December 15, 2014
Dear Friends,
Subject: Mother Of All Debates
While after the mail we shared with you on the conversion episode at Agra, we were debating among ourselves whether it was a master-stroke of the RSS (Rashtriya Swangsevak Sangh) to cause the issue of anti-conversion law come to the fore, we have received from more than one friend a brilliant exposure on this by S Gurumurthy, who needs no introduction.
While his piece (attached) is a compelling read, we quote some of the essentials for the busy executives:
· The RSS, which spearheads efforts for a harmonious Hindu society, has been quite plain about its agenda yet inclusive in its philosophy. It calls this nation, not the Indian state, as Hindu Rashtra. It believes that Indian Muslims are not heirs of the Arabs, but very much indigenous in stock. Nor Christians in India, in its view, European descendants. Its conviction is that all Indians have the same, not different, forefathers and culture. (Note: It has also since been scientifically proved that the DNAs of all, Christians or Muslims in India are the same).
· Even Muslims, who are generally exclusive, never claimed a different ancestry till as late as early 19th century. In the Census of India in 1901, out of some 6.6 crore Muslims living in undivided India, only 3.5 lakh (just a minuscule one in two hundred) had claimed to be heirs of Mughals. (‘Hindu Culture During and after Muslim Rule: Survival and Subsequent Challenges‘ by Dr. Ram Gopal. 1994).
· The RSS had relied on this logic and fact of common ancestry to seek to assimilate Muslims and Christians into the national mainstream. Assimilation harmonises. And does not antagonise. Swami Vivekananda told the proselytising religions at World Parliament of Religions in his final address to them on September 27, 1893, to assimilate, not destroy.
· According to the Nobel Laureate Sir V S Naipaul, “To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn’t matter .”
· Conversion is destruction of culture, nation and state, while assimilation is construction of all the three. Mahatma Gandhi was as plain as the RSS in his testament Hind Swaraj [1909]. In which after three decades, he said, he was unwilling to change a comma or full stop — that assimilation of Muslims was the answer to Hindu-Muslim problem.
· After the Neogi Committee appointed by the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh had established that innocent tribals were being converted by allurement, fraud, force, inducement, or fraud , the anti-conversion laws were passed. No one could say that any one could be converted by such uncivilised means. Yet the Church challenged the law as stifling the right to profess and propagate one’s faith granted under Art 25(1) of the Constitution. The [Supreme] Court threw it out saying “what Article 25(1) grants, by the word propagate, is not the right to convert another person to one’s own religion by exposition of its tenets”. So propagation and conversion are not identical. Propagation is permitted by law but conversion is not.
· What the RSS could not achieve by decades of reasoning and pleading, it seems to have got on a platter by its single act of converting a few hundred Muslims into Hindus and trapping the ‘seculars’ to oppose it.
· Indeed a very small price to pay for a very logical outcome namely debate for ban on induced and fraudulent conversions. The stage is now clearly set for this mother of all debates.
· Tail piece: Ban on such conversions is fully in line with the declaration of all world religious leaders on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights held in Amsterdam under the aegis of United Nations on 10th December 2008.
· All religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and the two proselytising religions Islam and Christianity have signed a declaration that they shall mutually respect, not deride, each others’ faith. It is not clearly the Hindu view? They also agreed that the freedom to retain one’s religion or choose another shall be without coercion or inducement. Is this not what the RSS has been asking for decades?
Friends, while we brought out before you what Gurumurthy has said, please do not forget the views Gandhiji in the foreword to Gurumurthy’s mail.
His Gandhiji’s firm statement was: “If I had the power and could legislate, I should stop all proselytizing. In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.” (November 5, 1935)
We suppose that seals the issue.
Well friends, we find it difficult to disagree with what the master thinker Gurumurthy has brought out. The“Mother Debate” should certainly start for greater good of the country.
Vandemataram,
Your sevak,
D.C. Nath
(Former Spl. Director, IB)
(President, Patriots’
