These rather pedestrian views can be trivially countered. For instance
Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism have great traditions of fighting caste.
Buddha especially laughs at the suggestions that virtue can be inherited
by birth and repeatedly avers that action is what decides virtue.
True, Christianity and Islam have very cruel histories, especially
Christianity in its treatment of American Indians and Africans, and good
Christians and Muslims must be ashamed of their legacies. (Have not the
Australian and the English Anglican churches apologised for slavery, even
if it is a merely symbolic gesture? Does Hinduism not have its crosses to
carry, or Buddhism for that matter? And I have not come across a swamigal,
seer, jeer or mutthead who has come close to apologising for
untouchability and caste.) But Christianity in India, except in Goa, has
been a refuge for people considered 'untouchable'. Similarly Islam. This
is especially true in Tamil Nadu. Many Dalits have made great progress
after converting to Christianity or Islam. Besides, Christianity's great
contributions in education, health and social service, of which the
'upper' castes themselves have obtained maximum advantage, are too well
known.
Why should not I as a person, and we as a people, take the good of
all that is today easily available? Why should I not imbibe the
egalitarian views of Islam or Buddhism or whatever it might be that I find
inspiring? Just as many Europeans find, say Buddhism, appealing.
Finally let each person decide. I might have decided to convert to
a faith because it allowed my children education and self dignity. It
might heve been doctrinal matters. Whatever the reason, let the individual
decide. If Mr.J.venkata subramanian thinks Hinduism is a great religion -
which might not be independent of his 'upper' caste status if that is
indeed the case - why he is welcome to it. Many of us prefer Buddhism or
Christianity or Islam, let us prefer our ways. Many of us who think that
caste and untouchability are precisely the problems with Hinduism, we will
find our ways out of the morass.
Shiva Shankar.

-------------------------

Excerpted from A. Toynbee's 'A Study of History' (Part VI - Universal
States):

....... the encounters of the religions with one another brings up the
question whether they can coexist in fruitful harmony or whether one of
them will eventually supersede the rest. Till recently, the higher
religions have coexisted, mainly because the past inadequacy of means of
communication had set limits to the propogation of even the three
principal missionary religions: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. By
harnessing muscle power and wind power, their disseminators had succeeded
in capturing entire continents, but not the whole face of the Earth.
Present-day means of communication make it possible for each of them, and
for other religions too, to win adherents all round the globe; and for
each, this raises the question of coexistence versus competition.
Buddhism has always acquiesed in an amicable coexistence with the
previous religions of the countries into which it has spread; and we may
hope that this Buddhist tradition will prevail. Our common human nature is
differentiated into different spiritual types; these different types find
satisfaction in different presentations of religion; and the recent
`annihilation of distance' has made it possible, now, for the first time,
for an individual to choose for himself, when grown-up, the religion he
finds most congenial to him, instead of inheriting automatically, through
the accident of the time and place of his birth, without regard to his
individual temperament.
This freedom of choice would be assured to the individual in a
physically united world if Buddhism were the only missionary religion in
the field. Unhappily, Christianity and Islam do not have Buddhism's
tradition of tolerance. Hitherto, each of them has demanded from its
adherents an exclusive allegiance. Each of them, too, has been unwilling
to tolerate the coexistence of any other religion except its own
precusors, and these only in an inferior status and on humiliating terms.
On these terms, Christianity has tolerated Judaism grudgingly and
non-commitally - and at periodic intervals has withdrawn even this
modified toleration - while Islam, less grudgingly and more bindingly, has
tolerated both Judaism and Christianity. Are the Christian and Muslim
`Establishments' capable of extricating themselves from their own
traditions? Will they be able to adopt the amicable spirit of Buddhism
which answers to the spiritual needs of a physically unified world? If
Islam and Christianity prove unable to achieve this revolutionary change
of outlook and ethos, will they lose their hold? And, if they do lose it,
will their heritage pass to Buddhism, or will Mankind embrace some other
religion or religions that have not yet appeared above the horizon? The
`annhilation of distance' has already raised these questions, but it has
not yet indicated what the answer to them are likely to be. ...........

------------------------------------

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