Indian constitution guarantees conversions: Christian leader

Mumbai, 09 April 2013: "It would be interesting to know what kind of Hinduism the leader of the Rashtriya Sawayamsevak Sangh (RSS) refers to when he criticizes conversions," said Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). "Religious freedom is a constitutional right and includes the ability to change one's religion freely and voluntarily," he noted in his response through AsiaNews to Mohan Bhagwat, head of the ultra-nationalist Hindu group, who claimed that Hinduism is "against conversions".

"Hinduism does not accept conversions. They are not necessary. If there are basic human values, what you wear, eat or pray do not matter," the Hindu leader said at a conference in front of 1500 people in Kochi, in Southern India’s Kerala state.

Sajan George asked, "whether the RSS is referring to Savarkar's ideology when he speaks about Hinduism."

The RSS is part of the Sangh Parivar, a Hindu nationalist movement rooted in Hindutva, a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar to indicate an ideology that considers Hinduism as a single ethnic, cultural and political entity.

The GCIC president noted however that many other Indian philosophers spoke about Hinduism in terms different from those used by Savarkar.

"For Sage Aurobindo," an Indian mystic and philosopher who lived in the early 20th century, "man's search for God is the foundation of (Hindu) religion, that his essential function is the search and the discovery of God."

"For Sarvepalli Radhakrishan," a philosopher and India's second president, "the main objective of the Hindu faith is to allow the worship of images as a means to develop a religious spirit to recognise the Absolute, which has its temple in all beings."

"But more importantly," the Christian leader said, "Bhagwat makes an eloquent reference to basic human rights. however, he should remember that the Brahminic religion denies Dalits the dignity of human beings."

Source: Asia News