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Christianity, dharma, Greece, Hinduism, India, Islam, Jawaharlal Nehru, proselytism, religion, secularism
To most observers, India appears a paradox – teeming with diversity of cuisine, dress, language, pigmentation, and faith under one flag yet simultaneously simmering with communal tensions. The paradox is even more glaring in light of the democratic structure of government, the constitutional protections to minorities, and the high degree of integration of various communities into the public sphere. Social theories shaped by the European experience and projected as universals flounder on India’s shores, confusing the neophyte and outsider alike.
The crux of this discombobulation lies in the weakness of normative vocabulary to describe India. While scholars have considered if modernity can exist outside its present European framework, few have been brave enough to chase down the answer. As a result, false universals of European history such as secularism, liberalism, nationalism, and even time are used to decipher the non-West; any society that fails to conform to these European ideals are less evolved or have failed.
The root of India’s communal tensions lies in its constitution. Outwardly appearing to take a neutral – secular and liberal – hand in religious affairs, the document remains a travesty imposed upon Indic culture. The reason for this lies in the Nehruvian venture – an Anglicised Kashmiri Pandit that he was, Jawaharlal Nehru made no secret of his disdain for Hindu traditions. In his own words, he approached them “almost as an alien critic, full of dislike for the present as well as for many of the relics of the past.” As a result, the Indian republic’s first prime minister transplanted the Western notion of a liberal and secular state onto Indian soil. The dissonance between East and West in this regard is made clear when comparing the dharmic systems of the former with the Abrahamic faiths of the latter.
Unlike Indic belief systems, the Abrahamic faiths believe themselves to be of divine origin. In the time of Adam and Eve, there was the perfect religion from which Man fell into idolatry, superstition, witchcraft, and false worship; humanity was led back to the True faith by G-d as He revealed Himself to Abraham. Since the Word cannot be false, Abrahamic religions came to revolve around a truth axis – either you believed in the True religion or you were wrong and therefore blind, misguided, or evil.
Dharmic faiths, however, remain closer to the true sense of the Roman religio. Wisdom, not Truth, came from the meditations and experiences of previous generations as well as one’s own. A philosophical kernel was wrapped with customs, traditions, and rituals that were meant to bind families and communities together. Hinduism, for example, has no founder, no particular doctrine or practice, no specific scripture, no central ecclesiastical organisation, and even the concept of god is not essential to it. The notion of absolute truth in such a system is not just irrelevant but impossible to imagine. Thus, these faiths can comfortably coexist without competition or animosity.
This difference is highlighted in the famous conversation between French traveler François Bernier and some brahmins in 1671 when he tried to introduce them to Christianity: “they pretended not their Law was universal; that God had only made it for them, and it was therefore they could not receive a Stranger into their Religion: that they thought not our Religion was therefore false, but that it might be it was good for us, and that God might have appointed several different ways to go to Heaven; but they will not hear that our Religion should be the general Religion for the whole earth; and theirs a fable and pure device.” The Hindu view of other beliefs, be they Indic or Abrahamic, can thus best be described as indifference rather than tolerance.
These two systems of thought are mutually exclusive: religion is about the absolute truth or it is not; there is one True faith and others are false religions or all beliefs exist in parallel; the True faith is in competition with falsehood or beliefs are indifferent to one another. This antagonism creates a flashpoint when it comes to the freedom of religious thought and its propagation. To Christians and Muslims, the freedom to proselytise is essential to their competitive and antagonistic world view whereas non-proselytising religions find such behaviour to be an importunate intrusion into their world.
Unfortunately for the modern secular-liberal state, there is no neutral ground between these two positions; to pretend there is would be akin to accepting an agreement between the lion and the lamb not to eat each other as one among equals. For a people whose conception of religion is not just a metaphysical and ethical philosophy but also set of ancestral traditions, proselytism is felt to be an aggressive and often uncouth interference from the outside. Religious conversion disintegrates communities as the convert is torn from old moorings and subject to new rules governing inheritance, lineage, and familial life. The moral condescension towards paganism often means an abrupt and sometimes hostile unmooring of a convert from family and friends, tearing the social fabric that had done so well until then with its stance of indifference or non-interference. The problem of social disruption is so severe that Mohandas Gandhi considered religious conversion harmful to the Indian social fabric. He wrote, “If I had the power and could legislate, I should certainly 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.”
The defence of proselytism and religious conversion bases itself on the notion of religious liberty. This is a befitting solution in a system wherein all religions compete against others for followers and the supremacy of their truth claims but not as appropriate in one in which some religions demand only to be left alone. As Jakob de Roover of Ghent University argues, the liberal principle of religious freedom implicitly endorses the Abrahamic view of the world that religion revolves around doctrines and truth claims and citizens should be able to not just choose in the free market of religious ideas but persuade others of one’s convictions.
Makau Mutua of the State University of New York, Buffalo, exposes the inherent bias of religious liberty by arguing that the doctrine does not level the playing field for all religions but creates an obligation on dharmic systems – for which they are not culturally geared – to compete as Abrahamic faiths do. This benefits the evangelising religions in their quest for intellectual hegemony. In essence, the preference shown towards the competition of ideas is nothing short of a cultural invasion in a skewed contest to eliminate local customs.
Perhaps the most subversive danger in this debate is secular theology. Usually understood to be a movement from the early 1960s, secular theology was Christianity’s reaction to modernity. Scientific advancement and political utilitarianism pushed some Christian theologians to treat the Bible Christian mythology, thus divesting the sacred yet retain the ideals. Taken out of context, Christian principles appear secular. For example, John Locke’s treatise on toleration can hardly be a secular creed when it excludes Catholics and atheists from its ambit. Furthermore, Locke’s tolerance appears to be based on the free will of souls to choose between good and evil without which salvation would be meaningless. Human existence is still divided into a spiritual sphere of the soul and a political one of the flesh, and the Protestant Truth was arrayed against the falseness of the world.
As SN Balagangadhara of Ghent University explains succinctly, the assumption of the cultural universality of Christianity informs the Western gaze. Christianity’s “theological truths have become the facts of western common sense and scholarly consensus.” One of the features of this universalism is that it wrongly puts Hinduism and other dharmic faiths on par with Christianity and Islam and to the detriment of the former.
To return to the Indian state, the framers of the Indian constitution implicitly endorsed the Abrahamic theological claim that religion is about Truth when establishing India as a secular republic. An important virtue in a competitive market of religious Truth like Europe or the Middle East, secularism has little meaning in a dharmic system and only serves to buttress Abrahamic binaries when applied to Semitic and dharmic religions evenly. There is nothing neutral about the Indian secular state; in fact, the constitution was informed by a negative attitude towards the local dharmic culture.
The problem of hindutva also stems from Nehru’s flawed sense of secularism. Temples were taken over and Hindu customs abolished while personal codes of the “minority” Abrahamic faiths were left untouched in the name of secularism. Faced with a political order that worked against them, Hindus were forced to respond to the doctrinaire threats to their way of life and defend their value of indifference. Attempts were made to define a core set of beliefs, customs, and scriptures as is evidenced by movements like the Arya Samaj; the earlier attitude of indifference was replaced by tolerance, and Hindus claimed that their non-proselytising nature was a demonstration of their comity towards all faiths unlike Christianity or Islam. The hindutva adoption of the notion of equality of all religions upset the Semitic faiths – divine revelation forces the Christian or Muslim to accept his faith as infallible and supreme; the Abrahamic faiths at least shared a common G-d even if there was some disagreement about subsequent prophets and messiahs but to be measured alongside idolatrous pagans was unacceptable.
By privileging the Semitic moral world order, the Indian state sowed the seeds of violent conflict. The perceived protection of the state via preferential treatment in terms of personal laws, religious institutions, educational establishments, and the outright legal bias (think Shah Bano or the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence bill) instigates communities against each other and against the Nehruvian state. As Roover eloquently states, “the seeds of religious violence are sown by the liberal state; however, it is the communities that harvest them.”
Proselytism and religious conversion is a sore subject in many parts of the world. It is banned in Greece, China, and most Islamic countries, while many others such as Russia and Israel are deeply uncomfortable with it. While Hindu spirituality is not threatened by reading and learning from, say, the Tanakh, Christians, for example, can give up neither the Great Commission of Jesus nor Exodus 20:3-6. In other words, a Hindu need not convert if he wishes to incorporate any idea from another religion into his life but that is not an option for the Christian or Muslim. That is why, as one author wrote, banning conversions is not part of the hindutva agenda but not banning them is the agenda of aggressive religions.
All democratic societies realise that freedoms are not infinite; as a result, international declarations such as the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief (1981), the UNESCO Declaration of Principles on Tolerance (1995), or the European Convention on Human Rights (1953) allow the limiting of religious freedom if it is necessary in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Though these are not normally considered to include a restriction on proselytism or religious conversion, they have only been tested in European conditions.
A complete ban on proselytism and religious conversion in India is hardly a curb on freedom of religious thought – from the dharmic perspective, it is only a ban on religious thought of an exclusivist and binary nature; yet Abrahamic religions cannot abandon their doctrines of exclusive Truth without violating their core principles. However, a ban on religious proliferation does not create any new obligations upon Christians or Muslims that would violate their sacred tenets. It would only protect local traditions and customs. For some, this might not be an acceptable solution. One can be reminded that secularism does not truly fit the Indian ethos but more importantly, it is vital to realise that the public sphere has not be desacralised completely anywhere in the world nor is it desirable. Countries still place their weekends around the holy days of their majority faiths (Fridays in Islam, Saturday in Judaism, and Sunday in Christianity), the common calendar is marked from the birth of Jesus Christ – anno domini – oaths are sworn upon religious texts, and Christmas is still a national holiday in many countries. Furthermore, restrictions and bans on controversial issues such as abortion and stem cell research are still informed by religious beliefs. In this climate, a hat-tip to the millennia-old traditions of the overwhelming majority of the Indian people without creating blasphemous obligations on other faiths ought not be a problem.
This post appeared on FirstPost on September 08, 2014.
Jaideep, Great article. Thanks for writing in, it was great food for thought. I wonder if you know a bloke called Varghese John who has intellectually challenged your article here.
http://varughesejohnblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/can-we-ban-religious-conversions-a-response-to-jaideep-prabhu/
It makes a good read. I am sure you will find it interesting. I did too.
I would like to know what you make of his views. I believe he has pointed certain ideas you didn’t touch upon in your essay or rather were unaware of namely:
1. The freedom of conscience – religious liberty is central to the freedom of
conscience is precisely because religious beliefs, more often than not, function as
core beliefs that define who we are, in terms of our origin, purpose, morality and
destiny. Isn’t Religious liberty part of that freedom of conscience?
2. If there religious conversion is banned, what picture do you wish to paint for a dalit
who is inescapably caught in the viciousness of his karmic thinking and wants to
move out? This is the same point Pooja makes in her comments. But I believe her
question was unanswered.
3. Ambedkar’s belief that religious beliefs have socio-ethical implications and that at
a systemic level, curtailing of religious liberty and controlling of one’s beliefs are
best seen as instruments to subjugate an already oppressed people.
4. Judeo-Christian theology – this secular system, defines humans as possessing
essential freedoms – Does dharmic faiths not involve freedoms – freedom of
conscience etc? A closer look at Religious liberty informs us that our view about it
stems essentially from how we construe our nature as human beings. How come
one community of people must respect the view of nature and reality of dharmic
faiths(Krishna & the Crucifix) but the dharmic faiths not respect the view of nature
and reality of abrahamic faiths? What happened to sovereignty of Religions?
5. Notion of equitability. If some people found themselves oppressed within their own
religion (e.g Caste system etc), the Ambedkar/Nehruvian construct of the secular
state would be a pragmatic proposal of what they believed as the best possible
vehicle for justice and fairness to all. Do you consider the notion of equitability
itself as a secular imposition upon the Dharmic faiths?
6. Regarding Abortion, I have many hindu, muslim and athiest friends who are
against abortion because it is a violation of life in its most defenceless state.
You will find here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_development a picture of a
7 week fetus with hands, eyes and legs. I wonder if one requires Religion to fully
ascertain that Abortion is taking away of life. If that is true, then it speaks poorly of
our moral and scientific development and also insulting to Hindus and others who
don’t share semitic faith-origins who are against Abortion. A moral order is not to
be pronounced wrong merely because it has semitic origins. Sati was
prelavent for many centuries and dharmic origins didn’t suffice to discover their
evil. Sometimes it is good when moral values and arguments from different
cultures confluence.
I would love to hear your views on these points that I have summarized from his post.
Thanks for your comments, Rickson.
I read the blog post by John Varughese you linked to and frankly, found it rather scripted and evasive. I think your questions do a better job of getting to the core of the matter, actually!
1. Banning conversion is tricky. As I discussed with one reader in the comments section, I find it difficult to condone the banning of conversion though there are some unsavoury aspects of allowing it too.
2. It is simplistic to think that conversion is the only way out from oppression for a dalit or even that this oppression is uniform across dalit communities. If this is what Pooja was asking, she was far more cryptic! Besides, it entirely bypasses the issue of false equality between dharmic and Abrahamic faiths – unless Pooja was implying that she is okay with that.
3. This goes back to the notion of liberty – are a lion and a lamb both at the same level of liberty not to eat each other?
4. I reject your premise in the first part of this question. As for the second part, this is exactly the point of my article – why do Christianity and Islam insist that everyone respect their right to convert (and hence their cosmology) but are themselves unwilling to show any understanding to others?
5. What do you mean by ‘equitability’? I think it’s rather silly to believe that everyone is equal – DNA proves otherwise – but sure, everyone deserves a fair trial, etc.
6. Let’s cleave to the topic at hand or we’ll end up hopelessly muddled!
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Jaideep, thanks for your response. I reply to your view now though with an inordinate delay for which I apologize. I would love to received your views on these replies.
Reply to your Pt. 1 – Jaideep, all things are tricky (you are being cryptic now) and have an unsavoury part to it. The concept of competition itself is tricky and has unsavoury parts to it. Isn’t the whole idea of justice and law here to ensure there’s no unethical or unjust means or consequence of competition without declaring that competition itself is evil?
Reply to your Pt. 2 – I don’t wish to hold simplistic views about how Dalits can move out, or if it is a universal phenomenon etc. My only point is this: If ‘a’ dalit or his family wishes to move out, can they appeal to freedom of conscience and move out or not? Lets say the internal hindu council has tried to disuade them and failed and he just wants out? Can he? Do you respect his decision for his life?
Reply to your Pt. 3. But Jaideep, you have presented a fallacy. A lion and a lamb both belong to different animal species where as Man belongs to the same species – rational animal. All the lions are at liberty to act as all lions and all the lambs are at liberty to act as lambs. So applying the same logic (with species as the middle term to sustain logic), all rational men are at liberty at acting as rational men. Are you trying to say dalits are not rational or don’t come under the species of men?
Reply to your Pt. 4, Why do you reject my premise? You haven’t given any reason. Abrahamic faiths are unwilling to be understanding towards the belief systems of others which you put forth by your theory of false equality?
Jaideep, I think that your theory of false equality doesn’t hold steam. Nowhere do you mention in your article about ISKCON, that has proselytized and evangelized many westerners. Tell me, what do you think about ISKCON? Are they according to your definition of the indic faiths, not indic enough because they have gone ahead and done exactly what you accuse proselytistic abrahamic faiths of doing? But then again, could you say, they are not indic enough when as you mention above, the indic faith has no particular doctrine or practice, no specific scripture, no central ecclesiastical organisation and hence, ISKCON, a proselytistic variant is also perfectly acceptable?
I believe you contradict yourself and my point on ISKCON proves the same. If the indic faith holds no particular doctrine or practice, no specific scripture, no central ecclesiastical organisation, how did you come to the conclusion that the Indic faith is non-proselytizing unlike Abrahamic faiths? For surely, haven’t you selected this specific doctrine among others and made it a corner-stone? Someone else could disagree with you. As there is no scripture and ecclesiastical organization, how do you resolve this disagreement?
The IKSCON phenomenon creates a little hole in your false equality theory. If Hindus are on a rampage doing Ghar Vapasi with supposedly even more vile means (pressure, threat etc) than they accuse others religions of, I no longer believe there’s a false equality, at least not in practice. Perhaps you would say this is a reaction due to competition and animosity and lets say, I agree with you. But why don’t the propogators of ghar vapasi respect the freedom of conscience of those that now want to stay converted?
The argument given by some extremists were ‘Because they were hindus before’. By that coin, can the Jews return to Rome and ask the romans for their Jewish temple that was destroyed in 70 AD? Why don’t the jews return to Russia, Austria, Poland, Spain and all those countries asking for their lands that were taken away forcibly 500 years ago? What about Constantinople, present day Turkey? Why, it was 99% christian and today is 99% muslim. Shouldn’t the christians demand turkey to return all their church land, properties, institutions and cathedrals?
Please don’t tear your hair. I understand your point. You’re saying in the article that its not fair that the indic faith is on the losing ground as they don’t proselytize while other faiths do. But while your entire article rotates ‘we are on the losing side’ – you fail to grasp one argument. Every culture that doesn’t sustain itself is historically on the losing side. The vedic religion of worshipping the elements of nature has been on the losing side compared to the more novel version of Hinduism from the Ramayana and the Mahabarat. What can we do about it? Santa Claus Christmas has been trumping a more traditional form of Christmas? The Santa Claus culture is hijacking the traditional christian culture, some would say. You can pass laws to ban santa claus then and stifle the freedom of people who want to celebrate Christmas as Santa claus. It is a free country. Isn’t India too a free country? My whole point is people look at christianity as the religion of the west but only until you everyone can agree with what they mean as the west. If they mean by the west as the present-day europe which which is very much the fruit of the roman empire, you could say so because Christianity spread through the Roman empire while it was still united which is more or less the present day West. But before that, Christianity was not the religion of the west before the west existed.
Today, in practice, Europe is very secularized and in a pluralistic society one can’t really claim that one relgion is the relion of the east and the west. India is a land of many religions. When you say ‘indic’ faith, I believe you are inserting a premise where no premise exists. Because the idea of India didn’t exist when the religiosity of the vedic faiths did. When the idea of India was born, it already found itself with Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity influencing its birth. If I find your premise flawed, I see your other arguments falling too. Because here, we’re talking about what’s the best thing for India (hence, every looks at the constitution), not the lands occupied by vedic religions. The people of India have made their choice in 1947 to the right of freely practicing, propogating any faith. Anything contrary would smack of majoritarianism which is harmful to any democracy in the world not to forget stifle the freedom of many a people include those in the majority who want out.
Simply put, relgion itself is a market like softwares without making a ‘dogma’ on lands roots and religions and one particular faith essential or permeating a land. All religions complete like products for the assent of man and his freedom. The man of the land adopts the product that he thinks best suits his conception of reality. This is one reason Islam has spread in Africa. Perhaps people there thought it made more sense to them than Christianity or Hinduism.
Reply to your pt. 5 – Jaideep, You call equitability it silly without giving any reasons. You can’t call Varghese John crypctic then, without applying the same standard to yourself. Please share your reasons as to why does everyone has a right to a fair trial? DNA is a straw man argument here because it does not lend any more intellectual thought than what already exists to the idea of equitability. The Supreme Courts and courts of laws in all countries have not changed their laws on equality after having discovered that DNA is unique to each individual. All free countries still adhere that our equitability derives from us being born as human beings. So why is it silly to believe that everyone is born equal?
On you reply to Pt. 6 – But Jaideep, I am cleaving to the article. You’re using this argument of ban on abortion to support your theory of false equality namely by saying the bans on abortion are ‘impositions’ of religous doctrine of ‘other lands’ on ‘our land’ wheras I tried to show you that abortion like drugs or paedophilia is an evil and while drugs and paedophilia is banned by the UN, India and many other countries, why would you call aborition a product of religious doctrine instead of a product of intellectual insight about injustice to a group of people? I believe if you presented a theory with apparently false arguments, people have a right to subscribe to the theory only if the arguments have integrity(that’s the whole idea of elaborating on our views, right?). Otherwise, the theory itself loses integrity. I am showing that your argument on abortion is wrong because hindus and muslims and christians and atheiests of our country have a right to defend life simply by virtue of their intellect and without taking recourse to religion.