A Religion may be defined as the presence of a belief in the sacred or the holy OR the essence of religious awareness as awe, a unique blend of fear and fascination before the divine. Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix. People have different perceptions and beliefs with respect to religion. With changing times the word religion has also got many faces and values. Not only the beliefs, people have also converted their religions. So far for my knowledge, I thought we are born with an identity and that is our unique identity for this birth on earth. We are supposed to conserve our identity, perpetuate our existence and keep our faith in whatever we believe. 

Now, if this is the case then what does the word “Religious Conversion” means? Just the adoption of a new religious identity, or a change from one religious identity to another. Why do people convert their religions? What is it that could not bind our mind to our originality, our roots? May be people just want to attach themselves to some religion in which they have more faith. But, how do we lose our faith in our believes which is our self hood?

Well surely people must have their own thinking involved in this process. Let us check the scenarios where people convert religion.

•  Marital conversion, religious conversion upon marriage outside of religion
•  Secondary conversion, done because of a personal relationship
  
•  Deathbed conversion, the acceptance of religious belief shortly before death.
  
•  Forced conversion, done under threat—a form of religious persecution
  

So at this point, I see the first three conversions do not account a high percentage to the total number of religion conversions taking place. If we take India for consideration, definitely the topper in the list is forced conversions. In case of India, I can add another sub category to Forced conversion, that is, Bribed Conversion. This means, influencing/coaxing/alluring a person to convert their religion in return of some price they may get. Both forced and bribed conversions are popular in our country. Protectors of different religions, in order to grow their number use these conversion methods. Legally, we have the right to speak to others about our convictions, with the purpose of influencing the others. So this leads to Bribed conversions in India. Today the most popular being Christianism, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism also count.

Both forced and bribed conversions have to be controlled legally in our country in order to secure the singleness of every individual. In our country, the poor society is the first target for this. Different religious people aim indigent slum people for their motives. There are many such villages in India, where number of Hindu villagers have been converted to Christians. The reason behind this is pretty clear yet it is projected as something pure. Uneducated needy kids are taken to schools in the name of providing education but ultimately are forced to follow their religions. Motivating others, participating in their cultural functions etc also rewards the poor. There are many such things which are going on under everyone’s consciousness, but nobody is bothered to raise a voice. I feel sad, when our political leaders pose as protectors of our religions, but fail to actually protect our people from getting influenced. In the name of religion, these people just know to fight and gain some popularity for themselves and no good. End of the day, what does we get? Our identity is lost because of poverty, low self-esteem, lack of faith and belief in our own religion.  All I want to express is if this religion conversion is taken place with the will then well and fine (which is not happening) otherwise our society has to think on this. 

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