OF THE MADNESS OF CONVERSION

I have often laughed off Muslims’ claims of how rapidly America and Africa are reportedly converting to Islam. I asked, OK how many of them are Nobel Laureates, even science scholars? Why do you want them? How will they improve the stock of the community?

If I were an enemy of the Hindus, I should actually wish them success with their conversion drive. If they win over a large enough number they will have a large enough problem on their hands. Such converts for a price; very heavy price, actually.

Hinduism is not the kind of religion that appeals to modern intellect, nor does it instill a strong action-oriented sense of teaming up, the way Islam does – for good or bad.

It is best as a way of life – a set of vaguely defined beliefs and a whole lot of harmless rituals practised non-violently. A culture of sorts: flexible, adaptable, improvable and dynamic.

The day it is dogmatized it will suffer huge internal contradictions and will have far worse interal strife than did the Sunnis and the Shias, the Catholics and the Protestants.

In this day and age one would have wished humanists to work for global humanism, universalism etc. And one would have wanted the nationalists to work for constitutionalism, rule of law and strong democratic governance. What is happening is exactly what India’s enemy would want.