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"So, conversion to Christianity, Islam or Buddhism is a must for our people."----Kancha Ilaiah. With utmost empathy I can feel the pain Kancha Ilaiah and his people suffer from. But I have some points here: 1. Looks like Mr. Ilaiah is running after a gold deer. He has called Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism spiritual democracies whereas to him Hinduism is a spiritual fascism. Treating these four cultures as monolithic, one will probably agree with him. But what is the reality? Let me just take one example: the spiritual democracy of Islam. Is it all that we want? Don't we want social, political, and economic justices also to be guaranteed? What does Islamic history tell us about it? We have seen monarchs throughout history. They exist in the current world too. What do we see in the present world? Do we see any kind of equality in the Islamic world? We also need to understand that Islam is not monolithic. It also has various sects. 2. The same argument as mentioned above also applies to Christianity. But Christian world in general is more civilized in the sense that they are more tolerant and their citizens enjoy better human rights. But the the religious democracy of Christianity has very little to do about it. It is education, respect for scientific knowledge, tolerance with diverse ideas, and rational thinking that make a society more and more enlightened and hence more and more exploitation-free. True, it can be achieved partially by rejecting and reinterpreting many ideas offered by a religion. But the bottom line is that we don't need any religion at all to achieve social equity, although it may help bolster equality if it is in a good hand. Let the religions adjust themselves to the evolving socio-political realities. 3. Missionary works by various religious groups among the down trodden people should be O.K, although that must not be politicized. But a declared religious war may not help. It may rather complicate the issue by being divisive. Attacks on the status quo should come from other directions. They should come from secular social and political activists. Making religion a basis for struggle can be very dangerous as it is likely to destabilize the religious harmony. It may be fruitless as well as simply by converting to Christianity, for example, a Hindu Dalit merely turns into a Christian Dalit. He will have a long way to go before he can be absorbed among the mainstream Christians of the country. It is not religion but the economic conditions that divide a society. 4. Now let us look at India which is not monolithic at all, is a secular country, and constitutionally does not support caste systems. So it mattered least what is written in Hindu swcriptures to the fathers of the constitution. We have seen Dalit President and Dalit ministers. There are dozens of sects and cults among the Hindus which defy caste systems. Scheduled castes enjoy various privileges to various degrees in India. It has a pretty stable and strong secular, pluralistic, and democratic tradition although upsurge of fascist Hindutvabadis is not unnoticeable. But their defeat in last election signifies that religion cannot be the basis for a war that is required to bring about revolutionary changes in the Indian society. -SC
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