Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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followers will automatically follow suit. Christian missionaries came from
all parts of the world, to discuss with him matters religious but often
with the sole aim of converting him to Christianity. They argued with
him. He listened to them patiently, argued with them and sometimes
even rebuked them for mixing up social work with proselytising.
Gandhiji had thus promised ‘whilst under Swaraj all would be free
to exercise their own faiths’. Keeping this promise in mind most of the
Gandhians in the Constituent Assembly had a positive view while
incorporating the Articles 25 to 30 under Freedom of Religion that
guarantee to profess, practice, and preach one’s religion. Article 25 is
most relevant for present purposes. It is similar to Article 18 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 25 reads in
relevant part as follows: ‘Freedom of conscience and free profession,
practice and propagation of religion’. The Supreme Court of India has
upheld the constitutional validity of the Orissa and Madhya Pradesh
anti-conversion laws and held that the right to profess, practice and
propagate one’s religion does not include the right to convert some one to
one’s religion.
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While international instruments do not explicitly recognize a per se
right to proselytise, there is a strong case to be made that the religious
freedom within Article 18(1) of the International Covenant of Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) encompasses the right to attempt to peacefully
propagate one's religious beliefs. That Article states: Everyone shall have
the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall
include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and
freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or
private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice
and teaching.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee has commented that
'the freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance,
practice and teaching encompasses a broad range of acts'. Further, the
'practice and teaching of religion' is said to include the 'freedom to
prepare and distribute religious texts and publications'. The Committee
has concluded that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion is both 'far-reaching and profound'. In light of these
observations, it seems reasonable to conclude that the freedom should be
interpreted to include distribution of texts and publications to non-
adherents where the objective is to secure their conversion. This
presupposes that the beneficiaries of biblical literature are already
mature and educated enough to comprehend the ‘religious publications’.
The Human Rights Committee has also declared any restrictions
on the freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs pursuant to Article
18(3) must be 'directly related and proportionate to the specific need on
which they are based.' The Special Rapporteur of the Commission of
Human Rights on freedom of religion or belief has similarly concluded
that Article 18 allows for restrictions 'only in exceptional circumstances'.
In India the separatist movements that threaten the national integration
which is evident from the experience in the North East are the
‘exceptional circumstances’ that warrant a national legislation banning
conversion of any sort in any part of India. In Peoples Republic of China
the Christian missionaries are not allowed any activity. Such a blanket
ban would not infringe the avowed secular credentials of our
Constitution, as it would be uniformly applicable to all religions.
The Freedom of Religion clause under articles 25-30 has been
grossly abused by the missionaries. Despite anti-conversion laws
conversion is going on unabated in violation of the provisions of the
statute book in states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat besides
the tribe-dominated states in the North East. In the North East, in 1941-
1951 the tribal Nagas and Mizos were converted from almost 0% to 90%.
During the same period the Meghalaya also witnessed 75% of its
population converted to Christianity. After large scale conversion, right
from 1948 the NSCN and the MNF demanded to secede from Indian
Union and their leaders were given political asylum in the UK. The
militant outfits waged war against India. Though the Mizo imbroglio is
over but, the Naga crisis still continues unresolved even after 60 years of
its genesis. After independence, in the present Jharkhand, North
Chhatisgarh and Sundergarh, Koraput, Kandhmal and Gajapati Districts
of Orissa, up to 30% of the tribal population were converted to
Christianity. The separatist unrest in these regions was the upshot of the
religious conversion, which Mahatma Gandhi had always apprehended.
Religion and nationalism are always intertwined in shaping the thought
process of a nation. The recent examples on the Global map are East
Timor, Kosovo and Bosnia, dismemberment of USSR, and the South
Korea where due to religious predominance of a particular sect separate
independent states were truncated from out of the parent states. In
independent India, between 1967 and 2007 in order to check this trend
many states like Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Arunanchal, Gujrat,
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Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu etc. enacted anti-conversion
laws to prevent mass conversions by force, fraud, allurement,
inducement and cheating. In 2006 Madhya Pradesh amended its 1968
Act and made it mandatory requiring a person embracing another
religion to give advance information to the authorities.
4
The Niyogi Committee concluded: 'Bulk of this foreign money
received ostensibly for educational and medical institutions is spent on
proselytising. Most of the amount is utilised for creating a class of
professional proselytizers, both foreign and Indian. There is a great
disparity between the scales of salaries and allowances paid to foreign
Missionaries on the one hand and to their native mercenaries on the
other'. The Madhya Pradesh Government upon receiving pseudo secular
directions from the Government of India buried the Niyogi Committee
Report in 1956 itself. However, the Niyogi Committee Report which was
accompanied by two volumes of documentation raised a storm in
Missionary circles in India and abroad. The only Indian leader apart from
Guruji Golwalkar who welcomed the Niyogi Committee Report was Rajaji,
who said: ‘ Such Missionary attempts at proselytism tend to destroy
family and social harmony, which is not a good thing to do'.
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mass conversion of people as a scheme financed and patronised by
foreign funding and diplomatic support.
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national security. Mass scale proselytisation is intended to weaken India
by promoting insurgencies in the strategically important sectors. It may
be noted that the Arakan Hills belt bordering with Myanmar is rich with
uranium and petroleum. Both these are very vital for national economy.
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any of his descendants reconverts to Hinduism, he might get back his
original caste (Kailash Sonkar (1984) 2 SCC 91; S. Raja Gopal AIR 1969
SC 101).
[Inaugural Address at the National Executive Annual Conference of the Akhila Bharatiya Adhivakta
Parishad, 29th December 2008, at Rameswaram (TN)]