Reimagining Religious Freedom


by: Sankrant Sanu on Dec 2 2005 1:36AM
Sulekha.com
Originally published in Manushi.


The doctrine of religious freedom is enshrined in the
UN charter under the
declaration of Universal Human Rights and also in
article 25 of the Indian
constitution. Both these declarations state that the
right to “change” one’s
religion is a universal human right. The Indian
constitution goes further by
including the right to “propagate” one’s religion as a
fundamental right.

Since the right to “change” and to “propagate”
religion is given to all
individuals it is assumed to be universal, fair and
neutral. We argue in this
essay that there are at least two distinct viewpoints
that come from different
types of religious traditions. Religious freedom, as
currently defined,
privileges one view of religion over others. This
privileging, enshrined in law,
has real-world implications. It is proposed that more
balanced definitions of
religious freedom would better promote religious
harmony and religious
diversity.

1. How the native traditions consider
religion

“What is religion?” is a question that scholars still
actively debate. For
understanding religious freedom we need to examine the
distinctions between two
kinds of traditions that are classified as “religion.”
In particular, there is a
distinction between what African scholar Makau Mutua
calls “proselytizing
universalist faiths”[i] and other human traditions.
Balgangadhara[ii] argues in
detail that the concept of religion exemplified by the
Abrahamic faiths is in an
entirely different category than those of the other
traditions. Differences in
conceptions of religious freedom thus arise from the
differences in category.

Here is what Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, the last of
the pagan prefects of Rome,
when faced with official Christian persecution of the
ancient Roman traditions,
had to say in the 4th century C.E.:

“Grant, I beg you, that what in our youth we took over
from our fathers, we may
in our old age hand to prosperity. The love of
established practice is a
powerful sentiment … Everyone has his own customs, his
own religious practices;
the divine mind has assigned to different cities
different religions to be their
guardians. …

And so we ask for peace for the gods of our fathers,
for the gods of our native
land. It is reasonable that whatever each of us
worships is really to be
considered one and the same. … What does it matter
what practical system we
adopt in our search for truth? Not by one avenue only
can we arrive at so
tremendous a secret.”[iii]

Let us zoom forward a few thousand years, to another
continent, the “New World”
of the Americas. The chief of a Native American tribe
offered this reply to a
Christian missionary’s proselytizing sermon:

“The Almighty, for any thing we know, may have
communicated himself to different
races of people in a different manner. Some say they
have the will of God in
writing; be it so, their revelation has no advantage
above ours, since both are
equally sufficient to save, or the end of the
revelation would be frustrated …
the difference can only lay in the mode of
communication.”[iv]

The remonstrances of the Native American tribes were,
unfortunately,
insufficient to save their traditions from assault by
those that claimed theirs
was the only true way. Regis Pecob, Member of the
Pueblo Tribal Council
presented the following testimony, included in the
hearings on Religious Freedom
before the US Congress in 1994.[v]

“For the Pueblo, this long road began with the efforts
of the Spanish to
forcibly impose Catholicism and destroy our
traditional spiritual beliefs. We
survived that campaign only at great human cost—in
torture, in murder, in
mutilation, in the destruction of whole communities.”

He quoted further a 1924 declaration of the Pueblos:

“We have met because our most fundamental right of
religious liberty is
threatened. … the religious beliefs and ceremonies and
forms of prayer of each
of our pueblos are as old as the world and they are
holy. … To pass this
religion, with hidden sacred knowledge and its many
forms of prayer, on to our
children, is our supreme duty to our ancestors and to
our own hearts and to the
God whom we know. Our religion is a true religion, and
it is our way of life. We
must now tell how our religious freedom is threatened
and denied to us.” [em.
added]

Let us now consider a place far removed from Americas.

“I came to the conclusion long ago that all religions
were true and also that
all had some error in them, and whilst I hold by my
own, I should hold others as
dear as Hinduism. So we can only pray, if we are
Hindus, not that a Christian
should become a Hindu. But our innermost prayer should
be a Hindu should be a
better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a Christian a
better Christian.”[vi]

This is Gandhi writing in Young India in 1928.

Oddly enough, none of these peoples considered
defining religious freedom as the
freedom to change their religion. Quite the contrary.
For them religion
constituted the traditions and practices handed down
by their ancestors. In this
view it is equally absurd for someone to discard these
traditions to adopt
someone else’s religion as it would be to change one’s
ancestors for someone
else’s. Similar ideas of “religion” are found in the
many native communities in
India and throughout the world. If all people have
their traditions and each is
valid for them, why would one want to cause someone
else to change? Indeed the
freedom they sought was precisely the opposite – the
right to pass on their
traditions onto their children without interference
and without being subjected
to organized campaigns to get them to change.

2. What religion is

Let us now examine some quotes with a different
perspective on this issue.

The International Mission Board’s page on
“Mobilization for Missions” opens with
the following quote:

“"Declare his (God's) glory among the heathen, his
wonders among all people."
Psalm 96:3 God wants Southern Baptists as a people to
mobilize vast resources
for reaching all people groups for Jesus Christ.”
[vii][em in original]

The International Mission Board is very clear in its
goals – its stated vision
is to “to lead Southern Baptists to be on mission with
God to bring all the
peoples of the world (‘panta ta ethne’) to saving
faith in Jesus Christ.” This
vision is apparently authorized by no less than God
himself:

“We must realize that this is not our mission;
however, it is God’s mission, and
He has called us as His people to join Him in
fulfilling that mission.”

Their aims are nothing short of the apocalyptic end of
the world. As their
documents proclaim:

“It is a vision that will be fulfilled, for Jesus said
in Matthew 24:14, “The
gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole
world as a witness to every
nation and then the end will come.”

Is this some fringe missionary group? Hardly. The
International Mission Board is
an entity of the influential Southern Baptist
Convention. The Southern Baptist
Convention in the United States was formed in 1845
mainly to create mission
boards. It boasts of over 16 million members and runs
48 Baptist Colleges and
Universities. It counts several past United States’
Presidents among its members
and its revenues from member contributions top $9
billion annually, in league
with the largest corporations. President George W.
Bush has addressed each of
the Convention’s last four annual meetings.

The Baptists, however, do not view their missionary
program as a program against
religious liberty. On the contrary, they claim that
“Religious freedom was a
distinctively Baptist contribution as formulated in
the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution”[viii]. The Baptist views on
religious freedom include “the
right to form and propagate opinions in the sphere of
religion without
interference by the civil power” [ix] precisely the
kind of sentiment that finds
expression in the Indian constitution.

3. A question of choice?

The secular idea of the freedom of religion, born of
the European experience
with religion, presumes that the right to belief and
the change of belief
without restriction or favor from the government is
sufficient for religious
liberty. In effect, it creates a competitive
marketplace of religious belief.
This idea of a competitive marketplace of religion is,
however, not a universal
idea, but those of particular faiths. Thus these
faiths are asymmetrically
equipped to compete in this marketplace since others
do not view religion as a
competitive endeavor in a similar way. As a result the
idea of “free choice” in
this marketplace becomes highly asymmetrical in
practice, favoring imperialistic
proselytizing creeds over local traditions.

3.1 Competitive religion: The asymmetry of
doctrine and motivation

The first asymmetry is the asymmetry of doctrines. For
most of the native
traditions the idea of preaching to others to get them
to abandon their
traditions and follow someone else’s is absurd. For
the proselytizing creeds, to
do so is a religious imperative, central to their
faith.

The charter of World Evangelism is justified using
Biblical quotes. “Go
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations”
reads the quote attributed to
Jesus on the Joshua Project website.[x] This task is
taken seriously and
literally. The evangelical Joshua Project website’s
charter is “Bringing
Definition to the Unfinished task.” The Joshua Project
was born out of the AD
2000[xi] movement with the goal to “plant a Church”
amongst every people group
by the year 2000. The co-chairman and godfather of the
movement is the
evangelist Billy Graham whom President George W Bush
credits for his
“born-again” conversion. In 1995 the movement
sponsored the Global Consultation
on World Evangelization in Seoul, South Korea where
“4,000 Christian leaders
from 186 countries, including India, gathered to draw
up secret and covert
(world) evangelical plans.”[xii]

Hundreds of seminaries and missionary colleges exist
to teach strategies for
evangelization—what works, what doesn’t work, how to
prepare, how to leverage
social and economic problems and issues, how to create
multi-media marketing
campaigns complete with personal customer testimonials
and how to influence the
media. The evangelicals are, in their own words,
“mobilized for mission”, to
“make disciples of every nation.”

The “Sonar” community of India recently got prime
billing in the “prayer” site
of the International Mission Board.

“Did you know that the Sonar people of Maharashtra,
India, are the primary
crafters of gold and silver Hindu idols? These idols
are the most powerful
stronghold that Satan has upon the Hindu worshipers in
India and around the
world. When the Sonar people embrace the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the subsequent
change in their livelihood could have a huge ripple
effect in the world of
Hinduism. As one international Christian worker said,
“When we reach the Sonar
with the gospel, we will see the collapse of
Hinduism.” Pray that the gospel
would flow through and permeate the Sonar culture like
molten silver fills a
mold.”[xiii]

The idea that people would pray for the collapse of
other religious traditions,
branded as Satanic, highlights the distinction of
doctrine between the two kinds
of traditions.

For one side, that holds the views “to each their own”
religion is not seen as a
competitive enterprise, far less a war for outright
global monopoly. They have
not asked for this war. Many are not even aware that
they are at war till it
comes to their doorstep. Non-Abrahamic traditions are
neither tolerant nor
intolerant towards other traditions. They are simply
indifferent – to each their
own, they hold. While for the proselytizing religions,
conversion of others –is
considered an essential component of advancing “God’s
work.” The other
traditions are, at best, preparations for conversion
into the “One True
Religion” and, at worst, downright Satanic. For the
evangelicals, conversion is
a moral position. It is not seen as an act of
aggression on other traditions,
but merely the benevolent saving of the heathens who
would otherwise be
condemned to hell. They cannot thus be, doctrinally,
indifferent to these
others. When combined with institutional mobilization,
this becomes !
a global war for religious affiliation -- the target
no less than the
eradication of all other religions that are seen as
competitors keeping humans
in the sway of Satan.

Thus the campaign for conversion is fundamentally
unsymmetrical. The native
traditions are grossly unprepared to fight this war.
Unlike the mission
organizations, they have not collected the
demographics of their “opponents”,
their sources of funds, their social problems,
competitive analyses of their
creeds, their strengths and weaknesses, the flaws in
their marketing literature.
They haven’t prepared their own list of target groups
among the “non-believers.”
They haven’t, because unlike the evangelicals, they do
not consider all the
other traditions of the worlds as their opponents and
competitors. There is no
doctrine within these traditions that supports the
idea that all other people on
the planet must be converted to their particular way.

Ironically it is secular ideas of the human right of
religious freedom that are
used to protect evangelical expansion against native
traditions. Makau Mutua,
writing about the African traditions, points out that
“the (human) rights regime
incorrectly assumes a level playing field by requiring
that African religions
compete in the marketplace of ideas. The rights
corpus not only forcibly
imposes on African religions the obligation to
compete—a task for which as
nonproselytizing, noncompetitive creeds they are not
historically fashioned—but
also protects the evangelizing religions in their
march towards universalization
… it seems inconceivable that the human rights regime
would have intended to
protect the right of certain religions to destroy
others.[xiv]”

Similarly, the Asian Tribune puts forth a Buddhist
perspective on conversions in
Sri Lanka:

“The stubborn refusal of Western religious rights
groups to see the conversion
issue in its proper Asian context has seriously
complicated the matter. Buddhism
in Sri Lanka as in Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, Laos and
Tibet is inextricably
linked to the country’s cultural and national heritage
…

Instead, Buddhists allege that the West wants to
impose on Sri Lanka the
Protestant concept of a gathered congregation of
individual believers, a notion
that has shaped the development of provisions
protecting religious freedom under
international law. But the problem is that this law
was developed to protect
individuals and religious groups from the State
persecution and not to protect
one religious community from being proselytized by
another, according to
Buddhist lawyers who are actively campaigning for the
enactment of
anti-conversion legislation. ”[xv] (em. added)

In other words, secular ideas of human rights to
religious freedom protect
religious groups from state interference – addressing
the problems that Europe
encountered, but not the issues faced in the Asian
context. Thus these ideas do
not account for conflict and repression caused by
powerful well-funded global
corporate entities seeking to eliminate the religious
traditions of local
communities.

Even if the native traditions were resourced and aware
to respond to the
evangelical activity, to be forced to respond to it is
also a curtailment of
their freedom. This is because a response to
evangelical activity in kind will
invariably turn the traditions into a mirror image of
those religions and into a
caricature of their own traditions i.e. they would
have end up accepting the
position of the proselytizing creeds that religion is
a competitive endeavor and
is a global war. In a war, they would study how to
bring the “fight” to the
other side. So as the Baptists launched their mission
to convert the Nagas, the
Nagas would launch missions to convert the Baptists.
The fact that they don’t is
the fundamental difference between the two kinds of
religious systems that leads
to the asymmetry of motivation. As Swami Dayananda
Saraswati writes in an open
letter to the Pope:

“You cannot ask me to respond to conversion by
converting others to my religion
because it is not part of my tradition. … Thus,
conversion is not merely
violence against people; it is violence against people
who are committed to
non-violence.” [xvi]

While the competitive view of religion is natural to
the evangelical, to respond
in kind makes native traditions into something that
they are not. This is
precisely why there is such conflict and ambivalence
over the “re-conversion”
activities of Hindutva in India. In responding to
conversion by re-conversion,
Hindutva forms itself into a mirror of the
proselytizing religions. While
ostensibly seeking to uphold the Indian traditions, it
itself changes them into
a competitive Abrahamic caricature in a way that makes
most Indians deeply
uncomfortable.

Thus evangelical activity takes away religious freedom
from the native
traditions on two accounts. To respond competitively
would be to alter one’s
traditions into competitive religions in the mirror
image of the
evangelizers—i.e. to treat the conversion game as a
religious war for headcount.
To passively fail to respond would mean the gradual
erosion and destruction of
one’s traditions. This catch-22 occurs because the
playing field of religious
freedom itself has been defined based on the religious
history and doctrines of
one side.

3.2 No level-playing field: The Asymmetry
of Power and Resources

The second asymmetry is the asymmetry of power and
resources. When religious
freedom gets defined simply as the non-interference of
the state in religious
activity it serves to privilege those private
institutions that view religion as
a competitive quest for monopoly and have mobilized
enormous resources to this
end. It thus favors organized institutional religions
over those whose
traditions don’t have a corporate charter.
Evangelical Missions should best be
considered local sales offices of large multi-national
corporations. How large?
The International Mission Board 2005 budget is $283.1
million (over Rs. 1200
crores). A similar amount in 2004 led to the
“planting” of over 21,000 churches
across the globe. The one-year revenue of
institutionalized Christianity is
estimated to be $260 billion dollars (2001)
figures.[xvii] About a fifth of
this, $47 billion, are allocated to global mission
work every year, comparable
to the entire annual net tax revenue of the government
!
of India. Clearly we are dealing with a very well
financed and well organized
global enterprise. The business of conversion is big
business. It demands
results in terms of numbers converted. The
well-publicized stories of “success
amidst difficulty” sustain the fund-raising activities
of evangelical groups.

The Joshua Project[xviii] tracks every “unreached
people group” in the world,
over 6 thousand at last count, providing detailed
linguistic, demographic and
targeting information. This project, started by a
splinter group of American
Evangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting
Network, is “a large-scale
intelligence operation that brought together American
strategists, theologians,
missionary specialists, demographers, technologists,
sociologists,
anthropologists and researchers to create the most
comprehensive people group
profiles in the 10/40 window…” The 10/40 window,
denoting the latitudes on the
globe considered the prime target for conversion, has
India squarely in its
sights. The information is so detailed that “the
ethno-linguistic profiling …
cannot even be matched by data with the government of
India.”[xix] Its mission
is “to identify and highlight the people groups of the
world that have the least
exposure to the Gospel and the least Christian
presence in t!
heir midst. The Joshua Project shares this information
“to encourage pioneer
church-planting movements among every ethnic people
group.”[xx] According to the
Project overview “Mission agencies use the data to
strategically determine where
to send new church-planting teams.” Mission Frontiers
magazine tracks the
“progress” in reaching those people – between 1995 and
2000, 1200 additional
people groups were subjected to a “Church Planting”
movement in their midst.

Among the targets—the small “Akha” group in Vietnam
consisting of a mere 3040
people following their ethnic traditions to the
largest groups—the 13 million
Sinhalese who follow Buddhism—only 4% of which have
yet been converted according
to the Joshua database. India contains the largest
number of targeted groups.
Sample targets – among the Buddhists – the 102,480
Bhotias in Sikkim, and the
47,030 Sherpas, the 162,210 Tibetan Buddhists and the
8,410,800 Marathi Nau
Buddhists; the 3,165,200 Bania Jains; among the
Muslims – the 9,796,100 Ansaris,
the 6,938,600 Sayyids, the 894,690 Faqirs and the
112,420 Ganchis. The tribal
religionists are, of course, the easiest targets, many
of them having already
been “reached” – a remaining sample include the
Mongpa, all of 850 people,
following Tibetan Himalayan customs. The Sikhs are
another major target –
further divided into 58 groups, from the 11,581,200
Jat Sikhs to the 880
Assamese Sikhs. Among the 1596 Hindu target groups –
the 3.!
4 million Aroras, the 53.5 million Yadavs, the 6.9
million Nairs, the Sonar
community of nearly 6.5 million people to the barely
14,000 Kashmiri Hindu
Zargars.

To each of these thousands of target groups gets
assigned church planting teams,
missionaries, resources, funds, media support, Bibles
in their language and
dubbed versions of the “Jesus” film (with children’s
versions), now available in
a staggering 877 languages. No other global corporate
multinational could come
close to a marketing campaign of this breadth.

To imagine that the native traditions are “free” to
compete in the
well-resourced global onslaught is to ignore both the
disparity of resources,
and more importantly fundamental differences in the
nature of the traditions.
The idea of a “free market” of religions thus arises
from and supports the
competitive world view of evangelical religion.

Since the believers of evangelical religions consider
missionary activity as
part of their faith, such believers in high places can
have a disproportionate
impact over those of non-evangelical traditions. The
report “George Bush Has a
Conversion Agenda for India”[xxi] describes the US
President as “probably the
most resourceful and influential Christian Missionary
ever.” While Bush Jr.’s
evangelical beliefs get a lot of attention, this is
certainly not a new
phenomena in the US. Faith has always been a very
important issue for American
voters. President Bush’s “Faith-based initiative”
merely legitimizes direct
monetary support from the US government to Christian
groups. In 2004 alone, $2
billion (nearly Rs. 8,600 crore) dollars were paid by
the US government[xxii],
overwhelmingly to Christian groups, under this
program.

The disproportionately Western influenced global
media, working with secular
ideas of religious liberty that support evangelism, is
muted in its criticism
and coverage of the plans and tactics of missionaries.
On the other hand, rare
instances of violent reaction to missionary activities
get disproportionate
worldwide coverage and attention. The stories of
alleged persecution reinforce
the evangelical self-image of Christian martyrdom even
when the resources at
their disposal are far greater than the groups they
target. While there is
absolutely no justification for violence in a
democratic society, current laws
provide little recourse to the target groups to
prevent missionary activities in
their midst, even when it causes conflict and tensions
within the communities.

For instance, Talom Rukbo, the father of the Donyipolo
Movement in Arunachal
Pradesh, remarked:

“The church--Christian missionaries--quickly
capitalized on the innocence of our
forefathers. They fraudulently convinced our people
that we were barbarians and
converted some into Christianity. … They declared
that the converted persons
must discard (1) the "animist" practices, (2) our
festivals and that our Gods
and Godesses were Saitan (evil spirits-- Satan). …
Slowly this created frequent disturbances and social
disharmony. The Christian
missionaries were stooping to the lowest, most
uncivilized means to tear social
fabric of our society apart.”[xxiii]

Unfortunately the current human rights regime makes it
very difficult for even
democratically elected governments to restrict
missionary activity.

3.3 Can one say “no” to missionary
activity?

While there are laws to restrict intrusive commercial
solicitation and deceptive
marketing practices these do not apparently do not
apply to the sales
force[xxiv] of the religious multinationals.

Let us say a remote group in Arunachal Pradesh
actually becomes aware of this
conversion war in which they are a statistic on a
plan. Perhaps they have heard
of the consequences of this campaign for a neighboring
village group and wish to
preserve their traditions without interference. The
panchayat or the
democratically elected council votes to disallow
missionary activity in their
midst. What would happen?

Precisely the same language of “human rights” would
then be used to target this
tribe. Because the right to “change” and to
“propagate’ religion has been made
into a “human right” any law that seeks to curb
missionary activity can then be
ruled as a violation of human rights. This anomaly
occurs precisely because of
the fact that the definitions of religious freedom are
not culture neutral. They
arise from a culture in which religion has been viewed
as a transferable “belief
system” and a competitive evangelical enterprise. This
definition affords little
human rights protection from evangelical activity to
those that do not hold
these views of religion.

Just as a village may wish to pass such a law, can a
state do it, can a country?
The consequences can be readily seen in the debate on
a bill for religious
freedom that was recently approved by the Council of
Ministers in Sri Lanka and
is up for debate in the Sri Lankan parliament. While
the bill prohibits
conversions with the use of coercion or allurements,
the United States
Commission on International Religious Freedom has
expressed “concern” urging the
“Sri Lankan government to refrain from passing laws
that are inconsistent with
international standards.”[xxv] These international
standards are precisely the
human rights laws that are the subject of this
discussion.

Numerous Christian organizations, including the World
Evangelical Alliance are
putting pressure on the Sri Lankan government to
forestall the bill. Christina
Rocca, the US Secretary of State, reportedly expressed
“grave concern” over the
proposed legislation to Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the
United States. “Ms Rocca
has explained that the Department of State was
receiving numerous
representations from Senators and Congressmen about
the Government`s move.
During a previous meeting, The Sunday Times learns, Ms
Rocca had warned that
pressure was building up and this could have adverse
consequences on US aid and
trade concessions to Sri Lanka.”[xxvi]

Once the right to change religion and to propagate is
made a fundamental human
right without a corresponding right to not be asked to
change or be subject to
proselytizing activity the situation becomes
one-sided. The state is now
obligated to protect the missionary’s activities while
no protection is afforded
to the non-proselytizing community’s tradition so that
they are not made targets
of highly-organized and well-funded conversion
campaigns.

4. “Change” of religion assumes exclusivity
of belief

The premise of evangelical activity is the belief that
theirs is the only true
way and everyone else is, at best, in error if not
absolutely demonic. This
belief inevitably sets those who believe thus into
conflict with everyone else.
It is not surprising that the primary principle under
attack by evangelicals is
the principle of religious pluralism.

“Good News for India” defines itself as “an
interdenominational Christian
organization that is committed to training, sending
out, and supporting national
missionaries to preach the Gospel and plant churches
among the unreached people
groups of the Indian subcontinent.”[xxvii] Good News
for India runs the Luther
W. New Jr. Theological College in Dehradun with
several small satellite training
centers in five north Indian states, over 163
churches, and several primary
schools. The college was dedicated by the President of
Word Vision, a global NGO
associated with Christian evangelical activity. The
aim of the college – to
churn out “national missionaries” that are more
cost-effective than Westerners.
Good News for India finds their methods of training
“very effective in producing
laborers for the harvest in India.” They offer
accredited Bachelor’s and
Master’s degrees in missionary activity leading to
paid career missionaries and
boast of having “planted” 350 churches under t!
he name “Christian Evangelistic Assemblies.”

Clearly, this group of evangelicals knows India well.
That is why they list that
their major challenge in India is the pluralistic
Indian thinking.

“Anyone who is familiar with India knows that India
has always been a challenge
to the Gospel. Hinduism that teaches, "just as all
rivers lead to the ocean, all
religions lead to God", dominates the thinking of the
masses. … Many Hindus
revere Jesus as another god. Yet their eyes are
blinded to the uniqueness of
Christ.”[xxviii]

The goal then of evangelical conversion is to lift the
“blindness” of pluralism
to convert into an exclusive belief system. Indeed
without that no conversion
can take place. If it was simply the question of
learning from another way, or
accepting another way as true, one need not actually
be “converted” to do that.
All conversion is a conversion into exclusivism. For
all those concerned with
retaining India’s pluralistic ethos evangelical
activity should thus be of
particular concern. It is not surprising then, that
after decades of successful
conversion activity in Nagaland, the separatist groups
that routinely use
terrorist methods against their opponents have the
exclusive slogan of “Nagaland
for Christ.” This switch happens when exclusivism
reaches a dominant position in
a region. The long-term implications of exclusivist
conversion should concern
all those that wish India to remain a pluralistic and
diverse nation.

The idea of “change” of religion from article 18
universal human right again
comes from a culture in which multiple religious
participation does not make
sense. In testimony before the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom,
Prof. Sharma of McGill stated “(1) That the concept of
religious freedom
articulated in article 18 presupposes a certain
concept of religion itself, a
concept associated with Western religion and culture;
(2) That a different
concept of religion … leads to a different concept of
religious freedom; and (3)
That unless human rights discourse is able to
harmonize these two concepts of
religious freedom … the clash of the two concepts
might ultimately result in the
abridgement of religious freedom in actual
practice…”[xxix]

According to the 1985 census in Japan, for instance,
95% of the population of
Japan declared itself as followers of Shinto and 76%
of the same population also
declared itself as Buddhist. Clearly, a significant
fraction considered
themselves multiple religious participants. Even in
India, early British census
takers were flummoxed by people happy to subscribe to
multiple religions till
they were coerced by the colonial census to choose one
or the other. This
pluralism, deeply ingrained in the Indian people,
finds expression as far back
as the Rig Veda and the Ashoka pillars. Sharma states
“If the Indian
census-takers did not insist that one can only belong
to one religion
-significantly a British and therefore Western legacy
-I would not be at all
surprised if the Indian religious statistical reality
began to resemble the
Japanese.”

However, Article 18 of the charter of human rights
presupposes that one can only
belong to one religion at a time. As Sharma continues,
“If one believes that one
can only belong to one religion at a time, then it
stands to reason that
religious freedom would essentially consist of one's
freedom to change such
affiliation by the voluntary exercise of choice.”

However, in the context of multiple religious
participation a different idea of
religious freedom would emerge – one that the Indian
constitution and the Indian
census do not, ironically, support – the freedom to
profess multiple religions
without being asked to choose one or to change into
another.

Sharma concludes, “(In the Eastern context) … freedom
of religion means that the
person is left free to explore his or her religious
life without being
challenged to change his or her religion. Such
exploration need not be confined
to any one religion, and may freely embrace the entire
religious and
philosophical heritage of humanity.”

This explains the difference between evangelical
activity and, for instance, the
spread of Indian traditions. Indian traditions can
best be regarded as practical
learning traditions. They rarely required disavowal of
existing belief or
tradition. Learning traditions like the teachings of
the Buddha could thus be
accretive – as they were in China and Japan. To accept
the message of the Buddha
did not mean to consign one’s ancestors to hell or to
reject existing community
practices. This is quite similar to the way Indian
Swamis brought the practice
of Yoga to Americans in contemporary times, without
any requirements of
“conversion.” One could learn and do the practices of
yoga asanas and meditation
as a Christian, Muslim or Jew without any requirement
to disavow one’s religion.

5. Towards a balanced view of religious
freedom

There is a cultural conflict between two very
different ideas of religion and of
religious freedom. For one the “right to change” is
central. To the other the
right to retain or continue without interference from
the state or from powerful
global institutions is paramount. Current rights
language favors the former and
insufficiently protects the latter. How do we move
towards a more balanced
view?

We do not suggest that the “right to change” should
itself be taken away. For
instance, some schools of Islamic jurisprudence hold
that apostasy by a Muslim
renouncing Islam is punishable by death. This
certainly does not support the
spirit of individual freedom or enquiry. Similarly, we
do not hold that
tradition is itself immune from criticism or change.
There is plenty of scope
for individuals within or outside a tradition to
criticize, change and evolve
particular practices.

Yet, exploration, individual critique or specific
reform is different from a
systematic institutional effort aimed at converting
all others and annihilating
their traditions resulting in the destruction of
entire cultural ecosystems. As
Mutua writes, “Imperial religions have necessarily
violated individual
conscience and the communal expressions of Africans
and their communities by
subverting African religions. In doing so they have
robbed Africans of essential
elements of their humanity ... The result … is a
culturally disconnected people
neither African nor European or Arab.”[xxx]

What would a charter of religious freedom look like if
it were being defined by
the “unreached” people, with knowledge of consequences
others have obtained at
the hands of the proselytizing creeds, rather than by
the evangelical cultures?
Perhaps it would read something like this:

“All peoples have the right to pass on their
traditions to their children
without interference, without being subjected to
organized institutional
evangelical activity by others. All peoples find their
traditions of value – if
not they can always abandon them or make changes.
However, no one shall form an
association with the express purpose of getting others
to convert people away
from their religion or to teach others to do so. All
peoples have the right to
the preservation of their culture and traditions and
the right to be free of
religious evangelism.

Every human being has the right to be free from being
subject to the preaching
of exclusive religious doctrines. Every person is free
to participate in and
learn from none, one or more ways to happiness and
fulfillment without being
asked to specify a religious identity or to convert
from one to another.

No religious, political, social, religious or
educational institution or
organization will enable can have as its aims the
systematic conversion of other
people. The marketing claims of institutional
religions aiming at conversion
will be subjected to the same legal test as those of
other corporate entities.
Every individual is free to explore the religions and
practices of the world
without being subjected to systematic marketing and
conversion campaigns.”

To test the asymmetry of the current definition one
can predict that this new
definition of religious freedom would be most objected
to by specific groups –
prominent among these would be evangelical Christians
and their power base. Most
groups that follow ethnic traditions throughout the
globe, other than those that
act as proxies for evangelical interests, or those
that are attached to the
presumed neutrality of “secular” definitions of
religious freedom, would welcome
the change. If anything, that is the clearest
indicator of how the current
definition of religious freedom is seriously
asymmetrical in its assumptions.

Nothing in this formulation should be construed as
restricting the freedom of
any community to practice their faith privately and in
congregations of fellow
believers. At the same time such freedom should not
extend to constraining the
freedom of others to practice without interference.

Augmenting the human right to practice as well as
change one’s religion with the
rights of communities to be free of organized
campaigns that aim to destroy the
practice of their traditions by conversion into
exclusive religious systems
would provide a necessary balance for maintaining
religious harmony and
protecting cultural and religious diversity.

[i] Makau Mutua in Facilitating Freedom of Religion or
Belief, A Deskbook.
Published by the Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion
or Belief, 2004. Chapter
28.
[ii] Balgangadhara, S N. The Heathen in His Blindness.
Manohar Books.
[iii] Quoted from The Heathen in His Blindness.
[iv] An Indian speech in answer to a sermon, preached
by a Swedish missionary at
Conestogo in Pennsylvania. Early American imprints.
Second series; no. 6535.
American Antiquarian Society, 1966
[v] American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendments
of 1994. Hearing, Serial
No. 103-92. Statement of Regis Pecob, Member Pueblo de
Cochiti Tribal Council.
[vi] Young India: January 19, 1928
[vii]
http://www.imb.org/missionspartner/mobooklet/mobintro.asp
[viii] http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp
[ix] http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp Notably, the
Indian constituent assembly
debates reveal that the right to “propagate” as a
fundamental right was argued
for vociferously by Anglo-Indian Christians.
[x] http://www.joshuaproject.net
[xi] See, for instance, http://www.ad2000.org and
http://www.joshuaproject.net/index.php
[xii] Tehelka, “Preparing for the harvest…”, February
7, 2004.
[xiii] This was in the prayer section of the
International Missionary Board
website on June 3, 2005, http://imb.org/compassionnet/
but was later removed
after publicity on a site that tracks Christian
missionary activity on
http://www.christianaggression.com/
item_display.php?type=NEWS&id=1117790952. It is still
available at the Southern
Baptist Convention prayer site http://www.sbcpray.net
[xiv] Makau Mutua, Chapter 28
[xv] Asian Tribune. May 3, 2005. Controversy over
Freedom of Religion Bill:
Buddhists to meet UN envoy today.
http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=14309
[xvi] http://conversionagenda.blogspot.com/
1999/10/is-conversion-is-violence-on-hindus.html
[xvii] Source: World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd
Edition. Oxford University
Press. 2001.
[xviii] http://www.joshuaproject.net
[xix] Tehelka, “Preparing for the harvest…”, February
7, 2004.
[xx] http://www.joshuaproject.net/overview.php
[xxi] Tehelka, February 7, 2004
[xxii] http://www.washingtontimes.com/
upi-breaking/20050301-044719-3828r.htm
[xxiii] Talom Rukbo the Father of the Donyipolo
Movement in Arunachal Pradesh
from a talk he gave called "The Truth Every Bharatiya
Should Know": (quoted in
http://www.vnn.org/world/WD0302/WD21-7837.html)
[xxiv] Many of the missionaries are paid “stipends.”
Colleges in India graduate
native missionaries by the thousands who are then
given a paid job with
conversion quotas. So yes, this is a sales force.
[xxv] http://www.uscirf.gov/mediaroom/
press/2005/july/07132005_srilanka.html
[xxvi] Sunday Times (Sri Lanka), July 31, 2005. US
Warns Lanka on religious
bill.
[xxvii] http://www.goodnewsforindia.org/about.htm
[xxviii] http://www.goodnewsforindia.org/about.htm
[xxix] http://www.uscirf.gov/events/hearings/2000
/september/panel1/SubPanelA/09182000_Sharma_test.html
[xxx] Makau Mutua, Chapter 28





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