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Volume 1, No. 2 - July 2001

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Religious Freedom, Hinduism and India
Vijay Kapoor

(Excerpts from submission to US Commission on International Religious Freedoms, September 2000)

[Much conflict over the past millennium in South Asia, and especially today in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, has resulted from the obsessive drive of other religions to target Hindus for conversion and prosletyzation on the Indian subcontinent. In south and east India, there are numerous reports of discord arising from intense conversion efforts by Christian missionaries using foreign aid. From time to time this journal will publish articles on the highlights of the Hindu religion and the need for other religions to end their incessant activities targeting Hindus for conversion in India. - Editors]

Violence and hate are generated when one group claims to be on the side of God and points fingers at everyone else as godless sinners. The word 'tolerance' is too often merely camouflage. To avoid religious conflicts, we need to elevate the concept of 'tolerance' to 'reverence'. 'Tolerance' has a negative connotation of indifference or virtuous disdain. The concept of 'tolerance' is too brittle, always seeming to sit on the edge of contempt, ready to pounce when invoked by fundamentalists.

Just as we exchange ambassadors to minimize misunderstandings amongst nations, we should devise an exchange of gods between the religions. Hindus will welcome Christ into their homes alongside Krishna and Shiva; and Christians should reciprocate by giving room to Krishna and Shiva on the alters beside Jesus. We should exchange stories from the lives of Krishna, Shiva and Jesus. The practice of mutual reverence for each other's spiritual and saintly figures will promote genuine mutual respect.

Following their scriptures, Hindus have promoted freedom of religion with an almost excessive zeal to the point of not perceiving that people of other faiths may follow with equally fanatical zeal exactly the opposing philosophy-believing that their form of worship is the ONLY true way to salvation and others who do not come within their fold are sinners. It is this violence of thought, setting up as 'I pious' versus 'you sinner' which is the breeding
ground of hatred and resulting violence.

In pursuing the dictums of their scriptures venerating diversity, Hindu civilization is the only civilization which has never attacked any other civilization motivated by an impulse to convert. And further, Hindu Civilization is the only civilization which has offered refuge to the persecuted including Christian followers of Saint Thomas, the brother of Jesus, Jews and Zoroastrians. In the modern days, India has given refuge to the Buddhist Tibetans under the leadership of Dalai Lama, even at the cost of giving rise to animosity with the nuclear power China. On the other hand, pursuing monotheistic, 'mono' ideals, peace has never prevailed in the Christian or Islamic world since their identities were established. It was after all religious intolerance in Europe which played a major role in motivating the early settlers to migrate to the USA. Having suffered such religious persecution, the Founding Fathers of the United States enshrined the concept of secularism in the U.S. Constitution, giving birth to a multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation.

The evangelical agenda of Muslims and Christians has been antithetical to peace throughout the annals of history. In nations West of India, starting from Pakistan all the way to Algeria, and encompassing dozens of Islamic nations where there are no Hindus, there have been innumerable acts of violence under the banner of religion perpetrated by Islamic sectarian groups or by the State. In the Christian world, but for the prevalence of strong secular sentiments, the carnage would be even greater, as the cases of Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo or East Timor suggest.

If our intent is to search out a path to peace while allowing freedom of religious choice, just consider the proliferation of Yoga practitioners in the United States. It is overwhelmingly practiced and promoted by Euro-Americans who pursue the knowledge contained in Yoga books, which constitute a part of Hindu sacred literature. There are no Hindu Gurus watching over the shoulders of Yoga practitioners. Even when and where a handful of Yoga teachers have come from India, they come empty-handed, without credentials and with no monetary support or an army of volunteers to convert people.

In this era of mass media and information technology, anyone desirous of seeking knowledge of other faiths can do so. It is thus an act of demeaning violence for missionaries to cross oceans with huge resources and an army of trained cadres with the sole purpose of convincing people to hate their own centuries-old religious traditions in order to entice them to commit themselves to foreign gods whose history is besmirched in blood.

The purpose of any spiritual pursuit, we would propose, is to achieve inner peace of mind, which in turn promotes social harmony and peace. Yet, ironically, for the last 2000 years, Jerusalem - the shared cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam-- has been a center of violence exceeding any other single place in the world. It is still boiling in vibrations of hate. The very people who profess the rule of Law and Justice, Love, Compassion and Brotherhood cannot practice and live in peace to prove the viability of their own tenets and principles. What chutzpah Christian missionaries or Islamic preachers must have to promote their faiths as the means to salvation when for 2000 years they have been lost in mutual hatred and violence.

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