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RSS objects to Pope's 'remarks'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 6. Adopting a tough stance on the recent utterances of the Pope reportedly questioning Indian anti-conversion laws, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh said today that the Pope's remarks were tantamount to a "direct challenge to India and its pluralist tradition".

The RSS, at a press meet here, urged the Centre to register a strong protest with the head of Vatican for what it called were "intemperate remarks on Indian laws".

In a statement, the RSS spokesperson, Ram Madhav, appealed to the people to "understand the sinister designs of the missionaries of these exclusivist, supremacist and intolerant faiths and be vigilant".

He urged the State Governments to enact laws on the lines of the ones recently promulgated by Tamil Nadu and Gujarat to "curb the menace of unethical conversion activities". The statement also referred to a Supreme Court judgment which categorically "stated that propagation of religious tenets does not include conversion".

Mr. Madhav referred to the recent statement of the Pope wherein he had reportedly told some Indian bishops that in some regions authorities had "passed unjust conversion laws". However, the RSS statement did not make any mention of the second Vatican Council's decree of 1963 on religious freedom which upheld the right to propagate but denounced all types of forcible conversions.

Surprisingly, the RSS sought to take shelter under a 1931 statement of Mahatma Gandhi which quoted him as having said that he was not in favour of the missionaries using their humanitarian deeds as alibi for proselytising. "Every nation considers its own faith to be as good as that of any other. Certainly, the great faiths of India are enough for her people," Gandhi was quoted as having said.

Mr. Madhav said the RSS was against conversion by "fraud, coercion and allurement". Some States such as Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Arunachal Pradesh had promulgated laws against conversion by force, he said but adding that the level of implementation was however "almost nil". The recently-created Chhattisgarh had become a safe haven for proselytisation activities, he alleged.

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