Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Jesus. Conversion has largely failed in India because Christianity
offers nothing that is not already available somewhere in the many
forms of Hinduism. Those who have converted either agreed with
a gun pressed to their skulls, as in Goa, or because it provided an
escape from caste tyranny, as well as guaranteeing professional
advancement. Legend has it that Saint Thomas was martyred in
Madras after failing to win a debate on theology with local Brahmin
pundits. He agreed to accept death if he lost the debate.
Vanitas
vanitatum
.
Through its Vedic legacy, Hinduism respects all faiths. It clearly
states that God was one but had many forms. The Christian message
must have sounded preposterous: that God was indeed one, but had
only one recognised form, his son.
The 'savages' of India were sophisticated, so sophisticated that the
imperialist mixture of church and state in Europe could not grasp
such sophistication. The British were more cunning at the game than
the Portuguese, careful to show respect for Indian religions, even
enjoying the spectacles laid on for their amusement at festival times.
Yet they sneered at the pagans behind their backs, educated the Indian
elite in British-run schools, or at Eton and Cambridge, which, if it
did not guarantee conversion to Christianity, resulted in lapsed
Hinduism, agnosticism, or an intellectual humanism. They had not
banked on Marxism as another option. Nehru leaned that way, but
in the manner of a Cambridge idealist.
In India, Anglo indoctrination produced a generation of 'brown
sahibs' who looked down on the religion of the masses, the opium
of the people. Rajiv Gandhi's downfall can be attributed to a milder
form of this same conditioned insensitivity. So can his mother's
murder.
Twenty years ago, all talk of modernisation in New Delhi constantly
referred to educating the masses, a euphemism for destroying the
excesses of Hinduism.
In 1992 it was a different story. Narasimha Rao was in his second
term as prime minister. Few had thought he would win one, but he
had. No fundamentalist Hindu fanatic, he was however, as I knew
firsthand, a deeply religious man. To clear up Rajiv's mess, he needed
