Mahatma Gandhi and Makers of Constitution on Conversion::::::1

In India, Christian missionaries of many shades had been at work for centuries, but they made major strides during the British Raj. However during the last ten -years of Independent India, their number, their financial resources (mostly from� abroad), their propaganda material, their strategies, and their tirade against Hindu relation and Hindu deities have multiplied in a phenomenal Way, with political overtones.
Hindu reaction, on the other hand, had been nil upto the mid-nineteenth century. Some alarming bells started ringing through the Arya Samaj and the freedom fighters at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1921, in reply to a question, �What is the contribution of Christianity to the national life of India?�, from an evangelist of international fame, Dr John Mott, even Gandhiji had to say, �Christianity in India is inextricably mixed up for the last hundred fifty years With the British rule. It appears to us as synonymous with materialistic civilisation and imperialistic exploitation by the stronger White races of the weaker races of the world. Its contribution to India has been therefore largely of a negative character.� An extract from further conversation between Gandhiji and Dr, Mott is given below:
Dr Mott: �What has interested me most, is your work in connection with the removal of untouchability... What is the most hopeful sign indicating that this institution is, as you say, on its last legs?�
Gandhiji: �It is the reaction that is taking place in orthodox Hinduism and the swiftness with which it has come about. As a most illustrious example, I will mention Pandit Malaviya.... Today he takes pride in administering the mantra of purification to the untouchables by the bank of the Ganges, sometimes even incurring the wrath of unreasoning orthodoxy��
Dr Mott: �But My impression was that Christians would be a great-help to you in this connection. Rev. Whitehead... made some very striking statements abut the effect of Christian mass movement in ameliorating the condition of the untouchables
Gandhiji: �I distrust mass movement of this nature. They have as their object not the upliftment of the untouchables but their ultimate conversion. Th is motive of mass proselytization lurking at the background vitiates missionary effort.�
Dr Mott: �There are some who seriously believe that the untouchables would be better off if �they turned Christians from conviction, and that it would transform their lives for the better.�
Gandhiji: �I am sorry I have been unable to discover any tangible evidence to confirm this view. I was once taken to a Christian village. Instead of meeting among the converts with that frankness which one associates with a spiritual transformation, I found an air of, evasiveness about them. They were afraid to talk. This struck me as a change not for the better but for the worse.�
Dr Mott : �Do you then disbelieve in all conversion?�
Gandhiji : �I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another. My effort should never be to undermine another�s faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith. This implies belief in the truth of all religions and respect for them......�
Dr Mott: �Is it not our duty to help fellow beings to the maximum of truth that we may possess, to share with them our deepest spiritual experiences?�
Gandhiji : �I must again differ from you, for the simple reason that the deepest spiritual truths are always unutterable.... It radiates its influence silently as the rose its fragrance without the intervention of a medium.�
Dr Mott : �But even God sometimes speaks through His chosen prophets.�
Gandhiji : �Yes, but the prophets speak not through the tongue but through their lives. A have, however, known that in this matter I am up against a solid wall of Christian opinion.�
Dr Mott : �Oh, no. Even among Christians there is a school of thought-and it is growing which holds that the authoritarian method should not be employed, but that each individual should be left to discover the deepest truths for himself�. In other words they feel that propaganda in the accepted sense of the term is not the most effective method.�
Gandhiji: �I am glad to hear you say this. That is what Hinduism certainly inculcates.�
(Mahatma, Vol. II, pp. 449-51, by D.G. Tendulkar)
Again in 1938, when some American and Indian Christian teachers went to Gandhiji and asked him about the role which the Christian missions could play in an independent India, Gandhiji expressed the same views that he had 17 years ago before Dr Mott. He added, �My personal view, therefore, is that if you feel that Indians have a message to give to the world, that India�s religions are true, although like all religions imperfect, for having percolated through imperfect human agency, and you come as fellow helpers and fellow seekers, there is a place for you here. But if you come as preachers of the �true Gospel� to a people who are wandering in darkness, so far as I am concerned, you can have no place. You may impose yourself upon us.� (Mahatma by D.G. Tendulkar, Vol. V. pp 4-5, Publications Division, Government of India).
It would be observed that what the RSS, the VHP, or the BJP, says today about the Christian missionaries is, in noin no way, different from what Gandhiji himself said long before.. Following the Gandhian thought on Hindu religion, untouchability, and Christian missionaries, the RSS, through its. Seva Bharati and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is engaged in removing caste discrimination from the vast Hindu society, helping the poor SCs, STs to stand on their feet and also to withstand the religious onslaught of the Christian missionaries. They are reconverting only those who had a generation or two back adopted Christianity or Islam due to ignorance or other compelling reasons

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