Arya Samaj-Hindu Fundamentalism

7/30/2019 Arya Samaj-Hindu Fundamentalism

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Conversion and the Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism: A Case Study

from Tamil Nadu, South India

Joe Arun

Campion Hall

Oxford University

1. Introduction

Conversion has been one of the issues used by Hindu fundamentalists both in

symbolic and instrumental senses to organise Hindus against religious minorities in

India, particularly against Christians. Consistently, Hindu fundamentalists have

questioned that in the mass conversions to Christianity do not have any spiritual

dimensions but it is only a political agenda of missionaries who by doing so

destabilise the Hindu society and culture. Unfortunately by treating mass conversion

of Hindus to Christianity only as a protest against the inequality of caste system and

as an escape from poverty and marginalisation they experience in Hindu society

Christians have not only answered effectively the question of the Hindu

fundamentalists of the lack of spiritual dimension in conversion but also confirm it.

This paper attempts to argue that conversion of Hindus does have spiritual dimension

and it is the element that drives the oppressed Hindus convert to other religions such

as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. The focus is here on Christianity.

Often too simplistically, in the popular comprehension, Hindu fundamentalism is seen

as an unprovoked reaction of Hindu fascists, attempting to decentre the secular

fabric of Indian society. This thesis in fact serves the purposes of the religious

minority communities and secularists (communists at the forefront of secular

ideology) that only by insisting on the secular ideology and values, mostly of Indian

constitution, can they possibly have some social order in the multi-religious Indian

context. But it certainly fails to realise the fact that Hindu fundamentalism has been

constructed mostly in opposition to the modernity and Christianity/Islam that cameinto India along with the British empire (Jaffrelot 1996: 11- 75; Gold 1994: 535 ff;

Van der Veer 2000: 18- 24). More importantly, they have consistently shown that

conversion is the most destabilising act that changes the demography and the

character of India and therefore their aggressive opposition to conversion by

reforming and organising themselves politically and socially is in every way justified.


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Although there have been many factors that have contributed to the formation of

Hindu fundamentalism, the issue of conversion was in fact one of the main factors

that motivated the enunciation of Hindutva (Ram-Prasad 2003: 528). Therefore

examining Hindu fundamentalism from the vantage point of the issue of conversion

can better grasp and characterise Hindu fundamentalism than from any other point ofview. In addition, this approach can provide better ways in which minority

communities could defend their religious freedom than by seeing Hindu

fundamentalism merely as politically motivated. Put simply, the paper lays bare the

neglected relationship between conversion, especially to Christianity, and rise of

Hindu fundamentalism in India.

The paper is in three parts. The first part rehearses the ways in which Hindu

fundamentalists argued against conversion and used it as an important factor in the

formation of Hindu fundamentalism from the 1920s to the present and how Christians

responded to Hindu fundamentalists poser on the conversion issue. The second part

presenting two empirical cases of conversion to Christianity in Tamil Nadu gives a

special emphasis to spiritual dimension of conversion to Christianity.1 The last part

2. Conversion and the Rise of Hindu Fundamentalism: a historical over view

The ways in which the colonial administration functioned in India in the 1870s led to

the first reaction of the Hindus who realised that their religion and society were in

need of reform within and defence against outside threat. After successfullysuppressing a strong civil revolt in northern India in 1857-8 the British monarchy took

over India completely. The first act of the Empire was to enumerate, classify, and

thereby control a quarter of a billion Indians (Van der Veer 2000: 19). In 1872, the

population of India was divided in two lines: caste and religion. The frame of

reference for the division was drawn on classical Hindu texts and made it a functional

reality. This is not to suggest that the British invented caste and religion for India but

the way in which these were then classified and recorded (to the extent that this

classification became a tool for governance) continued to be applied all over Indiafrom that time until now. The division of the Hindu majority and Muslim minority,

with their respective religious laws, became not only the electoral category that

1 I have not included here the 1981 conversion of low caste Hindus to Islam in Meenakshipuram villagein the southern Tamil Nadu since the present study focuses mainly on conversion to Christianity and itscontributions to Hindu Fundamentalism. For studies on the 1981 case of conversion, see Khan 1981;Kalam 1984; Swarup 1986; Augustine 1981; Raj 1981; Wilfred 1983; Fernandes 1984.


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helped form power structures but also the social category by which daily practices

were structured and organised. Both religious organisations sent their representatives

to political forums that became later fundamental to the conception and rise of

religious nationalism. One powerful justification for the colonial rule was that the

British were an enlightened race who had the duty to civilise the Hindus, who weredivided obsessively on caste complexities and religious affiliations and guided by

absurd rituals; the Indian Muslims were culturally backward (Inden 2000: 90-3; Van

der Veer 2000: 21; Pandey 1990: 66ff; Dirks 1989). To strengthen such claims the

missionaries and the colonial civil servants constructed texts and literature that further

portrayed Hindus as a divided and backward society that warranted the colonial

administration to put things in order; in addition, it was shown that this was also the

opinion of the indigenous population (Dirks 2000; Raheja 2000).

While the British Empire took control of India politically, many Christian missions

were established all over India on a large scale. These missions proposed Christianity

as a religion superior to the indigenous religions and there were mass conversions of

Hindus to Christianity2. In Bengal, which was the nerve centre of the British Empire,

many high caste Hindus converted to Christianity through the influence of the

Protestant missionaries. Illustrative of this was the case of the missionary activity of

John Muir3, a Scottish civil servant and Orientalist in the 1830s. He published

literature to prove the supremacy of Christianity over Hinduism and if Christianity

was the true religion then it should be proclaimed and the people must be saved

(Young 1981: 73-80; Van der Veer 2001: 23-4). Muir defined what should be the

criteria for a true religion: a miracle-working founder, holiness of scripture, and

universality of scripture; by this he tried to prove that Hinduism was false (Kim

2003: 19). The Hindus who converted to Christianity became later prominent

Christian thinkers, (for example Nilakanth Shastri, Pandita Ramabai, Sadu Sundar

Singh and Narayan Vaman Tilak) who, like the missionaries, argued for the

2 I should note here that I am not concerned with the conversion work of the Catholic church for thereasons that she had many versions of conversion, which differed largely from protestant and otherevangelical Christian groups that actually had engaged aggressive conversions from 1870s until now.See Kim 2003: 88-131 for how the Catholics viewed conversion and in what ways in which theProtestants differed from. Cf. upanov 1999; Ballhatchet 1998.3 John Muir ((1810-1888) served as an administrator in the north-western provinces and as a qualifiedSanskritist he reorganised the Sanskrit College at Benares in the mid 1840s. His treatise on thesupremacy of Christianity over Hinduism was published asMatapariksha, to which Hindu panditswere invited to respond. Although it was a very intellectual exercise Muirs writings did a lot toprovoke Hindu sentiments. See for details of debate between Muir and the pandits Young (1981).


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superiority of Christianity and invited Hindus to follow their way. Apart from this,

mass conversion of outcastes (Depressed classes) all over India to Christianity

increased the intensity of the aversion Hindus had towards the British Empire and

Christian missionaries who spoke about Hinduism as a religion steeped in idolatry and

inequality of caste system that were the opposites of individualist and utilitarianvalues of the secular West4. Many Hindu customs were prohibited by law and in

tandem the missionaries engaged in active proselytisation and educational services

(Jaffrelot 1996: 14).

This provoked strong opposition from many Hindus who were forced to initiate

internal reforms to make Hinduism compatible with the modernity of Europe. There

were three strands in which the Hindus confronted western criticism of Hinduism

(Jones 1989: 212-3; Kim 2003: 13). People like Ram Mohan Roy were able to see

the equivalence of Christianity and Hinduism, based on the ethical core of religion;

the second strand, proposed by Mahatma Gandhi, was that both Hinduism and

Christianity were valid although each followed different paths; but the Hindu pandits

argued for the supremacy of Hinduism over Christianity (Kim 2003: 13). Although

Mahatma Gandhi did not have any problem with having Christianity in India he

viewed the mass conversion of Hindus to Christianity as a threat to the unity and

harmony of India and to the very fabric of Indian tradition. He construed it as the

agenda of the British Raj and he even suggested the retention of foreign missionaries

after independence (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi XXVII: 204; also

quoted in Kim 2003: 25). During this time opposition to conversion was more an

intellectual idea than a political reality. For instance, Ram Mohan Roy made efforts to

show the similarities between Hinduism and Christianity by appealing to the fact that

both religions were more or less unified in their basic tenets and people like Mahatma

Gandhi argued for the equality of both religions (Jones 1989: 212-3).

Beyond the intellectual debate, the conversion issue led to the formation of many

organisations that were meant to defend Indian culture and Hindu religion. Initially,they aimed at reforming Hinduism by going back to the golden age of Hindu Dharma

by which a just society was formed, which was later according to them invaded by

Muslim rulers (1200) and the British (1800) (Van der Veer 2000: 65; Jaffrelot 1996:

4 On the contrary, Van der Veer (2001) has shown convincingly that in the times of colonial encounterbetween India and Britain religion played a vital role in the formation of Indian nationalism and Britishnational culture. Therefore, it is wrong to label India as religious and Britain as secular categorically.


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14). Later a militant strand of Hindu reform was born in the form ofArya Samaj5

started in 1875 in Bombay by Dayananda Saraswati and, in a sense, this planted the

seed of the Hindu fundamentalism that gave rise to so many Hindu fundamentalist

organisations later, such as The Hindu MahaSabha (1915), Rashtriya Swayam Sewak

(RSS-1925), Vishwa Hindi Parishad (VHP, 1960), and Jana Sangh and BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP), popularly called the Sangh Parivar ( legion) that promoted the

Hindutva6 ideology of one culture, one nation and one people7. In that sense

understanding Arya Samaj could help us understand and explain other fundamentalist

organisations, more sharply, Hindu fundamentalism itself. One of the seminal

writings of Dayananda, The Light of Truth, informs us that the ideology of Arya

Samaj viewed Varna social hierarchy as the Hindu culture and the Hindu identity

meant to be paradoxical to the Other (Muslims and Europeans); it described the

Aryans of the Vedic era as a chosen people who had territory between the Himalayasand Vindya mountains, the Indus and Brahmaputra, and who spoke Sanskrit, the

mother of all languages (Dayananda 1981: 248, 277-9). All this was aimed at

constructing ethnic pride among the Hindus. More importantly, to counter Christian

conversions, Arya Samaj imitated the conversion techniques of the Christian

missionaries in its Shuddhi, a purification ritual used for pollution removal for high

castes who came into contact with impure people (Dayananda 1981; Jaffrelot 1996:

16-17). One of the fundamental strategies of Arya Samaj was to assimilate those

cultural traits that had provided superiority to Christianity and emulate these by

discovering similar traits in Hindu scriptures and traditions and, in addition, it used

every means to stigmatise other religions. In two chapters on the Bible and the Koran

in his The Light of truth, Dayananda examined the idolatry of the Old Testament and

the weak arguments of the Prophet and stigmatised Christianity and Islam as a threat

to Hindus and their traditions. In this sense, the writings of Dayananda for Arya

Samaj provided the ideological apparatuses and logic of cultural reform from which

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Before Arya Samaj the Hindu reform movement was started by Brahmo Samaj organised by theCalcutta aristocracy in the middle of the 19c. Arya Samaj was mainly upper middle class organisationand it was only RSS which began to have membership from lower middle classes see also Gold 1994:537ff.6 The term Hindutva is a neo-Sanskrit term, the Sanskrit masculine suffix, -tva has been added toHindu to form an abstract term Hinduness (see Bhatt 2001: 77ff).7 The term arya has many connotations. It basically refers to the early Indo-Aryans lived in the secondmillennium B.C.E. In modern Hindi the term means cultured or refined or noble, a meaning whichhighlighted by Hindu fundamentalist organisations. Arya Samaj means society of aryas, society ofcultured Hindus following holy traditions inscribed in Vedas. See for more details on this Yadav (1976:13) and Gold (1994: 534ff).


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the entire Hindu fundamentalism and fundamentalist organisations would take

inspiration later in history every time they needed to do so in organising the Hindu

population of India. Many studies have revealed the fact that Arya Samaj with its

ideology was instrumental in founding other more militant organisations like the

Hindu MahaSabha, RSS, and VHP (Gold 1994; Jaffrelot 1996; Ludden 1999; Van derVeer 2000; Kim 2003; Ram-Prasad 2003). In particular, V.D. Sarvarkar gave the

substance for Hindutva (Hinduness) through his writings, especially in his

Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?, he explained that a nation should be construed as

Hinduness on the basis of unity of geography, race and culture (Ram-Prasad 2003:

527). To be a Hindu means considering India as the Holy land. This is what

differentiates Hindus from Christians and Muslims. This was the only effective way,

suggested Savarkar, in which Hindus as one united community could confront

Christianity and Islam and exposed the diversity and heterogeneity of Hinduism. ThisHinduness became gradually highly useful to create us (Hindus) and them

(Christians/Muslims) and laid the foundations for Hindu fundamentalism, a Hindu

nation. Specifically mentioning conversions, Savarkar said that Hindus who were

converted to Christianity and Islam were still Hindus because they inherited Hindu

blood in their veins and they share territory and race with Hindus; but they did not

belong to the Hindu nation because they were no longer part of the Sanskritic

civilisation. This was due to their taking on a new cult and having as their holy land

not India but Arabia and Palestine (1969: 91-113). However Savarkar invited Indian

Christians and Muslims to join by showing allegiance to India as the Holy Land and

Motherland. It greatly inspired Keshav Baliram Hedgewar who formed RSS to revive

Hindu nationalism that had been suspended for quite some time by the Nehruvian

secularism in the 1930s. Later, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar drew inspiration from

Savarkar for strengthening the Hindutva ideology that can be found in his We, or Our

Nationhood Defined. Like Savarkar, Golwalkar too saw that Hindu culture was

becoming weakened by outside influence and he proposed that Hindus should be

united to form a Hindu rashtra (Hindu nation), an extension of Savarkars Hindu

state (Golwalkar 1939; Gold 1994; Jafferlot 1993; Bhatt 2001). More importantly,

Golwalkar, following the Nazism of Germany and the Fascism of Italy, suggested that

only violence could bring Muslims and Christians into the Hindu fold (1970: 26; cited

also in Bhatt 2001: 146-7). Savarkar, Hedgewar and Golwalkar were the three seminal

leaders who laid down the foundations for the Hindu fundamentalism that we have


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as a direct threat to the ideology of RSS and its political wing Jana Sangh9. These

Hindu groups who advocated theocratic government and ethnic nationalism over the

secular nationalism of the Indian National Congress considered conversion as a

denial of Hindu identity and therefore a rejection of being Indian and the missionary

as an instrument of foreign oppression (Kim 2003: 63). Jana Sangh launched ananti-foreign missionary week during which the Hindu fundamentalist organisations

took strong roots all over the state and led to the formation of similar groups all over

India. The neighbouring state of Orissa took the conversion issue more seriously than

the Madhya Pradesh government. In 1967, it passed the Orissa Freedom of Religion

Act and in 1978 the Arunachal Pradesh passed the Freedom of Indigenous Faith Act

that condemned missionary activities and prohibited conversion from Hinduism. From

then on there have been many instances in which the missionaries and the Hindu

fundamentalists clashed with each other. State governments have used ad hocmeasures to contain this.

Relatively, there was much less tension between religious communities until the

1990s when Hindu fundamentalist organisations rose to prominence and sharpened

their Hindutva ideology of one nation, one culture and one people through their

participation in active politics through BJP (Bhatt 2001: 149ff). One of the main

reasons for the Hindu uprising once again was the conversion issue. Although in the

1998 elections the BJP party, with the strong support of the Sangh Parivar, won many

parliament seats so as to take over power at the centre that many feared would cause

communal clashes, it was in fact only the alleged mass conversion in tribal areas by

Christian missionaries that created a deep divide between the religious communities.

This prompted Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the prime minister and leader of the BJP, to call

for a national debate on conversion. Hindu fundamentalist organisations such as RSS,

VHP and Bajrang Dal used the issue to build their support bases in the tribal areas by

showing effectively to the general public that Christians were trying to destroy

Hinduism. To counter this, the Parivar launched a reconversion programme

popularly named Ghar Vapsi (home coming) in which the Hindu activists reconverted

tribals from Christianity to Hinduism. To complement this they also started schools

and other welfare activities in the tribal areas (Shah 1999: 312-5; Kim 2003: 156-8).

9 Jana Sangh was started as a political party when the leaders of RSS were increasingly unhappy aboutthe ways in which the central government containing missionary activities. Jana Sangh became laterBharatiya Janata Party (BJP).


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This caused serious communal violence in many places in the northern states,

particularly in Gujarat and Orissa, in which many Hindu activists started attacking

Christian missionaries. A much publicised case was that of the killing of Graham

Staines, with his two sons, an Australian missionary who worked among leprosy

patients. The Christians in the two states responded to this with protest rallies andtheir leaders condemned the attacks as a deliberate campaign of Hindu fundamentalist

organisations with the blessings of the central government (Martin 1999; National

Christian Council Review August 1999: 607-12). The Hindu organisations refuted the

argument of the Christians by saying that the root cause of communal violence was

only the deliberate act of the Christian missionaries who abused and attacked Hindu

deities (Shenoy 1999). The Hindu activists identified conversion as violence against

humanity and therefore evil and unacceptable and as an attack on Hindu

nationhood; it portrayed, they argued, the inherent intolerant nature of Christianity(Kim 2003: 166-9). From then on the Hindu fundamentalist organisations used the

issue of conversion to incite religious sentiments of Hindus by which they aimed at

building Hindu India.

3. Two cases of conversion and rise of fundamentalism

Case 110

: Pappanallur village lies in the northern part of Tamil Nadu, 93 km south of

Chennai city, in Madurantagam taluk of the Kanchipuram district. As elsewhere in

Tamil Nadu, the village is, socially and geographically, asin a typical Tamil village,

divided into Ur and Colony. The former is the residential area of the high castes and

other low castes and the latter is the residential area for the Paraiyars, one of the three

major outcastes in Tamil Nadu (the others are the Pallars and the Arunthathiyars

Chakkiliyars) 11. The population of the village is 1135 of which the Paraiyars are 433

and the Vanniyars 702. The Paraiyars are organised into four vagaiyaras, literally

meaning etcetera connotatively division or lineage (Moffatt: 1979:157) Taliyari,

Theradi, Sanar and Dhoti. Each vagaiyara traces its origin not only to itsancestors but

also by means of myths. Unlike the past, except for ten families, all the other

Paraiyars have a minimum ofone or two acres of land, some of which they bought

10 The data is drawn from my field study in the village on the conflict between the Paraiyars and theVanniyars.11 Pallars are the dominant outcaste group (64%) in the southern districts such as Thirunelveli andRamanathapuram. The Arunthathiyars are concentrated in Coimbatore (70%) and Madurai districts.More than 94% of Paraiyars live mainly in the northeast part of Tamil Nadu.


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from the Reddiyars who sold their lands and settled in the nearby towns and in

Chennai, and some were forcefully expropriated as Dargos12 land. Most of them, for

their livelihood, work on the land in cultivating paddy in wetland and millets and

pulses in dry land. A few go to Chennai city, mostly to suburban centres for coconut

tree tapping. All the Paraiyars were Hindus and part of the village until 1941 whenthey were converted to Christianity after a conflict between them and the Vanniyars in

the village.

In 1939, the Paraiyars distinctly remember, on the day of the Pongal festival, after

they had chased the cattle, a part of the festival, some of the Vanniyar youth led the

cattle into the fields where the Paraiyars had been cultivating pulses and destroyed the

pulse plants. As soon as the Paraiyars heard about this, more or less fifteen Paraiyars

went to chase away the cattle from their fields. While doing so they beat up some

milch cows to the extent that two cows died on the spot. This infuriated the Vanniyars

who went into the Colony in large numbers, burnt some of the huts of the Paraiyars,

and beat up Paraiyar men and women. This then led to a violent riot between the Ur

and the Colony. Although there was no death, more than twenty Paraiyars and five

Vanniyar men sustained serious injuries. The Vanniyars lodged a complaint against

the Paraiyars that they were creating caste conflicts in the village. The police from

Achirapakkam arrested about hundred men and women from the colony and ten men

from the Ur. The Vanniyars with their influence bailed out their men but the Paraiyars

were very helpless For the Paraiyars this was the first time they had been to a police

station and they did not have a clue about how they should go about getting out.

Asirvatham, one of the Paraiyars, who had some contacts with the Cheyur Catholic

parish, ten miles from Pappanallur village, proposed that they should go to Cheyur to

meet the parish priest, Father Paul, who would probably help them get out on bail.

So a few Paraiyars went to Cheyur and narrated the whole incident to Father Paul who

promised to do what was necessary. Since the parish priest had a good rapport with

the police, he persuaded them to release the Paraiyars. The elder Paraiyars have vivid

memories today of how the priest brought them from the police station and gave each

family ten kilos of rice. One of them said, if Father Paul was not there to help us we

would not have survived the attack of the Vanniyars.

12 The term dargos comes from Urdu word darkhastfor petition. This is the system instituted by theBritish in Chengalpattu area in 1863 by which a cultivator could petition to the government forpermanentpatta title to the land that he had been cultivating for a long time (Moffatt: 1979:73).


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After the event, Father Paul began to visit the Colony regularly. He talked to them

about how they should become economically self-sufficient and the importance of

educating their children. Being impressed by Father Pauls concern for them and his

support to them, both moral and material, the Paraiyars expressed the wish to become

Christians. Some Paraiyars claim that it was the priest who asked them to convert toChristianity since he thought that from within Hinduism the Paraiyars would not be

able to change the situation. Contrary to the above two views the high castes maintain

that the Paraiyars became Christians because they were given Bulgur wheat and rice.

The Catholic priest played on the Paraiyars weakness for food, as soon as they see

food they will be ready to do anything, said Kannappa Gounder. To which the

Paraiyar youth argue, we accept our grandparents became Christians for wheat, but

you should not forget that that was only way we could get out of the domination of

the Urpeople. We have no regrets argue the Paraiyar youth.While the debate continues what we are certain about is that the Baptismal register

kept in Cheyur parish gives us the evidence that on 19 th June 1941 forty-nine

Paraiyars, and later on 8th August in that same year, twenty-eight Paraiyars had

received baptism. Others gradually were converted to Christianity and, by the year

1949, the whole Colony of the Paraiyars had become completely Christian. The

Vanniyars say that they were not aware of the baptism but they came to know about

the conversion only when Father Paul celebrated mass in the Colony. Initially they

expressed their displeasure about this to some of the Paraiyars saying that it was a bad

precedent to allow outsiders to become involved in the affairs of the village and this

did not contribute to the unity of the village.

The Ur council took it up in one of its meeting during which the Paraiyars were

forced to promise that although they were now Christians they would continue to do

all the services they had done when they were Hindus, including drumming at

funerals and village festivals, especially at festivals in Hindu temples. More

importantly, the Hindus (mostly Brahmins) planned to organise a pilgrimage (paatha

yaathrai) to the holy site of Thirupathi Venkateswarar temple in Andhra Pradesh

state. From 1950s onwards the Hindus of the village started organising pilgrimages on

a large scale in which many Hindus were asked to take part so that they could stop

conversions to Christianity. In the village council it was decided that every family

should pay two bags of paddy or Rs. 100 ( 1.5) for the maintenance of temples of the

village. Some of the leaders contacted the Hindu religious leaders at Kanchi Mutt in


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Kanchipuram town for financial support to safeguard the Hindus in the village who

they said would be soon converted by Christian missionaries. Immediately, Kannappa

Gounder, a former village leader said, the Mutt sanctioned a substantial amount of

money to Pappanallur temples. For quite some time there had been communal tension

between the two groups which was mostly seen as a caste conflict rather than areligious conflict, although the line between religion and caste in the village was so

much blurred that it was not easy to categorise the conflicts either along caste or

religious lines. But what happened after the conversion of the Paraiyars helps us

believe that Hindus had started organising aggressively against the Paraiyar

Christians. Illustrative of this was the fact that many Hindu youths of the village were

given a specific responsibility not only to protect the temples and but also to create

disturbances when the Christians had their mass in the Paraiyar Colony. Every time

mass was celebrated in the colony Hindu youth used to throw stones at the churchbuildings to disrupt the mass. Later, in the 1980s, when theHindu Munnani (Hindu

Front) was formed in Tamil Nadu in the context of conversion to Islam in

Meenakshipuram village, which we will discuss soon, more than twenty five youths

from Pappanallur joined the front and took part in various events which the front

organised to unite the Hindus in Tamil Nadu. In the village the high castes formed an

association called Thirupathi Bajanai Sabha that regularly held meetings to discuss

not only rituals in the village temples and pilgrimages but also how to counter

Christian missionaries influence in the village. At the time of field study done in the

village in 2002, the Hindus of the village considered the conversion of the Paraiyars

in 1941 as the way in which Christian missionaries spread their religion by giving

money and food to the Paraiyars. They argued that this largely contributed to the

creation of strong Hindu fundamentalist sentiments in the village. However many

Paraiyars said that the high castes used the conversion idea to create divisions

between the two religious communities and this enabled the high castes to deliberately

disguise their genuine efforts to liberate themselves from untouchability.

Case 2: Conversion in Madurai City

In Madurai, one of the southern cities of Tamil Nadu, on 23 August 2002, more than

two hundred Hindus were baptised by a team of pastors belonging to the Seventh Day

Adventist Church, at its `Thirumarai Peruvizha', `South Tamil Conference', held at the

Seventh Day Adventist Matriculation Higher Secondary School, at Ellis Nagar in the

city (The Hindu, August 23, 2003). Most of them were drawn from places like


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Dindigul, Ammapatti, Sankarankovil, Tirunelveli, Manamadurai and Sivaganga, by

the pastors who had convinced them about the benefits money, free education for

the children of the converts and jobs for the youth accruing to them if they

embraced Christianity. The baptism was held as the final event on the second and

final day of the conference. Earlier, the villagers were asked to affirm theircommitment to Christianity by raising their hands to about 10 questions relating to

Jesus Christ's second coming, their determination to go by the Ten Commandments

and their determination to donate one-tenth of their monthly earnings for missionary

work.

During 2001, similar events had been held by the Seventh Day Adventist Church at

the same place, said a member of the Church, and had converted 1,500 Hindus

belonging to Sholavandan, Perayur, Tirumangalam and Melur to Christianity,. They

were given clothes and money, and promised employment with the mission and free

education for their children. According to an organiser of the baptism, the president of

Seventh Day Adventist Church, India, D.R. Watts, a Canadian, had set a ``tough

target'' for the pastors, entitled: `go one million', four months ago. The website,

`maranatha.org', reveals the activities carried out by this congregation throughout the

country, particularly in Nellore, Ongole and Tenali in Andhra Pradesh, where

thousands of Hindus were converted to Christianity as a part of the major project of

conversion by the Seventh Day Adventist church.

Both press and TV media made much of the event that provoked the Hindus in

Madurai and the Hindu Munnani (Hindu Front)13 led by Rama Gopalan to speak in

the media against Christians in Tamil Nadu and pressurise the state government to

13It is believed to be a Tamil Nadu wing of RSS. From the early 1980s, the RSS has been planning to

penetrate Tamil Nadu, one of the few States which was free from the ideological and political influenceof the Hindu communalists. Coimbatore was one of the prime targets selected by the RSS, just asKanyakumari district and some other pockets in southern Tamil Nadu, where the composition of thepopulation provides the opportunity for creating hatred against the minorities, were targeted. The RSSset up the Hindu Munnani as its front for its political and communal activities in Tamil Nadu in 1980

and it became active in Coimbatore. For one-and-a-half decades now, the Hindu Munnani has been theplatform of the RSS combine. As in many other urban industrial centres the pattern unfolded in atypical way. Religious processions were promoted - such as the Vinayaka Chathurthi procession, whichwas a new feature in Tamil Nadu. Just as the Ganesh Chathurthi processions in Maharashtra were usedas a vehicle for communal mobilisation and propaganda against minorities, these processions sharplyescalated tensions. Clashes took place even in Chennai as a result of such processions. (Frontline,October 22, 1993) Significantly, another front organisation set up by the RSS was the Tamil NaduHindu Merchants Association. This was used to rally Hindu merchants and to communalisecommercial rivalries with Muslim traders. See Pandian (2000) for how the Sangh Parivar adapts toTamil nationalism of the Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu.


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curb the conversions14. The event also appeared to be one of the main reasons why

the state government, headed by Jayalalitha, Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

(ADMK), who is portrayed as a sympathiser of the Sangh Parivar, promulgated an

ordinance prohibiting conversion in October 2002, which was called the Tamil Nadu

Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance (published in thegovernment gazette, October 5, 2002, no. 659, Part IV Section-2). The ordinance

not only prohibits forcible conversion; it also hands out imprisonment and a huge

fine to those found guilty of the offence and it requires all religious conversions to

be reported to local magistrates. It is important to note that it was an ordinance, not a

law, which needed urgently to be issued by the state governor, P.S. Rammohan Rao,

since the State Legislative Assembly was not in session to pass a law. Stating the

reasons for such urgency for an ordinance, the explanatory note attached to the

ordinance, signed by A. Krishnankutty Nair, secretary to the government lawdepartment, said that the government received serious reports of conversions by use

of force or allurement or by fraudulent means and it further said that it would act as

a deterrent against the antisocial and vested interest groups exploiting the innocent

people belonging to depressed classes. To understand the background of such an

explanatory note one has to visit the Marina beach in Chennai where the Protestant

churches and the Baptists churches that have links to the USA regularly organise

massive Charismatic conventions. These occasions are used to propagate Christianity

aggressively by the churches and are offensive to the beach goers in hot summer days.

They often are flooded with leaflets and flyers asking them to believe in Jesus and if

they do not do so they were told they will only go to hell. Behind all this there are

many organisations funded by different churches abroad which run biblical colleges

to train ministers whose only aim is to convert as many as possible. It is an industry

in itself (cf. website: www.forerunnerindia.com).

Meanwhile, Christians and Muslims vehemently opposed the ordinance and organised

rallies and token fasts to express their views against the action of the state

14 According to the 1991 census, there are 19,640,284 in India that constitutes 2.34 per cent of theIndian population. Catholics form 50 percent of the total Christian population, 40 per cent areProtestants (many distinct persuasions and churches such as Church of South India (CSI), Pentecostal,and seventh day Adventist) 7 percent Orthodox Christians and 6 per cent belong to indigenous sects.Of 2.34 per cent Christian population 16.18 per cent are in Tamil Nadu. In the total Christianpopulation over 50 percent are from the untouchable castes, 15 to 20 per cent are tribal in origin andthe upper caste Christians are largely from the Konkan coast and Kerala. See DSouza 1993 ; Rowena2003)


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government. On 24 October 2002, Christians and Muslims organised a massive

fasting prayer at St. Andrews church, Chennai, and on that day more than six

thousand educational institutions run by both Christians and Muslims remained closed

(The Hindu, 24 October 2002). Most of the speakers in the function from different

political parties and non-political organisations viewed the ordinance as an agenda ofthe Sangh Parivar done through the Jayalalitha government that was alleged to be

making plans to join the BJP-led alliance at the centre.

Although there was apparently a certain unity between all the Christian

denominations in their protest against the state government for its ordinance, the

Catholic Church had a different view of the ordinance itself from that of the Protestant

churches. In principle the Catholic Church was itself against forced conversion, but it

feared that there was every chance of Hindu fundamentalists in Tamil Nadu aselsewhere in India abusing the ordinance for their own political ends. Vincent

Concessao, Archbishop of Delhi, Vice-President of the Catholic Bishops Conference

of India (CBCI), said that he had no quarrel with the ordinance but he was afraid of

the BJP led Hindu fundamentalist groups against minorities and to explain the

position of the Catholic church, he suggested, to refer to the Catholic Churchs

Vatican II document (No. 4) where it is clearly stated that it would be an abuse of

ones own right and that of others to convert somebody forcefully to Christianity

(quoted in Joshua 2002). However, the mainstream churches the Catholic Churchand the Church of South India (CSI) accepted that there were some fringe group

churches, probably referring to groups like the Seventh Day Adventist church, which

were involved in an aggressive evangelisation that in fact embarrassed the mainstream

churches and left them in an uncomfortable position that their sincere efforts to

defend the charitable activities of their churches were weakened.

To avoid such a situation the mainstream churches argued that people converted to

other religions from Hinduism because of the caste discrimination within Hinduism;instead of reforming Hinduism the Hindu organisations made laws to protect the

oppressive caste hierarchy and untouchability (Vyas 2002; cf. Fernandez 1984;

Wilfred 1983). As seen by Kim (2003:172), the view that conversion is a form of

social protest and therefore a socio-political activity removed the spiritual dimension


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16

in the act of conversion, which in fact helped the Hindu organisations see conversion

as a political threat to Hindus and their culture.

Therefore, as expected by the Christians, the Hindu organisations in Tamil Nadu not

only welcomed the ordinance but also used it as a powerful symbol by which they

started organising the Hindus all over Tamil Nadu and propagated their Hindutva

ideology. In Gandhinagar, Gujarat on 23 October, the BJP national president,

Venkaiah Naidu, suggested that all other States should enact anti-conversion laws to

stop conversions by allurement or force (The Hindu October 24, 2002). Talking to

media persons after a meeting of the party's election campaign committee for Gujarat,

Mr. Naidu attacked the Congress for what he called its "double standard'' - the party

opposing the move in some States while its own party governments implemented anti-

conversion laws in some other States. To a question, Mr. Naidu said the BJP'smanifesto for the Gujarat elections would include an assurance on anti-conversion

law. Mr. Naidu disagreed that the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee's suggestion

for a national debate on the issue had been given the go-by by the BJP. ``The debate is

on in one form or another,'' Mr. Naidu said (Ibid).

In Tamil Nadu, in sharp reaction to the spontaneous consolidation of minorities and

secularists against the ordinance, Hindu leaders and heads of various Hindu temple

organisations called Mutts extended `wholehearted' support to the Chief Minister,

Jayalalitha, for taking a "bold and timely" step to stop conversions in the State.

Participants at the one-day `Anti-conversion and Hindu awakening' conference,

organised by the Hindu Awareness Movement in Madurai on 20 October 2002, called

upon their cadres to "eschew casteist differences and untouchability'' so that a united

Hindu society could be formed to counter the "alien threats to Hinduism'' and issued a

stern warning to political parties opposing the ordinance under the "garb of

secularism" (The Hindu, 21 October 2002).The Hindu voters will reject them in

future,'' they said. The conference urged the members of the Assembly to set asidetheir political differences and accord legislative sanction to the ordinance and wanted

other States to promulgate a similar ordinance. The concessions that are being

extended to minority Christian and Muslim institutions should be provided for the

Hindu institutions too, it said. The meeting called for stringent action against minority

organisations, which threaten to close down their institutions and urged the Hindu


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17

leaders and mutt heads to take steps to form village-level committees for eradicating

untouchability.

On 31 October 2002, the Kanchi Sankarachraya, Jayendra Saraswati organised a

massive conference in the Marina beach, Chennai, to which he had invited all caste

associations and many Hindu organisations (The Hindu, 31 October 2002). It was

aimed at providing an explanation of the merits of the Tamil Nadu ordinance for

Hinduism and Hindu culture. This event in many ways was helpful to unify the

divided Hindu population and particularly the Hindu fundamentalist organisations,

particularly the Hindu Munnani, drew enormous support for their fundamentalist

activities in Tamil Nadu. Justifying the need for the ordinance, the Hindu Munnani's

founder-leader, Rama Gopalan said that each Hindu leader and Mutt should adopt a

taluk to achieve the objective of forming conversion-free' zones. The conference wasattended by a large number of cadres and senior leaders from the State's Sangh

Parivar outfits, including the VHP, the RSS and the Hindu Munnani and the BJP. The

heads of the mutts from Madurai, Thiruvaduthurai, Perur, Dharmapuram,

Gowmaramadam and Vadalur endorsed the decision of the conference. The Hindu

Temples' Protection Committee has commended Ms. Jayalalithaa for her bold

decision in introducing the ordinance. In a statement in Tiruchi today, the State

secretary of the Committee, L. Narayanan, said various committees and judicial

commissions, which went into communal clashes in the past, strongly recommended atotal ban on conversions. In November on 15 2002, Hindu Munnani organised a

`Hindu uprising conference' in Salem held at Bose Maidan during which Rama

Gopalan, its founder, urged Hindus to adopt Harijan children by giving them free

uniforms, notebooks, textbooks. Gopalan called upon Hindus to take measures to

eradicate untouchability. He urged the majority communities to collect signatures in

support of the anti-conversion law. He said it was up to the people to ensure that the

law was successfully implemented. As a step in that direction, he called for the setting

up of "village vigilance committees'' to monitor and resist conversions. Callingconversion a proxy war waged by the minority communities against the majority

communities, he said students studying in minority-run institutions were made to

follow dual religions, which would not be conducive to preserve the heritage and

tradition of the country.


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Elsewhere in India, the VHP's international general secretary, Praveen Togadia, in his

special address, said that the Tamil Nadu Government's ordinance was not against any

religion. Neither Buddhists nor Parsees opposed it. Calling conversion a crime against

society, the VHP leader said it would denationalise Bharath.' Mr. Togadia said the

Supreme Court, in its historical ruling in 1977 in the Stanislaus vs. State of MadhyaPradesh case, held that the right to propagate one's religion did not include the right to

convert. The All India vice-president of the Viswa Hindu Parishad, S.Vedantham,

who also said the anti-conversion law came as a boon, and only when it was

implemented could Hindu culture be protected. The `anti-conversion' conference,

organised by he Hindu Awareness Movement, here on Sunday, is not intended to

counter the agitation of the minorities against the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible

Conversion of Religion Ordinance, T.Thilagar, convener, has said. Addressing

newspersons here today, Mr. Thilagar said Hindus, who were anguished at the "large-scale conversions'' taking place in the State would wholeheartedly welcome the

ordinance. The objective of the conference, he said, was to create an awakening in

Hindus and unite them. Mutt heads from Tiruvavaduthurai, Madurai, Dharmapuram

and Perur, participated. The Sangh Parivar (VHP-RSS-BJP) welcomed the Tamil

Nadu Government ordinance prohibiting religious conversion by the use of force,

allurement or by fraudulent means and demanded similar laws in the rest of the

country. ``We welcome it. Similar laws exist in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa but they

were never implemented. The other States should also follow suit,'' the RSS

spokesman, M.G.Vaidya, told the media Conversion should be due to change of

conscience and not due to allurements or force. Even the Supreme Court had said that

right to freedom of religion provides for propagation not conversion,'' (The Hindu 08

October 2002).

The two cases we have just described demonstrate sufficiently the fact that conversion

has been central to the formation and rise of Hindu fundamentalism in Pappanallur

village and in Tamil Nadu. That substantiates further what we have seen earlier aboutthe rise of fundamentalism from the colonial times that rose sharply due to the issue

of conversion. Conversion remains as an axis around which Hindu fundamentalists

form their ideology to stigmatise the other as alien and threaten the other

constantly to enhance cohesiveness among Hindus who otherwise are divided in terms

of caste and particular religious beliefs. It also provided an opportunity for Hindus


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19

and Christians to express their worldviews that furthered the divide between the two

communities and gave a consolidation of Hindu fundamentalist organisations.

4. Conversion: Cultural Violence? Or Religious Freedom?

Hindus and Christians held totally opposing views on conversion. Christians viewed

conversion as vital to faith and religious freedom, and therefore essentially good and

right but for Hindus conversion was something alien, a symbol of oppression and

enslaving power imposed upon the people of India against their will, and therefore

essentially evil and wrong (Kim 2003: 50). We need to discuss the two opposing

views in our efforts to understand Hindu fundamentalism.

Conversion as Violence and threat: Hindu response

Hindus insisted that conversion is opposed to their view of retaining ones own

dharma and to religious tolerance of Hinduism, on the contrary, for Christians,

conversion is the core of their faith and it is a vital part of religious freedom (Kim

2003; Houtepen 1998; Gill 1983). More than Christians Hindus have taken the issue

of conversion as one single factor that has to be dealt with by legislating laws against

it and advocating physical violence against converters.

First of all, conversion is violence against humanity and it is an evil to be fought

against. Representing Hindus, Swami Dayananda Saraswati, the head of Arsha Vidya

Gurukulam, wrote an open letter to the Pope in which he said that conversion is notmerely violence against people; it is violence against people who are committed to

non-violence (Saraswati 1999). More vehemently, David Frawly in a web site

opposed conversion-accusing missionaries of perpetuating psychological violence

against Hindus15. In addition, Hindus see conversion a part of the exploitation of poor

people by imperialists and it has been an effective tool to destroy peoples history in

India (Chowgule 1999; Kim 2003). Secondly, Hindus argue that conversion is an

attack on Hindu nationhood (Dar 1999; Chowgule 1999). The concept of Hindu

nationhood, Gold (1994) explains, originates from the Hindutva ideology set out byV.D. Sarvarkar, which was later taken up by every Hindu fundamentalist group. In

contrast to the modern Western idea of nation of a composite and territorially defined

political entity the notion of the Hindu nation refers to the culture and the people who

lived from the Himalayas to the southern seas, from Iran to Singapore; the

15 see Missionary position in http://www.bjp.org/news/feb1799.html


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20

subcontinent is their motherland and Hinduness is the quality of their national culture

(Golwalkar 1966: 83; also quoted in Gold 1994: 547; see also Jafferelot 1996: 25-32).

Muslims and Christians are foreign elements in India but they should not be culturally

apart from the body of Hindu nation; instead they should integrate into the Hindu

national culture (Gold 1994: 566). Conversion in this sense for the Hindu nationalists(RSS-VHP-BJP-Bajrangdal-Hindu Munnani) not only makes Hindus abandon the

Hindu nation but it destroys it. And one who converts from Hinduism alienates from

the national attribute of Sanantana Dharma and he/she is not an Indian national but a

minority (Chatterjee 1995: 24-30).

Thirdly, conversion, in the Hindu view, is an inherent problem of Christianity that

reserves salvation only for Christians and the only means to achieve it is through the

Catholic Church. Authors (Shourie 2000; Goel 1994; Chowgule 1999). Shourie(2000: 404) have argued vigorously that Hindus should be alert to the design of

missionaries who have developed a very well-knit, powerful, extremely well-

endowed organisational goal to convert them. Every writer supported, this view,

particularly Shourie, who had previously good rapport with the Catholic Church that

invited him to be a resource person in their meetings, highlighted repeatedly the

pluralistic character of and religious tolerance (although their practice is otherwise) in

Hinduism and the exclusivistic Christianity, mostly by referring to the Catholic

Church documents and encyclicals (Kim 2003: 169ff).

More sharply, Koenraad Elst, who is Catholic by birth from Belgium, not only wrote

two volumes titled The Saffron Wave: The Nation of Hindu Fascism, which argues

for Hindu fundamentalism as a natural defence of the indigenous population against

foreign religious invasion by Christians and it is wrong to label it as fascist and

Nazism, he also supported through his articles the activities of Hindu fundamentalist

organisations. In one of his articles entitled Towards A Real Hindu-Christian

Dialogue he speaks about Christianity as untrue and a mistake and that most of theChristian churches in India were built on Hindu temples, particularly San Thome

Cathedral in Chennai he says was built after destroying Mylapore Shiva temple. He

has strong opinions about Christian missions in India; he describes the Christian

mission as a viper-like mischievousness and he wants Indians to reject Christianity.

Not surprisingly, he is hailed as a significant voice of Hindutva in the West (see all


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21

his articles in http://pws.the-ecorp.com/~chbrugmans/articles.html, see also

http://www.the-week.com/21nov11/life2.htm). Such international representation

for Hindu fundamentalism intensifies its justification of violence against Christian

missionaries in India.

Conversion as Religious Freedom: Christian Response

Christians refuted the arguments of Hindu fundamentalists in many ways from the

1950s. After the Nyogi report (1954-7) on missionary activity in India and the

subsequent debate in the Constituent Assembly, Christians began to realise more fully

the intensity of Hindu opposition to conversion, and more importantly, to missionary

activities. The Christian response has never been a single and unified one. Instead,

there have been three approaches: secular, liberation, inculturation. The secular

approach suggested by Protestant theologians, said that conversion did not need achange of religion. What was needed is a Christian way of living in Hindu society

(Parekh 1947; Baago 1966; Thomas 1971, 1972). The ideas such as church-less

Christianity, Christ-centred secular fellowship and unbaptised Christians were

expressed in order to gain respect from their Hindu opponents who viewed conversion

as the destruction of common Hindu identity. The liberation approach, inspired by

Latin American liberation theology, responded to the opposition of Hindus to

conversion by insisting on the motives of the people who convert and the Hindus who

oppose it (Wilfred 1983; Fernandes 1984; Raj 1981; Jayakumar 1999). Indian

liberation theologians did not treat conversion as an encounter between Hinduism

and Christianity but a protest against social injustice on the part of the Dalits and

adivasis (Kim 2003: 193-4). Going beyond the above two approaches, the

inculturation approach emphasised the continuities and similarities between the two

religions and found meeting points by dividing religion into two aspects sadhana

dharma (way of salvation)and samaj dharma (social customs, ritual purity, diet etc)

(Griffiths 1966; Staffner 1973). Since in their view Hinduism is more of the latter and

Christianity belongs to the former, both could complement each other and learn from

each other. Although the synthetic approach received strong reactions from Hindus

who thought about it as a subtle way of converting Hindus, it did contribute to the

normalisation of Hindu-Christian relations.

As seen earlier, in 1998-9, when the issue of conversion reopened sharply the division

between the two communities, again Christians needed to respond to criticism and


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22

defend Christianity. Christians and moderate Hindus, who were mainly secularists and

communists, construed the ways in which Hindu organisations took up the conversion

issue as an attempt to divert people from the aggressive politics of the Sangh Parivar

and they argued that Christians were only the victims of their fundamentalist activities

(Kim 2003: 171). In addition, as it was seen earlier, Ferandes (1999) and Michael(1998, 1999) counter-argued that conversion was liberation of the victims of

injustice organised by social movements (Abel 1999; Philip 1999). Such arguments

instead of opposing only confirmed the criticism of Hindus that conversion to

Christianity does not have a spiritual dimension; it is only political activity. In that

sense, Christians failed to respond to Hindu fundamentalists comprehensively.

Realising this a national consultation was organised on Re-Reading Mass

Movements in India in 1997 in which many Christian scholars highlighting the

spiritual elements of conversion, argued that the conversion of tribals was indeedconscious and deliberately religious in nature (Ommen 1998: 138-54; Minz 1998: 14-

38). In a meeting held at United Theological College in Bangalore on Religious

Conversions in the Pluralistic Context of India in September 1999, scholars like S.J.

Samartha condemned the Christian groups that were involved in an aggressive

conversion campaign (cited in Kim 2003: 174ff) and the main line Catholic and

Protestant churches wanted to distance themselves from the breakaway fringe

groups like the Seventh Day Adventist group that are involved in open conversion

projects (Outlook, 8 November 1999: 60; The Asian Age, 17 February 1999).

6. Concluding Remarks

Whatever the arguments of Christians against the Hindu critique of conversions to

Christianity what remains true is that conversion has been largely both instrumental

and symbolic in the construction of Hindu fundamentalism. For conversion is seen as

the most destabilising factor for a society that alters both its demography and

character. So keeping conversion as a vantage point can reveal more about the realityof Hindu fundamentalism than any other way and it can also be very useful for the

minorities in India Christians and Muslims, and Secularists to counter the

Hindutva agenda of instigating violence against them.


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23

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Arya Samaj-Hindu Fundamentalism