Conversion: A Healthy Historical Process

Conversion: A Healthy Historical Process A few years ago I went through a book by an Indian writer called The Politics of Conversion. I found that there was only one point on which I differed from the author and that was the choice of title for the book. I felt that it might more justifiably have been called The Politicization of Conversion. This would have underscored the necessity to avoid the sensationalism of giving a political hue to something which was, after all, a natural reality. What is conversion? Usually conversion is equated with proselytism. But conversion, in its broadest sense, is much further reaching, in that it is a universal principle of nature. It is a historical process—healthy and inexorable—and attempting to put a stop to it would be like trying to put a stop to history itself. And who in this world has the power to do so? Conversion, in reality, is the birth of an entirely new entity resulting from the encounter between old and new schools of thought. This is a universal law established by nature itself. The study of human history reveals that one process is always at work. Carl Marx had wrongly called this dialectical materialism. More rightly this is a dialogue-conversion process. That is, when two systems of thought clash with each other an intellectual revolution ensues. This dialogue-conversion process is the only ladder to all kinds of human progress. That is, whenever any revolution of civilization has been produced, or a human group has succeeded