Every year, Baha’is around the world meet in electoral unit conventions to elect delegates who will attend the [tagBaha'i[/tag] National Conventions in the period Baha’is know as Ridvan (21st April to 2 May). These unit conventions are grassroots level of the Baha’i international democracy, in which adult Baha’is indirectly participate in the election of the Universal House of Justice, the Baha’i world governing council.

In the UK, unit conventions usually take place around this time of year, so that the delegates who are elected by them will have the opportunity to get to know many more Baha’is personally. Baha’is should vote people onto their assemblies on the basis of their spiritual qualities, not on the basis of personality or ability to give public talks or other irrelevancies.

The delegates elected in the current round of unit conventions will elect the National Spiritual Assemblies for their countries at Ridvan 2007. Those elected to National Assemblies at that National Convention will have the great honour of electing the Universal House of Justice at the International Baha’i Convention in 2008.

Our unit, in Hertfordshire, UK, held its unit convention today and has just elected a lady who has never served as delegate before. Fariba is the training coordinator for all the Baha’i communities in Hertfordshire and so has strong experience of how the Baha’i community is functioning at the grassroots. Her experience will be highly relevant to the consultations at National Convention. The fact that this will be Fariba’s first time as a delegate is also important; she will gain experience which will add to her capacities as a Baha’i and will increase the number of Baha’is in the UK with knowledge of what it means to serve at that level.

Technorati Tags: National Convention, Ridvan, democracy, Universal House of Justice

According this BBC story, many thousands of dalits, who used more commonly to be known as “untouchables” - untouchable to high caste Indians because they fall outside the Hindu caste arrangements - have converted to Buddhism and Christianity in the hope of escaping the appalling discrimination that they face in India.

Two questions strike me:

1. Aren’t they unlikely to escape the discriminationthey just because they have changed religion. Discrimination of this kind is often highly persistent.

2. Are they changing their religion from conviction and belief (which seems to me to be OK) or merely because they think it will result in an end to discrimination? If the latter, is that OK?

A further twist in this story is that some of the Indian states have passed laws in an attempt to make it more difficult to convert from Hinduism to other religions. Regardless of whether or not one thinks that the mass conversion of dalits is happening for the right reasons, these laws would seem to run counter to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief…

Technorati Tags: dalits, untouchables, caste, Indian, Hindu, Buddhism, Christianity