Gandhiji's
Dialogue with Christianity

Introduction
Rajiv Vora

More the cultural, spiritual, and geographical distance between the land of one's residence and one's faith, greater is the possibility for weakening of patriotic bond with the surroundings. It would not be out of place to point out that the principle of Swadeshi, without which Gandhiji said Hinduism is like a dead body, is the only principle of organizing man's political, economic, cultural and spiritual needs wherein the domains of spiritual and the political are reconciled. Sentiments of patriotism and nationalism are neither neutralized nor hijacked by any other ‘superior' or ‘exclusivist' claims. Sanatan Hindu dharma honors patriotism insofaras patriotism of one does not disregard patriotism of the other and nationalism of one does not breed imperialism. Imperialism is an anti thesis of swaraj. That is why Hindu dharma and Hindu society have no place for a Vatican.

It is in the environment of Westernising ‘conversion' of Hindus that religious conversion became an accepted and legitimate religious and social conduct in a secular State. Our de-spiritualization and de-nationalisation, provides cover, defence and legitimization to religious conversion at a level deeper than just political. It is this mindset which knows very little about the matters of cultural, religious and spiritual realms and yet defines freedom of conscience. The result is that they define it in material terms of Human Rights. A duty, service to the poor, is turned into a right as a matter of, and on the behalf of poor man's Human Rights; and service-the ‘social bait, - into a currency to buy conscience and sell faith is legitimized on the grounds of freedom of conscience.

Freedom of conscience is inhibited as soon as a new faith is planted by removing the ancestral, hereditary faith. No people – ‘tribal', ‘aborigins' or ‘animists' – are devoid of faith and idols, Gods and symbols. When a human agency takes control over man's conscience to command it for conversion of ancestral faith, it is violation of the spiritual Self. Conscience is that with which one is born. It is the spiritual, divine Self, the inner Light. It is not one's biological Self, the perishable Self. It is beyond the realm of biological birth and death. This Self acquires its unique nature, temperament and character as it takes biological from. This is hereditarily acquired. Having its own nature, temperament, it has a Swadharma of its own which can be and must be developed but not eliminated altogether. Swadharma then defines the nature of faith, and similarly therefore, idols and symbols of faith. One's faith is in accordance with one's Swadharma. Thus as Swadharma is inherited, so is the faith. The spiritual Self or the conscience is born with hereditarily inherited faith. Conscience is God's realm. To claim its total control and administration is like taking over God's work and defying Him. Gandhiji called conversion therefore blasphemous. Conversion is violence like foeticide.

Gandhiji's position on religious conversion is fundamental and not situational. If it were only for ‘fraudulent', ‘forced' and ‘mass' conversion, even a conscentious Christian would not allow it, much less accept it. When Dr. Ambedkar's conversion and along with him of a mass of Harijans' conversion was under negotiations in certain quarters, it was the Archbishop of Canterbury who opposed the idea, for he opined that it would not bring glory to Christianity. Similarly ‘fraudulent' and ‘forced' conversions also would be unacceptable to conscientious Christians. If it is only ‘fraudulent', ‘forced' and ‘mass' conversions with which Hindus have problem, it would be easiest for Missionaries to buy their peace. Gandhiji's is a fundamental objection. He is against religious conversion per se because it is spiritual violence of the ultimate kind. Besides, he would not have been worried about ‘our people going out to Christianity' had it not been for its grave socio-political implications.

Gandhiji was forced into a dialogue with Christian Missionaries. His early memories of Missionary vilification of Hindu Gods, religion and society had painfully alerted him. The Missionary zeal of some of his Christian acquaintances during his student days in England and later on at trying to convert him to Christianity forced upon him a dialogue – in fact an encounter – which, later, as he grappled with the British Empire, was transformed into his own kind of war against proselytizing Christianity.

Gandhiji saw the presence of Christian Missions in India as a cause of inner disharmony and consequent breakage of our social fabric. He saw Christianity as a religion which circumscribes spiritual freedom – freedom of soul – and limits the perenniality of man's quest for truth. However, Gandhiji had no difficulty like any Hindu accepting Jesus as one of the divine manifestations – incarnations – of Him, the one and only all-pervading God, the Yogeshwar, who is not exclusively a Hindu, Christian or Muslim God. Says the Gita: “Where there is glory, divine excellence and power is but a manifestation of my glory”.

(Gita 10.41)

Sanatan Dharma, taken to practice by the Hindus, has an open-ended range to include all forms of worship and faith. It believes in essential divine unity, the underlying non-duality in the universe and therefore highlights freedom for everyone to pursue a faith, an idol, a form of worship which is suited to his level of spiritual development and according to his spiritual needs. An all-inclusive thought therefore must put an exclusivist thought in its rightful place. Because, even being ‘only 2000 years old', as Gandhiji puts it, it claims exclusive superiority over others and sets out, through proselytisation and other means, to demolish multiplicity of spiritually advanced faiths, the multiple paths to truth, for its imperialist conquest.

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