They (school) asked my parents in my presence if they can convert me to Christianity, they would help her for further studies. Since I didn’t accept, they kept torturing me” was the confessing statement of the Grade 12 student at Sacred Heart Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, before committing suicide. Not long ago, the temporary denial of FCRA licence renewal to the Missionaries of Charity for flouting laws regarding the utilisation of foreign funding was an international headline. But the forced suicide by a convent school did not find that kind of attention thanks to the fraudulent idea of secularism and resultant entitlement given to the so-called minority institutions. The conversion process kills the person at multiple levels, which must be called out and denounced.
The idea of conversion is foreign to a civilisation like Bharat, where all ways are considered valid. Denigrating other’s faith to promote one's own religion can never be part of a Dharmic tradition. As Swami Vivekananda says, "Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy more." Wherever followers of Sanatan Dharma have been reduced through conversions, either by force or fraud, anti-Bharat activities and separatism have been the outcome. Thus, in Bharat's case, conversion is also a process of denationalisation.
The logic of discrimination being the sole reason behind conversions is untenable. As Dr Ambedkar pointed out, caste-based discrimination has been the feature of entire South Asia, irrespective of religion. It is also true that there were attempts to reform and find corrective measures against birth-based inequalities within Indic religions. Proselytising religions like Christianity do not just propagate their faith but also use health, education, service, banking, etc., as the 'means of securing converts'. The entire Church works on this industry of proselytisation. Therefore, the Church hierarchy depends on an individual's ability to convert as many people as possible. Not following but converting is the mainstay of such religions. This concept is based on the binary idea of believers and non-believers, where non-believers have no right to exist. Hence, conversion is a colonising idea that kills individuals mentally and spiritually through different means.
Way back in 1956, the Niyogi Committee Report On Christian Missionary Activities by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, after interaction with more than eleven thousand persons from seven hundred villages, recorded fundamental problems with the conversion industry. According to the report, "There was a general complaint from the non-Christian side that the schools and hospitals were being used as means of securing converts." Even heinous crimes like kidnapping and abduction of newborns and minors are employed as a means of propagating the Christian faith among the ignorant and illiterate people, as per the report. No wonder even during the European colonisation, mass murders took place for forcing religion on the colonised.
Penetrating the religious conscience of persons by consciously altering their faith by force, fraud, or material inducements is killing an individual at multiple levels and, therefore, should be prohibited. An adolescent girl, who was supposed to visit her house during the holidays, was forced to do chores like cleaning the school toilets, cooking and washing dishes. Feeling despondent, she reportedly consumed pesticides to end her life. She chose death over the conversion and resisted the dreadful torture by the powerful institution called Church through a school. This sacrifice by a school going girl for the sake of Dharma should not go waste and spark a nationwide debate to stop conversion. Fake secularism and entitled minoritism can no longer be a rationale to kill people psychologically, spiritually and physically.
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