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This book's value lies in its attempt to grapple with the prevailing concerns both from a Christian and social science perspective. The results are intriguing.
Harvesting souls for Christ has been a central feature of Christianity. Naturally, organised Christianity is troubled by the growing resistance to what it regards as its religious obligation and civil rights. "If I find," argues the author in this study of conversion (as distinct from proselytisation), "that changing my religion promotes my economic opportunities and my democratic rights...should I be prevented by the state or other citizens?"
Although Christianity in India is many centuries old, only after Independence has an Indian Christian perspective haltingly emerged. This book’s value lies in its attempt to grapple with the prevailing concerns both from a Christian—Heredia is a Jesuit priest—and social science perspective. The results are intriguing.
On the positive side, Heredia upholds the crucial distinction between atmaparivartan and dharmantar. The first, an aspect of individual self-realisation and metamorphosis, happens all the time sans any fuss. Dharmantar is more divisive and problematic, especially when the transition crosses national traditions. Swami Vivekananda, for example, dubbed those leaving the Hindu fold as "one enemy more". Gandhi charged converts to Christianity of being "ashamed of their birth" and "chang(ing) nationality."
Heredia admits that Christianity in India carries this burden of history. Simultaneously, he argues that religious traditions in India have undergone constant change—even before the advent of Islam.
Without overtly saying so, Heredia’s selective survey of Indian history and politics (he misses out the Inquisition in Goa and the iconoclasm of Muslim rulers) leads him to the Left-liberal conclusion that Brahminical Hinduism is at the root of all evil. The resistance to conversions, he feels, is just a ruse to maintain Brahminical hegemony over subalterns.
The core conflict, it seems to me, involves faiths of Indian and non-Indian origin. The evolution of a uniquely Indian Islam has, for example, floundered in the face of a Wahabi Islamism that ends up Arabising local Muslims. Likewise, the Roman Catholic Church has made its antipathy to Eastern spirituality quite open. The absence of a national theology agitated individual Muslims like Dara Shikoh and many upper-caste Indian Christians. It led to experiments with "Hindu Christianity" and calls to abandon conversions altogether. Though it doesn’t excite our radical Jesuit author, it would bolster Indian nationhood if local churches imbibed the experiences of the likes of Pandita Ramabai. A national approach to faith may be an Indian solution to dharmantaran.