{
  "bookName": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials",
  "authorName": "M. K. Kuriakose",
  "publisherName": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge",
  "publicationYear": 2011,
  "chapterNumber": 161,
  "chapterName": "1925. Gandhi on Conversion and the Indigenous Identity of Indian Christians",
  "pageFrom": 332,
  "pageTo": 332,
  "pages": [
    {
      "pageNumber": 332,
      "ocrText": "332\nHISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA\n161. GANDHI ON CONVERSION AND THE INDIGENOUS\nIDENTITY OF INDIAN CHRISTIANS (1925 A.D.)\nWriting on the subject of conversion and the life style and attitudes\nof Indian Christians, Mahatma Gandhi appeals to them not to equate\nChristianity with denationalization. Young India, August 20, 1925.\nCited in A. T. Hingorani, ed., The Message of Jesus Christ, pp. 25-28.\nWhen I was a youth, I remember a Hindu having become a\nconvert to Christianity. The whole town understood that the\ninitiation took the shape of this well-bred Hindu partaking of\nbeef and brandy in the name of Jesus Christ, and discarding his\nnational costume. I learnt in later years that such a convert, as\nso many of my missionary friends put it, came to a life of freedom\nout of a life of bondage, to a life of plenty out of the one of penury.\nAs I wander about throughout the length and breadth of India,\nI see many Christian Indians almost ashamed of their birth, cer-\ntainly of their ancestral religion, and of their ancestral dress. The\naping of Europeans on the part of Anglo-Indians is bad enough,\nbut the aping of them by Indian converts is a violence done to\ntheir country and, shall I say, even to their new religion. There is\na verse in the New Testament to bid Christians avoid meat, if it\nwould offend their neighbours. Meat here, I presume, includes\ndrink and dress. I can appreciate uncompromising avoidance\nof anything evil but where an ancient practice may be even desirable,\nit would be a crime to part with it when one knows for certain\nthat the giving up would deeply hurt relatives and friends.\nWhat Conversion should Mean\nConversion must not mean denationalization. Conversion\nshould mean a definite giving up of the evil of the old, adoption\nof all the good of the new and a scrupulous avoidance of every-\nthing evil in the new. Conversion, therefore, should mean a life\nof greater dedication to one's own country, greater surrender to\nGod, greater self-purification. Years ago, I met the late Kali\nCharan Bannerjee. Had I not known before I went there that\nhe was a Christian, I should certainly not have noticed from the\noutward appearance of his home that he was one. It was no diffe-\nrent from an odinary modern Hindu home, simple and meagre\nin furniture. The great man was dressed like an ordinary un-Euro-\npeanized Hindu Bengali. I know that there is a marvellous change\ncoming over Christian Indians. There is on the part of a large\nnumber of them a longing to revert to original simplicity, a longing\nto belong to the nation and to serve it, but the process is too slow.\nThere need be no waiting. It requires not much effort. The",
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ]
}