Christianity, Islam and communism and the global conquest

Each claims exclusive truth, dismissing predecessors as flawed: Christianity supersedes Judaism via Jesus as the Messiah; Islam negates both, presenting Muhammad as the final prophet; Communism rejects all as “opiates of the masses,” promoting a materialist utopia with monotheistic zeal. Rooted in apocalyptic visions, these absolutist ideologies fuel conflicts by compelling adherents to impose their truth globally, often at the expense of non-adherent civilisations

Over the past two millennia, universalist ideologies like Christianity, Islam, and communism have driven global conflicts, pursuing territorial, demographic, and cultural dominance, each emerging at different points in history. They targeted each other and pluralistic civilisations such as Roman, Greek, Persian, Mesoamerican, and Hindutva, with only the resilient Hindutva enduring, albeit with significant losses.

Readers may note that in 1892, Chandranath Basu coined the term "Hindutva" for his eponymous book as a synonym for Sanatan Dharma, avoiding the colonial term "Hinduism," and we accordingly use it to refer to Sanatan Dharma. This article examines their aggression, ideology’s primacy over economics, impacts on civilisations, intra-ideological conflicts, and exceptions like the Mongol invasions.

Defining lasting conflicts:

Lasting conflicts involve sustained territorial conquest, demographic shifts, and cultural imposition, reshaping civilisations over centuries. Christian colonialism, Islamic conquests and immigration, and Communist expansions (Soviet occupations, China’s Tibet annexation) reflect universalist mandates—crusade and evangelisation, jihad, or class war. Non-adherents defend their existence, unlike in short-term disputes.

Shared roots of prophetic monotheism:

Christianity, Islam, and communism share a prophetic monotheistic framework, granting believers a mandate to subjugate non-believers, seen as obstacles to a universal truth. While Judaism also stems from the same prophetic monotheistic tradition, it markedly differs by being non-proselytising, non-expansionist, and refraining from imposing its beliefs on others. Each claims exclusive truth, dismissing predecessors as flawed: Christianity supersedes Judaism via Jesus as the Messiah; Islam negates both, presenting Muhammad as the final prophet; Communism rejects all as “opiates of the masses,” promoting a materialist utopia with monotheistic zeal. Rooted in apocalyptic visions, these absolutist ideologies fuel conflicts by compelling adherents to impose their truth globally, often at the expense of non-adherent civilisations.

Christianity-The Sword and the Cross:

Christianity expanded aggressively via crusades, colonialism, and missionary work. From the 15th to 20th centuries, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and France conquered territories, eradicating non-Christian civilisations. Spanish conquests destroyed Aztec, Inca, and Maya cultures through genocide and forced Christianisation, justified by the 1513 Requerimiento.

British colonisation devastated Aboriginal Australia, while missionary work disrupted African and Asian cultures, creating Christian populations. Though trade was a motive, Christianity’s divine mission to ‘civilise’ non-believers was primary. Intra-Christian conflicts, like Catholic-Protestant wars and British exploitation of India show the ideology’s unifying force against non-Christians.

Islam-Conquest and demographic expansion:

Islam’s rapid expansion started in the seventh century, transforming the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond, through jihad-driven conquests, with economic incentives like jizya taxes contributing. The Islamic conquests (632–750 CE) largely wiped out pre-Islamic Arab, Persian-Zoroastrian, and Egyptian-Coptic cultures. The Umayyad conquest of Spain (711 CE) and Ottoman advances, including the 1453 fall of Constantinople, subdued Christian territories.

In the Hindu civilisational region, Islamic invasions (8th–18th centuries) devastated Hindu and Buddhist heritage, turning Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Indonesia, and Malaysia into Islamic nations, while leaving significant Muslim populations in other formerly Hindu and Buddhist lands. Contemporary Islamic immigration to non-Muslim regions like India, Europe, and the Americas is seen as demographic aggression, reinforcing cultural enclaves despite economic motives.

Intra-Islamic conflicts, like the Sunni-Shia Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988), reflect disputes over governance highlighting religion’s role. The Israel-Iran conflict, intensified by the U.S. bombardment of Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21, 2025, stems from historical Islam-Judaism-Christianity tensions, like the 627 CE Banu Qurayza execution, with doctrinal clashes driving persistence despite geopolitical framing.

Communism-Ideology as empire:

Emerging in the 19th century, communism became an aggressor through territorial and ideological expansion.The Soviet Union’s annexation of Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, and Central Asia imposed Marxist-Leninist ideology, suppressing local cultures. The Ukrainian Holodomor (1932–1933) killed four million, targeting non-Communist identities. China’s annexation of Tibet devastated Buddhist culture, and Mao’s cultural revolution eradicated Confucian and Taoist heritage.

Intra-Communist conflicts, like the Sino-Soviet split and the 1979 Vietnam-China war, arose from competing Marxist visions. While strategic motives existed, communism’s universalist mission to eradicate non-proletarian systems prioritised ideology, aligning with the destruction of non-Communist cultures.

Victims-The loss of pluralistic civilisations:

Christian, Islamic, and Communist aggression devastated non-Abrahamic civilisations. Roman and Greek cultures were subsumed by Christianity; Egypt’s Coptic heritage was marginalised by Islam. Pre-Islamic Arab-paganism vanished, and Persian-Zoroastrianism was nearly eradicated, with survivors fleeing to India as Parsis.

Mesoamerican civilisations—Maya, Inca, Aztec—were destroyed by Spanish conquests, and Indigenous Australian societies faced cultural erasure under British rule. Hindu and Buddhist civilisations lost territories like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Tibet to these aggressors. In India, the huge Muslim population creates demographic tensions. These losses underscore the destructive impact of universalist ideologies on pluralistic civilisations, with even resilient survivors like Hinduism facing profound erosion.

Religion and ideology over economics:

The primacy of religion and ideology in historical and contemporary conflicts stems from their universalist mandates. Christianity’s Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) propelled missionary zeal and colonial expansion. Islam’s concepts of jihad and ummah drove conquests and cultural dominance. Communism’s vision of class struggle and proletarian revolution sought global ideological supremacy.

While economic factors played a role, they were often secondary to ideological imperatives. For example, the Crusades (1095–1291) aimed to reclaim Jerusalem but secured trade routes as a byproduct. Soviet expansion prioritised ideological control over Eastern Europe, with economic gains as a secondary outcome. Ideology unified aggressors, casting non-believers as existential threats.

Intra-system conflicts further highlight ideological dominance. Catholic-Protestant wars, Sunni-Shia rivalries, and Sino-Soviet tensions arose from competing interpretations of truth, not mere economic disputes. Non-Abrahamic societies, lacking similar universalist drives, often adopted defensive postures to protect their pluralistic or localised traditions.

Enduring conflicts, driven by Christianity, Islam, and communism, manifest through conquest, colonisation, missionary efforts, immigration and ideological subversion.

These actions aim to impose a universalist vision. Historically, Christianity pursued global dominance through conquest, colonisation, evangelisation, and cultural imposition.

Today, Islam expands its influence in the Christian West and Hindu India through legal and illegal immigration, increasing Muslim populations.

Muslim migration patterns suggest motives beyond economics, as migrants bypass wealthy, less-populated Middle Eastern Islamic nations in favour of non-Muslim countries. Similarly, Bangladeshi and Rohingya Muslims frequently migrate illegally to Hindu-majority India, altering its demographics, yet rarely seek refuge in nearby Islamic states like Malaysia or Indonesia. These patterns suggest a strategic demographic expansion targeting non-Muslim societies for transformation.

The Hindu resilience and suffering:

Hindutva exemplifies a resilient yet heavily impacted survivor. It withstood Islamic invasions and rule, and British colonialism but lost territories like Afghanistan (once Gandhara), Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Southeast Asia to Islam. India’s growing Muslim population poses ongoing demographic challenges, reflecting the continuation of Islamic expansion.

The exceptions:

The Mongol invasions (13th century), a non-Abrahamic aggression, devastated Islamic, Christian, and Buddhist regions, partly in response to Islamic provocations like execution of Mongol envoys (1218 CE). Unlike Christianity, Islam, and communism, the Mongols lacked a universalist ideology and eventually assimilated into Islam, limiting their comparability.

Japanese imperialism (1931–1945), rooted in Shinto nationalism, was another short-lived exception, defeated in 1945. These cases align with reactive resistance to expansionist ideologies but do not match the sustained aggression of universalist systems.

Conclusion:

For the past 2,000 years, Christianity, Islam, and communism, propelled by unyielding universalist zeal, have unleashed relentless conflicts and genocides, obliterating pluralistic civilisations—Roman, Greek, Persian, Mesoamerican, and Indigenous Australian—while resilient Hindutva suffered profound territorial and demographic wounds.

The Mongol invasions, a fleeting exception, ultimately succumbed to Islam, mirroring broader resistance to such expansion. Since their emergence, these ideologies have banished lasting peace, their insatiable drive for global supremacy raging unchecked, ceaselessly reshaping the world at the grievous cost of pluralistic and localised traditions.

(The writer is a retired IPS officer, and a former Director of CBI. Views are personal)