Why objections to Pope's remarks are baseless

(IANS)
By Vishal Arora

The remarks of Pope Benedict XVI about India's anti-conversion law that New Delhi has protested neither constitute "interference" in a country's internal affairs nor suggest that Christian missionaries are converting Hindus "forcibly", as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged.

The Pope had told India's new ambassador to the Vatican Amitava Tripathi that "the reprehensible attempt to legislate clearly discriminatory restrictions on the fundamental right of religious freedom must be firmly rejected not only as unconstitutional but also as contrary to the highest ideals of India's founding fathers who believed in a nation of peaceful coexistence and mutual tolerance between different religions and ethnic groups".

Today's international community accepts the principle that the way any state treats its citizens is in the public domain, and external criticism from other governments or foreign religious leaders does not constitute interference in the internal affairs of the country. The UN's International Covenant on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which India has ratified, allow international accountability vis-à-vis human rights record of the countries.

As regards the constitutional validity of the legislation regulating conversion, the so-called Freedom of Religion Act is seen as an anti-conversion law by religious minorities, which say the law implicitly seeks to restrict conversion in general in the garb of prohibiting "forcible" or "fraudulent" conversions - a concern that has a legitimate ground.

The Freedom of Religion Acts in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa require that all conversions be reported to the state administration. Section 4 of the Orissa Freedom of Religion Rules, 1989, states that "any person intending to convert his religion shall give a declaration before a magistrate... prior to such conversion that he intends to convert his religion on his own will". Similarly, Section 5 makes it mandatory for the priest to intimate the details of the conversion to the government 15 days in advance.

If the priest and the prospective convert fail to inform the government of the conversion - even in case of a voluntary conversion - they can be prosecuted and, if found "guilty", punished like common criminals.

Besides, this provision overlooks the basic fact that conversion is not always tangible, as it has to do with a person's faith, which may change gradually over a period of time for various reasons and one may not be able to tell the exact time and place of his or her conversion. In fact, the provision reduces this mystic phenomenon to a time-and-place-bound ceremony.

This narrow, mistaken definition of conversion with the provision for mandatory reporting of conversions allows the state to interfere in the arena of a citizen's life that is extremely personal to him or her.

Christianity, in particular, faces the brunt of this provision, as the sacrament of baptism is deemed as a "conversion ceremony" and priests performing the ceremony are considered as those converting. Baptism, according to the Bible, is for those who have decided to follow the Christian faith and it is not a means to convert - this is why churches give baptism to all its registered members, whether they were born in a Christian family or have accepted Christianity from other backgrounds.

Further, these laws do not define the terms sufficiently, giving discretionary powers to the governments, which can be misused. For instance, "allurement" is defined as an "offer of any temptation in the form of any gift or gratification, either in cash or in kind or grant of any material benefit, either monetary or otherwise" that can both restrict religious and charitable activities and create ample opportunity for abuse and unjust prosecution. Such vague terms can leave a room for a government to indulge in religious policing like in Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, the Rajasthan bill, which was passed by the state assembly on April 7 and endorsement to which was denied by the governor Thursday, violates the right to equality before law promised in Article 14 of the constitution. For the bill explicitly exempts "reconversion" to Hinduism from the purview of the law by defining conversion as adopting "a religion other than one's forefathers" along the same lines as the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1978, according to which conversion means "renouncing an indigenous faith and adopting another faith or religion".

This restriction on citizens' conversion to minority religions with a blanket freedom for the likes of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) to organise "home-coming" ceremonies also implies that the laws seek to make it difficult for the majority community to practise their liberty to convert to other religions.

The allegation that Christian missionaries go to "gullible" poor, illiterate Dalits and tribals living in remote areas to convert them using fraudulent means sounds like a Churchill statement at the time of the British leaving India - that the country was not capable of ruling itself, as a majority of its people were poor and illiterate.

The BJP owes an explanation as to how Dalits and tribals, if they are so naïve, can be allowed the right to cast votes to choose their representatives but not the freedom to decide what religion they want to follow.

One wonders why it is always the "other" who objects to conversions, and never those who have accepted the religion. We are yet to see a "Forum of Converts against Conversion" kind of group joining the BJP - which may never happen.

One also fails to understand why the party needs anti-conversion laws when not even a single person has been convicted of forcible or fraudulent conversion by any court in the country in the last more than 37 years.

(Vishal Arora is a writer on religious issues. The views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at vishalarora_in@hotmail.com)

Yet Another Challenge to the Constitution

Yet Another Challenge to the Constitution

Dominic Emmanuel

Will Vasundhara Raje have to wait for a poll debacle to withdraw the recently passed "Freedom of Religion Bill 2006", as Jayalalitha did after the drubbing she and her party received during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections? Well! Since Rajasthan has less than 1 percent Christian population, at whom, according to Home Minister Gulab Singh Kataria, the architect of the Bill, is aimed, "it was needed to check the activities of Christian missionaries in certain parts of the State, especially in Kota", there is little chance that there will be any alteration to it.

Gujarat, also BJP governed, is another State which passed such an unconstitutional law earning Narender Modi among other things, the singular distinction of being 'a modern day Nero', from no less an institution than the Supreme Court. That the Gujarat government has not yet framed rules for the said Bill or that so far no case either in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa or Arunachal Pradesh of 'forceful conversion' or 'conversion by allurement or fraudulent means' has come to light, is not really the concern of BJP governments. It is enough that such Bills and Acts, come handy to terrorize the minorities in general and the Christian missionaries in particular, who are rendering selfless service to the most neglected people in remote areas. It is also a useful tool to justify the actions of the likes of Dara Singh. False allegations in the name of 'conversion' serve many purposes.

In Rajasthan the Freedom of Religion Bill was spoken of ever since the BJP government came to power in 2004 but it caught momentum after the President of a certain Emmanuel Mission International (EMI), Bishop Samuel Thomas was arrested from NOIDA last month along with an arrest warrant issued against his father Archbishop M. A. Thomas, the founder of EMI. Both of them are being held responsible for propagating a book called Haqueekat, which allegedly contains material denigrating the Hindu religion, though neither of them has either written or published the book. Though we have not seen or read the book, we have, including me as the spokesperson of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese, condemned in public, all such material containing insulting references to other religions or their believers.

There are also hundreds of booklets and pamphlets in circulation all over, particularly in North India, a bundle of which I have personally handed over both to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the then Home Minister Mr. L. K. Advani making highly derogatory remarks against the Bible and Christianity. But is anyone, especially those working overtime to introduce such Bills, bothered about their plight?

On the one hand, we have the Sensex and the Nifty scaling new heights, in the BJP ruled States, on the other hand, such retrograde laws are being passed, targeting openly one particular Community. The Bill is so ludicrous and contradictory, to say the least, that it allows people to go back to their 'original religion', without attracting any punitive action.

Even if no one wants to listen to the constant shrill of the Christian Community in despair that it is not involved in any 'mass conversion', people are urged to believe at least the official Census of India showing a clear decline of Christian population in the last four decades, down from 2.6% to being just 2.3% at the last count.

But how does one convince a completely biased lot which is not only totally closed to see the 'truth' but which keeps harping on the two constant refrains against minorities, that of 'minority appeasement' (now riding on Advani's Rath) and that of 'mass conversion' (on Rajnath's Rath). That the Hindu voter, however, has become much wiser than those hardliners who get such draconian bills passed, has been proved by the result of the last elections and the poor attendance right now at the two Rath Yatras.

It was in order to boost the attendance around the Raths that the new BJP President Rajnath Singh lashed out at the Christian missionaries in Chattisgarh boasting, "as soon as I became the BJP President, I told all my party chief ministers to enact laws to check conversions and foil the designs of Christian missionaries". He then went on to say that the Jharkhand government was ready with the draft bill and Chattisgarh will soon follow suit. He had no hesitation in spewing venom at the Christian missionaries in the area. Both for Rajnath and Advani, and of course the Sangh Parivar, this is what democracy is all about.

The Catholic Church has clarified its position on conversion time and again as well as in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, stating, "In spreading religious faith. everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonourable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of one's own right and a violation of the right of others" (cf. Declaration on Religious Freedom: no. 4. Vatican: 1965).

Similarly Pope Benedict XVI in his recent and first encyclical Deus Caritas Est reiterates, "Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically. Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practiced as a way of achieving other ends" no. 31. b & c).

Such laws go against the very spirit of Article 25 of the Constitution which grants, "freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion" to every Indian citizen and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which India is a signatory, stating, "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion: this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice and worship and observance".

Among the many painful experiences for Christians in the context of 'conversion' there are two important ones. One, that those who do not understand the commandment of Jesus to "love one another as I have loved you" (John 15: 12) and "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers (sisters) that you do unto me" (Mt. 25: 40) completely misunderstand their motive for acts of love. Two, that millions who have passed through the Christian educational as well as other institutions and who were never once given so much as a hint to convert to Christianity, never stand up in their defense. The Archbishop Vincent M. Concessao of Delhi, however, holds, "Nobody really believes their lies against Christians and everyone is actually tired of them. Most people know that it is only a political game to be played and contested in the political arena".