Indian laws put Christian missionaries on defensive
Proponents of religious freedom are criticizing Indian laws against forced conversion.
from the May 23, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
A lack of evidence
In Shimla, a pretty town in the foothills of the Himalayas, where British colonialists kept their summer capital, most modern conversions take place in indigenous, home-based churches.
"We are a growing and powerful church," says the pastor of one home-based church who asks to remain anonymous. "We don't want any trouble. We aren't forcibly converting anyone; we're just telling them the truth."
Because his church has no conversion rite, this pastor says it is impossible to inform authorities of the intention to convert. But what really bothers him is the way "inducement" is defined in the law.
"Inducement," states the law, "shall include the offer of any gift or gratification, either in cash or in kind or grant of any benefit either pecuniary or otherwise."
"That could mean anything," protests the pastor. "In our culture it is traditional to give food. In Christianity, it is traditional to feed the poor."
He denies, of course, that his church ever forces Hindus to adopt Christianity. And indeed, no one in the state has been arrested for such a crime.
The politics of religious conversion
In other states with anticonversion laws, there are no reliable records or statistics for arrests or convictions, but reports by nongovernmental organizations and media suggest that accusations of forced conversion are rare.
But in India, political expediency often fills the void left by a lack of evidence. Next March, when Himachal Pradesh goes to the polls, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to mount a serious challenge to the ruling Congress Party. Every other anticonversion law has been passed in states ruled by the BJP. Himachal Pradesh is the first state in which the traditionally secular Congress Party, which also heads the central government, has passed the law.
Elsewhere in India, Hindutva, the teaching that India is a Hindu nation and that Christians and Muslims are outsiders, has proved a powerful vote-winner for the BJP. By contrast, the ruling Congress party is increasingly perceived as promoting a softer version of Hindutva.
"Sonia Gandhi [the Congress leader] is personally opposed to anticonversion laws," says Asghar Ali Engineer, director of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism in Mumbai (Bombay).
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