Today, with Ayodhya for the moment allegedly on-the backburner, Christian conversion ... being sought to be made into key national issues. Meanwhile, the BJP and the Government it leads ... talk about the need for a "national debate" on conversions and do nothing to seriously curb the anti-Christian campaign by other Parivar affiliates like the VHP. The ground for the Ramjanambhumi agitation had been prepared in a similar manner by the VHP for years, before the BJP formally took it up. Already in Gujarat, where the BJP is solely in power, a bill has been circulated to punish conversion through (a very vaguely defined) "allurement" by a minimum of three years in jail.
What is worrying is the way terms of discourse and commonsensical everyday assumptions are getting moulded, as had happened during the Ayodhya agitation ... Conversion is always assumed to be Christian (or, in different contexts, Islamic or any other non-Hindu) conversion. The systematic work of the VHP ever since its foundation in 1964 to spread high-Hindu practices and norms among adivasis is never acknowledged as conversion, but described by terms like Shuddhi (purification), 'reconversion', or paravartan (turning back). The implicit assumption behind the use or acceptance of such terms is that being a Hindu is somehow the "natural" condition of any Indian. Discursively, therefore, we are already perilously close to Hindu Rashtra. And "Hindu", as defined by the Sangh Parivar, is obviously worlds removed from the devotion of a Ramakrishna for whom the difference between Ishwar, Allah and God mattered as little as that between jal, pani and water.
The surprisingly apologetic tone about conversions, even among many critics of the anti-Christian campaign, makes necessary the restatement of (the) obvious. Conversion in the sense of voluntary change of religion is not just a logical corollary of the Article 25 clause about the fundamental right to "preach, practise and propagate" religion (why else should anyone seek to "propagate"?). Freedom of conscience surely includes the right to change one's ... religion, and a curbing of that right can lead to restrictions on freedom of choice in general, with dominant groups dictating what one can think or do in politics, artistic tastes, dress, ways of life. Conversely, conversion by force or fraud is equally reprehensible, and one fails to see the need for any "national debate" about it. Given the current political and administrative situation in a country where even Dara Singh can roam around freely, it should be obvious that groups like the VHP are far more likely to indulge in such methods. There is ample evidence, notably from Gujarat, that forcible or fraudulent Hindu conversions are in fact going on a significant scale in adivasi areas (see, for instance, the Citizens Committee Report on Incidents in Dang District, Delhi, 1999).
The total implausibility of forcible Christian conversion in today's India makes necessary a constant harping on Inquisition atrocities centuries ago. This extends to Christians the old Sangh Parivar strategy of branding all Muslims as 'Babar-ki- aulad'. All modern political movements deploy 'history' to enhance legitimacy and more. It needs to be emphasised, however, that 'history' is vital for the Hindutva project on a qualitatively higher scale: hence history text-books and funding bodies have always been the first target of saffronising drives whenever the Sangh Parivar has got into the corridors of power ... Hindutva ... has been always marked by significantly gaps and displacements. Thus a foundation- text of the movement, Savarkar's Hindutva/ Who is a Hindu (1923), written just a few years after Jallianwalla Bagh and the massive Hindu-Muslim unity of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, managed the remarkable feat of virtual silence about British rule through turning the edge of an admittedly-powerful and seemingly nationalist rhetoric entirely against medieval 'Muslim' invaders and oppressors. The gap widened even more once Muslim communalism ceased to be a major political tendency after 1947 in the Indian part of the sub- continent.
Two inter-related questions arise here. Why target Christians, then, and how is the campaign attaining some plausibility?
Christians, as a small and electorally insignificant minority in most parts of the country, are in the first place a conveniently safe target under conditions of coalition government. Adverse foreign reactions have so far been kept within limits by the new strategy of, not big riots, but everyday petty humiliation of Christians in many parts of the country, interspersed with occasional gross acts of violence against individuals. Attacking them helps to keep the wilder elements within the Sangh Parivar both satisfied and in good fighting trim for future, more aggressive phases. Perhaps more important, Christians represent a convenient and not entirely implausible surrogate for 'swadeshi' at a time when ... Government have speeded up the opening-up of the country to multinationals.
It remains an elementary fallacy to hold today's Christians (or Muslims) responsible for atrocities committed by some of their co-religionists centuries back ... Recent historical research is increasingly highlighting the extent to which sustained Christian philanthropic and educational work have had an empowering impact on significant sections of adivasis, dalits and poor and subordinated groups in general.
... Today, with the churches clearly changing in quite striking ways, there is ample evidence of far greater awareness of such issues among many - though of course very far from all - Christian activists in India. And perhaps it is precisely these aspects that arouse the greatest anger and fear among adherents of Hindutva ... (Source: The Hindu, 9 November, 1999)