The Christian population today, after 2000 years of 'evangelisation', is less than three per cent. What's more, the census records show that its percentage has been falling. This disproves the point that conversions will change the demographic profile of the country. They .. are either unaware or not confident of the inner strength of Hinduism, which could successfully withstand centuries of foreign rule.

Various myths exist about Christianity's growth. The British were colonisers but they certainly had little interest in spreading their religion ...

An accusation often made is that violence and separation in the Northeast can be laid at the door of the Christians. Far from that, the church has in many ways stood for national integration. The Meiteis, the Tripuris, the Bodos and the Assamese ULFA cadres are not Christian. In Nagaland and Mizoram, the church has helped in restoring peace within the Indian framework.

Equally baseless is the charge that educational institutions are put to use for conversion. There are over 15,000 educational institntions run by Christians and crores of students, including L.K. Advani and Arun Shourie to name two, have passed out of them with their faith intact.

As regards the charge that force is used to convert, there has not been a single case where a person has accused the church of doing this.

Except in the case of tribals, conversion results in the loss of many facilities. Perhaps, the Hindutva agenda is to take away the benefits of reservation from the tribal Christians. If at all coercion is used, the state has a responsibility to crack down on the missionaries. Those who make the charge that the church gets huge funds from abroad, in fact, exposes the government's inability to control such flow of funds.

There is a strong opinion that conversion of tribals ends up in the destruction of their distinct identity ...Varrier Elwin (said) "Hindu 'reformers' are apt to import worse things into tribal society than they banish from it. Hinduisation of the tribes in central India has often meant a belief in caste that is more rigid even than that of the ancient Brahmins, and there are places where widow-marriage, which formerly had never been questioned, has now been forbidden, and boys and girls are married at an carlier age than formerly so that they may be saved from sin'.

A whole set of new taboos on food and drink have been imported. Worst of all, as Hinduism spreads in a tribal area the tribes tend to sink down to the bottom of the social scale.           (Source: The Indian Express, 11 January, 1999)