How do you “Force” someone to convert to a religion?

An interesting blog post in the TOIabout minority rights touched upon the subject of forced conversions to Christianity and Islam and how everyone has the right to practice and convert to any religion they want. So called “forced” conversions are illegal in India, but what exactly are they?

Bribing to Convert - Illegal?
Bribing to Convert - Illegal?

Say a priest offers to give a house, money, food, or treatment to a destitute Hindu in exchange for their conversion to Christianity. If that person then “converts,” is it classified as a forced conversion? I had this argument with one of my friends some time ago and it still surprises me that people think doing this should be illegal. Of course, as an Atheist I couldn’t care less what religion a person follows, but it’s the principle of the matter.

Say a person is in terrible need. I go to them and give them a way out as long as they convert to my religion. Am I to be penalized for given him or her a choice? My offer in no way makes their life worse. They can still do whatever they were going to do had I not approached them in the first place.

Think of it as a car uncontrollably sliding down a road towards a cliff. There’s no way out and you’re going to die. But then a side road open up ahead – leading to some place where you have to pay a price for using the road. Does the appearance of that side road force you to take it? Does it worsen your situation in any way? No. If you take the road, it’s because you chose to take it and you can’t then blame the owner of the road for extracting whatever price they’re going to extract. It wasn’t their fault that you were sliding down the road into the cliff in the first place.

Similarly, a Christian priest isn’t responsible for a person’s destitution. By giving them a way out and converting them to Christianity they’re merely offering a choice – a side path. A person can still choose not to take it. But the mere presence of a choice doesn’t make a person’s life worse. It can either make it better or make no difference. So why penalize the priest for offering the choice which many people are obviously grateful for and happy to pay whatever price is asked?

Again, I don’t care about religion in general but forced conversions seems to be an important reason for Hindus being pissed off at either Christians or Muslims. Unless of course, the person is threatened with torture or violence unless they don’t convert. That is a real forced conversion. Not the mere offering of benefits.

Sadly, the Supreme Court in 1977 ruled that even offering benefits in exchange for conversion was illegal. That is a wrong judgement in my opinion since it ignores the rules of common sense.

What do you think of this post?
  • Agree (3)
  • You're an asshole (2)
  • Don't Agree but Interesting (1)

54 thoughts on “How do you “Force” someone to convert to a religion?”

  1. I agree with you – if I’m so poor that I can’t afford to feed my family then I wouldn’t mind converting to another religion to keep my family and myself alive…The flip side is that if missionaries are really charitable, they shouldn’t ask the poor to convert…

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    • In reply to Sraboney

      Well, that’s between the missionary and his/her god. Being uncharitable might be against their religion, but you can’t put someone in jail for not having the milk of human kindness in them :D

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  2. 1) How is bribing forcing some one to do something? If they accept the bribe, isn’t that a question on the bribed as well as the briber? Then there was no force involved, it was a mutually beneficial transaction.
    2) And i thought that the whole idea about religion was the belief in a/the almighty because of how and why the said force made the lives better. So if there is some one who is offering to makes things better for us, and we don’t have any moral differences from what we’re expected to follow in the new religion, I don’t see why it should be an issue.

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  3. There’s not force there. Of course if you’re being offered money and shelter when your destitute in exchange for converting to another religion, then it would make sense for people to willingly make the decision. Now as for the ethics and morality of bribing someone to convert to your religion, that’s another discussion. :P

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  4. //By giving them a way out and converting them to Christianity they’re merely offering a choice// I agree. I just don’t see how and why this is seen as wrong.

    I have blogged about this and argued for days and days… Those who oppose conversions are not concerned about those converting. They are concerned about the number of followers the religion they follow will have left, if conversions continued.

    So it seems there is a feeling that the only way to keep someone in their ‘team’ is by not letting them leave.

    And it seems that is seen a perfectly fine by a lot of followers.
    All religions seem to have similar concerns – they wants large numbers. But some use incentives (acceptable I would say), some use force (absolutely unacceptable).

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    • In reply to indianhomemaker

      It’s almost as if they view their particular religion/community as a person. More followers make this person strong. Fewer followers make this person weak. And these followers are bound together by what exactly? Merely belonging to a religion officially doesn’t mean you accept its precepts, or even worship the same god!

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  5. There is another aspect that has not drawn the attention of the participants in this discourse. Very often the alleged inducements are not inducements to start with. Since a person has chosen to follow another religion, he is thrown out of his family and community and all doors are shut on him – more so in rural settings, where avenues of earning a livelihood are rather limited and dependent upon the attitude of the community and “powers that be”.
    In such a scenario, if the people through whom the converted person came to know of the other religion, come forward to take care of him and provide sustenance, this is blown out of context and shouted from the rooftops as inducing another to convert by those who deprived him and threw him out and precipitated the situation in the first place.
    Can this be accepted as a fair accusation of “converting through inducements”?
    Is there any law or legal process to prevent people from depriving others from carrying on their livelihood if they have taken a decision to convert?

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  6. If religious-organizations where to be charitable, why cant it be charitable with no strings attached ?
    Also isn’t the conversion job in some cases at-least preceded by a sense of hubris (We are doing you a favor (of liberation/moksha) by letting you come into our religion)
    Like your above example of consensual business transaction, it is a matter of balance of power. Are the destitute in a position to chose ?
    Also conversion in some cases may kill indigenous-ness of the convertor (the way Westerners messed up indigenous American culture by conversion)

    In India, the opposition to conversion may stem from the fact that Hinduism is inherently not a evangelical religion, although VHP does indulge in “Ghar Vapasi” or un-conversions, many times deliberate-erroneously re-converting animistic tribals.

    People should have freedom to change their religion in absence of covert/overt pressure.

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    • In reply to Khalil Sawant

      I agree – it’s not charitable. But that’s between them and their god no? The government can’t hold a person’s throat and force them to be charitable.

      I don’t agree that giving someone a choice counts are pressure. Will there be less pressure if the choice to convert wasn’t given at all?

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  7. This is not a valid argument, Bhagwad.

    Historically Islam has used it throughout the world. Those who converted did not pay the jaziya. That was a very significant economic incentive to convert. Such conversion might be better than conversion through force, but it is immoral, nevertheless.

    On a matter of religion where FAITH is involved, barter is inappropriate. If economic transactions were allowed in all cases then the concept of corruption would disappear – for it could be argued that at least in some cases, both parties to the corruption gain. But once again, that is incorrect since corruption refers to an immoral action.

    Freedom comes with accountability. There is no freedom to be corrupt. There is no freedom to FALSELY declare faith for a particular religion.

    If that were so, then why are people bothered about voters who allegedly “sell” their vote for a bottle of drink?

    In each case there is an underlying issue of breach of faith – a falsehood. It is this DECEPTION that people object to.

    I’d be interested in finding a copy of the SC judgement you refer to. It would have provided all aspects of the argument. Please publish that judgement on your blog. Then let’s discuss further.

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    • In reply to Sanjeev Sabhlok

      The example of Jaziya doesn’t apply to my example. There has to be a basic premise where everyone is treated equally by the government. Private citizens of course are free to do as they please. If non-muslims are forced to pay something, that itself is an injustice.

      Corruption is illegal because laws are broken. The services of a government employee are to be given by law without a bribe. So again, that example is invalid in the case of religious conversion.

      And yes – there IS freedom to falsely declare faith for a religion. Tomorrow if I suddenly become a Mulsim officially even if I publicly blog about my disbelief in Allah or god, will I be arrested? No. There is no requirement to believe in a religion before converting to it.

      The SC judgement is tangential to my argument. In any case, you can get the resources here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaus_v_State_of_Madhya_Pradesh

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  8. @Park

    The article of TOI you’ve mentioned is tear aparted by its readers. Just see the comment sections of it.
    Other than ‘changing the faith’ (which is a personal issue and i agree and respect that) do you even know what damage these missonaries are doing? Do you know their tactics of conversion?

    btw…just out of curiosity, ofcourse if you don’t mind, are you a convert?

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    • In reply to Ashish

      @Ashish

      I think you posted in the wrong article – I’ve taken the liberty of moving your comment to this one and subscribing you to the replies – I hope you don’t mind. I’ll remove you from the list if you want me to…

      I don’t mind your question Ashish. I’m an Atheist – meaning I don’t believe in any god. Since Atheism isn’t a religion, I can’t say that I’m a convert.

      About the tactics of conversion, I’m against really “forced” conversions – denying normal and expected benefits, torture, physical harassment etc. But a private person giving benefits they normally wouldn’t get in order to convert is fine as I’ve tried to explain in my post.

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  9. “Similarly, a Christian priest isn’t responsible for a person’s destitution. By giving them a way out and converting them to Christianity they’re merely offering a choice – a side path. A person can still choose not to take it.”

    A choice between convert or starve isn’t a choice at all, Bhagwad. Using your logic, putting a sword to someone’s head and demanding that they convert to Islam, is “merely offering a choice – a side path. A person can still choose not to take it.” And they can; they’ll just die as a result of it. Missionaries know that the people in question NEED the food, money, etc that they are offering too much to actually consider “no” to be a viable option. We also call that BLACKMAIL. The adults are certainly consenting, but they are doing so under duress. The missionary may not be responsible for the poverty, but that doesn’t keep it from being blackmail. Compare missionaries with Marcus Licinius Crassus, a wealthy statesman in ancient Rome. He owned a private fire department. Whenever there was a fire, Crassus would rush his firefighters over to the burning property, but wouldn’t actually put out the fire until he’d haggled over the price for the property with the distressed owner. Given that the actual value of the place was decreasing by the minute, the owner soon caved, sold his place at a severe loss, and Crassus would then put out the fire, repair the damage, and resell at a huge profit.

    Technically, what Crassus and missionaries are doing is indeed merely a negotiation with consenting adults, and they are in no way responsible for the crises that these people find themselves in. But what they are doing is still sneaky, underhanded, and remarkably cruel blackmail for supposedly loving and charitable people.

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    • In reply to Sasank

      The big difference in your sword and blackmail example is that in both those cases, the presence of the offer changes the situation. In blackmail, the other person is threatening to do something unless you accept their offer. Without the blackmailer, the “threat” wouldn’t exist.

      Similarly, putting a sword in someone’s hand is creating a situation and only then giving a choice.

      Your Crassus example is perfect. Crassus may well have taken advantage of the situation. But tell me this, would the person’s life have been better without Crassus?

      Merely taking advantage of a situation is not blackmail. Blackmail occurs only when the blackmailer creates the situation and threatens to do something.

      Just ask yourself this – is the person’s life better, worse or neutral after the offer has been made? In the Islam example, the person’s life is obviously worse because he was getting along just fine before it. In the blackmail example also, the person was doing fine before it.

      In Crassus’s case, the house was on fire! So Crassus didn’t make the fire in the first place. The person’s life isn’t worse after Crassus came with his offer. Similarly, a priest doesn’t make a person’s life worse just by making the offer. Without the priest, the person can continue dying as he was before.

      But I agree with you that doing such a thing is uncharitable and sneaky. But it’s not illegal to be an asshole. And it’s certainly not blackmail since there’s no threat of action against the person.

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  10. “The big difference in your sword and blackmail example is that in both those cases, the presence of the offer changes the situation. In blackmail, the other person is threatening to do something unless you accept their offer. Without the blackmailer, the “threat” wouldn’t exist.”

    Isn’t “I’ll leave you here to starve” a threat?

    “Your Crassus example is perfect. Crassus may well have taken advantage of the situation. But tell me this, would the person’s life have been better without Crassus?”

    No. But that still makes it blackmail. According to the OED, blackmail is defined as:

    “Originally: to extort money from (a person, etc.) by intimidation, by the unscrupulous use of an official or social position, or of political influence or vote. Now chiefly: to extort money from by threatening to reveal a damaging or incriminating secret; (also) to use threats or moral pressure against.”

    Threatening to abandon someone is still a threat, as a “threat” is defined as:

    “To press, urge, try to force or induce; esp. by means of menaces”

    Giving people a choice between conversion and starvation certainly fits the bill of being “menacing.”

    “But I agree with you that doing such a thing is uncharitable and sneaky. But it’s not illegal to be an asshole. And it’s certainly not blackmail since there’s no threat of action against the person.”

    It certainly is not illegal to be an asshole, but the issue is more complex than that. Take the 2008 anti Christian violence in Orissa, for instance, which started after Swami Laxmanananda was murdered by Maoists working for the Church. It triggered brutal attacks on innocent Christians in the state. The only reason there was any murder in the first place was because Laxmanananda was protesting against missionaries converting tribal people in the region to Christianity using charitable allurement. What they were doing wasn’t illegal, but it should be illegal because it they are simply creating religious tensions in otherwise peaceful communities. Hindus aren’t protesting against bribed conversions simply because the people who convert are being bribed; it’s because these conversions pose a demographic threat and are a danger to their way of life that Hindus get upset.

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    • In reply to Sasank

      “I’ll leave you here to starve” isn’t a threat because there’s no obligation to take care of a starving stranger. If you told that to your child, then it’s a threat because you have a duty to feed your children. A stranger? No.

      Again, abandoning someone to whom you have no obligation whatsoever isn’t a threat – especially not so if you didn’t cause the situation. And is it really menacing? If you were starving, wouldn’t you want someone to come and offer you a choice? How does it hurt you and make your life worse?

      Let’s say your house is burning. Would you rather have Crassus come and make his offer to you or would you rather he stayed away and didn’t come near you at all? You choose. By him merely making the offer, are you harmed in any way? Are you in a worse position than you were before?

      The whole “demographic” thing has several problems which I don’t want to go into here. A particular Hindu’s way of life isn’t threatened by someone else converting. No one is responsible for someone else’s religious choices after all. But let’s not go into that right now.

      Reply

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