“If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. For Hindu households, the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family, coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

‘Harijan’, English weekly, Poona, founded by M.K. Gandhi, dated May 11, 1935
1930s

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Mahatma Gandhi 238

pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-rul… 1869–1948

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“If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytising. It is the cause of much avoidable conflict between classes and unnecessary heart-burning among the missionaries… In Hindu households the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink. … The other day a missionary descended on a famine area with money in his pocket, distributed it among the famine-stricken, converted them to his fold, took charge of their temple and demolished it. This is outrageous. The temple could not belong to the converted, and it could not belong to the Christian missionary. But this friend goes and gets it demolished at the hands of the very men who only a little while ago believed that God was there.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Mahatma Gandhi The Collected Works Volume 61, Ahmedabad, 1975, p, 46-57. As quoted in Goel, S.R. History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

“Hindus do not believe in conversion. If anyone fears that Hindus are resorting to conversion, let there be a legislation in Parliament to stop this practice. Hindus do not want to change anybody. If you do not want anybody to convert, then do not convert Hindus too.”

Mohan Bhagwat (1950) Indian activist

On the Ghar Wapsi issue, " RSS leader Mohan Bhagwat justifies ‘ghar wapsi’, says will bring back our brothers who have lost their way http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/bhagwat-dares-oppn-says-if-dont-like-conversion-bring-law-against-it/", The Indian Express (21 December 2014)
2011-2014

“I almost wish I had a hundred bodies; they should all be devoted to my Savior in the missionary cause.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Two: Over the Treaty Wall. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1982, 45).

“It seems, you expect from me an expression of my views on the specific question: What type of missionary workers are wanted in India, rather than on the question whether any missionary workers should come at all to India? I shall respectfully speak my opinion on the latter point. I feel it is not really possible on the ground of logic or on the evidence of miracles to hold that amongst the religions known as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, anyone is nearer the truth than any other. You will permit me to object to the exclusive claims for Truth made on behalf of any one of these faiths. If this my first point is granted, the only justification for missionary work is proselytism. But is it good on the whole for men and women to change from one religion to another? I think it is not desirable to make any effort at proselytism. I feel that such efforts undermine the present faith of the people, which is good enough for promoting right conduct in them and to deter them from sin. They tend to destroy family and social harmony, which is not a good thing to do.”

C. Rajagopalachari (1878–1972) Political leader

The National Christian Council Review, December 1956, p. 490. quoted from Madhya Pradesh (India), Goel, S. R., Niyogi, M. B. (1998). Vindicated by time: The Niyogi Committee report on Christian missionary activities. ISBN 9789385485121

“I had come back at last, come back to my spiritual home from which I had wandered away in self forgetfulness. But this coming back was no atavistic act. On the contrary, it was a reawakening to my ancestral heritage which was waiting all along for me to lay my claim on its largesses. It was also the heritage of all mankind as proved by the seers, sages and mystics of many a time and clime. It spoke in different languages to different people. To me it spoke in the language of Hindu spirituality and Hindu culture at their highest.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

How I became a Hindu (1982)

“You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Hotchkiss
1900s, Getting Married (1908)
Context: Religion is a great force — the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours. Instead of facing that fact, you persist in trying to convert all men to your own little sect, so that you can use it against them afterwards. You are all missionaries and proselytizers trying to uproot the native religion from your neighbor's flowerbeds and plant your own in its place. You would rather let a child perish in ignorance than have it taught by a rival sectary. You can talk to me of the quintessential equality of coal merchants and British officers; and yet you can't see the quintessential equality of all the religions.

“I became my mother, my grandmother. I learned to travel all their paths and became all of them... I knew I had a mission, and no power on earth could stop me.”

Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) German painter

Quote, 1941-43; as cited in 'The obsessive art and great confession of Charlotte Salomon' https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-obsessive-art-and-great-confession-of-charlotte-salomon by Toni Bentley, in 'The New Yorker', 15 July, 2017
Charlotte wrote of the dead women in her family: her mother and grandmother; both committed suicide

“There was no simple riddance to the power of a dangerous political idea; no assassination possible to avert a disruptive change in technology; no natural death to be counted on to stop an economic change that ripped up ancestral estates or stirred up class discontent.”

Robert L. Heilbroner (1919–2005) American historian and economist

Source: The Future As History (1960), Chapter I, Part 6, The Inevitability of Progress, p. 31

“In May 1961 when I took over power as the leader of the revolutionary group, I honestly felt as if I had been given a pilfered household or bankrupt firm to manage. Around me I could find little hope of encouragement. The outlook was bleak. But I had to rise above this pessimism to rehabilitate the household. I had to destroy, once and for all, the vicious circle of poverty and economic stagnation. Only by reforming the economic structure would we lay a foundation for decent living standards.”

Park Chung-hee (1917–1979) Korean Army general and the leader of South Korea from 1961 to 1979

As quoted in An economy in armor; in Korea's quiet revolution https://books.google.com/books?id=yJZKpYXh2SAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+two+koreas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4QMiVa7UCsu3sAWQxoAg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20two%20koreas&f=false (1992), by Frank B. Gibney, New York: Walker and Company, p. 50

“Communism has sometimes succeeded as a scavenger, but never as a leader. It has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Speech at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKPOF-045-049.aspx NATO Headquarters, Naples Italy (2 July 1963)
1963

“If I had power and could legislate, I should certainly stop all proselytizing. For Hindu households, the advent of a missionary has meant the disruption of the family, coming in the wake of change of dress, manners, language, food and drink.”

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Mahatma Gandhi 238

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