Christianity is not an inclusive religion. Abstain from posting comments that are obscene, defamatory or inflammatory, and do not indulge in personal attacks. The views expressed in comments published on newindianexpress.com are those of the comment writers alone. March 21, 2015 by Ambaa Choate. However, he has warned members of parliament and ministers not to make statements that might distract from his development agenda, after one member of his government called Indian Muslims bastard children last year. Modi, 64, a former organiser with a revivalist Hindu organisation, has yet to make any public comment on the reconversion ceremonies. He ran away after being tied up with his mother and clubbed for a night by an upper caste neighbour for allowing his goat to wander. With the demonstrated Indian genius of turning all schemes involving money into scams, Coalgate and Spectrumgate might soon yield headlines to Conversiongate. In December another group conducted a similar ceremony for more than 200 Muslims in the northern city of Agra. ", "Zoroastrianism needs to adapt its archaic laws or die | Ariane Sherine", "Joining a Cult: Religious Choice or Psychological Aberration? In Hyderabad the first person to convert will be KRS Murthy, 70, who was the first dalit recruited into the state's civil service in 1959. This theory was publicized by the popular news media but disputed by other scholars, including some sociologists of religion. One does not need to ask any authorities for admission. [12] Latter Day Saints baptisms also occur only after an "age of accountability" which is defined as the age of eight years. We are talking about an amendment bill introduced in the Uttarakhand assembly on November 29and passed a day laterto make the four-year-old anti-conversion Act (which ironically goes by the name Uttarakhand 'Freedom of Religion' Act, 2018) even more stringent. All rights reserved. Christianity grew after becoming the state religion in Armenia, in the Roman Empire, and in Ethiopia. Article 18.2 bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert." Despite officially being a secular nation, organizations allied with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are actively promoting mass conversions to Hinduism. Views expressed above are the author's own. [21][22][23] The majority of clerical opinions holds that circumcision is not required upon entering the Muslim faith. Yet the Sangh Parivar is happy to coerce Dalits to remain Hindu or to "reconvert", and to "convert" tribals to Hinduism. The rise of the BJP to power at the national level in 1998 spurred a spate of anti-conversion legislation. The following is a list of converts to Hinduism from other religions or a non-religious background. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images. Culture can be defined as a way of life. This is list of converts from Indian-origin religions. [38][39][40] Some sects of Hindus, particularly of the Bhakti schools began seeking or accepting converts in early to mid 20th century. This Samiti, a not-so-small wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a militant Hindu organisation, contended that far from propagating religious intolerance, it was only righting historical wrongs and injustice perpetrated by Christian missionaries and Muslim clerics who, in order to bolster the numbers of their respective faiths, had lured and coerced Hindus to stray from their original religion. In connection to this, many users in India posted a claim that the 'princess of Indonesia' converted to Hinduism following which 50,000 Indonesians did the same. Search titles only; Posted by Member: Separate names with a comma. However, Taoism does have its own religious conversion ceremony which seems[original research?] while converting to islam, which fikra (out of 72) do they convert to? The Muslim castes which have been particularly vulnerable to Hindu missionary efforts have been those [citation needed]. Today almost double that figure will embrace a new religion and repeat the 22 oaths Ambedkar mouthed. However, without a formal conversion, many highly observant Jews will reject a convert's Jewish status.[27]. Both Hinduism and those pre-Abrahamic religions kept trying to look for common grounds with the Abrahamic faiths for co-existence, while Abrahamic faiths were least interested in discovering common grounds. The exact requirements vary between different churches and denominations. Last week the hardline group Vishnu Hindu Parishad (VHP) claimed to have reconverted more than 20 Christians in the southern state of Kerala. [7] Christian baptism has some parallels with Jewish immersion by mikvah. They include never worshipping Hindu gods and goddesses, never inviting a Brahmin for rituals and never drinking alcohol. Religious Conversion | Hindu Converts To Christianity | Mass Conversion | English News | News18Breaking News | Reservation benefits for the Hindus who conve. Anti-cult evangelicals protest that 'aggressiveness and proselytizing are basic to authentic Christianity,' and that Jews for Jesus and Campus Crusade for Christ are not to be labeled as cults. {{{long}}} Read More [52][53][54][55][56], In the 1960s sociologist John Lofland lived with Unification Church missionary Young Oon Kim and a small group of American church members in California and studied their activities in trying to promote their beliefs and win converts to their church. Now, my family and I want to become Hindu again, Baskey said. Now we are on Telegram too. The Christian minority is significantly smaller. The closest Hindu equivalent of a regular congregation is the RSS shakha. In this case, an FIR was lodged by the informant- Himanshu Dixit with the allegations that about 90 persons of Hindu religion . Religious conversion to Hinduism has a long history outside India. Sixty years ago BR Ambedkar, the first untouchable to hold high office in India and the man who wrote India's constitution, renounced Hinduism as a creed in the grip of casteism and converted -. The laws of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh make it incumbent upon neighbours or villagers to inform the administration and the police of any activities of pastors, nuns and clergymen which could give rise to a suspicion of proselytising motives. Mainly it includes Customs and traditions Religion Arts Literature Science Government Festivals Language newindianexpress.com reserves the right to take any or all comments down at any time. ), read and discuss ancient literature, learn and engage in rites of passages (ceremonies of birth, first feeding, first learning day, age of majority, wedding, cremation and others). The boundary between them is not easily defined: what one person considers legitimate evangelizing, or witness-bearing, another may consider intrusive and improper. There were 111 conversions from Hindu to Islam. Some people say that missionaries are forcefully converting them. Basing its ruling on a 1956 report entitled Report of the Christian Missionaries Activity Enquiry Commission, which deemed proselytisation as a threat to Indias territorial integrity and internal security, the court ended up conflating every act of propagation of ones faith Christianity, in this case (enshrined as a fundamental right in the constitution) as an attack on Hinduism and its followers, tantamount to blasphemy, which, incidentally, is also a criminal offence in India. "Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion." Some Christian sects require full conversion for new members regardless of any history in other Christian sects, or from certain other sects. "Look we make up 150m people of India. The issue of mass conversions has paralyzed India's parliament, with opposition lawmakers demanding Modi make a statement on earlier reports of poor Muslims being coerced into Hinduism. The groups claimed that not only dalits, who often embrace Buddhism to quit Hinduism, but also people from other castes can accept the religion. Obamas words on Tuesday on the rights of religious minorities in the predominantly Hindu country came after three days of carefully choreographed demonstrations of warm relations between the US president and Modi. Richadiana Kartakusama (2006), Archaeology: Indonesian Perspective (Editors: Truman Simanjuntak et al. But we need to be judicious while moderating your comments. Attending the ceremonies are monks from America, Britain and Taiwan. Some have suggested that the concept of missionary conversion, either way, is contrary to the precepts of Hinduism. But the Sangh Parivar seems bent on turning it into a way of strife. "India investigates reports of mass 'reconversion' of Christians". Despite mass gatherings like the Kumbh Mela, Hindus have traditionally never practiced congregational worship. Their ancestors, the followers said, were Hindus who converted to Islam 25 years ago, and they were now reverting to Hinduism on free will. BBC News. Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Without defining what all would, and could, possibly count as inducement or fraud, these laws impose stringent criminal sanctions on violators. Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior, Vol 15(4), NovDec 1978, 1522. Mass conversion in India started in the South. First, there has been increasing campaign against Muslims as a result of which these. But these benefits aside, there was another more substantive reason why many Indians, especially the Dalits (Untouchables) and tribals embraced Christianity, and even Islam. Sixty years ago BR Ambedkar, the first untouchable to hold high office in India and the man who wrote India's constitution, renounced Hinduism as a creed in the grip of casteism and converted - with more than 100,000 of his followers - to Buddhism. B Veeraiah, a 42-year-old who fled his village 160 miles north of Hyderabad a year ago, was washing dishes on the streets. As an untouchable, the 25-year-old is at the bottom of Hinduism's hereditary hierarchy. Active proselytisation was an integral part of the colonial project; indeed, as historian Ranajit Guha states, the Bible and the toothbrush were one of the main instruments of the British colonialists. Perhaps not. Besides being overtly anti-Christian, the proposed anti-conversion law would negate the constitutions secular values. The landless labourer points to a picture of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, on his wall and says it will soon be gone and replaced by an image of the Buddha. But often on trains people ask about my background, what my father did, where I am from. We are neither seen nor heard. They will then give the go-ahead only once he is satisfied that one is not swapping religions for monetary benefits or other inducements, or by being taken in by fraud, or being swayed by either promises of salvation or threats of incurring divine displeasure, as the case may be. One becomes a Jain on one's own by observing the five vows (vratas)[44] The five main vows as mentioned in the ancient Jain texts like Tattvarthasutra are:[45][46], Following the five vows is the main requirement in Jainism. [20] In the Islamic religion, it is believed that everyone is Muslim at birth. Changing religion makes us visible," says Chanrabhan Prasad, a dalit writer. Some 3000 Muslims were massacred. A total of 144 persons adopted Islam whereas Christianity received 119 new believers in the year, shows the data. 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