For decades, while Islamists are pushing forward their notorious agenda named ‘Ghazwa-e-Hindu’ with the target of an Islamist conquest of India, and while Vatican’s Pope John Paul II said, “In the first thousand years, Christianity blossomed in Europe. In the second thousand years, it spread to the American and African continents. In the third thousand years, let us pray that it spreads to the rest of the world and India”, Christian and Islamist missionaries are spending lavishly with the nefarious goal of getting Hindus converted into Christianity and Islam. According to several analysts, more than one million Hindus in India are falling victims of Muslim or Christian religious conversionist group every year. Such notoriety of religious conversion of Hindus are continuing both by Christian and Islamic missionaries.
According to several media reports, over one million Hindus are converted into Islam or Christianity in India, while in the recent times, Christian and Islamic missionaries are targeting expatriate Hindus by mostly luring them into love trap, thus emotionally blackmailing Hindu youth and finally pushing them towards conversion.
During the very first century, after Christianity was founded in the year 52 AD, Saint Thomas, a Christian missionary landed in Kerala in India and began preaching Christianity. But the highest conversions of Hindus took place when Mughals invaded India. Along with the kingdoms of Kashmir, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in India, Hindus in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Burma, which were then a part of India, bore the brunt of conversions the most. Here are description of some of the most infamous Mughal invaders who had played notorious role in getting Hindus forcibly converted into Islam.
Muhammad bin Qasim:
According to historians, during this period, anti-Hindu acts such as forcible conversions, demolition of temples, slaughter of cows and killing of Hindus to wipe the race, reached a pinnacle. Act of this Islamic invader in the year 712 is known as a black period in the history of Sindh province in India.
Mughal ruler Aurangzeb
Following his coronation as the monarch of Delhi, Aurangzeb chalked out a notorious strategy of forcibly converting Hindus into Islam. The ‘Royal Asiatic Society’ has published a list of day-to-day conversions of Hindus during the Aurangzeb regime recorded in a historic record named ‘Maasir-i-Alamgiri’.
Aurangzeb re-introduced the jizya, a tax on non-Muslims, which had been suspended for the previous 100 years by his great-grandfather Akbar.
Aurangzeb also ordered the desecration and destruction of temples when conquering new lands and putting down rebellions, punishing political leaders by destroying the temples that symbolized their power. In 1669 he issued orders to all his governors of provinces to “destroy with a willing hand the schools and temples of the infidels, and that they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teaching and practice of idolatrous forms of worship”.
Aurangzeb tried to enforce strict Islamic law by ordering the destruction of newly built Hindu temples. Later, the procedure was adopted of closing down rather than destroying the newly built temples in Hindu localities. Scores of temples were destroyed entirely; in other cases, mosques were built on their foundations, sometimes using the same stones. Deities in temples were smashed, and the city of Mathura was temporarily renamed as Islamabad in local official documents.
Sikh texts claim that their Guru Teg Bahadur accompanying sixteen Hindu Brahmins on a quest to stop Mughal persecution of Hindus; they were arrested and commanded to convert to Islam on pain of torture and death. As they refused, in November 1675, Mati Das was sawed in half, Dayal Das was boiled alive, Sati Das was burned alive, and Teg Bahadar was beheaded.
According to Mirat-i-Ahmadi, Aurangzeb converted the temple of Chintaman at Sarashpur (Gujarat) into a mosque named Quwwat-ul-Islam (might of Islam) in 1645. Three years after he became king (1658), he sent Mir Jumla on an expedition to Cooch Bihar who demolished all temples in that city and erect mosques. In 1665, he issued an order to the governor of Gujarat to destroy again any rebuilt temples previously destroyed.
In 1669, Aurangzeb ordered to destroy Brahmin schools and temples at Thatta, Multan and Benares. In 1670, he demolished Dehra Keshav Rai temple at Mathura and laid foundation of a mosque.
Tipu Sultan:
When Tipu Sultan came to power, he vowed to convert all Kafirs (infidels) – meaning Hindus and non-Muslims to Islam. He sent message to Muslims in all villages instructing them to preach Islam to all Hindu male and female. If they refused to accept Islam willingly, then to convert them forcibly or kill the Hindu male and handover the Hindu females to Muslims.
When Tipu Sultan raided Karnataka, within a day he forcefully converted 50,000 Hindus to Islam. He formed a special group of radical and thuggish Muslims to run his religious conversion agenda. Because of his cruelty on Hindus and forcibly converting Hindus into Islam, then Ottoman sultan of Turkey conferred him with highest honor.
Nizam of Hyderabad:
During his despotic rule, Nizam of Hyderabad compelled Hindu soldiers employed in his army to undergo circumcision and later converted to Islam. Countless Hindus who refused to convert were killed.
But it was not only the case of Muhammad Qasim, Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan or Nizam of Hyderabad. All the Mughal rulers had continued ruthless massacre and reign of terror on Hindus with the nefarious agenda of Islamizing India.
According to André Wink, the mutilation and destruction of Hindu religious idols and temples were an attack on Hindu religious practice, and the Muslim destruction of religious architecture was a means to eradicate the vestiges of Hindu religious symbols. Muslim texts of this period justify it based on their contempt and abhorrence for idols and idolaters in Islamic thought. Peter Jackson notes that the Muslim historians of the medieval era viewed the creation and expansion of Islamic Sultanates in Hindustan as “holy war” and a religious conquest, characterizing Muslim forces as “the army of Islam” and the Hindus as infidels.
Babur (1483-1530 CE) won Delhi after defeating the Lodis and began the Mughal Empire. Tuzuk-i-Baburi proudly provides lurid details of his repeated massacres of Hindus including raising high towers of Hindu heads cut off during and after every battle. And he destroyed Hindu temples.
Babur’s grandson, in 1568, ordered a massacre at Chittor after the fort had fallen. Akbar-Nama records the killing of 30,000 peasants with great zeal, something which even Alauddin Khilji had not done.
Akbar’s son Jahangir (1569-1627 CE), an alcoholic and a debauch, not much into the service of religion however encouraged conversions to Islam by giving daily allowances to the converts.
Mughal ruler Shah Jahan started his reign in 1628 CE. He ordered to bring down temples at Benares. Dozens of temples were demolished in Benares (1633). In 1635, Shah Jahan’s soldiers forced some captured females of the royal Bundela family of Jujhar Singh into a Mughal harem.
Muslim Empire in India, between the 12th to 18th centuries, is nothing more than a period of long-drawn-out pogrom targeting Hindus.
Christian notoriety in India
During the Portuguese rule of Goa, thousands of Hindus were coerced into accepting Christianity by the passage of laws that made it difficult for them to practice their faith, harassed them under false pretenses or petty complaints, and gave favorable status to converts and mestiços in terms of laws and jobs. The Goa Inquisition, was established in 1560 by Portuguese missionaries in the Estado Português da Índia. It was directed against backsliding converts (that is, former Hindus and Muslims who had converted to Christianity). The inquisition was proposed by St. Francis Xavier.
According to Teotónio de Souza the Hindus faced severe persecution with great fortitude under the Portuguese in Goa. Vicar general Miguel Vaz had written to the king of Portugal in 1543 from Goa requesting that the Inquisition be established in Goa as well. Three years later Francis Xavier made a similar request in view of the Muslims in the region and the Christians abandoning their faith. On hearing of the excesses of the Inquisition in Goa, Lourenco Pires, Portuguese ambassador at Rome, expressed his displeasure to the crown while warning that this zeal for religion was actually becoming a disservice to God and the kingdom. According to de Souza, the Inquisition led to the downfall of the Portuguese Empire.
Mappila Riots or Mappila Outbreaks refers to a series of riots by the Mappila (Moplah) Muslims of Malabar, South India in the 19th century and the early 20th century (c.1836–1921) against native Hindus and the state. The Malabar Rebellion of 1921 is often considered as the culmination of Mappila riots. Mappilas committed several atrocities against the Hindus during the outbreak. Annie Besant reported that Muslim Mappilas forcibly converted many Hindus and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize, totaling the driven people to one hundred thousand.
Portuguese set foot in India in the year 1498 under the leadership of Vasco-da-Gama. With this began the political journey of imperialistic views of the Christians. The Christian missionaries immediately followed Vasco-da-Gama. Thereafter, the main objective of the Portuguese was to spread Christianity rather than expansion of their empire through trade. It is at this juncture that conversions began. Christian missionaries would throw bread into the wells behind the houses of Hindus at night, and when Hindus drank that water the next morning, these missionaries would proclaim ‘You have now become Christians’. The frightened Hindus would then realize that they had been deceived, and would adopt conducts of Christianity.
In 1542, the Portuguese King John II sent a missionary, Saint Xavier, to Goa to convert Hindus. After his arrival in Goa to convert Hindus to Christianity, he resorted to brutal atrocities.
Modus operandi of Saint Xavier:
When describing his method of conversion, Saint Xavier wrote, “Within a month I managed to convert over 10,000 men, women and children in the kingdom of Travancore and changed their names to Portuguese names. After baptizing these new Christians, I would order them to desecrate their deities and altars at home. In this way, travelling from one village to another I converted people to Christianity”.
This anti-Hindu Xavier has assumed the position of a Saint. It is very unfortunate that in Goa some Hindus who have no pride in their religion stand in queues to pay homage to the corpse, which performed countless atrocities on their ancestors. In fact, some think it is an honor to be educated from schools and colleges named after him.
In 1560, under Pope’s orders, the Portuguese army arrived in Goa to spread Christianity. This army committed brutal atrocities on Hindus and killed thousands of Hindus who refused to convert to Christianity. (Source: Weekly Sanskruti Jagruti 4th to 11th July 2004).
The rule of the East India Company was established in the State of Bengal in 1757. Thereafter, at the end of the 18th century, Charles Grant made a report on the propagation of Christianity in India and sent it to William Wilberforce and other members in the British Parliament and the Bishop of Canterbury. After eight days of continuous deliberation in the Parliament on the proposition of Charles Grant, Christian missionaries were granted permission to propagate their religion.
During the rule of East India Company before 1857, Hindus were forcibly converted to Christianity by the missionaries.
After the war for Independence in 1857, Lord Palmerston told the Archbishop of Canterbury, “The sooner Christianity is propagated to maximum number of people in India, the more beneficial it will be for our empire”.
During their regime, the British, who were shrewd, preached religion through the medium of administration, education and service and tried to convert people to Christianity.
After the British set foot in India, when contemplating on which language to use to educate people, British educationist Lord Macaulay wrote to his father (who was a staunch Christian missionary), “Hindus educated in the English medium never remain attached to their religion”.
On August 16, 1946 the Muslim league published a pamphlet that detailed the day-to-day activities for Muslims. Among many orders to the Muslims in this pamphlet, one was “rape Hindu women and girls, kidnap them and convert them to Islam”.
After Independence, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru granted Christian missionaries the freedom to preach their religion as per Article 25A of the Indian Constitution. Consequently, the pre-Independence percentage of Christians in India, which was a mere 0.7 percent, is over 10.9 percent today.
After Independence, India experienced a severe scarcity of food-grains. Since the financial condition of the country was bad, Russia agreed to supply wheat under barter. However, the US put certain conditions on India before agreeing to supply wheat. One condition was to permit Christian missionaries to spread Christianity in the country. Since there was tremendous opposition to this condition, Nehru appointed a committee under the Chairmanship of Justice Bhawani Shankar Niyogi. Despite Niyogi’s advice that this was not just a question of propagation of religion; the conversions that will follow should also be taken into account. Yet, Nehru accepted their conditions and made changes in Article 480 of the law so as to be able to procure wheat. Ever since the process of spread of Christianity, conversions have been going on freely.
In 1955, under the chairmanship of Justice Bhawani Shankar Niyogi, the Madhya Pradesh government had constituted a committee to probe into the activities of Christian missionaries. In its report the committee had clearly put forth, with many evidences showing how the Christian church and missionaries had political motives in the propagation of their religion. The committee had also suggested putting a stop to the foreign aid they were receiving. The Nehru government, however, chose to completely ignore this report.
In the post-Independence period, with the 42nd amendment to the Constitution Indira Gandhi introduced the word ‘secular’. Ever since secularism was promoted at the government level, many American organizations stepped up the pace of their process of propagating Christianity in India and the conversions.
Motives behind converting Hindus to Christianity and Islam
Pope John Paul II: “In the first thousand years, Christianity blossomed in Europe. In the second thousand years, it spread to the American and African continents. In the third thousand years, let us pray that it spreads to the rest of the world and India”.
Mother Teresa: “Conversion is the soul of the functioning of Christian missionaries. Without conversions, the missionaries will become lifeless”.
Father Johnson: “We westerners are under constant pressure to spread Christianity throughout the world. Since we believe that those who do not follow Christianity will go to Hell, we spread the message of Christ all over the world. Hindus believe that all religions are equal and hence, India is a suitable country for conversions”.
