Sunday, Oct 12, 2003
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Kerala
By K. Venkiteswaran
He was delivering the keynote address on " religious freedom in the contemporary context — challenges and hopes" at a regional youth conference of the Church of South India (CSI) Youth Fellowship of the Diocese of North Kerala here recently. At the conference in which the CSI Bishop of North Kerala, George Isaac, presided, he said the freedom of conscience and religious belief was absolute. However, the right to act in exercise of a man's freedom of conscience and freedom of religion cannot override public interest and morals of society. And, in this view it was competent for the State to suppress religious activity that was prejudicial to public interest. The strength of a religion does not lie in the number of those who believed in it, but in the conduct of those who practise it. The best `propagandist' for the Hindu religion is the Hindu who lives up to its tenets. It was on account of great men that the Hindu religion survived even today against onslaughts from various quarters. Touching upon the issue of conversion, he recalled the Supreme Court judgment, which held that the right to propagate one's religion by advocacy or preaching did not include the right to convert another. Indians were free by virtue of the Article 25 to choose to adopt the religion of their choice. It was not guaranteed in respect of one religion alone, but covered all religions alike, and it could be properly enjoyed by a person if one exercised one's right in a manner commensurate with the like freedom of persons following the other religions. There was no such thing as a fundamental right to convert any person to one's own religion, he said. Quoting the Bommai case (1995), he said the court had rejected the argument that secularism was a "vacuous word" or a "phantom concept". It said that the founding fathers of the Constitution had proceeded to create a state, secular in its outlook and egalitarian in its action. They could not have countenanced the idea of treating the minorities as second-class citizens. On the contrary, the dominant thinking appeared to be that the majority community, Hindus, must be secular and thereby help the minorities to become secular. For, it is the majority community alone that can provide the sense of security to others. The significance of the 42nd Amendment Act lay in the fact that it formalised the pre-existing situation. Referring to the debate on the uniform civil code, he said: "If the proposed uniform civil code is not found to satisfy all the people, we may then have to protect such groups of people whose faith and ideology are affected by the code. Instead of forcing the code on them, it would be appropriate in the circumstances to add the proviso that whenever any part of the uniform civil code conflicts with their religious conception, they could opt out."
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