Looking at the letters page on 17th January I felt that I had to respond to more than one letter on that page. Let me deal with caste bias first.
We all know that the pressure of Hindu organisations has had an effect on the Prime Minister on holding back on caste discrimination as we are so near the election. What I have never understood is that if there is no discrimination on the basis of caste, why is everyone worried about the law saying that caste discrimination should be illegal? Surely there is no need to worry since according to all the Hindu organisations it does not exist. So why so much anxiety? Surely the law will then never be used.
Secondly I want to say a word about religious conversion. I think that we are forgetting a fundamental point. Both Islam and Christianity are prosletysing religions. It is the duty of Muslims and Christians to convert people of other religions to follow their own. In view of both of those they are actually saving those they convert from going to Hell.
Hinduism is not a prosletysing religion. We have never done any mass conversions, in fact it is not that easy to really convert to Hinduism.
If the Muslims and Christians had been doing mass conversions in India it does not mean that we should embark on that road. It is so not a Hindu practice and I think it makes us demean ourselves and put ourselves down at the same level as Christianity and Islam.
Baroness Flather
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