Religion: Reconversion in India

GRAND HISTORIC MASS-CONVERSION CEREMONY, proclaimed posters in a town by the Ganges. Loudspeakers blared that “many Christians tonight will perform a mass return to the religion of their souls.”

Only a few reconverts turned up. They sat cross-legged on the grass before pig-tailed Brahman pundits for half an hour’s chanting of the Vedas, washed themselves with water from the sacred Ganges, and dropped incense on a fire of camphorwood and herbs. “You are again pure,” said a swami. “You are once again Hindus.”

Trickle into Stream. In such local campaigns India’s nationalist Mahasabha Party is doing its best to win back Hindus who have converted to Christianity. So far only a few have trickled back to Hinduism. But this tiny trickle is showing signs of growing into a stream. Next month the Mahasabha begins a nationwide drive for reconversion. And last week a six-man committee appointed by the state of Madhya Pradesh charged that Christian mission activity is “part of a uniform world policy to revive Christendom for the re-establishment of Western supremacy, and is not prompted by spiritual motives.” Missions in India are, in effect, subversive, according to the report that was broadcast by the All-India Radio. Only Indian citizens, the committee recommended, should be allowed to make converts. Medical missions should be shut down, and no religious literature should be distributed without government approval.

This is not the first such report. In Hyderabad an investigating group complained of “a deep-rooted conspiracy to establish a Christian kingdom in India.” In Indore a commission found missionary work “a smokescreen for the conversion of only poor and backward people,” called for tougher regulation of missionaries’ activities.

Even Worse Lot. Many of India’s 8,000,000 Christians are indeed “poor and backward,” i.e., untouchables. These humble folk hoped, by choosing Christianity, to win freedom from the yoke of caste, which confined them to such jobs as cleaning toilets and sweeping up after India’s wandering sacred cows. During the days of the British raj, the untouchables were the best prospects of British missionaries. But Gandhi did much for them (“I would far rather that Hinduism died than that untouchability lived,” he said), and now discrimination against an untouchable is punishable by law ($105 fine and six months in jail).

But 3,000 years of caste dies slowly. In most of India’s 560,000 villages, untouchables are still forbidden to enter Brahmans’ living areas, use their wells, or watch them eat. Temples are theoretically open to them, but they are still purged with milk —floor, walls, ceilings and idols—after the untouchables leave. Untouchables who have turned Christian often find their lot even worse than before. Shopkeepers may refuse to sell to them, barbers to shave them, and other untouchables sometimes drive them from their wells. This has accelerated the trend back to Hinduism. Hindu sources claim 10,000 reconversions for last year alone.