Advent of Christianity in India
Since ancient age and till about the beginning of the last millennium, India was variously recognized as Bharatvarsha, Jambudvipa, Aryavarta, or just as Bharat, and the culture and religion of the country was better known as Sanatana Dharma and the people as Sanatana Dharmese. There are reasonable evidences to believe that the entire South Asia or Indian Sub-continent, now comprised of the independent countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, was part of the same civilizational and cultural heritage. Although none of the Indian emperors controlled the entire land mass at any time owing to difficult terrain and topography but Emperor Ashoka of Maurya Empire and Kings of Gupta Dynasty ruled the most part of the country barring few pockets of the south and north-east. The country was, however, invaded by alien rulers and nationalities for centuries, including those of Greek, Arab and Turkish origin, and finally the European colonizers, and each such invaders too gave new names and identities to the natives and landmass, with vast impact on Sanatana culture and religion.
While Sanatana Dharma represents the culture and religion of the majority populace with the later adopted nomenclature of Hindus, the last millennium BCE experienced the emergence of two more indigenous religions namely Jainism and Buddhism. Then during the Mughal Sultanate, when the Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) itself was in peril, yet another religion Sikhism took roots in India. The chief originators/promoters of these religions such as Mahvira, Gautam Buddha and Nanak Dev were, however, Hindus only. Later some persecuted communities from the West Asia such as Persians, Jews and Syrian Christians were welcomed as refugees. India was constantly invaded by Muslims of Arab and Turkish origin during the last millennium, some of them settled here as rulers and indulged in mass conversion of Hindus through coercion. During the colonial rule in the last two centuries, many parts of the country were Christianized through evangelical activities. Consequently, India is now represented by nearly all religious communities of the world in the modern age.
In most other countries of the world, persecution of the minority communities by the majority community is often reported and is a constant cause of concern. On the contrary, India is perhaps the only country where the majority community faces such instances and threat of conversion from the minority communities, particularly two Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam. Ironically, on one hand, the two Abrahamic religions constantly indulge in conversion of Hindus through evangelism and coercion; on the other hand, the vested interests in the same communities indulge in an aggressive propaganda nationally and internationally as if they are persecuted by Hindus and are under constant threat in exercise of their faiths and beliefs in India. The author proposes to analyse the factual position of the majority community vis-à-vis aforesaid two communities in the historical and current perspective in three volumes.
Evolution of Christianity in India
Christianity is India’s third-largest religion following Hinduism and Islam, and the second largest religious minority with approximately 27.8 million adherents, comprising of 2.3 percent of India’s population as per 2011 census. Of the total Christian populace, nearly 78 percent are the Roman Catholics and the remaining 22 percent adhere to the Protestant faith. They are spread over the entire country with heavy concentration in Kerala and the northeastern states. Origin of Christianity in India has been a controversial subject due to the lack of proper documentation/record; however, according to a legendary tale, Apostle Thomas (probably Syrian Christian) was first to arrive in Kodungallur, who successfully converted some local Brahmins and established a church in 57 CE named Thiruvithamcode Arappally at Thiruvithamcode in Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu, India. This church is often cited as the world’s oldest existing church structure. Syrian Christians are often depicted as the persecuted people; hence it is not very clear whether initial Christian settlers came as refugees or traders.
Although not much credible evidence exists about the modus operandi and proliferation but it is widely believed that with the establishment of the Sassanid Empire (226 CE), many bishops of the Church of the East operated in the Northwest India, including Afghanistan and Baluchistan, etc. duly engaged in the missionary activity. For sure, they might not have experienced much difficulties in their venture in view of the Indian tradition of respecting all faiths and religions with its long-proclaimed vision of Sarva Dharmah Sambhavah (all religions lead to same destination). However, expansion of the Christian faith and evangelic activities remained limited in small pockets for many centuries in India. With the onset of 16th century, Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier expanded missionary activities and the Christian community westward evangelizing mainly those from the lower caste and outcastes. For this reason, the Christianity was often considered as the religion of poor. By the eighteenth century while the East India Company was expanding its area of influence and trade, many Protestant missionaries developed interest in conversion and became active in various parts of India mainly targeting the poor and underprivileged sections of the Hindu society. When in the later half of the 18th century, the Company was engaged in capturing India through wars and annexations, many Christians were monopolizing Pepper growing and trade besides evangelical activities.
Under the influence of church, the British had issued The East India Company Act 1813 (or The Charter Act 1813) whereunder the Christian missionaries were permitted to propagate English and preach religion in India. However, for long, the British crown and oligocracy remained divided about patronizing missionary work and conversion in the colonial India. Ultimately, the Charter Act of 1833 laid down regulation of permanent presence of missionaries in India inter alia defining the initial number of Bishops at three. Simultaneously, the British introduced English education in order to promote Christianity to convince Indians (Hindus) about the ideals and belief of the religion. This law even allowed the Indians converted to Christianity to inherit the property of own ancestors, which was seen as an impediment earlier. Then came the Charter Act of 1853 with renewed commitment of educational responsibility of the Company. Consequently, missionaries opened their own schools that taught Christianity along with English reading, writing and arithmetic. Initially, three universities at Calcutta (Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) were opened in 1857 followed by a large number of universities and colleges for higher education in English medium in various parts of the country in the next few decades.
The main objectives of these educational institutions were to target the Indian elites and middle classes to groom as loyal supporters of the British rule and augment missionary activities to accelerate conversion of Hindus, which as the rulers and missionaries felt, would further consolidate the British empire in India. While missionaries allegedly educated the Indians about the proclaimed Western superior ideas and philosophy, they simultaneously destroyed the self-confidence, self-esteem and cultural attributes of the Indians. The official patronage through legislation and consequent funding support, enabled Christian missionaries to penetrate even in remote areas and inhospitable terrains such as the north-eastern hill region and Central India to carry out their evangelic and conversion activities uninterrupted and free from legal hassles through missionary institutions and other welfare measures in the subsequent years that explains their tremendous success in converting many tribal people in these areas during the early twentieth century under British rule.
In the aforesaid process, the role and action of some eminent Indians such as Ram Mohan Roy further boosted the British and missionary causes. He was an important Hindu leader and social reformer during the first half of the nineteenth century depicted by some people as the “father of modern India,” who willingly imbibed Christian ideals and ethics to reform some social evils of India. Needless to mention, the Sanatana Dharma, the oldest surviving culture and religion, had itself professed the concept of the unmanifested Brahman (God) for thousands of years much before the advent of Christianity while simultaneously allowing the worship of the God in manifested form (idol worship) for the ease of common people. However, Roy is said to have renounced idolatry at the age of sixteen and devoted himself to the study of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. Although his reformist activities such as his drive against the polygamy, child marriage, infanticide, untouchability, seclusion of women, etc., considerably helped the socio-religious reforms among Hindus but his Brahmo Samaj (City of God) incorporating Christian ethics helped more to the cause of Christianity in India.
In the aforesaid context, a reference of Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, philosopher and chief disciple of the 19th-century Indian mystic Ramakrishna Paramhansa, would be relevant, who, instead of being infatuated by the overly dogmatic philosophy of Christianity, very aptly and appropriately revisited and imbibed the marvels of the ancient Indian scriptures and introduced the Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the Western world, thereby raising interfaith awareness and putting forth Hinduism in the league of the major world religion towards the late 19th century. So aptly, he wrote once about the English curriculum, “The child is taken to school and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth that all his sacred books are a mass of lies. By the time he reaches sixteen, he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless…” Needless to mention, that the missionary activities under the British patronage proclaiming of Christianity as the only true religion and consequent mass conversion through evangelism and sometimes through coercion only led to more degradation of the Indian culture and religion promoting conflict and division between various classes.
How Northeast India Was Christianized in Twentieth Century?
The most visible impact of the missionary activities involving welfare measures with underlying objective of converting Indians (mostly Hindus) to Christianity during the last century can be easily noticed in the north-eastern hill states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. This region comprises of the major areas of Christian concentration and even a casual glance would reveal how the demographics have drastically changed during the last hundred years or so. The impact can also be fathomed from the fact that though the total Christian population is less than three percent but their main festival Christmas is now widely celebrated in almost all parts of India. Of the 27.8 million Christian population in India, nearly 80 lakh lived in the northeast alone, while the other areas of large concentration of the Christian population are coastal areas of Kerala, Southern Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra.
Another remarkable thing is that while in other parts such as the coastal South India and North-Western India, Christianity took roots in the beginning of the last millennium and during the medieval period, the large-scale conversion to Christianity in the north-eastern region took place only during the last century. A lot of expansion of the Christian religion took place in these areas during 1931-51 and the process continued uninterrupted in the post-independence era, thanks to the liberal policies of Independent India’s first Prime Minister and the successive Congress government regimes. Consequently, the tribal population of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram now stands almost entirely converted to Christianity. The state wise position is briefly enumerated as follows:
1. Meghalaya
Meghalaya is now ranked among the three Indian states in India which have a Christian majority with about 75% of the total population as per 2011 census; of this, two main tribes namely Garo and Khasi are close to 90 percent and 80 percent Christian, respectively. Among these Christians, the Presbyterians, Baptists and Catholics are three more common denominations. The state is bound By Bangladesh in south and west, and by Assam state in north and east. During the British rule, English people had nicknamed it the “Scotland of the East”. The state follows a matrilineal system and official language is English now. In fact, the conversion activities had commenced in the northeast in nineteenth century itself after the British passed legislation to allow and endorse missionary activities in India but the pace was accelerated in twentieth century.
For instance, the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society was active in 1830s itself to convert indigenous tribes to Christianity, followed by the Welsh Presbyterian Mission with initial work at the Cherrapunji mission field. Several Protestant denominations were active in Meghalaya by the early 1900s. During the outbreak of the World Wars, the Roman Catholics too started their activities in Meghalaya and adjacent areas. The process of conversion was accelerated through the British administrators passing on the budget and responsibility of the school education to the Christian missionaries. After independence too, the share of Christians in the population of Meghalaya continued to rise robustly and consistently reaching to nearly 75 percent in 2011. Some tribes of Meghalaya such as Hajong, Koch, and Rabha are still resisting conversion and are predominantly Hindus. Currently, Presbyterians and Catholics are two more common Christian denominations in Meghalaya.
2. Mizoram
This is another state in northeast with majority Christian population of about 87 percent as per 2011 census. The state is landlocked by Assam, Tripura and Nagaland in the north and Bangladesh and Myanmar in the south and people are generally referred to as Kukis by other ethnic tribal groups in the northeast. The British made several military expeditions to subdue hostile Mizo chieftains and the Mizo Hills formally became part of the British India in 1895. Initially few missionaries came to Mizo Hills in the first half of the twentieth century and started evangelic service leading to conversion of tribal people to the Christian faith. They propagated Christianity with the patronage and active assistance of the British government and the majority of hill people were converted without offering much resistance before independence.
The sudden spurt of the missionary activity took place during 1911-31 leading to significant increase in converted Christian population, while during the next two decades from 1931 to 1951 nearly entire tribal population (above 90 percent) was converted to Christianity. While many Christian denominations exist in Mizoram but the majority is comprised of Presbyterians in the north and Baptists in the south. After independence, the state has remained badly disturbed due to separatist movement for several decades under the banner of Mizo National Front (MNF) till a peace accord was reached in between the Government of India and MNF in 1986, which inter alia also paved a way for full statehood to Mizoram. Next to Christianity, Mizoram has Chakma Buddhist population of about 8.5 percent and Hindus 2.7 percent, reports of persecution of whom by the Christians is often received.
3. Nagaland
Nagaland is third state in the northeast with the majority Christian population of about 88 percent as per 2011 census. The skyline of the districts of Kohima, Wokha, Dimapur and Mokokchung are dominated by many huge churches with very high church attendance in both urban and rural areas. Nagaland is locked by the state of Arunachal Pradesh in the north, Manipur in the south, Assam in the west and Myanmar in the east. The state remained disturbed with insurgency and inter-ethnic conflicts since 1950s but now it is relatively peaceful. Christian missionaries had eyed Nagaland in early nineteenth century itself and the American Baptist Naga mission and many others probably looked at it as an opportunity to bring Christianity in the northeast which was principally animist and folk-religion based. Nagaland is predominantly represented by the Baptist state, the other minor Christian denominations are Roman Catholics, Revivalists and Pentecostals.
Like other hill states, the tribals of Nagaland too were easily persuaded to accept Christianity in lieu of modern education and other evangelical means adopted by missionaries. After such conversions, Nagaland was marked by high rates of re-denominations i.e., switching over affiliation from one sect to another. According to trends available, the share of Christian population in 1911 was about two percent, that became about thirteen percent in 1931 and forty-six percent in 1951. From the figures of eighty-seven percent in 2011, it is evident that the conversion continued unabated even after independence right under the nose of successive Congress governments. In fact, the tribal population of the state was over ninety-eight percent Christianized by 1991.
4. Other Northeastern States
While the aforesaid three states have an overwhelming majority of the people following Christianity, the other states namely Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Tripura too have significant Christian population much above the average of the rest of the country. More significant point is that these states have Christianised mainly after the independence due to constant negligence of the development in this region for several decades by the Central Government and so often their misconceived liberal policies. Almost all these states have difficult terrain, porous borders, and socio-religious and economic vulnerability, which have been exploited by vested interests for serious demographic changes through conversion and infiltration from the other side of the border of these predominantly hill states. Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh are a classic example of the aforesaid nemesis after independence in the context of missionary activities leading to mass conversions to Christianity and Assam for irreversible demographic changes due to large scale Muslims infiltration from across the porous border.
Manipur is mainly comprised of Meitei, Naga and Kuki-Zo tribes, and has now over forty-one percent of Christian population as per 2011 census rendering Hindus in minority. The share of the Christian population in the state was about two percent in 1931 and twelve percent in 1951. Also, the hill districts of Manipur with most of the tribal population are almost entirely Christian now.
Arunachal Pradesh was earlier known as the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) which borders Assam and Nagaland in the south, Bhutan in the west, Myanmar in the east, and Chinese-occupied-Tibet in the north. This area was inhabited mainly by Tani tribes and was almost beyond the reach of missionary activities until the beginning of 1972, when the agency was renamed and converted to a Union Territory. Ever since the share of Christianity has grown enormously and many tribes have been converted to Christian majority. The Christian population in Arunachal Pradesh was less than one percent in 1971, became over three percent in 1991 and about thirty percent in 2011 pushing Hindus to become a minority community.
Assam is the largest state in northeast, located south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Meghalaya and Mizoram too were earlier carved out from certain hill districts of Assam as new states. The state shares boundaries with Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh in the north, Nagaland and Manipur in the east, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and Bangladesh in the south, and West Bengal in the west via the narrow Siliguri Corridor. The early Christians were mainly from the migrant tribes in the tea plantations of the upper Assam. Christians had a share of merely 0.4 percent in 1901 which has increased to about 3.75 percent in 2011 census with many tribes getting affected ever since. Assam has another serious problem of Muslims illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar over the decades which are now posing serious threat to demography, socio-religious and economic progress of the state.
Tripura is still a Hindu majority state in the northeast with about 4.35 percent Christian population, which is also considerably above the national average. Historically, they were only about five thousand in 1951 that became over one lakh six thousand during the last census. Sikkim is yet another state in the northeast that has observed a rapid expansion in Christian population since 1971. Sikkim was a protectorate of India since 1947, which formally joined the latter as 22nd state in 1975. According to the 2011 census, Sikkim had about ten percent Christians, the Hindus being in majority with over fifty-seven percent, followed by Buddhists about twenty-seven percent. Sikkimese Christians are mostly descendants of Lepchas converted by British missionaries in the late 19th century, and currently the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Sikkim is the largest Christian denomination in the state.
5. Kerala and Other Coastal States
A brief account of how the European colonial powers including British, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders and mercenaries carried out missions in the beginning and later patronized by the British crown, the Christian missionaries established their strong feet in coastal parts of the South India along with their evangelic missions for targeting the Indian populace for conversion to Christianity during the last two millennia, is given in the beginning. It is also pretty clear how the sporadic spread of Christianity with the patronage of British rulers during the first half of the twentieth century assumed a far greater momentum and spurt of activities in various parts following the independence in 1947. By 1961, the Christian population had reached to 21.2 percent of Kerala population but with the advent of Islam and their much faster population growth rate, this share in percentage terms have decreased over the recent decades.
Kerala has the largest population of Christians in India with 61.5 lakh people and 18.4 percent share in the total population as per 2011 census. As already stated in the earlier section, arguably the Christianity had reached the Kerala shores as early as 52 CE with the visit of Thomas the Apostle, who is recognized as one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Various churches of this tradition in Kerala include Syro-Malabar Catholic, Jacobite Syrian Christian, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Malankara Orthodox Syrian, Mar Thoma Syrian, and several other Pentecostal and evangelical denominations. The origin and advent of the Latin Catholic Christians in Kerala is ascribed to the missionary zeal of the Portuguese Padroado during the 16th century. Due to centuries of the mixing of the local population with the immigrants of Portuguese, Dutch, British, French, etc. origin, Kerala has a considerable Anglo-Indian population of the mixed parentage and ancestry.
Among other coastal states, Tamil Nadu has 6.12 percent Christians which is considerable above the national average of less than three percent. Goa is yet another state on the west coast with over twenty-five percent Christian population according to 2011 census. The Christian missionaries have been very active in the tribal areas of the Central India too in the post-independence era and Jharkhand is one state in the region with 4.3 percent Christian population which is again considerably above the national average. The available data from various parts clearly indicate that the Christian missionaries and evangelists have mainly targeted the tribal population during 1931-51 period in pre-independence period and the pace of conversion has continued uninterrupted during the post-independence period, thanks to too liberal policies of the successive governments for many following decades. During this period, the Church has apparently inspired and supported different militant assertions of tribal and regional sub-nationalism, which has further boosted their mission of the continued growth of Christianity in various parts subsequently.
Modus Operandi and Conversion Rackets
Freedom of religion is a fundamental right guaranteed under the Constitution of India by Articles 25-28. Article 25 guarantees the freedom of conscience, the freedom to profess, practice and propagate religion to all citizens. Article 26 gives every religious group a right to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes, manage its affairs, properties as per the law. Article 27 grants freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion. Article 28 gives freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain educational institutions. Of course, all fundamental rights are subject to certain fundamental duties and other limitations but the implementation of law is such a tardy and troublesome process that unscrupulous individuals and organizations take unfair advantage of this in pursuance of their vested interests.
The usual modus operandi of the missionary organizations is to follow a two-pronged strategy. While targeting tribal population, and poor and underprivileged people, they criticize and condemn idol worship, folk religions and animism, and so on, proclaiming aggressively that Jesus Christ in the only saviour and Christianity is the only true religion by the grace of God. On the other hand, they promise people with a good standard of living after conversion and, in many cases, even offer some cash or kind benefits, including assurances of some job or business. Needless to mention that India has been among the top targets in the world due to its poverty, under development and poor law implementation. Due to aforesaid reasons, it becomes difficult to establish a concrete case against the offenders in the majority of cases, notwithstanding the fact that conversion through entice, false promises and coercion is a reality in India. Many NGOs too in India are engaged in evangelic activities while receiving funds from the foreign sources supposedly under other expenditure heads.
Many NGOs receive foreign funds in the name of education and welfare activities, exercise undue opacity about the utilization of funds thus received and actually spend it for conversion and other dubious activities. In March 2015, the Union Government had banned some thirty NGOs receiving funds from the foreign countries and engaged in the alleged welfare of the minorities, namely Christians and Muslims. Among the affected states, Andhra Pradesh accounted for the majority of dubious NGOs, followed by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. For illustration, of the eight NGOs banned in Andhra Pradesh, seven were Christian institutions and one Islamic education association. Tamil Nadu had four such dubious Christian organizations while Gujarat had mostly Islamic ones. Recently in September 2020 too, the licence of six NGOs under FCRA was suspended, wherein the name of two US-based evangelic donors Seventh Day Adventist Church and Baptist Church too surfaced and four NGOs under suspension are Ecreosoculis North Western Gossner Evangelical in Jharkhand, the Evangelical Churches Association (ECA) in Manipur, Northern Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jharkhand and New Life Fellowship Association (NLFA) in Mumbai.
Thus, the all-pervasive and perverse game of conversion that started in the name of charity and community service during the East Indian Company and British rule has continued unabated with active indulgence of many foreign-aided voluntary organizations and support of self-proclaimed secularists and left-leaning liberals in India. The fact is that many of these evangelical projects have foreign hand and illicit money was caught and exposed at occasions. Consequently, the present government has taken some steps to stop foreign funding in many cases. It is not surprising that rattled with these developments, the Archbishop of Delhi even came out with a circular, asking Christians to offer prayers and observe a day of fast on every Friday for a “secular nation” ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections; the underlying message was pretty clear and not very difficult for any person of ordinary prudence to comprehend.
Several conversion rackets have been exposed in the past, which of course only look like a tip of the iceberg. In August/September 2018, the police had arrested four priests and booked another 271 people in the district of Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh on the charges of promoting conversion in Christianity and defaming Hinduism by spreading misinformation. This conversion racket and its modus operandi was exposed by a private news channel of the mainstream national media and report to this effect was also published by a newspaper. Reportedly, the epicentre of the alleged criminal practices had been a church in Baldeh village where hundreds of the villagers from the surrounding areas of Jaunpur, Varanasi, Azamgarh and Ghazipur districts were lured to assemble on the appointed days. In such assemblies, the preachers and their accomplices used to convey the message of Christ citing Christianity as the superior and ultimate religion, distribute religious literature citing miracles and magical (holy) water capable of curing diseases including cancer, and so on. Most of the targeted people were poor and backward men falling easy prey to such ulterior practices. The news channel also revealed how cash in Indian currency was used to pay middlemen and target people in the process.
In yet another case in the Western UP in June 2018, a similar racket was busted. Reportedly, the Pastor of Mulhera church in Meerut district was caught red handed when he was making the affidavits of seventeen Hindu families for embracing Christianity. Allegedly he had assured them Rs 15, 000 ($215) and government jobs if they abandon their religion to embrace Christianity. Needless to mention, all targeted families were from a backward and poor background, the uneducated and poor being the soft targets and easy to indoctrinate. This was not the only incident, the Pastor confessed to have earlier converted another four families in the area. In yet another case during the same month, a Dalit girl was lured for conversion, sold and married to a Ludhiana (Punjab) based Bazigar as per the Christian rituals. In December 2018, an American national Chau was killed by an aborigine tribe in India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The interesting feature of the incident was that the Indian leftists and liberals as also a section of mainstream Indian media portrayed the American national as innocent and a keen traveller & adventurer, while the US based Cable News Network (CNN) and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) conceded that the 26 years old John Allen Chau was indeed a missionary.
In the far-flung tribal areas of the states of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh in Central India, the religious conversion of tribals is a major issue highlighted and contested by the Hindu organizations like Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Allegedly, whenever the nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is out of power in Jharkhand, the religious conversion gains momentum luring the poor people in the state of Jharkhand. Recently, the VHP has claimed of receiving several complaints of forced religious conversions of tribals by the Christian missionaries and Churches in the State during the lockdown on account of Covid-19 pandemic. Amidst the allegations, a tribal man was shown, in a viral video, who adopted Christianity about a year ago and was now regretting and keen to join Hinduism again. By all means and accounts, the conversion to Christianity in India by adopting unethical means is not at all a fiction but a tragic reality.
Postlude
In sharp contrast to Hinduism which has traditional respect for all world religions and argues that only means are different but destination (i.e., God) is same for all, Christianity upholds itself as the only true religion and Jesus Christ as only saviour of the mankind. If the religion is truly based on love and compassion, it certainly makes sense to work for the welfare and upliftment of the poor and underprivileged but why should missionaries, if their God is true and they are true servants of God, consider it necessary to convert people of other faith to Christianity in lieu of any service rendered. It is beyond imagination and comprehension that the almighty God would ever make any discrimination or threat to his subjects based on creedal beliefs and methods of worship, which means those who argue or profess “My God is holier than yours!”, are either still living in darkness or they are wilful cheats.
To be Continued…
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