Conversions: The Gandhian Critique and Our Response

In our process of trying to theologize in the Indian context, we need to take Gandhi very seriously, and this for three reasons. First, “No single statesman, politician and writer of recent times embodied to the same extent as Gandhi did the soul of his country and people.” No wonder, then, that R.C. Zaehner said that in Mahatma Gandhi Yudhisthira, the son of Dharma, was reborn in our times. Second, there was a constant struggle in him to bring a harmony between his belief and his life/ Third, many Christians consider him as one of the greatest Christians of our times, while some of his compatriots accused him of being a ‘Christian in  secret’, an accusation which Gandhi admitted was not new