Conversion and politicised secularism

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By SK Blah
The peace rallyists on September 9, this year held placards and shouted slogans in the name of secularism, to protest against the violence meted out to Christians in Orissa allegedly by the Hindus. But the Hindus claim that it was the Christians who started the fire by sending threatening letters to the 84 year old (Late) Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and subsequently killed him and four of his associates. Another person Lambodar Kahar a leader of the Kui Samaj received the same threatening letter. But we are as yet unsure as to who is right and who is wrong. What is reported is that these letters and the subsequent murder of the Swami ignited the violence in Orissa. Irrespective of the numbers, at the end of the day both sides faced loss of human lives and human dignity, all in the name of religion.

Often things get distorted with the style of media reporting. So, where is the spirit of secularism and tolerance? Secularism in the Indian Constitution is supplemented by the sixth fundamental right to religion which ensures to citizens the freedom of conscience and free profession, practice, propagation of any religion. But does this idea of free propagation of religious ideas also give the right to any religious group or "Cultural Nationalist' who have the means at their disposal to propagate their religions to the extent of destroying the cultural heterogeneity of India or even of the world?

In the context of the Hindu frontal organization like the RSS, the VHP, the BJP, all these organization had been accused of attempting to propagate the idea of cultural nationalism of the Hindu culture. And of course they did it in ways sometimes violent, sometime intellectually and sometimes peacefully. Attempts to impose dress codes in educational institutions, banning the celebration of valentine's day, attacks on Christians and Muslims are the manifestations of the Hindu's efforts to establish their cultural hegemony, hence Hindu cultural nationalism. But are the Christians also not guilty of promoting their variety of cultural nationalism or even cultural internationalism?

The Indian Christians who have united under the same faith which transcends all other psychological and material divisions share the same value systems; they have the same conception of rights and wrongs in things concerning their daily lives, and they have the same culture with regard to conception of life, of marriages and divorces. All these are important criteria for classifying Christians in India as one community and their attempts to increase their number of followers by whatever means is nothing but an attempt to promote their culture with an aim to reach the stage of their own cultural hegemony in this sub-continent.

Conversion of whatever form goes against the spirit of secularism and tolerance. Conversion by use of undue influence like financial bait as in the case of Orissa where the Dalits and Tribals are enticed to convert to Christianity by financial gains, free loans, free medical care, free schooling, is induced conversion. They imply that the Christians are very concerned with the politics of numbers. We must accept the fact that any organization which is interested in the politics of numbers is bound to face a conflict of interests with other similar organizations and that this could culminate in violence.

As Khasis we are still proud to call ourselves the "Hynniewtrep", but the concept "U Hynniewtrep" smacks of traditionalism and tribal religious conception of our organization as a tribe from the "U Lumsohpetbneng". So, in the fitness of things we should not be sitting on the fence between "U Lum Sohpetbneng" and the "Garden of Eden " but we should be brave enough to jump into one side of the fence. Conversion has impacted the Hynniewtrep people to the extent that the followers of traditional religion are reduced to a minority where as the Christians are now a majority. So far, attempts at national integration by secular means between the Khasis and the Non-Khasis had not really succeeded because the majority of the Khasis still hold a strong sense of prejudice against the non-Khasis. We hate them in the society, are suspicious about them in politics and fear them in economics. But it was only in religious gatherings like the recent peace rally that we find the Khasis and the non-Khasis from the Christian faith standing united hand in hand to protest against the murder of their Christian brethren in Orissa. Here is a case where the subjective attachment transcended all other divisions and the people identified themselves as one, under one culture, hence cultural nationalism. So, from the religious point of view can we still say that the Khasis hate the "Dkhar" (Non-tribal) or are they just another "Para-bangeit" or co-believers whose interests must not be harmed? Is this not social stereo typing or collective hypocrisy?

Religious violence in India is a recurring phenomenon. We had the Mumbai serial bomb blast in 1993, the Babri-Masjid violence, the Amarnanth Shrine board violence in Jammu & Kashmir and many other such violence. But in the interest of peace and humanity why did the Christians in Meghalaya not hold any peace rally on these sad incidents? Do they assume that peace is disrupted only when the Christian faith is attacked? This is unfair to peace itself. Back home in Meghalaya we have witnessed many violent incidents such as the Meghalaya - Assam border problem, the Block-I and Block-II problem and some years ago thousands of our people became refugees at Sahsniang in Jaintia Hills. Many were looted, murdered and kidnapped. In Lumdorbar in Ri-Bhoi District about 30 Khasis houses were burnt into ashes, the Bible pages were scattered to the ground and people had to stay in makeshifts camps in the cold winter nights. The Christian Missionaries did help the people for a short time but no form of protests or peace rally or peace prayer on such a massive scale was held by the Christian leaders. The reason for this systematic silence was because the Christian leaders know fully well who perpetrated the crime, it was the people from the same Christian faith or a community with the potentiality for conversion, hence the systematic silence.

Time and again we complain that the military had occupied much of our lands but next to the army I think it is the missionaries who had done so. They have huge plots of land in both rural and urban areas. Many of the elements who stays in these missionary occupied land are the non-Khasis. And if we are so concerned about the rate of infiltration by the "Bar Jylla" (Non-tribal), this is also one aspect of infiltration and we should not be guilty of pseudo-patriotism, because to be a patriot the blood that flows through our veins does not really matter but what is in our heart and our mind really does.

As I mentioned earlier, that conversion by use of un-due influence and financial bait is anti secular and it symbolizes intolerance. This is because some religious groups seek to expand their own culture knowing that in doing so the indigenous culture will perish. So propagation of one's religious faith in this manner implies disrespect of others religious values and practices. So no religious group can claim that they adhere to the norms of secularism and religious freedom if they have not learnt how to mind their own business. It is true that the conversion process in India and also in Meghalaya is unethical because it destroys the centuries old traditions, customs, wisdom etc. It also teaches people to despise their own religions and value system and to look west-wards to an alien culture which aims at cultural internationalism. The majority of the people in the North Eastern States of India are converted, but the region is facing problems of drug addiction, AIDS, corruption and other such problems and much of the Christianized Third World countries are drifting away without any sense of nationalism and self pride. It shows that all religions in the world have their own drawbacks and no religious group can claim to have the ultimate path to heaven or the ultimate conception of the divine. source: the shillong times