Book Review - Conversion, An Assault on Truth

-

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 into 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 hurt 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 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 general 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 the denigration of 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 religions and beliefs are important in shaping individuals, groups, nations, and humanity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indian Job Market - Emerging need for skills

-
Image
In the initial days of 2020, the COVID19 pandemic has thrown a tumultuous challenge to the world's economy and to the leadership of every nation on the planet.  Along with many other countries, India also went into a lockdown to reduce the spread of the pandemic. At this point, along with the shortage of medical infrastructure, India faced another major challenge - the impact on the job market by the end of April 2020.  People were losing jobs as the domestic and international markets reeled under severe pressure due to the decline in production and demand. Along with this, the global lockdowns seized the opportunities for new jobs. Unemployment shot to unprecedented levels. India being the second-most populous country in the world is often viewed as an asset as India has nurtured abundant human resources for global manufacturing and service industries over the decades. But this asset turned into a liability with indefinite lockdowns and declining global demand. The unemploym...
Read more

Virtual classrooms - Are they sustainable?

-
Image
It was in late Feb 2020, the Indian government decided to shut down all the educational institutions indefinitely as a part of the fighting against the pandemic, COVID19. A similar situation prevailed in other countries too. Given the acute stress of the alarming infection rates of COVID19, all the schools and colleges complied with the regulation. But at the same time, the management of the educational institutions are bothered due to chronic stress associated with the long term plans of the institutions and the uncertainty about the resuming the classes. This stress extended further to the ed-tech companies supporting these institutions technically and academically. To support the ongoing academic activities, some schools and Ed-tech companies came up with a solution to provide virtual classes and training to students and teachers by mid-April. While the institutions provided infrastructure support, the Ed-tech companies restructured their products to suit the virtual pro...
Read more

The Curse on Ahalya - Rock, Myth, and Rama

-
We all know about the famous incident of the liberation of Ahalya from the curse of Gautama by Rama in Ramayana. Right? When I asked what Sage Gautama's curse was to Ahalya in Valmiki Ramayana, I was not surprised by the answers.  It went with the popular belief that Sage Gautama cursed his wife Ahalya to become a rock. Most of us might know the background of the curse, but let me refresh the memory once before dwelling on whether the curse of becoming a rock is a myth or true as per Valmiki Ramayana. Sage Gautama was a great sage who did a lot of penance and was full of knowledge and wisdom. Ahalya was the wife of Sage Gautama. Ahalya was referred to as "Ayonijasambhava" in Valmiki Ramayana meaning that she was not born out of a mother's womb. It was mentioned that Brahma created Ahalya with all his artistic creativity making her the most beautiful woman. Having said that, Indra had a lust for Ahalya. One day, Sage Gautama went to bathe at a nearby creek. When Gauta...
Read more