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To convert or not is an individual's right

There's an old saying in Tamil, that translates loosely as: even brothers are not as effective as a round of thrashing. The Bharatiya Janata Party, for long identified as a north Indian party with pro-Hindi leanings, has made some gains in the south in the recent past, and possibly its exposure to Dravidian culture has led it to imbibe this particular idiom well.

Its brutal tactic in dealing with the Christian community, with brute force right upfront, has helped it in one respect, in a way its earlier, comparatively pacifist demands could not: that is to bring the whole issue of religious conversions to the centrestage of Indian politics. With the national agenda for governance imposing on the BJP government at the Centre a code of dos and don'ts, which has clearly miffed the traditional vote bank of the Sangh Parivar, pressure was on the saffron brigade to demonstrate clearly that it had not bid goodbye to its core agenda.

This reassurance was essential, since even the die-hard Sanghi does not expect the alliance government to complete its term. Actually, with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee taking on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the party organisation and emerging victor at the recent Bangalore conclave, the die-hard Sanghi, who has been put in his place in Nagpur, will not want this government to go anywhere near completing its five-year term, since he believes that the longer Vajpayee and Co continue in office, the more difficult it will be for the RSS to ensure a BJP victory in the next election.

So, he needed to send a clear message to the rank and file, that the NAG notwithstanding, the organisation was mindful of its core agenda, and that there has been no abandonment of the same. This is where the Christian tribals in the countryside came in as cannon-fodder. Conversions, however few, always have the potential to inflame passions, and it is probably true that relations between tribals and neo-converts in hamlets to Christianity may have soured. What the RSS's agents have done is to take up the same and blow it up as a national issue, which it clearly is not.

Even the prime minister, ever a stickler for discipline otherwise, has been unable to counter this onslaught. He knows that the right thing to do would be to send the Keshubhai Patel in Gujarat packing, and not have a party bigwig come on television and waffle about not one person being killed, just some makeshift churches were destroyed, but that would have ensured a head-on collision with the gerontocrats in Nagpur, something he is not keen on at the moment, at least not so soon after he has pushed them to the wall over the issue of the government's primacy over the party.

What this has resulted in, is that the issue of conversions, on which the national agenda for governance is ominously silent, has been raised, and is being debated, even if the main Opposition party, the Congress, is not all that keen on doing so, for reasons of its own.

The BJP's strange bedfellows, ever willing to swear by the NAG otherwise, have also been caught in two minds over this issue, with even Chandrababu Naidu, who has always maintained that his support to the government is issue-based, saying that conversions should be discussed, so presumably in his eyes this is a valid issue.

Which is all fine. Conversions are not a modern phenomenon, they have been around since the day of Gautama Buddha, if not earlier, and I daresay they will be around well into the next millennium as well, so the government needs to lay it on the table what its intentions are on this issue. Does it want a constitutional ban on conversions, is the first point that the government needs to clarify, and if yes, how it intends going about converting this into legislation, given that even comparatively innocuous legislations tabled by the BJP have floundered on the rocks of its parliamentary inadequacy.

A constitutional ban on conversions sounds fine, but where does it fit in, especially since the Constitution of India is categorical about the right to religious freedom? Inherent in this right, is the individual's right to choose his faith, so does this government believe that this is a suspendable right?

I believe that the issue of conversions cannot be discussed logically, rationally and sensibly so long as it is the BJP government that is initiating the dialogue, Vajpayee or no Vajpayee. For, this party, and its parent organisation, have succeeded in creating the impression among a large number of Hindus that their numbers are under threat because of religious conversions. Thus, 50 years after Independence, even with Hindus numbering more than 80 per cent of the population, the impression is growing that the community is dwindling. In fact, this must be the only community which, despite such large numbers, believes that its days are numbered. Talk of paranoid millions!

To revert to the issue of conversions, the debate, such as it is, needs to consider not only who is converting to which religion, but also why. Since the Sangh Parivar has grown phenomenally in the countryside in the last decade, it must have found out the reasons why tribals are becoming Christians. I use the phrase 'becoming Christians' and not 'converting', since the communities that are in the pale of civilisations, do not conform to what you and I consider Hinduism. For the Sangh Parivar, it becomes convenient to brand them as Hindus, since the whole issue is about numbers, votes, but ask the tribals if they consider themselves to be Hindus, and the answer should be illuminating.

I come from an urban centre, from an upper caste background, and I know the realities of caste, the extent of its hold, and how it skews perceptions. I have seen families treat human beings as chattel, and worse, only because they come from a lower stratum. Attitudes have not changed much, despite progress, despite urbanisation. If anything, the estrangement that results from social advancement, push in the roots of orthodoxy deeper, rather like how the NRI is more gung-ho about India than the poor desi who has to put up with the national drudgery.

So, even conceding the Sangh Parivar's basic premise that the native population, including the tribals and other dispossessed, of this land was, is Hindu, the key question still remains unanswered: why are the numbers leaving the Hindu fold? The answer is not difficult to divine: it is that the Hindu superstructure is highly discriminatory, terribly iniquitous on the underdog, and has become fossilised into customs and rituals. The core of the faith may be splendid, but the ugly exterior, which is all the underprivileged get to see, does nothing for them. The imagery is rather like the rath of Lord Jagannath. The chariot with the idol on top may be glorious, but what if those pulling it have decided that there is no glory for them in throwing themselves under the giant wheels so that the gods may continue their perambulations?

Since the Sangh Parivar claims that it is a Hindu revivalist organisation, that it stands for defending the Hindu faith, let me offer a piece of advice, as a Hindu Indian. I too believe that the faith is under enormous threat today, but unlike the Sanghis, I don't believe that my faith is being challenged by Semitic or other faiths. Hinduism's biggest danger today is from its practitioners, its refusal to adapt to a changing environment, its steadfastness in believing that rituals and superstitions constitute the central message of the faith, its reluctance to accept that the caste system is iniquitous in the extreme, that it condemns millions to a fate worse than anything imaginable for no other reason than that they were not born as forward castes.

Even Gandhiji, with his affection for the Harijan, could not cleanse the Hindu psyche of the evil of caste, but then he did not have the overt dedication to the Hindu cause that the Sangh Parivar does. Let these self-styled defenders of the faith usher in a genuine renaissance and not focus on breaking masjids and chapels, and they will find that there is no need to ban conversions. Nobody will want to convert from a faith that treats them as equal human beings, regardless of caste, community, creed or colour. If the Parivar is unable to do this, its motives in hyping Hindu causes will always remain suspect.

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Saisuresh Sivaswamy