The following is an edited excerpt from an interview of
Swami Dayananda Saraswati by
T. R. Jawahar of Newstoday, Chennai, June 30, 2003 available
at
Why do you say conversion is a form of violence?
When you physically hurt me, it is violence. If you hurt me
emotionally, it is violence. And if you hurt me spiritually, that is the worst
violence, rank violence. When you convert somebody, you have to criticize the
person's religion, his worship, his culture. All these hurt. When he converts,
there is more hurt. He has to disown his parents, their wisdom and their
culture, his ancestors and entire community. You isolate, uproot and
emotionally unsettle him.
How can we deal with this problem?
The theologians have to change, but they will not, because
of their indoctrination. But we should keep talking about it with them. They
are waiting for a time when there is more freedom for them to do their
conversion work. So let that conducive time for them to seek converts be kept
away. Our people have to be made aware and proud of our religion. They should
be able to say to the missionaries, "Enough is enough."
Any protest against religious conversion is always branded
as persecution, because it is maintained that people are not allowed to
practice their religion, that their religious freedom is curbed. The truth is
entirely different. The other person also has the freedom to practice his or
her religion without interference. That is his/her birthright. Religious
freedom does not extend to having a planned program of conversion. Such a
program is to be construed as aggression against the religious freedom of
others.
But the naive fall for the lure of money and incentives.
It is not really the money that buys the conversion. The
missionaries give small things, and tempt with larger. That makes a thumb
space, a small opening, to enter the heart. Then the missionary says the
fellow's daily puja is wrong, his altar of prayer is not right, and he has to
change it. That is the unkindest cut you can get. It is a stab in the heart,
his religious core, where this fellow has innocently allowed the missionary to
enter. Missionaries do seemingly good things in order to commit this violence.
After the conversion, he is told that his brethren and forefathers are devil
worshipers!
Will the Hindu clergy allow them to reconvert?
Here in India
all are Hindus until they call themselves something different. When I allow
every form of worship, then where is the problem? We deem you another Hindu, only
you are saying, "I am this or that." There is no reconversion. There
is a prodigality and they come back like a prodigal son. We do not even need to
baptize. We have to ask him to give up beef, that is all.
What is the US
view of India's
religious freedom?
The US
government had appointed a Commission on International Religious Freedom. This
Commission is an authentic body and funded by the government. The Commission
gets information from all countries and then submits a periodical report to the
government. Based on its report, the government of US may apply pressure on
those countries where, according to the Commission, there is lack of religious
freedom. You'll be surprised the Commission recommended India to be designated
a Country of Particular Concern [a designation given to Iran, North Korea,
Burma and several other totalitarian states the US State Department rejected
their recommendation to so designate India].
They cited the anti-conversion bills of Tamil Nadu and
Gujarat and some Gujarat incidents as the
basis of their action. They say there is no religious freedom in India. This is
according to their own matrix of norms on the basis of which they decide
"religious freedom." I question this matrix.
The Commission's criterion appears to be that if evangelization
for conversions is allowed, then there is religious freedom. That means if
missionaries are free enough to aggressively destroy my indigenous religious
tradition, and if I don't question it, then there is religious freedom. If I
stand up to that aggression, then it is considered an infringement upon human
rights and religious freedom. Therefore, I am appealing to the government of India to
appoint our own Commission on Religious Freedom, and let them report on where
there is religious freedom and where there is not.
But what about the good charity work of the missionaries?
Missionaries are using charity with the aim of conversion.
They should do humanitarian work the same way Hindus do. We have charities all
over the world. Look at Salem or Coimbatore. How many
hospitals are there? Almost all of them are run by Hindu charities. And what do
they do? They don't convert, they just run the charities. There is no priest or
nun there because there is no conversion program. The charities remain charities.
But to run charities for another purpose is the most
uncharitable thing to do. Let me make a comparison. Have you seen how those who
supply cows to slaughterhouses treat those cows a week before the slaughter?
They feed the cows a lot and don't allow them to move around in a bid to
increase their weight. It is called "pounding." You could say,
"Ah, love and feeding! How humanitarian these people are, so human,
etc." But those fellows have an eye on another goal. This is how I see all
the missionaries' work it is like the love of the slaughterhouse people.
Missionaries slaughter religions, slaughter traditions, slaughter cultures.
Yes, they do humanitarian work, but slaughterhouse love it is.
If you really love people, just give charitably and forget
about it. Don't talk about your religion. Keep your sacred religion in your
heart. I find it is not a happy thing to talk about, the vulgarity of it. Even
to talk about it is rather staining my tongue and leaves a distaste.
Swami Dayananda, a sannyasi of the Adi Shankara and Veda
Vyasa tradition, founder of Arsha Vidya centers in India,
USA, Canada and Australia, has taught worldwide for
over 45 years.