The religious conversion going on across the country is not only a threat to religious freedom but also a threat to the country’s security, said Milind Parande, the Secretary General of Viswa Hindu Parishad in Odisha’s Kandhamal district on Tuesday.
Mr. Parande was addressing a meeting commemorating the death anniversary of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, VHP leader, whose murder in August 2008 followed anti-Christian violence in the Kandhamal district. The VHP Secretary General visited Laxmanananda Saraswati’s Ashram at Chakapada and stayed at Jaleshpata Ashram where he was hacked to death.
The VHP leader had earlier lamented that the report of the Commission of Inquiry over the killing of Laxmanananda Saraswati was yet to be made public.
“After Independence, States like Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram have become Christian dominated. It has happened due to a conspiracy of conversion hatched by missionaries. Demand for separation from India has been reverberating in different parts of the country. In religious conversion, a person does not only change their faith but also differences in opinion, which leads to the country’s destabilisation,” said Mr. Parande.
“Laxmanananda Saraswati had realized the repercussions of religious conversion for which he came to Kandhamal in the 1960s to protect the Hindu religion as well as the country,” he pointed out.
“Till the western countries invaded India, our country was the richest in the world. The British, Portuguese and French started looting India. Now, crores of people have gone down below the poverty line. Britishers had sent a confidential report to England that southern India had the maximum number of educational institutes in the 16th century. They started damaging institute after institute,” said the VHP secretary general. In the garb of providing service, missionary organisations were involved in religious conversions in the country, he alleged.
“Outlawed CPI (Maoist) and human rights activists have joined hands with Christian missionaries. This group of people was trying to divide tribal communities from within. Missionary groups backed by left-wing extremists were trying to convince tribals that they were not Hindu,” Mr. Parande alleged.
The VHP leader said the organisation would expand to one lakh villages and increase VHP’s supporters’ base to one crore.
