Education is a tool to enlighten people, make their lives better and do so many other improvements in a person, not only in IQ but also mentally and psychologically. But it seems that some evangelists and christian missionaries in Tamil Nadu are using it as a tool to push their mission of converting the whole world to Christianity.
Christian Missionaries don’t even spare budding minds
According to a News18 report, Tamil Nadu students in schools and tuitions are being forced to hate the Hindu religion and accept the Christian way of life. Kids like Rajan, a student of class 8, are being told to pray to Jesus otherwise they will suffer “failure in life and deformities to their body”. Many parents were outraged against this but it seems the school administration willfully allowed it to happen.
Rajan’s Father told News18, “School is not a place where we send our children to learn how one religion is better than others. This creates hatred. Many other parents were outraged on learning about it. We took the matter up with the school administration but only to see that no serious action was taken.”
A month earlier, a video went viral in which a class 6 girl from Kanyakumari, complained to the school’s administration about her teacher. Her teacher had asked her to read the bible and told her that all other deities are Satan. The teacher was later on suspended for this.
Read More: When it came to Criticizing Christian Missionaries in India, Gandhi minced no words
Lavanya’s Unfortunate Case
Earlier in January, a 17-year girl, Lavanya ended her life due to constant pressure to convert her religion. She was a class 12th girl studying in Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School, Thirukattupali in Thanjavur. In her dying declaration she said that in her presence, her parents were told to convert her to Christianity for further studies. When she didn’t accept it, she was scolded constantly. When the whole of her class would have gone on Pongalvacation she was forced to clean toilets, wash dishes and do other chores. The Madras HC had later ordered a CBI probe in this matter.
Read More: Forced to convert, Lavanya killed herself. Now, Tamil Nadu media is attacking her family
Christian Missionaries doing forced conversions since Eternity
The Christians have been doing evangelical and missionary activities for many centuries. They did crusades, invasions and forced the local communities to convert to Christianity by force. Later when Indians were under British rule, they deliberately kept Northeast isolated from the rest of the country in the name of preserving tribal, local culture and nature of the north-east. They allowed the Christian Missionaries to undertake mass conversions and most of the North-Eastern states now are Christian majority states.
Read More: With Bhagwan Birsa Munda and Rani Kamalapati, PM Modi snatches tribals from Christian Missionaries
Evangelists and missionaries in modern times have just changed their tactics a little. They now coerce young kids and their parents in the name of better studies, opportunities or monetary benefits. Many have spoken against these evil practices of the Christian missionaries but who will better explain the gravity of this than ‘Mahatma Gandhi.’
In one of his published words, Gandhi wrote, “It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace. Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?” Gandhi in Harijan: January 30, 1937.
A few months later, Gandhi again wrote about this phenomenon. “Only the other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple, and demolished it. This is outrageous”. Gandhi wrote in Harijan on November 5, 1937.
This intolerance towards other religions not even sparing centers of learning is despicable. Followers of Monotheistic religions need to act as better human beings and separate a few basic things like education, religion and conscience. Many states have brought the law to ban forced conversions and even the Honorable Supreme Court has stated that the right to practice religion doesn’t include the right to convert. Teachers need to rise above petty evangelical feelings and become Gurus to their students in a real sense.