believers were critical in terms of measuring the success of a mission. Tactics might change, between converting the high caste so that there would be a trickle-down effect, or converting the poor and oppressed, as this is where the numbers lay. By far the majority of Indian converts came through mass or community movements. They came by families, villages or castes. This movement was at its peak in the period from 1800 until the 1930s, but has continued at a lesser level since. It was studied very effectively by J. Pickett in his major work Christian Mass Movements in India.19 He reckoned that 50 per cent of Roman Catholics were products of such movements, and 80 per cent of Protestants, throughout India. He showed that motives are always mixed, with religious and spiritual reasons going alongside the desire to gain respect, material support and liberation from caste oppression. Duncan Forrester, in his definitive book Caste and Christianity, wisely comments on motives:
The search for material improvement or enhancement of status is seldom, if ever, the sole or even dominant motive in a mass movement. Dignity, self-respect, patrons who will treat me as an equal, and the ability to choose one’s own destiny – all these are powerful incentives to conversion.20
My own doctoral thesis, published as The Church and Conversion, would suggest the same in later movements also. Now, since Indian independence in 1947, the benefits system discriminates heavily against the Christian convert, and especially their children. Only Hindus, and later Sikhs (from 1950) and Buddhists (from 1990), could receive the benefits accorded to the scheduled castes (Dalits and tribals). Converts became ‘backward caste’ (a category between scheduled castes/Dalits and forward castes). And those from the backward castes, if they converted, were treated as forward caste.
Individuals made their own decision as to whether to take baptism within a people’s movement, usually following the lead of their family leader. But in most villages, some converted and built a church; others remained in Hinduism. The evangelistic activity of the missionaries, whether a minority from overseas, or by far the majority, Indian, was usually combined with educational and medical work, and often development work and advocacy. The theological motivation was exclusive, that people could be saved from darkness; but the nature of the darkness was complex – ignorance, illness, hopelessness, oppression, as well as the worshipping of false gods, or the chains of Islam.
But such is the fear of conversion movements that there was a major backlash in recent years from politically powerful Hindu forces. This fear may be irrational – all the statistics show that the Christian percentage in India is static – but stems from the fact that conversion is a political and demographic issue, as well as a religious, spiritual and psychological question. It has often been said that Hinduism in India is a majority faith with a minority complex. Some of this may be nothing to do with Christians, but stem from the much larger minority of Muslims, fear of foreign influence and terrorism, and nearby neighbour Pakistan. Anxiety is projected onto the much weaker Christian communities. It has been focused upon charismatic and fundamentalist movements who since the 1960s have come in significant numbers, from outside and from within India.
It should be noted that when there are conversions to Buddhism this is much less of a threat, and usually passes almost unnoticed. But there were the famous conversions to Islam from Hinduism in Meenaakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, in 1980, which became a national sensation. I studied these, but also conversions from two Christian villages to Islam some time after this. The government was primarily concerned with the Hindu–Muslim conversions, and it led to the village leaders being summoned to Delhi to explain themselves. The story of the two Christian villages showed how effective was Muslim evangelism. The Muslims made clear that there was no caste in their faith and they would be accepted by old Muslims immediately. There would be an imam chosen from their village, to provide local leadership. This was not the case with these Christian congregations, which were looked after by pastors who came and went from the towns or cities. I visited these villages ten years later, and found them satisfied that they were accepted, and their low-caste status had been put behind them. Of course, there are divisions in Islam, but it is sad that the degree of these divisions seems to be less, at least in South India.
The Hindutva movement of recent decades has attempted to claim India for Hinduism, and to eliminate the secular nature of the constitution established in 1949. This made clear that, as a Fundamental Right, subject to public order, morality and health, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. As early as the mid-1950s, the Nyogi Commission was established to consider the work of foreign missionaries in Madhya Pradesh, and its report focused largely on questions of conversion. One witness commented that the aim was to create a Hindu state, with existing minorities ‘integrated into Hindu culture’. The tug of war has continued since then, with various individual states bringing in anti-conversion bills, covered over under the title ‘Freedom of Religion’ and highlighted as bills to protect poor, vulnerable scheduled castes and tribes from the onslaught of Christian missionaries, from home or abroad. Political parties were formed around this issue, and eventually the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led the coalition government in Delhi in 1998. It had a Hindutva ideology, and had been behind the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodya in 1992. Ayodya is considered the birthplace of Rama. It has led coalition governments twice in Delhi, and it won a landslide victory in May 2014, under the strong and controversial leadership of Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Hindutva-influenced state of Gujarat. The Congress was seen as tired and unable to deal with corruption. We shall see how important Gujaratis are in the Indian diaspora.
Earlier, the BJP was never able to implement more partial Hindutva demands, such as the building of a temple at Ayodya, and eventually lost power to Congress in 2004. Minorities breathed a sigh of relief. But this did not prevent strong opposition to Christian mission, continuing in BJP-ruled states such as Gujarat, Karnataka and Orissa. In Gujarat it also led to more than 1,000 people being killed, mainly Muslims, in riots in 2002. The activist wing of the BJP, the RSS, was accused of attacks on Christian worship, buildings and occasionally, most notably in Orissa in 2008–9, on village Christians themselves. Arguments centred upon ‘inducements’ leading to conversions, and for the dedicated Hindu nationalist, Christian education or medical work could be seen as an inducement. So also exploitation of the economic weakness of the lower castes, or their psychological or mental vulnerability. The suggestion was that they were not capable of making spiritual or rational choices.
The result of this struggle over decades has been to strengthen Christian exclusivism as a missionary and theological stance. It has also led to a movement that can only be called evangelistic, to reconvert Indian Christians to Hinduism. The process of reconversion is known as suddhi. Certain mutts (spiritual centres) are dedicated to such a mission, and there is a liturgical reconversion ceremony where the pollution is removed from the candidate, ash is placed on his or her forehead, and the person readopts a Hindu name, which is then published in the local gazette. For some, this is a genuine reconversion; for others it is a deliberate plan to regain lost benefits. Relief aid is also sometimes used for conversion purposes. It is said that in Gujarat, after the earthquake in 2002, those who were suffering had to chant Ram, Ram, before receiving relief. Of course counter-claims were made about certain Christian missions, both then and in the post-tsunami period.
Another factor in reconversion at the village level has been pastoral neglect. In some mass movement areas there was a failure of ministry. Villages were rarely visited by pastors. I have documented this in the Madurai/Tiruchi area. Gradually, villages fall back, not out of belief, but lack of follow-up and teaching, and through lack of creative leadership. Eventually, they end up only celebrating Christmas and New Year, and then even that ceases. They become Hindu in all but name, and eventually in name also.
It should be emphasized that the majority of Hindus remained as they had always been, on good terms with their Christian neighbours. They attended Christian mission schools and went to Christian hospitals, without fear that they would be forced to convert, and sure they were entering institutions of quality where spiritual values were upheld. It is not surprising that, with a few regional exceptions, the Hindu majority has normally joined with the minorities
