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Tweeter Swaraj India (SI)* owes me a Sunday afternoon. I was about to take a quick nap before getting back to work when a chirp of his popped up on my twitter timeline. Basically, it said that if a person in Tamil Nadu wanted to become a Christian for $500, then that was sad, but also his right. At first, I thought that he was being flippant, particularly when I suggested a sales tax on the “purchase” of a soul by the Church and he just reminded me to allow states to vary the rate of a general sales tax (GST)! Intrigued, I looked up SI’s timeline, and lo and behold, I was in the middle of a culture war…okay, maybe a culture morcha.
The discussion is storified here for those interested. |
SI raises a few very good points, and I confess he has won me over to his side, if only because neither I nor the other discussants were able to provide a satisfactory counter to his assertions. Without summarising the debate, since the link is provided above), let us get to the salient issue (though universal healthcare as a right was raised, the debate did not centre on it. Therefore, I focus on the causa causans).
Simply put, the question before us was whether conversion should be allowed by way of material inducement. The context for this question is the missionary activities of Christianity and Islam in India, in a setting where the other existing religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Judaism – forbid proselytism. While it is indeed true that many convert out of Hinduism to escape their lower caste status, there is a strong case to be made that the Church has not been above fraudulent (spiritually) means in seeking converts and material inducement has been given in the name of development. Nonetheless, there is a difference between inducement and coercion. Inducement is not illegal, whereas coercion (on any issue) is. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which India has ratified, makes this distinction.
Pia Skov’s documentary on Christian conversions in India |
SI makes the case that if the Indian Right dropped their carping about beef-eating and religious conversions, they’d emerge a genuinely secular force. Hindutva, then, would merely be the preference of many of the cadre. Prohibiting conversion or proselytism would, furthermore, be a violation of Article 25 of the Indian constitution. SI makes the same distinction the ICCPR does between coercion and inducement, or lure. Amit Malviya, however, argues that it is difficult to distinguish between the two and recommends the banning of foreign funds to Christian organisations in India. I am not sure how this would bring any more light to bear on separating coercion from inducement, but it would certainly restrict the finances and therefore the activities of the Church.
SI was quite comfortable with the notion of foreign funding for religious activity provided that it was on a reciprocity basis. This meant that organisations in countries that allow proselytism, such as the United States or Britain, funded partially through foreign sources will be allowed to remit funds to their counterparts in India. Other countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Greece, will not be accorded the same privileges. This however, is unsatisfactory for Malviya and other discussants, who make the oft-stated argument that such reciprocity militates against the very nature of Hinduism, as it does not seek to proselytise. SI’s point, however, is that funds from private Indian entities can be remitted to Hindu cultural centres or temples worldwide as charitable donations. Clearly, the (secular) state cannot dispense funds for religious promotion. The issue that has been overlooked here, I think, is that because of decades of evangelism, Christian coffers are far more abundant than anything a poorer nation like India (assuming per capita wealth since we are talking about individual giving) can hope to accumulate. This gives a natural (and unfair) strategic advantage to Christianity and Islam over then extant belief systems in India.
No one seemed to be happy with foreign monies coming into the Church’s war chest. Malviya suggested that the Indian state has a duty towards protecting the social fabric of the country. This is a very contradictory statement, given that it had just been argued that the Indian state, as a secular entity, should not involve itself in religious issues. SI though does not seem to believe in a social fabric – instead, he makes a free-marketeer argument that if the price of someone’s souls was $500, then no law should restrict such a transaction. Clearly, the situation is packed with issues – extreme poverty, moral decay (not for converting but for selling), failure of religion to mean much in daily life – but none of these should restrict a person’s right to do a mutually consensual deal. In my view, if the Church is allowed to violate its own principles (all conversions must be based on belief) and a prospective convert is allowed to sell his soul, so to speak, it is only fair that this financial transaction be taxed! It would be akin to a sin tax or a sumptuariae leges, an idea supported by Adam Smith and the Church.
Oldtimer challenged the proposed trade in souls: “Is the right to run a business without restriction or regulation absolute?” he asked. If there are to be restrictions and regulations, who decides on them? he wanted to know. Oldtimer’s reference was to the idea of social approval behind the illegality of certain businesses, such as heroin sales. Furthermore, drugs were legislated or banned because they were, in principle, harmful to society. Since there was nothing intrinsically sacrosanct to the business of religious conversion, there was no reason it should not be banned, he argued. What Oldtimer disputed was, he said, that the right to convert had been granted under the guise of ‘freedom of religion’ but the sale of souls was argued as a tenet of laissez-faire capitalism! This was a shifting of goalposts, he said.
Oldtimer’s riposte to the proposition is an excellent one that had me almost run to my Hayek bible! Yet the issue, ultimately, was that religious conversion is a religious right by Article 25 (except in some states such as Madhya Pradesh – see Stanislaus vs. the Govt. of MP), and if the Church wished to make a business of it (what else does one call exchange of goods or services?), it ought to be regulated and taxed like any other. Societal approval is reductio ad populum and cannot be taken as a serious argument. Even if it were, it cannot surpass the weight of personal liberty to convert. Additionally, societal approval is a two-edged sword, because it can obstruct key social goals such as caste elimination, or as occurred in the US a few years ago, the refusal by pharmacies in the Bible Belt to sell contraceptives as it was against “God’s law.” It is not out of sacral piety that conversion by inducement should be allowed, but out of personal and economic liberty.
Malviya fears that the monetisation of souls would lead to the wiping out of non-proselytising cultures in poor countries. Drawn by financial inducements, hordes could abandon the ways of their ancestors for temporary relief. Without employment, education, and the elimination of caste bias, India’s poor are doomed to be victims to “predatory foreign missionaries.” Another discussant, Silver, makes a poor point that withholding monetary help to achieve conversion is blackmail – poor because the dictionary definition of blackmail is, as SI responds, a threat to do harm, whereas luring is merely the holding back of an enrichment opportunity. But a good observation Silver makes is that in cases of inducement, the issue is not enrichment but staving off starvation. This is true, but since the Church is not responsible for the pending starvation, withholding relief may be morally questionable but not legally actionable. This is, Silver returns, the argument for the legalisation of prostitution as well – since the customer did not cause prostitution, there should be no problem if s/he offers to alleviate financial need for services rendered. Clearly, Silver’s real point, and a good one, is the varying degrees of coercion in any exchange. Consistent in his logic though, SI agrees to the legalisation of prostitution (as do I, if for other reasons).
TRISH00L, however, remained unconvinced. Prostitution had social costs too, as does conversion; the issue is not simply about personal liberty. As Malviya observed, the debate had acquired the flavour of one between a libertarian (SI, and myself in the second round at midnight!) and a conservative (himself, TRISH00l, and Oldtimer perhaps). It must be remembered, however, that prostitution also serves a biological need, and no amount of punishment – the Medieval Christian Church or the repressive theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia – has been able to eradicate it. Chanakya, author of the Arthashastra, recognised this and advocated training (!), educating, licensing, protecting, and taxing prostitutes. Similarly, religion is a psychological need, and the urge to spread is strong in some faiths. Fighting it is not worth the social cost or public relations nightmare; it was more expedient to allow the commercialisation of souls (this would not apply to just Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, but also Christian -> Muslim and Muslim -> Christian conversions).
SI’s counter to Malviya, however, is quite interesting: since it has already been accepted that voluntary conversion – out of genuine belief – should be allowed, and that coercion is illegal, the scope of the inquiry is those who are converting for purely pecuniary or social gains. If these people can leave their religions once, they can do so again – after all, it is not out of conviction and if the reasons for their conversion are removed, they would in all probability lapse back. SI’s strategy, therefore, is a secular proselytism offering not salvation but civil services; by providing social equality, employment, education, sanitation, drinking water, etc., there is a strong chance that less people will be tempted to convert and those who have revert. Furthermore, it is not as if India does not need to provide such services to its people anyway, and since there is no religious undertone to such work, funding can be applied sought from the state too.
There is a practical element to Malviya’s worries – with a predatory administration, low literacy, and high poverty, SI’s policy would whittle down India’s non-Islamic/Christian culture. Nonetheless, SI’s point cannot be denied in principle, that while liberty in India is de facto subject to all sorts of violation, de jure, at least, liberty should remain sacrosanct. Laws are the self0image of a nation’s values, not a tool of convenience, and as such, should uphold only the highest principles. Remedy for de facto problems must be sought elsewhere.
Malviya also makes the case that while SI dismissed social fabric unfairly, it was indeed the government’s responsibility to maintain such an idea because the failure to do so could result in social conflict in the future. This is a very complex issue: a similar argument could be made – was made – about the Roman Empire, that the acceptance of Christianity weakened the Empire and Theodosius I dealt the coup de grace. However, in India, like the Roman Empire, there are many reasons for social unrest – unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, overpopulation, an unresponsive government, endemic corruption, lack of infrastructure, pollution – all these factors contribute to making life unpleasant in the political union, and to put the blame squarely on religion is unfair. To be fair to Malviya, sociological studies (such as Joseph Troisi’s study of the Santals) have indeed shown that the introduction of Christianity or Islam into an animist tribe has created conflict within the tribe, whereas, Buddhism did not have the same violent reaction. One wonders, however, if proper law and order combined with educational and economic opportunities would not have mitigated the conflict.
While life intruded on the debate at this juncture, it certainly raised some excellent points. I have to admit that my aversion to conversion was based on my intellectual distaste for the concept of conversion, but SI has made me think otherwise. While I still find conversion theoretically and spiritually shallow, a constant need for the reaffirmation of one’s own faith, to prohibit it would be a greater wrong because it denies others to make that choice. On the key question of inducement, SI makes an often-overlooked point that inducement is not real conversion from the heart. In fact, such events hold a mirror to our society and highlight the social problems. This is a useful measure of social development and should be used in the right spirit, not opposed. What SI proposes in affairs of religion finds a parallel in the world of nationalism: unlike German or Israeli nationalism, French nationalism emphasises jus soli, the primacy of land and laws over blood and heritage (jus sanguinis). It is a civic nationalism as opposed to the ethnic nationalism shown by Germany and Israel. Similarly, SI defangs the conversion question by making it about a reflection of social equity and not faith.
This does not mean that there are no problems with it. For example, given the experience of social fractures between new converts and their old fellows in faith, what happens if only part of a family converts? How does one ensure an honest collection of taxes (I wan’t joking!)? What happens if social development is (as it probably will be) very slow and a generation passes? The next generation may not even remember their ancestry (or care about it). What message does it send to future generations that their parents’ core beliefs can be bought and sold? In short, Malviya and Oldtimer score some excellent points, but ultimately fail (in my view) to adapt to new strategies of fighting back. This does not mean that the debate is closed – I, for one, shall be spending many a waking hour poring over philosophical works and tinkering with the arguments of both sides.
Nonetheless, the new battlefront for religious wars has to be the archives, libraries, and conference halls rather than the pulpit. Ideas of Hindu philosophy, or any philosophy, are far better served by stringent scrutiny and dissemination through philosophy syllabi worldwide than by dogmatic priests; they will certainly reach a wider audience. This will weaken the hold of the dogmatists, the superstitious, and the ritualists, basing Hinduism on logic and rationality than blind faith. Hindus claim that this is the default position of their beliefs, and Hindusim has shown the remarkable ability to reform itself in the past. So what is stopping the chanters and circumambulators now?
Continuum (July 15, 2012):
Needless to say, SI’s proposition makes for a very restless night. This morning, thankfully, I have an observation to make that may have significant impact on the notion of conversion through inducement.
Yesterday’s discussions were centred on materialist attempts to discredit the principle of free choice. However, religion is, in no sense of the term, material. Religion must be seen in the same way as liberty – inviolable and an intrinsic good. It is held that a person’s liberty is of paramount importance that cannot be bartered away. Therefore, it is illegal to sell oneself into slavery, even at the risk of starvation; liberty is a good unto itself, the exercise of which allows one to lead a content life. Similarly, it can be argued that a man lives not by bread alone but also by hope; religion is that hope, of justice in this life or the next, of salvation, and the reassurance that the world will not descend into anarchy. Society is neither a business enterprise to maximise wealth nor an association to promote liberty and equality. Instead, as Aristotle argues, “the good life is the end of the city-state,” ie, a life consisting of noble actions (1280b39–1281a4). From this perspective, conversion without faith is an impediment to the good life.
Yet people who are induced to convert may not be religious, and therefore, the question of hope does not arise. This is only partly true – an atheist, if categorised as a Muslim or a Christian, will militate against the label. Atheism gives that person a certain sense of liberty, of humanism. By even ascribing a religious label, that sense is reduced. Those open to inducement may not have such strong convictions, for or against religion. Their sole belief might be in two square meals a day. Swami Vivekananda is often credited for arguing that a hungry man has no religion but bread. There is merit in that idea, but as discussed above, society feels that liberty trumps bread. A hungry man is not capable of thinking properly about liberty (or religion) and should, therefore, not be allowed to make a rash decision. This is a principle upheld by law courts everywhere, that all deals must be entered into by person of sound mental faculties; in fact, reduced capability is even a mitigating factor in crime. Can one truly argue that poverty does not reduce capability? If not, should conversion by inducement be allowed?
Conclusion (July 17, 2012)
SI responds to the slavery argument (Mill paradox) that selling oneself into slavery is irreversible, whereas conversion to a religion can experience relapse or yet another conversion. This is a fair point, but since SI’s tone has been libertarian throughout the debate, I thought it only fair to remind him of the libertarian defence of slavery. Because of the bad connotations (because the Americans mucked up the word), it is usually referred to as warranteeism. In essence, it argues that the individual is inviolable and not subject to contract, but the labour that can be done by the individual is a commodity like any other. Rather than wage labour, which is like renting labour, it is possible to conceive of a contract that purchases labour outright in units of lifetimes. In some senses, this resembles slavery during the Roman Empire, wherein a slave had rights and could even drag his master to court for excessive punishment. This might seem anachronistic to some, but in feudalesque systems in the interiors of India (and many other places worldwide), mai-baap raj is still prevalent. SI accepts the logic of the argument but reserves his approval.
In closing (at least for me, for now…finally!), I suppose I shall take a page out of SI’s book after all – I find the concept of proselytism intellectually bankrupt (that’s almost the worst thing I can say about something) and yet I do not oppose it for the greater principle of free speech; my personal views on religion cause me to only be confused and bemused by conversion, but I do not oppose it for the greater principle of freedom of religion. Conversion by inducement is something that I find morally repugnant – for the intellectual dishonesty more than the spiritual dimension – and since I reject the notion of ethnic nationalism, I would prefer to find solutions to the very valid points Oldtimer, Malviya, and TRISH00L raise under different ambits of existing laws. In sum, SI has convinced me that there is enough ground to not make conversion by inducement illegal. Immoral and illegal are distinct concepts, and we should not conflate the two, however much we are tempted.
*: Swaraj India has, since this discussion, changed his twitter handle to @harshguptapolicy
The concept of soul in Hinduism is different than that in Christianity. In Hinduism, the soul or ‘atma’ is immortal and keeps coming back in different reincarnations in different life forms (not necessarily human). This is one of the basic fundamentals in Hinduism and I don’t think it will change. If you want to make selling a soul a legality for Hindus, it would be akin to cheating the Christian faith because certainly nobody has a control over what his soul will be following in the next birth.
Free market fundamentals should be used for some material substance that can be solidly defined and not for something abstract. Every faith and every person might have a variation in the definition of the soul and hence you should not be able to buy something that is not solidly defined. It’s applicability must end in the market place and should not be bought into homes and families. Free markets in family values have ruined families in the West and ‘buying the soul’ concept is one of those.
You are absolutely right – a Hindu would say that it is like cheating the Church. However, if I insist on paying you $500 for a book you bought for $50, then is it your fault or mine? This is their problem, not the Hindu’s.
That analogy does not apply here. The correct one is you wanting a book and I selling you some other book in the same cover. When the purchaser knows about this, he is furious and the seller is a cheater. Ergo, by rules applied in the market, buying and selling souls should be stopped by the same rules as cheating in other activities is. That is why defining what is being bought or sold is very important and buying and selling souls fails this test.
If you want to go to ‘renting a soul for a life’, it is the buyer that shortchanges the customer most of the time as it gets too hot to handle, which is what many who come back from the church (reconvert) complain about. Aside from these basics, applying correct prices for souls will be a regulatory nightmare as the government will have to set up an entirely new apparatus to monitor trade in this regard. Not to mention about the problem of taxing the Church and the Mosque.
Regards to conversion, the only concept that is acceptable is that people simply accept basic values of others that they like while not accepting the exclusivity of monotheist dogmas.
Since the government of India is secular, it should allow the price of souls to be decided between missionaries and converts.
In term of cheating, the case can be made only if the buyer complains. If you want a Tamil newspaper, and I sell you a Bhojpuri one (and you can’t tell the difference and you were using it to fan yourself anyway), why should the state interfere? Fact is, the Church is happy to buy souls for an amount (which may vary from person to person). The seller is happy to receive that amount. Why should state intervene? As part of regulation, we can stipulate that since these matters are not of a material realm but of a personal and spiritual one, relapse is not justiciable. Relapse is a religious problem; transaction tax is not!
Couple of other points to add the ‘economics’ and ‘trade’ pov to try ensure a level playing field for all firms that want to enter thisbusines. Being neither a lawyer nor an economist, these are not rigorous, water-tight arguments, but rather, the hope is that calling out these issues can add to this useful discussion initiated by Mr. Prabhu.
1. Unlike Indic institutions, christian/islamic churches in India are branches of multinational companies, hq’ed and controlled via centralized authority in vatican/middle-east and should be subjected to all regulations normally attached to such MNCs.
2. They’ve sold and are selling foreign products in India, which again should satisfy all legal requirements including fair pricing, fair trade, etc. Past violations by such MNCs should not go unpunished to the extent any statute of limitations allow. Any crime that is not subject to this limit(e.g. murder) that have been verified to have been carried out in the name of such a foreign institution must be investigated, and the institutions punished, if found guilty
3. Any land/property illegally acquired by foreign MNCs should be returned. In particular, the church MNC (like McDonalds) is primarily built on the real estate business model and a case can be made to designate them as such.
4. I believe a strong argument can be made that the church and Islamic MNCs are selling proven failed products that have caused substantial harm to their purchasers and adopters over 1000 years of human testing in primary overseas markets (say, established via a impartial market survey). Their market -share there is either dropping all the time and/or causing intense customer dissatisfaction *despite* enjoying a virtual monopoly, and like toxic cosmetics, India has become a dumping ground for such injurious products. Given this, adequate restrictions should be imposed on the sale of such risky foreign products to the gullible public in India,and if further sale is allowed, must be accompanied by a statutory warning, like with cigarettes, and minors should not be allowed to use this product.
5. Phrases that promote slavery, hate crime, child abuse, racism, gender discrimination, sexual discrimination, religious discrimination in the marketing and promotional literature of such foreign MNCs (e.g, “holy books”) should be immediately *expunged* from the Indian editions of such books Furthermore, any canons/fatwas that are at odds with the constitution of India must be banned.
If these prerequisites can be satisfied (and there’s probably many more), then one can definitely have ‘free trade’ of souls and ghouls, otherwise, there’s little point, imho.
Well, i don’t know why should we complicate so much. To paraphrase Vivekananda: “If a Hindu is converted to other faith, it not only means the population of Hindus is decreased by one but also u’ve just added one more person to your enemy camp”. Of course these are not exact words. But he meant it this way. The person he was, he could not have uttered some balderdash. There should be some logic behind this.
If the person is converting to a religion like Buddhism, it is way different than someone converting to Abrahamic faiths. Abrahamic faiths, in their very nature are exclusivist. “My way is the high way” is their stand. The very stand is very much contradictory to the cultural ethos of this nation.
The real soul of India is its culture and spirituality. If that is taken away, the real India will vanish, may be we will have geographical entitty with muscles and bones but with no soul which is as good as being dead.
1. See if you can find the exact Vivekananda quote and citation. I have his complete works and I do not remember it. Furthermore, it does not sound like something he’d say.
2. If India is defined by its culture, then you are in bigger trouble – which culture? Mauryas? Guptas? Cholas? Pandyas? Vijaynagar? And that is just the Hindu stuff. What about Jains, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians? And is being Muslim or Christian alien to India? Should India give up the Taj and APJ Kalam to Saudi Arabia then?
May be you’ve forgotten, here it is:
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Advaita Ashram, Kolkata, 1979, Volume V, pp. 233-35
It was in an interview to prabuddha bharat
these are the exact words : “Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy the more”
Ok, if u have issue with culture, let’s term it as spirituality. Despite its vast diversity, something is keeping all Indians together. Otherwise we would have fought in the name of language, caste, etc. The thread which is keeping us all together despite enormous differences is what i am referring to as spirituality or culture. Once, you are indulging in conversion, you are severing the thread. That eventually spells disaster.
On Taj and APJ : no need to give them up to Saudi, v can give them up to Pakistan also 🙂 On a serious note, i think u r doing a mistake by singling out an individual. APJ is an exceptional case. The fundamental Indian spiritual ethos says that there are million different ways to attain Mukthi or Nirvana or whatever one may call it. But the predatory religions of the west say “My way is the only way”. If you believe in Jesus and follow him, then only you are saved, else u r doomed. These type of assertions are diametrically opposite to Indian ethos. So, they are alien. Don’t u think?
1. I looked it up, and I must say, you have good memory – I have no recollection of reading it! Anyway, if you read the whole piece, you will see that SV is not opposed to anyone choosing his/her religion either. To quote him from p. 235, “For unless a man chooses for himself, the very spirit of Hinduism is destroyed. The essence of our Faith consists simply in this freedom of the Ishta.”
It seems to me that SV agrees with me – he doesn’t like conversion, but respects free will.
2. That idea underscores the notion of India as a Hindu country. If you are not Hindu, you don’t belong. I agree that India has a strong Hindu heritage, but I support a plural identity.
3. I am not saying I like the teachings of either Islam or Christianity. They are alien to my way of thinking. But I am saying that this should be left to the individual to decide.
I agree with your stand on free will and it is in sync with the Indian heritage. But there is a danger in free will. When the free will is influenced by host of factors like economy, identity etc., i think free-will ceases to be free will.
Even family…you love your family and will therefore not do some things you might have done had you been single/living away from home 🙂
Sorry to interrupt but mention of a Hindu country has never been at the cost of a plural identity. What RSS and surprise surprise, even others such as Bajrang Dal want is that even if one follows a different religion, there has to be some ties with local traditions, which is why they are currently trying to integrate muslims through the RMM and perhaps in the future might do the same with christians. So – “if you are a hindu you don’t belong.” is not what a very large majority of the hindu right has proclaimed, perhaps you are talking of a very loony section of the hindu right.
Glad they are not making an exclusivist argument. However, ties should be of one’s own choosing. I should not have to acknowledge that I am a human being even, if I don’t want to. My identity is no one’s business. I agree it is stupid to deny that, for example, most Muslims in India have Hindu ancestry, but in a free country, we cannot force anyone to accept/declare it.