Shahabuddin's Letter to Statesman, 23 May, 2000

I fully endorse your view that the Anti-Conversion Bill must not pass (Grand Design, 21 May, 2000) for yet another reason that by placing. obstacles in the path of changing one's religion the Bill violates the Constitutional guarantee of Freedom of Religion. Moreover, if a person is subjected to undue pressure or influence to change his religion, he is always free to revert to his original religion as well as he may set the legal machinery in motion under the existing criminal laws.

If the Indian State assumes the de facto role of the defender and promoter of Hinduism, it shall no longer be a secular state.

Separate Temples for Tribal Reconverts

The Shankaracharya of Puri announced that low-cost "Swastik temples" will be built all over the country and in Nepal to allow reconverts from Christianity and Islam ... to worship. He added that the reconverts would have all the rights that Hindus enjoy except for marriage.

... Jagadguru Swami Nischalananda Saraswati, said in order to avoid any embarrassment an alternative place of worship, as prescribed in Hindu texts, would be provided ... These are "Swastik temples" .of Lord Ganesh ... He said event he Hindus who converted to Islam in the past should be given a chance to return to their original religion if they so desired.(Source: The Indian Express, 5 jane, 2000)

Temples for the Lowly Editorial, The Hindustan Times, 8 June, 2009

The Shankaracharya of Govardhan Peeth in Puri, Jagatguru Nischalananda Saraswati, must have been pleased with his solution for sustaining social harmony ... Christians and Muslims wbo are to re-embrace their original faith of Hinduism et his behest cao find a place of worship without giving rise to any "confrontation". Such a danger could obviously atse if the reconverted tried to enter any temple which they spotted, for those who had never been converted, as also those in the upper echelons of Hindu society, may not like the idea. Hence, the Shankaracharya has prescribed a separate set of temples (for the reconverted).

To mark them out, he has also hit upon the excellent idea of having the Swastika symbol emblazoned upon them ... In more recent times, it was used by the Nazis in Germany ... to assert their superiority. In the Shankaracharya's scheme of things, however, the Swastika temples will denote inferiority, for it will be a reminder to those who enter them that the doors of the other temples are closed to them ...

... The establishment of separate temples ... however, is bound to remind the reconverted that nothing has changed. They are back to the same lowly status which they had discarded and must again learn to maintain the earlier respectful distances from the twice-born. For some, it may be a cause for disillusionment.