Dear Cynthia, thanks for the mail. The debate over Jesus born to virgin Mary or not was not started by any other but the Christians themselves. I have gone through Da Vinci Code of Dan Brown, hope Cynthia must be knowing. It opens a new aspect of Jesus, a family man, who had a wife Mary Magdaline. The book says, she has been portrayed in Bible as a prostitute (sorry if I am hurting anyone's sentiment but I am just referring to the book). Christians across the world accepted it whole-heartedly accept India. In Bangalore the missionary schools banned the book and asked the students not even to discuss it in the school premises as it will 'hurt' Christians' sentiments. The book Da Vinci Code shakes the faith not to push people to join other faiths but to unveil certain "truths" (?), which the Christian world was allegedly hiding for two thousand years. But here in the case of Karnataka and orissa, the objective was to convert. My question is what is the gain behind changing one's faith. Imagine the state of the mind of the person who was believing a God till yesterday and after conversion, the same god becomes strange, unknown, untouchable and profane to him. How the man will react to it? Quite natural that he will hold society and the nation responsible for shifting his faith unwillingly and with all uneasiness. So a hate campaign starts and ends in the form of anti-national activities. Not be surprised to see the converted people having the tendency of taking revenge from everyone whom they believe are responsible for shifting his faith. This is how conversion is dreaded and its consequences are dangerous.
"There are democratic methods of engagement, protest, legal action to take up these issues," Are the legal ways meant only for the Hindus but not for the Christians who are distributing leaflets containing inflamatory things against the Hindu gods and goddesses? Aren't the evangelists aware of the law? The 'Converters' take shield of the constitution saying that it permits them to practice, preach and propagate their religion. The constitution however, do not permit the evangelists to convert people into Christianity. Tribal's pagan religion is far better than the foreign religion. G MANJU SAINATH
