Indoctrinating children into religion

Mr. Innaiah Narisetti, president of the Indian Chapter of the Center for Inquiry has reiterated a controversial and old thesis, which says that children’s rights should include complete freedom from religious belief or conditioning.

His point is when child marriages are prohibited and kids are denied voting rights then why the same restraint is not observed when it comes to conditioning of kids mind towards religion. Parents treat their offspring as their property and impose their belief system on them. It’s time they should refrain from indoctrinating the children into their religious beliefs so that they have the freedom to adopt or reject religion when they become adults. Mr. Narisetti claims that the conditioning renders children incapable of exercising their choice in religious affairs.

Now the questioning is did he himself not faced the same ‘indoctrination’ when he was a kid? Has it really harmed him?
If his theory is correct then teaching children in schools is also not a right thing to do because that too would mould kids in a particular fashion and they will not feel free to go beyond what has been taught to them. Perhaps he has forgot that parents try to give a positive direction to their kids and later on those kids take their own independent view on various issues according to their experiences.

There are numerous examples around us, which show that people could not be restricted in their pursuits of higher knowledge and goals despite their conditioning in particular way by their parents.