Religious Conversions In God we trust

“God is very angry with India,” a mother told her daughter. “Which God,” the little girl asked? “I am confused. Everyone appears to be fighting over each others -- the Hindu-Muslim Gods in UP and now the Hindu-Christian Gods in Madhya Pradesh. Aren’t they all scared that they will go to Hell,” she added for good measure. Either way it matters little. For the little girl had hit the bull’s eye.

If the Opposition raged against the RSS and its cohorts when poor Muslims were converted to Hinduism in Agra last week, akin to those launched in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Orissa for reconverting the tribal Christian back to The Hindutva’s Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) activists alleged that Christian preachers from Bhopal and Kerala had promised jobs and money to illiterate tribals' if they practiced Christianity at its ‘Changai Sabha’ in Ratlam.

Fuel to the fire was added by BJP firebrand MP Yogi Adityanath. Only in June, despite denials by Islamic fundamentalist outfits like National Democratic Front (NDF) and ‘Campus Front’ of Popular Front of India (PFI), Kerala’s Chief Minister Oommen Chandy informed the Assembly that 2667 young women were converted to Islam since 2006. Police figures, on the other hand total over 4000 conversions in the last four years alone. Add to this another 30,000 girls have been converted in Karnataka alone according to the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti.

Raising a moot point: Should one dismiss these cases as an orchestrated political conspiracy? As religious xenophobia? Or is it the outcome of rampant bad blood by the Sangh Parivar over re-conversions across the country?

Undeniably, religious conversions in multi-faith India are threatening to sow fresh discord once again as rabid Saffron Sangh outfits have raised the ante against conversions right post the BJP coming to power. Despite, the Government underscoring its commitment to maintain the nation's secular foundations, communal harmony and suggesting States adopt anti-conversion laws.

Bluntly, the raging inferno of hatred is because religion per se has become the most exploited and explosive social and political issue. And religious vote-bank politics is the flavour of the season. Big deal if it threatens to destroy the body politic of the nation wherein even angels fear to tread!

Turn North, South, East or West, the story is the same. Religion is turning out to be a question of money, big money. Recall, flush with funds from their headquarters in the US, a number of church groups allegedly converted hundreds of Hindus to Christianity in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Kashmir and Karnataka by giving them money and jobs in the decades post Independence.

India’s misfortune is that Hindu, Muslim and Christian fundamentalism is growing thanks to political and intellectual double-speak. Whereby, secularism has degenerated from its lofty ideal of equal respect for all religions to a cheap and diabolical strategy for creating captive religious vote-banks.

Questionably, what have right wing Hindu organisations done to change unshackle their brethren from poverty? Why don’t they spend the money collected for building temples on the poor and tribals’? Shockingly, a recent caste survey revealed that over 52 per cent upper caste Hindus still treat Dalits as “untouchables” and refuse to let them enter temples or kitchens in their homes.

Remember, the State is apolitical and has no religion except the Constitution which grants equal rights to everyone. Article 25 of our Constitution lays down the tenets of freedom of religion and has an important rider. It specifies the limits within which religious freedom can be exercised.

All people are equally entitled to freedom of conscience, and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. Interestingly, the UN guarantees the right to convert to another religion as a human right. Alongside many Western countries allow conversion while some Islamic nations have banned conversion from Islam to another religion while permitting conversion to Islam.

Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have enacted anti-conversion laws.

Importantly, religious conversions have nothing to do with protecting the sanctity of a religion. Nor does religious freedom justify extension to a planned programme of conversions. At the same time, however, secularism cannot be a one-way street, with appeasement of minority communities.

The State is neither anti-God nor pro-God. It is expected to treat all religions and people alike. But so caught up are all in their frenzied pursuit of political nirvana through separatism, that they confuse themselves and the voter – and, indeed, history itself. Converting religions gush into political slush!

By: Poonam I Kaushish