In the recent past, Dr. Matthew Rees authored a report that stated that in 2019, India ranked tenth in the list of World Watch List of 50 countries where it is most dangerous to live as a Christian – a first in the history of the list in over two decades. India has been going up the list rather steadily for the past five years and can now be classified as a country with extreme persecution. Approximately 64 million Christians live in India but constitute less than 5 per cent of the total population of 1.3 billion.
Rees’s report is based on the data that Open Doors collects annually through an extensive survey in 75 countries. The Church leaders and other community volunteers administer questionnaires to Christians in their regions and then send the data to Open Doors offices in the Netherlands and North America, where researchers collate it to obtain a quantitative figure for persecution in each country.
If we talk about India or globally, Christians are not considered as a threat. The open assertion by Christian leaders to convert all Hindus to Christianity is considered a threat to Hinduism by many Hindus. Christianity has successfully destroyed numerous religions in nearly all parts of the world. The fanatical urge to destroy all global religious diversity in the name of one true religion and the one living God is scary.
What the consequences of conversion will be to the country as a whole is well worth bearing in mind. Conversion to Islam or Christianity will de-nationalise the dejected classes. If they go over to Islam the number of Muslims would be doubled, and the danger of Muslim domination also becomes real. If they go over to Christianity, the numerical strength of the Christians becomes five to six cores.
It is not Christianity or Christians but the Christian missionaries who pose a threat to India. Normally many believe that missionaries are a threat to Hinduism because of conversions but conversions have a very bad effect on the social health of a society resulting in animosity between different faiths resulting skirmishes between different faiths and diversion of government from nation-building tasks to nation healing tasks. There are dangerous methods employed by missionaries to first convert and then retain these converts.
For a Hindu to convert to another religion in India, it takes total life changing experience. Hindus follow a very ritualistic way of life which is ingrained into us from childhood. Conversion to another religion means adopting a totally different way of life. Missionaries deploy various tactics go trick people into conversion like they will try to convince upper caste South Indians that Hinduism is a religion of North Indians imposed on them is racist in nature. Dalits are instigated against Hinduism because of discrimination faced by Dalits in everyday life.
These tactics require putting hate in the heart of a prospective convert to make the life-changing experience. Another trick is to help people in distress. While providing the help missionaries ensure that they convince the convert that being a Hindu the life was miserable and Hindu gods never came to their help whereas Christ came to their help. No wonder all these first generation converts have more hate and contempt for Hinduism and Hindus. Once the person in distress is given help and over the time his condition gets better, there is a risk that person might go back to original faith because of the overwhelming presence of Hindus around. Therefore, the missionaries ask these converts to cut-off all ties with Hindus and socialize with Christians only.
A pastor is given a list of converts to monitor the converts on a weekly basis to ensure that they remain loyal to Christianity. Converts are told that Hindus worship the devil and will go to hell and Christians should have no relations with them. These policies create a lot of schisms between new converts and Hindus. Also with the rise of RSS, there is a fight for supremacy is going on. Missionaries provide tactic and financial support to Communist and Muslim radical organisations where-in communist plot and Muslim radicals execute the murders of RSS and Hindu organisation members in South India.
Various converted Dalits, write hate books against Hinduism and Hindus. Their hate for Hinduism and frustration of seeing millions of Hindus result in working with break India forces. Various missionaries act as a front end for US/Europe based MNC by funding NGOs who oppose development projects which can make India a superpower. A shining example is an opposition to Kudankulam nuclear plant by NGO’s funded by missionaries. On, February 24, 2012, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed foreign NGOs for protests at the power plant. News agencies reported that three NGOs had diverted donations earmarked for religious and social causes to the protests, in violation of foreign exchange regulations.
Apart from that, there are some Christian schools which have their curriculum designed in a manner so as to inculcate Christian values in the students. While I do not have any objection to making a school revolving around a specific religion’s values, I do think that there should be some manner of control so that these cannot be used as grounds for conversion or indoctrination into any religion. The problem is that most Indians think that being Convent educated ads some sort of glamour to their educational qualifications and therefore blindly rush to have their students educated there.
The word Convent actually means a school runs by nuns. The word, per se, offers no specialisation in scientific or modern education but still people rush towards it because it has become fashionable. Convents in rural or suburban areas are much different and use much more aggressive means so as to convert the students and their parents as well. If people are going to see Jesus embrace Christianity, the anti-conversion law never stopped them. The law was to keep in check missionaries who worked with the only aim of bringing as many people as possible under the Christian belt.
However, I seriously wonder sometimes, if the Christian missionaries are only about serving God and people, if so why they opposed the anti-conversion law. I know for sure that no Hindu would deny education and health services from a Christian done with the noblest of intentions. It is a common practice even today in many of Missionary run schools to get fee waiver when people get converted to Christians. This ensures that their children get English medium convent education. This is akin to conversion using money. Conversion of the native population to Christianity changing the demographics and laws of the state and creating a vote bank based on religious lines. So, Christianity is not a threat to India per se but would be the cause of threat if not nipped in the bud.
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