Book Review - Conversion, An Assault on Truth

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Book-1/2025
Title - Conversion - An Assault on Truth
Authors - Dr S.L Bhyrappa, M. Chidananda Murthy, David Frawley, R Ganesh, N.S Rajaram, Swami Dayananda Saraswati.
Publishers - Sahitya Prakashana, Hubli
First Published Year – 2009
Image courtesy – www.exoticindiaart.com

The book deals with religious conversions in India, the Indian perspective and global phenomenon, and the impact of religious conversions on Hindu demographics.

Before going into a detailed review of the book, I want to express a little about my perspective on religious conversions which I will later elaborate on and make as a book.

For me, there are three perspectives for analysing religious conversions.

1. Morality - To give a brief about the idea of morality from a non-religious perspective, in general, morality refers to the principles that define good or bad, right and wrong behaviour. If we remove the class and religious perspectives of individuals, they are more or less the same globally. If someone hurting you mentally or physically is immoral for you, it applies the same when you act on other people. (I will elaborate on this viewpoint further in the book. For now, remember this).

2. Legality - Legality of an act or behaviour comes into the picture when we are a part of an organised state. The legality of a religious conversion depends on two aspects.

  • What is happening in the absence of a law governing religious conversions?
  • What is included in the anti-conversion act, if there is one such legislation?

(Will discuss this based on the common law and Indian law, in specific, in detail in the book)

3. Religion/Culture – When we are speaking about religious conversions, it will be inappropriate if we don’t observe and understand the impact of those religious conversions on the local culture, lifestyles, ecology, and economy.
(I will make an elaborate comment on this based on Darwin's Evolution Theory, Social identity theory and Realistic Group Conflict Theory in the book with examples).

I read the entire book keeping the above perspectives in my mind. So, my review will have a lot of overlap with these perspectives.

Review:

To start with, the book is not for casual reading. It has a subtle intellectuality woven into every page that needs our attention. The book was written in 2008 when India was under the mass influence of various external forces resulting in mass conversions.

I am not mentioning the inclination of authors towards Hinduism and polytheism as their names are well known in the ecosphere of religious books and discourses.

The entire book is based on one basic tenet Hinduism or polytheistic religions are the Truth and deliberate conversions by cash, kind or force by Abrahamic religions are an assault on the culture of nations having polytheistic religions. Though the book didn’t directly define why Hinduism or polytheistic religions are considered to be true, there is a subtle message echoed across the book about the spirituality associated with polytheistic religions that allow individuals to seek higher realms of existence and peace by culminating individual perspectives with the fundamental perspective on which the religion was built.

The book went on to explain how the coercive and fundamentalist behaviour of the Abrahamic religions aimed at the sole objective of converting non-believers is flawed and cannot help humanity attain any mental peace. The book is elaborative in explaining the indulgence of Christianity and Islam in denigration of the non-believers and their mistreatment over the centuries and across the nations.

The book also provides a critical perspective on the flaws in Indian society and Hinduism from religious and legal standpoints.

This book also touched on the emergence of Christianity as a religion and has many references to various religious books and discourses.

Finally, this book makes an interesting read if we are interested in understanding how conversions impacted the demographics in India, the threat associated with mass conversions, and how religions are being used to emotionally lure masses into some unachievable realms thereby inflicting conflicts between individuals, cultures, tribes, and nations.

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