL ELECTION STUDY 2004
December 18, 2004

National Election Study 2004: An Introduction Lokniti Team

The Elusive Mandate of 2004 Yogendra Yadav
Constraints on Electoral Mobilisation Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Democracy, Economic Reforms and Election Results in India K C Suri
Participatory Norm: How Broad-based Is It? Suhas Palshikar, Sanjay Kumar
Electoral Coalitions in 2004 General Elections: Theory and Evidence E Sridharan
Majoritarian Middle Ground? Suhas Palshikar
How Gendered Was Womens Participation in Election 2004? Rajeshwari Deshpande
Assessing the Electoral System: A Positive Verdict Ritu Rao

Analyses of States
Appendix
For copies write to:
Circulation Manager,
Economic and Political Weekly,
Hitkari House, 284, Shahid Bhagatsingh Road, Mumbai 400 001.
email: circulation@epw.org.in

Economic and Political Weekly July 9, 2005 3055