RELIGIOUS CONVERSION OR RELIGIOUS CHOICE?

Universal Human Right

THERE is a heated debate on the issue of religious conversion. This is based on misunderstanding. Both parties take conversion as proselytization—one person attempting to change the religion of another person. It portrays conversion as a bilateral issue, while it is not actually so.

Making choices is everyone’s birth right. An individual is free to choose his education, his job, his business, his life partner, and religion as well. Religion is also a matter of individual choice. No one has the right to apply curbs to religious freedom.

Human development fully depends on whether or not one has full freedom to pursue one’s goals.

Individual choice of religion has been affirmed in the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and accepted by all the nations. The right to choose one’s religion is also upheld by the Constitution of India.

Freedom of choice is not something to do only with religion. Human development fully depends on full freedom to pursue one’s goals. Placing curbs on any kind of freedom is not as simple as people think. It is not correct to single out religious freedom.