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Change of religion usually results in change of nation. By changing religion a person gets separated from his birthplace, history and culture. India is a victim of Christian, Islamic, forced, greed and fear based religious conversion. In Madras High Court, a woman asked for a certificate of being a Hindu Dalit despite being a Christian. The court said that converting religion just for a job is against the Constitution. The Supreme Court has accepted the decision of Madras High Court. The court has accepted that converting religion to avail the benefits of reservation is a fraud on the Constitution. The country is happy with the latest decision of the Supreme Court. The Presidential Order of 1950 stated that only Dalits of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs could get Scheduled Caste status. There is also freedom in the Constitution to propagate religion and accept any sect or opinion. The Court emphasized that religious conversion is motivated by genuine faith and not by ulterior motives. The demand for reservation of Dalit Christian-Muslim converts is old. A Scheduled Caste who converts to religion cannot be considered a Scheduled Caste for government benefits. They will not get any benefit by becoming Christian or Muslim. This decision of the Supreme Court will have a wide impact.
Conversion has been a matter of national concern since before the British Empire. Missionaries convert the poor by providing them hospitals, schools and all other facilities. Religious conversion is taking place in many states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana and Jharkhand. Mahatma Gandhi wrote in Harijan in 1936 that as a reward you want your patients to become Christians. Dr. Ambedkar also said that he did not agree with Gandhiji’s arguments, but he should tell the Christian preachers in two words to stop their work. Giving the example of the conversion of a large crowd when Vladimir became a Christian, he said that history is witness to the fact that religious conversion has taken place through deception. African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that when missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the earth. The missionary said let us all pray. We prayed. When we opened our eyes we found that we had the Bible and the land was in their possession. The person who converts has no faith in the country. His worshipers also change. World famous writer VS Naipaul has written that whoever changes his religion, his past is destroyed. Their ancestors change due to new faith. He says that the culture of our ancestors neither exists nor has any meaning.
During the period of four-five years after independence, the Congress government of Madhya Pradesh was also troubled by religious conversion. Ravi Shankar Shukla, who was the Chief Minister during that time, formed an inquiry committee under the chairmanship of Justice Bhavani Shankar Niyogi. The committee took statements of about 12000 people from 14 districts. Christian organizations also got a chance to present their stand. The Niyogi Committee recommended expelling those foreign elements who had come to India with the aim of religious conversion. An inquiry committee headed by retired High Court judge ML Renge attributed the riots to conversion to Christianity. Venugopal Commission recommended a new law to stop this practice. The Wadhwa Commission, which investigated the burning of Christian preacher Graham Staines and his two children in Odisha, had also blamed conversion to Christianity.
In the year 2020, the Modi government showed strictness and canceled the permission letters of four big Christian organizations and the provisions related to the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. In the amendment of the Act, all NGOs are instructed not to spend more than 20 percent administrative expenses. Earlier, NGOs used to show 50 percent of the foreign aid in the administrative account, but this amount continued to be used for religious conversion. Transferring foreign grants to any other institution was also banned. This legal amendment, which is commendable from every point of view, was also opposed. Trinamool Congress opposed this law. Congress Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary called it an attempt to suppress the voice of the opposition.
The right to preach religion is dangerous. It is very difficult to make good use of it and easy to misuse it for profit. Religion is not a thing. Things are promoted. At the level of conduct, religion is personal and at the collective level it is the code of national life. All sects, sects and religions, including Christianity and Islam, are not religions. They are sects/religions. Every sect and religion has some prophet or angel. This is not so in Sanatan Dharma. Most of the members of the Constituent Assembly were against the right to propagate religion. Tajmul Hussain had said in the meeting that why should I seek salvation from you in my own way? After all, what is the need for preaching? Loknath Mishra described religious propagation as a document of slavery. KM Munshi said that the Indian Christian community insisted on maintaining this promise. Whatever may be the result. We must abide by the agreements we have made. Does this mean that the Indian leadership had made an agreement with the British government to include the right to propagate religion in the Constitution?
Scheduled Castes and Dalits who have converted to religion cannot be kept in the category of Scheduled Castes. Giving reservation to converted Dalits on the basis of Scheduled Caste is harmful for the original Dalits who are trying to keep pace with the Indian society. Dalits have suffered many hardships.
The framers of the Constitution worked hard to finalize the provisions of the law to provide proper justice to the marginalized people. Special efforts were made to raise the standard of living of Dalits and deprived people. To protect their rights, people from socially backward classes will have to become self-aware. Why lose this privilege by converting religion? They are active in every sphere of national life. Their share of opportunities cannot be given to the converted people. The Supreme Court rejected this idea. The practice of missionaries engaged in religious conversion asking the poor and Scheduled Castes to convert will have to be stopped. The latest decision of the Supreme Court is welcome.