Countering Christian Conversion

The fine art of subverting an individual's belief system to an extent that he starts hating his culture and tradition has been perfected by the Christian Church for over two millennia. This is a game they played and perfected against the unsuspecting Romans some 2000 years back. Early Christian were no theologians or intellectuals, they were mostly disgruntled slaves, criminals and other dregs of the society (Its interesting to note that Christianity, Islam and Communist thrive on unhappiness and unrest, manufactured or otherwise). These early Christians were no match for Roman, their arguments were childlike polemics against the might of Greco-Romans intellectual traditions. But within 300 years the Romans were defeated at their own game and Christianity held sway over the minds of the people.

Latin speaking Christians in the West did not acquire a philosophical mind of any considerable quality before the middle of the 4th century, with the conversion of the Roman Neoplatonist Marius Victorianus... (Heathen In His Blindness by SN.Balagangadhara)

Just like the early Christians, Hindus at the moment lack the intellectual depth and knowledge to challenge the Christian missionaries who have sharpened their theological skills by borrowing from various traditions and cultures they encountered around the world over the past 2000 years. The current re-conversion efforts by Hindu groups titled 'Ghar-Wapsi' (Home Return) is one such amateurish attempt to challenge Christian conversion missions. Much like the proverbial tiger skin analogy given by Kalyana to Alexander, where one side of the skin rises up when other side is pressed down, this will be an endless circular battle with no conclusive results,. The only unwanted by product of such actions would be giving a handle to sundry rights groups, media courts, pseudo intellectuals and Western countries to berate India's on religious freedom track record and give the BJP government an unwanted headache distracting it from its development agenda. Its another matter that such Ghar Wapsi has been happening since decades under Congress regimes but the media and the liberals find this an opportune moment to protest.

So how can this Christian conversion be tackled, is there a way to stop them from eating and digesting our civilisation and culture? In my humble opinion there are a few legislative and judicial routes open considering that Anti-Conversion laws exist in many states. They just need to be beefed up and enforced.

Stop Inculturation and Digestion of Hindu traditions: Christianity in its early days had difficulty in convincing the Romans that Christianity was a religion at all or had a history or traditions with any great antiquity, in fact Romans had not even heard of Jesus heralded by the Christians. For the Romans any practice that was rooted in antiquity handed down from generation to generation (much like Hinduism) was tradition or tradicio as they called it and thus formed a part of their belief system which is religion or religio for the Romans. For a young religion like Christianity, which was not the ancestral custom/ tradition of a people was hard pressed to provide evidence for its antiquity or traditions. Christians resorted to borrowing the Jewish traditions, Moses and other stories and thus put together a 'doctrine' which they showcased as the New Testament, a new improved version of the Jewish Old Testament. Must say the Christians used the gift of hindsight as a great weapon. The New Testament doctrine hardcoded many aspects of Christianity which got further reinforced through the Nicene creed and over time many new elements of the religion got incorporated which have now become integral part of Christianity. What we see today is finished product of Christianity with not much scope for path breaking evolution besides some concessions and amendments with the core remaining intact.

Keeping the above in mind, we can try to tackle the inculturation and attempted digestion of Hinduism by Christians through the law of antiquity, precedence, traditions and sanctioned practices of the Church. Just like the Romans, Hindus can take a more intellectual route to combat Christian conversion via inculturation by demanding from the Church evidence via law of precedence or evidence through religious scriptures or other aspect of the Christian doctrine where the use of Saffron robes, Rudrakshmala, Jesus Sahasranama, Jesus Namavali, Jesus Devasthanam and other aspects of inculturation that one may come across is practiced anywhere in the world and is a part of Christianity or sanctioned Christian practices. On the other hand Hindus should show how these elements have been part of Hinduism for thousands of years with scriptural evidence where applicable. Inculturation or borrowing Hindu traditions and customs thus can be outlawed by the court of law.

Proactive anti-conversion campaign: One very effective way to dent the Christian mission is a proactive anti-conversion campaign. Hindus can enlist the support of many intellectuals, activists, academics and even normal folks in the West who oppose Church's conversion activities. They can be invited to tour India to engage and speak with vulnerable sections of the society on the evils of conversions and probably even expose the lies of the Church. Lets face it, given India's colonial past, Indians face a inferiority complex while dealing with white people and the Church exploits this Indian vulnerability to the maximum. There is nothing more gratifying than a white man touching, moving about even eating at a Dalit house while his co-religionist shun him. This misplaced sense of acceptance by a white man is all that a Dalit needs to convert to an alien cult. Take this missionary edge away by firstly integrating the outer fringes of Hindu society and counter the white missionary with a white Christian myth busters. 

Stop new Church planting in non-Christian areas: Christianity believes in congregation, a collective place for mass worship and for this they have the Church. The Church is also a place where they can place their religious icon the cross for everyone to see so that it acts as a beacon for future converts. They tend to spread their religion by planting Churches in remote areas and servicing the region with a local or foreign priest. In most cases new Churches are planted in places where there are no Christians in the first place. Now why would Christian missions want to plant a new Church where there are no Christians at all but for the purpose of conversion. This is where Anti-Conversion law needs to be beefed up to enforce this rule. Here are some pointers.

a. No new Church can be planted where there are no native Christians living in the region for more than 25 years or so. Imported or supplanted Christians won't count.

b. For a new Church to be installed, the local Christian population should be a certain percentage of the overall population

c. No planting of Christian icons till above conditions met

d. In fact no Christian missionary activities can take place where there are no Christians already among the native populations. Christian mission can only service the existing Christians in a given region.

Thus for example JP Nagar, Jayanagar, Banashankari in South Bangalore where the Christian population is negligible, the Missions cannot either start a conversion campaign or plant a Church for that matter.

Stop issuing Visas to foreign Church officials and known Missionaries: Missionaries enter India using a normal visitors Visa which does not allow them to engage in any conversion activities but they still continue to do so since enforcement is nonexistent and also its difficult to follow every missionary. Thus route to can be plugged at source by denying visa to foreign Church officials and missionaries. A little research by the Indian embassy or consulate in the foreign country can give them a lot of information on such organisations. Some of them are even school teachers who use their summer holidays to visit India on mission activities.

In my opinion laws of precedence and proactive anti-conversion campaigns are two untried methods to counter Christians especially the law of precedence if properly applied with the aid of an expert scholar can yield high dividends and will put an end to the inculturation activities.

Source: Heathen in his Blindness

Hindu Traditions, Religion and Scientific temper, countering Left Lib narrative!

The overall euphoria over the success of the Mangalyaan mission (Indian Mars Mission) and certain ignorant tweets and comments jolted me out of my inertia. The objective of this piece is not to criticize or educate Nikhil Wagle or others like him but to inform normal folks who may find the line of thinking expressed in his tweets as a valid point.

 India is a land of contrast and paradoxes and everyone who visits India from the West will tell you that. One thousand year old temples may be situated next to modern satellite communications complexes in Thumba, South India. A nuclear scientist may start the day by offering puja at a shrine and chant Vishnusahastranama (the thousand names of Vishnu) while driving to work. A brilliant software programmer at Google or Microsoft will code the most complex algorithms with an image of Ganesha adorning the soft board in the cubicle. Our engineers will not build a dam without ‘Bhumi Pujan’. Scientific research centers in India, engaged in the most advanced hi-tech research conduct puja and homa within their facilities. An engineering or medical science student will visit a temple for blessings and apply tilak before his exams. Now what makes some of these brilliant minds engaged in rationale, scientific work, perform these seemingly irrational, even superstitious acts. One word for this is ‘Tradition’ and not religion as some may have us believe.

                                   Religio is what traditio is all about     

                                                                  Heathen in his Blindness, Balgangadhara

To establish that the above statement i.e. its tradition and not religion that we Hindus follow in our daily lives, we have to first understand the origin and meaning of the word religion. The world religion comes from the Latin word religio used by the Romans to describe practices, rituals, festivals, sacrifices etc. that collectively became Roman customs and traditions over the centuries. When we look at religion as tradition, that is a set of practices transmitted over generations, then the term appears as a minor variant of our intuitive nation of culture: to have a religion is to have culture. Whenever there are people with a history, there tradition exists too. In other words they have religio too. This is how the pagans seem to have seen the issue.  “Thus religio is what traditio is all about, religion falls together with tradition and continuing a tradition does not require any reason other than itself” as Prof. Balagangadhara succinctly summarizes in his magnum opus ‘The heathen in his blindness’. 

The primary test of truth in religious matters was custom and tradition, the practices of the ancients…In philosophical matters one might turn to intellectuals and philosophers, but in religious questions one looked to the past, to the accepted practices handed down by tradition, and to the guarantors of this traditions, the priests (Wilken)

The republic was an age of rationalism; certainly as far as Roman nobility was concerned. But this tendency was never taken to its logical conclusion, rejection of tradition religious practices…Such respect for ancestral authority would assure the continuity of traditions rituals, just as the childhood associations, family traditions and the peculiar nature of pagan beliefs would be preserve traditional mental attitude. (Liebeschuetz)

It is wise and reasonable for us to preserve the institutions of our forefathers by retaining their rites and ceremonies. (Cicero)

                                                        Heathen in his Blindness, Balagangadhara

This non-exhaustive list reads like who’s who in western classical philosophy and science (both Greek and Roman) they not only performed religious rituals but also were priests of religious order. Socrates, Plato, Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Plutarch, Athenogoras the Athenian, Celsus, Cornelius Tacitus, Prophyry, were highly regarded philosophers, thinkers, scientists, polymaths, yet openly participated and led religious ceremonies. Socrates the father of western philosophy defended himself against charges of Atheism and credited the Oracle at Delphi for his education. Socrates and his student Plato proposed that the soul is immortal and believed in reincarnation. Cicero’s was on the Roman council of Augury though he really did not lay much stress on conducting ones life based on soothsaying. Plutarch was a priest at the Oracle of Delphi yet he attacked some Roman traditio. Thus these individuals were brilliant rational thinkers, philosophers and atheist in some cases yet were also closely attached to their respective temples and practiced to their religious traditions.

Cicero’s De Natura Deorum (On the nature of Gods) is a great classical work on the origin of god that has not been bettered till date in western philosophy. The work is a speculative dialogue on the existence of god. Many 18^th century intellectuals such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Hume, Edward Gibbon etc. used Cicero’s work, written some 2000 years earlier as the arsenal to attack religion and come up with the idea of Secularism. Why the arguments in Cicero’s work were decisive to the inheritors of the Graeco-Roman culture 2000 years later to make them turn away from god and turn atheist? The content of the Cicero’s work did not change but the cultural matrix in which it was understood had changed. What the European intellectuals thought of religion was very different from the idea of Roman religio. 18^th century Europe operated within a Christian cultural matrix and the intellectuals understood religion in the way Christian theology describes it (God, Son of God, Creed, Scriptures and other assorted dogmas). Thus the ancients could be perfectly rational, scientist, mathematicians, physicians, philosophers or atheist even and yet be closely attached to their gods and tradition without for a moment feeling any dissonance.

This Christian definition of religion has been passed on to our intellectuals through colonisation and through continuation of the colonial educational and cultural framework and thus they form misinformed or even ignorant idea of religion, which is far removed from the native thought. Religion holds a different meaning to the Hindus compared to the Christian definition of religion. The idea of religion to the Hindus is a collection of rituals and practices that have become a tradition over centuries just as religion was traditio for the Romans.

Drawing from the above its easy to see how in ancient India, brilliant scientist like Bhaskaracharya, Brahmagupta, Aryabhata, Varahamira, Susruta, Nagarjuna, Charaka to name a few were not only rational and scientifically ‘tempered’ but also closely attached to their gods and traditions which does not mean that their work was less reliable or less worthy. Going back to the tweet by Nikhil Wagle, a prominent Marathi journalist, does the achievement of the Indian space scientist is less worthy just because they prayed to Shri Venkateshwara Balaji? What is scientific temper, is it a badge or a certificate? If Indian space scientist can send a spacecraft to Mars, is it not scientific temper enough that they have to further embellish it with rejection of their ancient traditions.

                                                    The Telegraph India

Via Keerthik Sasidharan and Anjali George on twitter

Ganesh puja before all rituals, Sandyavandane, Yajnopaveetham, Tulsi Puja, Dipawali, Holi, Dashera, Krishna Janmashtami, Ram Navmi, Surya Puja, Karva Chauth, Raksha Bandhan, Ritual bath before entering temple, applying Haldi on wedding day (Turmeric) and all other such rituals, practices have to be retained and practiced as they have been transmitted over generations and they need no further legitimization. It’s been the way of our ancestors and so it shall be ours. If we lose these traditions then we lose our identity, we will lose our soul.

The Octavius, Caecilius the Pagan

Its better as high priest of truth, to receive the teaching of your ancestors, to cultivate the religion handed down to you, to adore the gods whom you were first trained by your parents to fear… not to assert an opinion concerning the deities, but to believe your forefather, who while the age was untrained in the birth-times of the world itself, deserved to have gods either propitious to them, or as their kings.

          Heathen in his Blindness, Balgangadhara

I dedicate this article to S. Nambi Narayanan ISRO scientist and all the brilliant scientist at ISRO who have made the Indian Mars mission, Mangalyaan a great success. Working against great odds they have made all us Indians a very proud people.

Sources: Heathen in his Blindness and How to speak for Indian traditions by Prof. Balagangadhara of Ugent.

First published in Swarjaya Mag  

Reconceptualizing India Studies!!

Must read book for those wanting to 'reset' social science studies in India. This is a path breaking book exposing the major flaws in current India studies. The book discusses the state of social sciences narrative as nothing but reproduction of colonial era studies of India which perpetuates a colonial era model.

The book argues that the post colonial studies in India is nothing but promotion of the same old colonial ideas it had set out to debunk, lacking a original framework to study India from the Indian perspective the current model borrows the Oriental/ colonial framework, thereby constraining the social science studies in India.

The book interestingly discusses how the colonial construct of Hinduism, Caste, Sati, Dowry etc is a construct of western consciousness, the way western people experienced India and not as it existed or exists in reality for the natives of India. At best the colonial construct tells us more about the western civilisation than the native Indian civilisation. In fact what Indians know about India is the western view of India and not the Indian view. So do we really know India or we know India from what the west has told us about ourselves, read on.

Prof. Balagangadhara is one of the brilliant minds of our times and offers a original frame work to study India.

Order here