Conversions and Politics of Hindu Right - Sarkar

7/27/2019 Conversions and Politics of Hindu Right - Sarkar

1/11

Conversions and Politics of Hindu RightAuthor(s): Sumit SarkarSource: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 34, No. 26 (Jun. 26 - Jul. 2, 1999), pp. 1691-1700Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4408131

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2/11

SPECIAL ARTICLES

onversions

n d

P o l i t i c s

o f

i n d u

i g h t

Sumit Sarkar

With the

spread

of

liberation

theologies,

churches have

been

changing.

Christian

groups

have been

prominent

in

progressive

movements. In the

face of

attacks,

they

have not retreated into sectarian or

fundamentalist

sihells but have

joined

secular,

liberal

and

Left formations.

It is this

progressive

aspect of

contemporary

Christianity

that arouses the

greatest anger

and

fear among proponeints

of

hindutva.

I

Attacks on Christians

POKHRAN

blasts

apart,

t

seems

likely

that BJP-dominated

ule at

Delhi

might

come

to

be rememberedbove

all

for the

concerted

campaignagainst

Christians.

The

Sanghparivar

as

always

neededone

ormore

nemy

Other' o

consolidate nto

anaggressivelocthe 'Hindu ommunity'

which t claimsto

represent

nd seeks to

constitute.What

s

largely

new s thatover

the

past year

Christiansseem to have

displaced

Muslims as

primary

arget.

The

epicentre,

o

far as the

number

of

incidentss

concerned.

asbeenBJP-ruled

Gujarat,

here

already

n

August

1998 a

fact-finding

eam sent

by

the Nishant

Theatre

Group,

Delhi,

saw

many

villages

sporting

the

banner 'Vishwa

Hindu

Parishad

elcomes

you

o

HinduRashtra'

village'.

The earlierattacks

were

widely

spread

ut,

andnot

confined o the

Dangs

tribal area. Particularly ross incidents

included

hatof

Samuel

Christian,

whose

body

was

exhumed rom

Kapadvanj

em-

etery

Nadiad

district)

n

July

8,

1998and

thrown utside

he Methodist

hurch,

nd

the attack

n

a

century-old

Christian

irls

school at

Rajkot

on June

20,

1998 where

amidst

logans

of 'Jai

Shri

Ram',

copies

of the New

Testamentweretorn

out from

the

hands

of

students

and 300 of them

burnt.

By

August

1998,

the

All

India

CatholicUnion

had

compiled

a

list

of 33

incidents n

various

parts

f

Gujarat,

most

of them

during

he

preceding

ix months.

The

targets

were

mostly

Christians,but

also includedsome

Muslims

-

for

they

have

certainly

not been

left off the hook

altogether.

hus

at

Bardoli

cores

of

shops

owned

by

Muslims were

burnt

after an

inter-religious

marriage

between

a

Mus-

lim

boy

and

a

Hindu

girl,

and

large

num-

bers

of Muslims of

Randhikapur

(Panchmahals)

nd

Sanjeli

(Godhra)

had

to

flee their

homes

following

a

couple

of

cases of

similar

nter-religious

ove af-

fairs.

The

Gujarat

overnment's

eaction

was

characteristic,

nd

revealing:

t set

up

a

police

cell to

'monitor',

e,

harass

and

discourage,

nter-religious

arriages.

he

same

government

as

disbanded

nearlier

police

cell thathad

been

set

up

to

investi-

gate

atrocities

against

women.)l

Then,

during

Christmas

week,

no

doubt

to teach

Christians

lesson

or

having

had

the

temerity

o

organise

most

mpressive

peaceful countrywide

protest

and shut-

down of missionary chools on Decem-

ber

4,

there

ame

he

obviously

oncerted,

planned

attack

on Christian

Dangs.

Be-

tween

December25 and

January

3,

24

churches,

hree

chools,

andsix houses

or

shops

were

burnt,

destroyed

r

damaged,

andnine

Christianribals uffered erious

injuries.

The

nly ights

visiblethat lack

Christmas

ight,

and the

nights

to

come,

were infernos of

churches

[Gonzalves

1999].

Incidentsn

other

tates

have

been

more

sporadic,

but in some

cases even more

horrifying.

On

September

3,

1998 there

was thegang-rape f fournunsatJhabua,

MadhyaPradesh.

L

Sharma,

ormerBJP

MP and

currently

entral

ecretary

f the

VHP,

claimed

hat

his was a resultof the

"anger

of

patriotic

youth

against

anti-

national orces...thedirectresult

of con-

versionof Hindus o

Christianity

y

the

Christian

riests."

The

subsequent

ssur-

ance

by

VHP

general

secretaryGiriraj

Kishore

that his

organisation

was not

condoning

ape

did not

improve

matters,

for he

demanded hat

"foreign

missionar-

ies should

be removed

rom the

country

(Hindu,

September

29,

1998;

The

Times

of

India.October

1998).2

And then n the

last

weekofJanuary

999 ame he

burning

alive

at

Monoharpur,

rissa,

once

again

amidst

slogans

of 'Jai Shri

Ram',

of the

Australian

missionary

octor

Stainesand

two of his

children.Staines

had

left the

comforts

of

firstworld ife to servefor

40

years

the

lepers

of this

obscure

village

in

India.

The

sheer

horror f the Staines

murder,

and the almost unbelievable

fortitude,

dignity,

and

deeply moving

Christian

forgiveness

withwhichhiswidowreceived

the

news,

evoked

powerful

nd

widespread

emotional reactions.both

in India and

abroad.

"Serve

epers,

do not

bur

those

who

serve

them",

ran the banner arried

by

some

school

children

at

a

protest

demonstration

n

Delhi on

January

30,

1999one

of

many hroughout

he

country.

Quite

unusually,

he initiative

or

protest

rallies

often

camefrom tudents

enerally

aloof frompolitics,as at Delhi colleges

like

Miranda

or St

Stephens.

The

prime

minister claimed

that

he was

hanging

his

head

in

shame,

and the

intensity

of

reactions

seems

to

have

forced

a certain

retreat,

or the time

being.

But

scattered

incidents of violence and intimidation

are still

being

reported,

and

there

are

also

signs

that

a

systematic

ampaign

f

lies

anddistortions

oncerning

Christians

is

being

disseminated

through

leaflets

and brochures.Some of these

-

usually

those

without

press-lines

-

are

crudely

slanderous,

and threaten

open

violence

againstChristians.Otherspresentwhat

might

appear

at

first

sight cogent

argu-

ments

against missionaryactivity,

often

claiming

o

quote

rom

respected

ational

figures.

Let me

give

one

example,

rom

a

pam-

phlet

of the more 'sober' kind. 'Sevaki

aad me church ka

shadyantra'

church

conspiracy

under

cover

of

service),

by

Ravindra

Agarwal

Hindu

Manch,

Delhi,

Sivaratri,

999),

carries,

ery

prominently

on its

inside

cover,

the Hindi translation

of a

passage

from

Gandhi

which seems

to

ustify

thecurrent

nti-missionary

am-

paign.

I checked

up

the

reference,

and

found that

it is

there

in

the

Mahatma's

Collected

Works,

Volume

XLVI,

pp

27-28,

nor is the

translation nfair.

In

an inter-

view

dated

March

2,

1931

given

o

Hindu,

Gandhi

apparently

tated

that if in self-

governing

Indian missionaries

kept

on

"proselytising

y

means

of

medical

aid,

education, tc,

I

would

certainly

sk

them

to withdraw.

Every

nation's

religion

s

as

good

as

any

other.

Certainly

ndia's re-

ligions

are

adequate

or her

people.

We

need

no

convertingpiritually."

hecrunch

Economic and

Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999

1691


3/11

comes

when

we look at

the

entire

article,

which was

lirst

published

in

Young

India,

April

23. 1931.

Here

Gandhi

began

with

this

passage,

but

went on to

add that

"This

is

what

a

reporter

has

put

into

my

mouth...AIl that I

can

say

is that

it is a

travesty

of

what I

have

always

said and

held."

He

offered

a

corrected

version,

where

he

explained

tliat

"I

am,

then,

not

against conversion. But I am against the

modern

methods of

it.

Conversion

nowa-

days

has become a matterof

business,

like

any

other."The

moditications he

made in

the rest

of the

quote

are

equally

interest-

ing: "Every

nation considers its own faith

to be as

good

as that of

any

other.

Certainly

the

great

faiths

held

by

the

people

of

India

are

adequate

for

her

people.

India stands

in no

need of conversions from

one

faith

to another." As

striking,

and

utterly

in

contrast to hindutva

tenets,

is the list he

went on to offer

of India's

'great'

and 'all-

sufficing'

faiths:

"Apart

rom

Christianity

andJudaism,Hinduism and its offshoots.

IslamandZoroastrianismare

iving

faiths."

The

article ended

with

a characteristic

plea

for

"living friendly

contact

among

the

followers of the

great religions

of the

world and not a clash

among

them..."

An

anti-Christian

campaign

in

India

today

necessarily

has

to base itself on the

question

of

conversions. This

is

in

partial

contrast to Hindu-Muslim

relations,

for

between Hindus

and Christians there are

no

memories of communal violence or

partition,

nothing

that

really corresponds

to issues like

'go-korbani'

(cow

slaughter)

ormusic beforemosques thathave

sparked

off so

many riots

at

least from the 1890s

onwards.3 It

is

not

at

all

accidental,

there-

fore,

that the

so-called

mild face of the

BJP,

Vajpayee,

had recourse

to

this

ploy

when

he visited

Gujaratjust

ftertheChrist-

mas

burnings

of churches and called for

a 'national

debate' on

conversions,

thus

adroitly

hinting

that Christians are

ulti-

mately

responsible

for their

own

woes.

And

this,

though

C P

Singh,

director-

general

of the

Gujarat police,

had cate-

gorically

declared

on

October

6,

1998

that

the

charges

being made of forced

inter-

religious

marriages

and

conversions

were

baseless,

and that it was

rather

"the

acti-

vists

of the

Vishwa

Hindu Parishad

and

Bajrang

Dal activists who were

taking

law

into their own hands which

posed

a

serious danger

to

peace

in

Gujarat"

Conm-

nmunalisnmombat

1998].

As

for

Staines,

he had been

a

doctor,

not

an

ordained

priest,

and

could

not

have

baptised

anyone

even

if he had

wanted to.

A

delegation

of

religious

leaders

of

various communities

that went on a

pilgrimage

to

Monoharpur

recently

found

that there was not

a

single

Christian

among

the 80 inmates

of

Staines'

leprosarium

[Thampu

1999].

Conversion

through

force

evidently requires

the

com-

plicity

of sections of the

state

apparatus,

and. whatever

may

or

may

not

have

hap-

pened occasionally

under

colonial

rule,

in

today's

circumstances

-

and most obvi-

ously

in the BJP's

Gujarat

bastion

-

it is

clearly

absurd to

think

that such

support

could ever come the way of Christian

missionaries.

Actually

some information

is

available

about who

exactly

is

doing

forced con-

versions

in

the

Dangs.

"...since the

past

few

months,

and more

extensively

in

the

first

fortnight

of

January.

ribals

(of

Goghli

and

surrounding villages)

were

being

bundled

into

jeeps

and taken

to the

'garamkund'

(hot

springs)

at Unai

for a

'shuddhikaran'

(purificatory

bath).

Then

they

were driven to Swami Aseemanand's

ashram,

to state that

they

have 'recon-

verted' to Hinduism."4

What is worrying is the confusion the

question

of Christian conversions can still

evoke,

even

among

well-intentioned and

progressive

people.

There are

very

few

who would

not condemn the Staines

murder,

yet

this could be

accompanied by

something

like

a

sotto voce 'but' about

conversions. Thus even Swami

Agnivesh.

well known

champion

of so

many

pro-

gressive

causes,

welcomed

Vajpayee'

scall

for

national

debate,

and,

while

stating

that

"individual freedom is

the

key

to the

modern

outlook".

declared

that he was

"indignant

at conversions"

[Communal-

ism Combat 1999]. The Hindu Manch

pamphlet

I

have

cited

quotes

with

great

glee

a

report

from Indian

Express,

Janu-

ary

7,

1999,

headlined

'Gandhians

blame

conversions,

seek total ban'. The

state-

ment

apparently

comes from

two senior

GujaratSarvoday

workers,

one

of

whom,

the

82-year-old

Ghelubhai

Nayak,

claimed

that

way

back in

1948 Sardar

Patel

had

sent him to

Dangs

to

counter

possible

Christian

conversions

there.

In

logic

and law

alike,

one would have

thought.

there is little

scope

for

doubt

or

confusion

here. Article 25

(i)

of the

Fun-

damental

Rights

chapter

in

the Constitu-

tion defines

the

'Right

to

Freedom

of

Religion' quite categorically:

"all

persons

are

equally

entitled to freedom

of con-

science and the

right freely

to

profess.

practise

and

propagate religion".

Propa-

gation

makes no

sense

at all without the

possibility

of

convincing

others of the

validity

of

one's

religious

beliefs and

rituals.

Freedom of

choice,

in

religion

or

for

that

matter

n

politics

or

anything

else,

and therefore

freedom

to

change

one's

beliefs,

is

surely

in

any

case

integral

to

any

conception

f

democracy.

onversely,

conversion

by

force

or fraud

s

contrary

to the basic

principle

of

equal

freedom.

Yet,

in

an

admittedly

pecific

and so-

lated

judgment,

a

Supreme

Court

udge

defiedcommon ense

by declaring

hat he

right

to

propagate

does not

include

the

right

o

convert,

and t is

pointless

o

deny

thatdoubtsabout

his

subject

have come

to be acceptedas somehow'natural'by

many.

But

it

is

always

the

'natural' hat

stands n need of the

most

rigorous

ques-

tioning.

and

I

feel

that a

little historical

explorationmight help.

In what

follows.

I

look first

at

the

question

of

conversions

and ts

changingmeanings

nd orms cross

time,

trying

to

investigate

when,

under

what

conditions,

andhow

it

became uch

a contentious ssue.

My closing

section

will

come back o current

vents,

andask

why

the

Sangh

parivar

has

chosen

such

a

tiny

minority

as

prime

arget,

and what

developmentsmight

be

helping

o make

such targetingappearplausible.

II

Conversions in

History

Let

me

beginby

raising

wo

preliminary

questions,

one of

logic,

the

other

of se-

mantics.

What conditions. or

widely

held as-

sumptions.

are

necessary

before conver-

sions

can

become

a contentious

ssue,

arouse

widespread

nd violent

passions?

Clearly,

religious

communities

need to

havebecome

crystallised,

ome

to

be seen

as havingfirm and fixed boundaries,o

that the

crossing

of bordersbecomesa

dramatic,

one-shot matter.

Such devel-

oped

'community-consciousness',

ow-

ever,

is a

necessary,

but

not

sufficient,

condition for the

development

of what

20th

century

ndian

English

has

come to

call 'communalism':

when,

obviously,

conversions become

controversial

n

a

qualitativelyhigher

scale. This

requires,

not

just

the

transition rom

'fuzzy'

to

'enumerated' communities

to

which

Sudipto

Kaviraj

drewour

attention

ome

years

back

n

an influential

ssay.

but the

further

assumption

of inevitable. and

overriding,5

onflict

of

interests.

uch

hat,

in a

kind

of zero-sum

game,

the

gain

of

one

community

s

thought

o

invariably

involve the loss

of

the other.

It

needs

to

be

emphasised

that this

distinction

between

developed

commu-

nity-consciousness

nd communalism

s

importantprecisely

because

tendencies

exist that

virtually

equate

the

latter

with

any firmly-bounded

religious

identity.

These

operate

from

two

diametrically

opposedpoints

of view.

Pradip

Datta

has

1692 Economic and Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999


4/11

recently

made the

very perceptive

point

that communalism

s

distinctive

among

ideologies

in its refusalto name itself.6

There

is rather the

constant effort

at

identification

with

religious

community,

as

well

as,

for

Hindu-majoritarian

om-

munalists,

withnationalism.Consider

or

instance

he

very

term 'hindutva'

which

literally

means

no

more han

Hindu-ness',

but has come to be the self-description,

fromthe

mid-1920s

onwards,

of a much

more

pecific

andnarrow

deology.7

And

here

extremes sometimes

meet,

for if

secularism

etsequated

with

anti-religion,

the

implication

becomes hatcommunal-

ism

can be

countered

only by

exposing

religion

as

'superstitious'

r

'irrational'.

Once

again,

n

effect,

communal's

being

collapsed

into

'religious

community'.

Operationally,

uch

hostility

to

religion

has

been

rarewithin

ndian

ecularism,

or

here he ermhas

really

been

synonymous

with anti-communal

olicies

and

values,

rather hanbeing anti-religiousor even

particularly

ationalist.

Anti-secularist

polemic

however

requently

makes such

an

equation

or its

own

purposes.

Para-

doxically,

when

combinedwith

rejection

of

hindutva s withinan

nfluential urrent

intellectual

rend,

communal'

and

'com-

munity'

once

again

tend to

get

collapsed

into

each

other,

except

that then a

sharp

disjunction

s

postulated

between 'mod-

em' and

'premoder'

communities,

reli-

gion-as-ideology'

s

contrastedo

a

some-

what

romanticised

religion-as-faith'.8

The sense of

outrage

evoked

by

reli-

giousconversion, hirdly,can be

greatly

intensified nd

made

o

appear

muchmore

legitimate

f the

loss

can

be

given

a

'pa-

triotic',

or

'national'.

colour.

This,

of

course,

has

been the

special advantage

enjoyed

by

Hindu

majoritarianism,

ar-

ticularly

after 1947.

Sangh

parivar

usti-

fications

f recent

outrages gainst

Chris-

tiansare

replete

with

nstancesof suchan

equation.

Oneneeds

o notealso

the

very

effective

semantic

ploy through

which

t

has come

to be

widely

assumed that

Hinduism

s

near-uniquemongreligious

raditions

n

being

non-proselytising:

conversion to

other

aiths

herefore

s

a loss thatcannot

be

recuperated,

ndso

particularly

nfair.

This

at first

sight

seems to fit in

well with

the

common sense view

that one can

become

a Hindu

y

birth

lone,

sincecaste

(whether

n the

'vara'

or the

'jati'

sense)

is crucial to

Hinduism,

and

your

caste

status s

hereditary.

But

certain ticklish

questions

arise as

soon as we

enlarge

the

time-perspective:

where did all

the

Buddhists f

ancient

ndia

o,

for nstance?

Andhow

didHindu cons and

mythsspill

over into

large parts

of south-east

Asia?

More

crucially,

one needs to

recognise

that,

across centuries but

in accelerated

manner

with

modernised communica-

tions,

brahmanical Hindu

rituals,

beliefs,

and

caste

disciplines

have

spread

across

the subcontinentand

penetrated

and

sought

to transform communities with

initially

very

different

practices

and

faiths. It

has

somehow become conventional to describe

the

processes

here

by

anodyne

terms like

'Sanskritisation'

or 'cultural

integration',

but

they really

amount nevertheless to

what with other

religious

traditions would

have

been termed 'conversion'. There is

also much historical data about the

spread

of

specific

varieties of

Hindu

traditions.

like for instance

Chaitanya

bhakti from

central

and western

Bengal

into Orissa

and the

uplands

of Jharkhand. A

whole

battery

of terms was

developed

from the

late 19th

century

onwards as

expansion

directed towards

marginal groups

and

tribals became more organised: 'reclama-

tion',

'shuddhi'

('purification'),

'recon-

version',

'paravartan'

'turning

back".

he

term

preferred by

the Vishwa

Hindu

Parishad

oday).

Common

to

all these labels

is an

insistence

that all

that is

being

at-

tempted

is to

bring

people

back

to their

'natural'

state:

which,

for all

the

targeted

groups,

is

always

assumed

to

be

being

Hindu

in a more

or less

sanskritised

manner.Semantic

aggression

can

hardly

go

further.

But if

shifts in

religious

allegiance

are

obviously

nothing

new,

their

forms are

likely

to have

changed

over time. The

precise

meanings

of

'conversion' need to

be historicised.

The

thrust of

much recent historical

work has been towards

the

destabilisation

of

assumptions

of

continuous,

firmly-

bounded identities. This is in

significant

contrast to the

bulk

of earlier historio-

graphy,

which had

tended

to

essentialise

terms like

Hindu or

Muslim,

and

then

gone

on to

emphasise

either the moments

of

synthesis,

or

(in

the communal

variant)

perennial

conflict.9 One need not

go

as far

in

the

questioning

of

pre-colonial

identi-

ties as

some colonial

discourse

analysts

would

want to

agree

that the absence

of

modem

communicational networks

(de-

veloped

roads,

railways, telegraph

lines,

the

printing

press,

etc)

must have

greatly

hindered the

formation

of stable and

tight

countrywide religious

blocs. Trends

in

medieval

Indian

scholarship

seem to be

moving

in

a similar

direction,

through

a

more

rigorous probing

of the rhetorical

aspects

and

precise

implications

of texts

than at first

sight

seem to indicate a

high

level of

religious

conflict and

persecution.

(Selective

19th

century

translations from

some

of

these,

notably by

Elliot

and

Dowson,

had

greatly

contributed

to

communalisation.)

Thus Persianchronicles

boasting

of

wars

against

infidels and

desecration

of

temples

-

or for that matter

a

text like the Vilasa

copperplate

grant

describing

in

lurid but

highly

formulaic

terms

the

Kaliyuga

ushered in

by

Muhammad bin Tughlaq's destruction of

the

Kakatiya dynasty

in

Andhra

-

are

being recognised

to have been

in

part

legitimising

devices.

(The

same

temples,

for

instance,

seem to be

getting

destroyed

again

and

again,

as Romila

Thapar

has

shown

recently

in an as

yet

unpublished

paper

about

Somnath.)

Again,

'Hindu'

texts,

in Sanskrit or

regional languages

like

Telegu,

use,

overwhelmingly,

ethnic

rather han

religious

terms

(Turushka,

most

commonly)

to describe the

kingdoms

and

armies we

have become

accustomed

since

the 19th

century

to call

'Muslim'.10

All

this does not mean, of course, that there

were

not

many

instances of conflicts

and

acts

of violence and

persecution

wholly

or

partly

religious' (though

even the mean-

ing

of that

term is

not

entirely transparent,

or

impervious

to

change),

amidst

much

everyday

coexistence

and

co-mingling

of

practices.Buttheirgeneralisation

nto

mass

communal

ideologies

with a

subcontinen-

tal reach

was

unlikely.

In an

important

discussion of

processes

of

Islamisation

in

medieval

Bengal,

Eaton

has tried

to

draw out the

implications

of

this relative absence of

firmly-bounded

communities for the

question

of

religious

conversions. Use of the

term

itself,

he

argues,

becomes

"perhaps

misleading

-

since it

ordinarily

connotes a

sudden and

total

transformation",

whereasthe

changes

could have

"proceeded

so

gradually

as

to

be

nearly imperceptible".

Like other

secu-

lar-minded

historians,

Eaton

(1994:269)

rejects

the

theory

of

large-scale

forcible

conversion,

since the

regions

that

became

massively

Muslim

-

East

Bengal

and

western

Punjab

-

were also those

furthest

away

frqm

major

centres

of Muslim

po-

litico-military power.

He

discounts

also

the

view

that

Islam attracted

converts from

lower castes

primarily

by

virtue of its

egalitarian

tenets,

for these were also the

areas where brahmanical

penetration,

and

therefore structures of caste

oppression,

had been

relatively

weak.

By

implication,

Eaton's account draws

attention

to

the

possibility

that in

large parts

of the sub-

continent,

certainly

in

medieval times and

to a

considerable extent even

today,

the

greatreligious

traditionshave been

expand-

ing

at the

cost,

not

so

much of each

other

as in relation to a multitude of local cults

Economic and

Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999

1693


5/11

or

practices.

Conflicts in

premodern

times

would

have been

considerably

reduced,

further,

by

the

slow,

phased

nature of the

transition.

Here Eaton

(1994:113-19,

268-

90)

distinguishes

three

heuristic

moments,

of 'inclusion' of Islamic

cult-figures

within

the local

cosmologies,

'identification' of

some of these with

indigeneous objects

of

worship,

and

finally

(and

perhaps

often

mainlyin the 19thcentury), 'displacement'

through

which Islam became

'purified'

through

reform or

purging

of non-Islamic

beliefs and

practices.

One

might

add

that

pre-colonial

'conversion' was

probably

not so much a matter of

individual and

one-shot

choice,

as

of slow

changes

in-

volving

an

entire

group,

family

or

kinship

network,

or

local

community

-

which

would once

again

reduce the

potentials

for

conflict.

Three

major changes, roughly

from the

latter

part

of

the 19th

century

onwards,

seem

particularly

relevant

for

understand-

ing why conversions startedbecoming so

much more

controversial.

The first was the

tightening

of

commu-

nity

boundaries: here has come into

being

a

broad

consensus about this

among

his-

torians,

despite

continuing

differences

regarding

the extent of

novelty

involved

here,

or

in

the

precise weighing-up

of

causes.

1

Within the broader

framework

of

developing

politico-administrative,

economic.

and

communicational

inte-

gration,

particularly mportant nputs

prob-

ably

came from colonial

law,

and from

census

operations.

In mattersof

so-called

'personal' or 'family' law, the British had

decided in the

1770s that

they

would

administer

according

to Hindu

or Islamic

sacred texts and

in

consultation

with

brahman

pandits

and Muslim ulema: dif-

ferentially,

in

other

words,

for

the

two

major

religious

traditions. In

many every-

day

situations,

herefore,

one had to declare

oneself a Hindu or Muslim

(or

a

member

of

any

of the

other

religious

communities

that

had come

to

develop

'personal'

legal

systems

of

their

own).

While

superficially

not dissimilar to

Mughal

practice,

there

was a

significant

change

insofaras

Mughal

courts

had never tried to

penetrate

deep

into lower levels

through

the

kind

of

systematic

hierarchy

of

appellate jurisdic-

tions thatBritish rule

developed

over time.

Disputes

must

have been often decided at

local

or

village

levels

according

to diverse

customary

standards

that would

have

had

little

to

do

with textual

(or

'religious')

principles.

Colonial

'personal'

law

centralised,

textualised,

made

operation-

ally

much

sharper

he boundaries between

religious

communities and

probably

en-

hanced also

to a

significant

extent

the

influenceover the rest of

society

of

high

castes

and

Muslim elites.

The

mpact

f the

census rom

he 1870s

onwards

s

more

obvious,

and

has

been

repeatedlymphasised

n

recent cademic

discussions. Census

operations

necessi-

tated

he

drawing

f

sharp

distinctions,

f

religion,

aste,

anguage,

r

whatever

lse

the administratorshad decided on

as

worthy of being counted. Enumerated

communitiesmade

for

mutual

competi-

tion,

complaints

about unfair

represent-

ation

n

education,

obs,

administrationr

politics,

stimulated earsabout

being

left

behind

in

numbers

games.

That census

procedures

fteninvolved he

imposition

of

order,

rather han

simple

recording

f

realities n

the

ground,

ecomes

clear,

or

instance,

rom

he

amusing

nstance n

the

1911 census of a

35,000-strong

ommu-

nity

of 'Hindu-Muhammadans'n

Gujarat,

so termed

by

a

Bombay

census

superin-

tendent

confounded

by

the inextricable

combinationfmultiple ractices, eliefs,

and

even

self-definitions.The

latterwas

pulledup

sharply

by

his

superior,

ensus

commissionerE A

Gait,

who

ordered

he

locationof "the

persons

oncerned o the

one

religion

or

the

other

as best he could"

[Census 1911:118].

Colonial

modernityhelped

to

tighten

community

bonds:

t

has been

less often

noticed.

however,

hat t

also

stimulated

forces hat

made

hem

more

ragile.

What

was

coming

into existence

by

the late

19th-early

20th

century

was a

situation

conducive or

the

growth

of not

one,

but

many community-identities religious,

caste,

inguistic-regional,

nti-colonialna-

tional',

class,

gender,

in

interactive

yet

of'

n conflictual

relationships

with each

other.

2

Among

he

many

meritsof

Pradip

Datta's

just-published

work

(1999:9)

is

the

way

he

has

beenableto

bring

ogether

these

interlocking

arratives,

n

an effort

to view

"communalormations...as

art

f

a

field in which

they

have to

perforce

relate o othercollective identities

other

than ts

binary

n

'Hindu'or

'Muslim'),

such

as

class,

gender,

rcaste

affiliations".

Signs

can

be

discerned,

hirdly,

of the

beginnings

of a discourseof individual

rights.

The direct influence of western

liberal

and

radical

deologies,

while not

negligible,

was no doubt confined

to

relatively

ew,

but here

wasalso

he allout

from certain nstitutional

evelopments.

Colonial

justice,

while

shoring

up

reli-

giously-defined community

norms in

personal

aw,

simultaneously

nlargedup

to

a

point

"the

freedomof

the individual

in the

market-place"

n

landandcommer-

cial

transactions

Washbrook

981:650].

British Indian

definitions

of criminal

liability,

too,

came

to be

theoretically

based

on notions of "an

equal

abstract and

universal

legal subject-

though

once

again

only

to a

partial

extent,

for there were

many

accommodations

in

practice

with

existing

social

hierarchies

[Singha

1998:viii].

Equality

before

the

law,

prom-

ised

in

much-cited

official documents like

the

Queen's

Proclamation

of

1858,

was

often severely tampered by white racial

privilege.

But then

promises

simulta-

neously

held

out

and broken tend to

whet

appetites,

and

such a

dialectic

came to

operate,

though

of

course

in

widely

dif-

ferentand

at times even

contradictoryways,

both

with

respect

to attitudestowards their

foreign

overlords

of a

growing

number

of

Indians,

and lower

caste

(and/or

class)

resentmentsabout

ndigeneous

hierarchies

of

privilege

and

exploitation.

Even more

significant initially,

perhaps,

were

developments relating

to

gender.

It

has been

argued

recently

that

the

19th

century legal reforms and debates around

women

('sati',

women's

education,

widow

remarriage, age

of

consent,

polygamy)

may

have

been

significant

above all

for

their

unsettling

effect. The concrete

achievements

of social reforms

were not

very

substantial, but,

along

with

the

in-

tense debates around them

that became

possible

though

the

coming

of

print,

they

did contribute

to a

"destabilising

and

problematising

[of]

the

old

order".

For

legality

now clashed

with

religious

pre-

scription,13

a

small but

growing

number

of women

took to

education

violating

customary prohibitions, and even conser-

vative defenders of

the old

rules

and norms

had to use

increasingly

a

new

language

of the

woman's own consent.14

Indian

reformist efforts at social

change through

colonial

legislation,

though

much

resented

by many

nationalists,

helped

to constitute

"an excess that

gave

the

woman,

at least

notionally,

a

sphere

of

personal rights

outside the

rule of the

family

and com-

munity."15

I am

arguing,

then,

that

the

heightened

late- and

post-colonial

tensions

around

conversions

have to be related

to

commu-

nity

borders

becoming

simultaneously

harder and more vulnerable. Let me

try

to

illustrate

hrough

a few

sample

instances

of conflict

(or

its

absence),

relating

in the

main to Christian

conversions.

While Christian

proselytisation

through-

out tended

to focus

primarily

on tribals

and lower

castes,

the Scottish

missionary

Alexander Duff

in

the

Bengal

of the 1830s

and 1940s

tried out an alternative

strategy

of

targeting

elite Indians

through higher

education,

public

debates

and individual

contacts. There were some

spectacular

1694

Economic and Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999


6/11

individual

conversions

in

upper

caste

households.

like Krishnamohan

Banerji

and Madhusudan

Dutta,

and

in

1845 a

major

controversy

burst

out in Calcutta

around

Umeshchandra

Sarkarand his

wife,

aged

14 and

11,

defying

family

elders to

become

Christians.

The

sharp

differences

in educated

high-caste

Calcutta

society

around social

and religious

reform

(not-

ably the ban on widow immolation) were

suddenly forgotten

as Radhakanta

Deb,

leader

of

the

conservative

Dharma

Sabha,

Debendranath

Tagore,

inheritor of

Rammohan's

Brahmo

mantle,

and even

the Derozian

Ramgopal

Ghosh

joined

hands

to float

a Hindu Hitarthi

Vidyalay

to rescue

education from the clutches

of

missionaries.

The terms

of

argument

as

defined

by Akshoykumar

Dutta,

Brahmo

editor

of 7attvabodhini

Patrika

with a

considerable

rationalist

reputation,

were

particularly

nteresting:

"Even

the women

within

the household have started

to turn

Christian Will we not wake upeven after

this terrible

event?"

[Chakrabarti

1916].

Individual conversion

was felt to be

a

threat

to

falnily

order.16

Resentment

and

fear

among

propertied

Hindus was com-

pounded

in

1850

by

the

passage

of the

Disabilities

Removal

Act which

sought

to

protect

the

right

of inheritance

of

converts.

Throughout

he

19th

century,

there

were

numerous

polemical

encounters between

missionaries and Hindu

or Muslim

spokes-

men,

in

public

debates

as well as

through

the

press.

These could

be full of

theologi-

cal rancour and verbal violence, and yet

were

not,

perhaps,

all

that

qualitatively

different

from

what in

today's perspective

would

be termed

ntra-community

debates;

the

'shastratha'of

brahman

pandits,

or the

'bahas'

among

Bengal

Muslims.

17

Unlike

the bulk

of 20th

century

communal

dis-

courses,

such

polemics

had an intellectual

content,

turning

around

questions

of re-

ligious

doctrines

or

practices.

They

were

not as

yet

mere

appeals

for

unthinking

community solidarity, whipped

up through

emotive

enemy images.

Instances

would

include Vishnubawa

Brahmachari's

anti-

missionary

lectures

on

Bombay

Back

Bay

beach

between

January

and

May

1857,

or

the

encounter between

a

particularly

ag-

gressive

missionary,

Carl

Pfanzer,

and

Wazir

Khan,

graduate

of Calcutta Medical

College,

in

Agra

oni

the eve

of the

Mutiny.18

But the

polemic

with the

most

far-reaching

(and

long-lasting)

conse-

quences

was

undoubtedly

that launched

by

Dayananda

Saraswati

in

Chapter

13 of

Satyartha

Prakash

(1875).

This combined

serious

logical

argument

(at

their best

somewhat reminiscent

of

Rammohan's

critique

of

Trinity

and

Original

Sin)

with

an

emergent

anti-white,

anti-colonial tone:

"If

a

white man kills a black

man,

he is

for the most

part

declared

not

guilty

and

acquitted.

The same

must be the

justice

administered n

paradise".Dayananda

also

raised

a

question

as to what kind

of

face

the

personal god

of the Christians

has:

"White like

European?

Or black

like

African Negroes?" Yet there was also a

clear

patriarchal-cum-class

dimension

to

much of

this

polemic.

Thus belief in

immaculate

conception

could lead to loss

of control over

women

-

"Any virgin

who

happened

to

conceive

would

give

out

that

she

conceived

through god".

Dayananda

was

angered

both

by

the St Matthew

passage predicting

sons

rebelling

against

fathers for the sake of

Jesus,

and,

even

more,

by

the

image

of the

camel and the

needle's

eye.19

Christ to him was a mere

carpenter's

son,

living

in

a

'junglee

desh',

a wild and

poor

country:

'This

is

why

he

prays for the daily bread"[Jones 1992].20

At a different

and more obscure

level,

spread

of

Christianity among peasants

occasionally

aroused zamindar

hostility.

Landlordsseem

to

have

felt that

converted

tenants became less

amenable to their

demands,

for in missionaries

they

had

found an alternative source of

authority

and

patronage.

Cultivators

and fishermen

of

Rammakolchoke,

a

village

to

the south

of

Calcutta,

were fined

Rs 10 each

in the

late

1820s

and

beaten

with shoes

by

their

zamindarforturningChristian.

There

were

clashes

in

1840

at

Bohirgacchi

near

Krishnagar(Nadia), and in a Barisal vil-

lage

in 1846 Hindu zamindars

seized the

lands,

implements,

cattle and even

clothes

of

29

Christian families

and

destroyed

their

huts. The converts

had

to

take shelter

among

Muslim

neighbours

[Oddie

1979:114-16].

Diligent

work

on mission-

ary

archives and

local official records

would

probably

reveal

many

other in-

stances. The missionaries

were no doubt

motivated

primarily

-

and

in

many

cases

perhaps

solely

-

by

desire for

conversion,

and would not

have been

pro-peasant

or

socially

radical on

principle.

Their

pres-

ence could

still be a resource for

the under-

privileged,

as

for

instance when French

Catholic missionaries

of the

Pondicherry-

based Societe des

Missions

Etrangeres

helped agricultural

abourersbeaten

up by

landlords

in a court case at

Alladhy

in

1874-75,

an

incident which seems to

have

stimulated a wave of mass conversions

in

that area

[Bugge

1997:105].

It

needs

to

be added

that

there

were occasions

when

missionary lobbying provided important

inputs

in moves towards

pro-tenant

legal

reform,

as

in

the

run-up

to

the

Bengal

Tenancy

Amendment f

1859,

or in

early

20th

century

Chhota

Nagpur

where

ccord-

ing

to the

census

report

of 1911

"the

agrarian

egislation,

which is the

Magna

Cartaof the

aboriginal,

s

largely

due to

their

influence".

It is truethat

therecan be a

nationalist

position,

abstracted

rom

considerations

of social

ustice,

which

might

ind n

such

pro-peasantmissionarynterventionsvi-

dence

only

of efforts to consolidate

co-

lonial

power

throughdividing

the Indi-

ans.21

But then

what

are

we to make of

a substantial ection

of

foreign

mission-

aries n

Bengal during

he

1850s,

headed

by

Reverend James

Long,

who took a

public

stand

against

ellow white

indigo

planters

efore

and

during

he 'Blue Mu-

tiny'? Long

even went to

jail, accepting

responsibility

for

publication

of the

English

version of

Dinabandhu

Mitra's

play Neel-Darpan exposing

the

horrors

of

indigo

-

which

had been translated

by

anotherChristian,MichaelMadhusudan

Dutta.

Long

has been

deservedly

mmor-

talised n

Bengal

folk

memoryby

a

popu-

lar

ditty:

The

indigo

monkeys

have

been

ruining

golden Bengal

Harish iedbefore

is

ime,

Long

hasbeen

sent

to

jail.

Prior o around he

tur-of-the-century,

Christian

roselytisation

mong

he

poor

-

as distinct

rom

he rarebut

spectacular

conversionof

prominent

men

-

does not

seemtohavebecomea central

upper

aste

(or

ashraf)

intelligentsia

concern.

Much of

the expansion,nthe 19thcentury s well

asoften

ater,

was

n

outlying

reas,

argely

untouched

by

mainstream

Hinduism

nd

Islam.

The

element of

competition

and

conflict enteredmuch

later,

with

Hindu

'reconversion' fforts.

In

an

interesting

analysis

of Christian conversion

in

Nagaland,

Richard

Eaton

suggested

hat

this could even

provide

a

"paradigm

f

how

previous

aboriginals

f India

might,

in earlier

epochs,

have acculturated

o

Hinduism,

Buddhism

or Islam".

As he

argued

ater aboutmedieval

Bengal,

the

role of

poritical

oercionseems

to have

been

negligible,

despite

he racial

affinity

betweenmissionaries

ndcolonialrulers.

The

great eap

in

Naga

conversions

ook

place

after

ndependence,

nd here s also

a

significant

ack of

correlation

etween

presence

f

foreign

missionaries

nd

pread

of

Christianity.22

uchmoredecisive

was

the

association

of

Christianity

with

the

spread

of

literacy

and effective modern

medicine,

processes

that were

greatly

accelerated

rom the second world

war

and the Kohima

campaign

onwards.The

missionaries

ame as "emissaries f the

Economic and

Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999 1695


7/11

high

culture of the

plains

bringing

the

written

word to the

forest",

in

a

region

of

shifting

cultivation,

no written

script,

or

town

life

-

not

unlike,

in other

parts

of

the

subcontinent

earlier,

brahmins,

Bud-

dhist

monks,

Muslimjudges

and

holy

men.

There were in addition elements of skilful

adaptation

of

Christianity

to

indigenous

traditions,

establishing

links with

existing

Naga notions of a supreme divinity, for

instance

-

once

again.

a

parallel suggests

itself with

processes

of

sanskritising'

kind

(ibid:32,43).

The last

quarter

of the 19th

century

was

marked

by

a

surge

in

the

number

of

Christian

conversions,

so much

so

that it

has been

described

in mission histories as

the

era of

"mass

movements".

Whole

families,

villages

or

sub-castes

came

over

en

mlasse

in a

manner

that

possibly

re-

duced

the

aspect

of conflict

at local

levels,

but

heightened

fearselsewhere.23

Repeated

famines

could

have

had

something

to do

with this - the phenomenon of 'rich

Christians',

relief

work

by

missions

ac-

companied

by

baptisms,

at times of small

children,

which embaiiassed

many

Chris-

tians

at

times.

But,

in some areas at

least,

there were

also links with

lower caste/

class

discontent,

as

among

the

pariah

agri-

cultural abourers

of

Chingleput

and north

Arcot in the

early

1890s where Methodist

and Free Church of Scotland

missionaries

actively

fostered effoils

at

empowerment

directed

against oppressive

mirasidars

[Oddie 1979:128-46].

Developments

like

these

may

have

had

something

to do with

Vivekananda's

powerful pleas,

in course

of and after

his

travels in south

India,

for

upliftment

of untouchables

-

with which

he

often

linked the

danger

otherwise

of

Christian

conversion.

Three

processes began

coming together

from

around

he

turnof the

century

to raise

high-caste

Hindu fears

about

conversion

to a

qualitatively higher

level.

The com-

petitive

logic

of numbers

made

possible

by

census enumeration

acquired

greater

saliency

through

the

gradual

spread

of

representative

institutions.

In

regions

where the

major religious

communities

had been

revealed

by

census

operations

to have

roughly equal

numbers

(like,

notably,

Bengal

and

Punjab),

even small

changes

through

conversions came

to

be

perceived

as

ominous.

There

were

in

addition

clear

signs

of

a

rapid

growth

in

lower-caste

affirmations,

in

part

stimu-

lated

by

the census bid

in

1901

to fix

caste

rankings.

There

was

a

quantum

eap

in

the

number

of caste associations and of

pub-

lications

by

or on

behalf

of lower caste

groups, seeking

in

the main

upward

mobility

of a

'Sanskritising'

kind,

but also

going

in at times for

quite

a lot of anti-

brahmanical and anti-caste

rhetoric.

An

additional

input

was

provided

by

British

divide-and-rulemoves

like

Gait's abortive

suggestions

in

1910

to list

separately

in

the

coming

census

lower castes denied

brahman

services

and

entry

to

temples.

The

resultant

compound

of resentment

and

anxiety

was

best articulated

by

U N

Mukherji's very influential text, Hindus:

A

Dying

Race

(Calcutta,

1909),

which

skilfully

used some census data and

pre-

dictions to

develop

a horrific vision of

Hindu decline as

contrasted

to Muslim

growth

and

strength

[Dutta

1999: ch

1;

Sarkar 1977:

ch

9,

1999].

Mukherjipinpointed

subordinated astes

to be the

Achilles' heel

of Hindu

society,

and

his

suggested

remedies amounted

therefore

to

a kind

of

organised

and lim-

ited

Sanskritisation

from

the

top

at

brahmanical

initiative.

In

practice, par-

ticularly

in

northernIndia as

spearheaded

by the Arya Samaj, the concrete response

to the fear of

declining

numbers

so

vividly

expressed by

Mukherji

took the form of

the

'shuddhi' movement

to

'purify'

or

'reconvert'

marginal

groups.

Social

upliftment

efforts.

which

in

strict

logic

could have been directed towards

all

sub-

ordinated lower

castes

and

untouchables,

became in

practice

exercises in

policing

and

modifying

the borders

between reli-

gious

communities. The

major

targets

to

shuddhi

-

the

Rahtia Sikhs

around

1899-

1900,

the Malkana

Rajputs

of

the

Mathura-

Farrukhabad

egion

immediately

after the

collapse

of the

non-co-operation-khilafat

movement

in 1922

-

became

precisely

groups among

whom

syncretistic

prac-

tices had

been

most

prominent,24

and

'shuddhi

sangathan'

in tandem

with their

Muslim

counterparts,

'tabligh'

and

'tanzim',

became

a

principal

source of

acute Hindu-Muslim tension and violence

in the mid-1920s.

If

Sikhs,

initially,

and then

on

a far more

intensive scale Muslims. were

the domi-

nant

'Others'

of

shuddhi,

Christians

were

not

being entirely

forgotten

in this

fast-

developing

Hindu communalist discourse

which

was

simultaneously

tending

to build

bridges

between

reform-oriented

Aryas

and

their

old,

at one

time

very

bitter,

Sanatanist rivals.

Danger

of Christian

conversion in the wake of

missionary

famine

relief work had been

one factor

behind the

Arya

interest

in the

Rahtias,

treated as virtual out-castes

by

other Sikhs

[Jordens

1981:52-531.

A

central

text of the

mid-1920s shuddhi

movement,

Swami

Shraddhananda's Hindu

Sangathan:

The

Saviour

of

the

Dying Race,

while ful-

somely

acknowledging

indebtedness to

Mukherji

in

title and

initial

chapter.

modified he

atter's hesis

hrough

iving

far

greater

centrality

to

conversion

as

central cause of

Hindu

decline,

and

by

somewhat

unexpectedly iving

almost

as

much

space

to Christians s to

Muslims

in its

polemic.

Conversion

n

any

case

had

to be made into the

key

grievance

n

a

*

movement

irected

owards

reconverting'

through urification,ndShraddhananda's

chapter

ntitled.

The

Causesof

Decline

in

Number'

announced,

n

bold

headlines,

"the

irst

cause" o

be the

"conversion

o

other

religious

aiths".

Sections

ollowed

about

Muslim and Christian

onversions

by

'force'

and 'means

other han

force',

with

the author

rying

o use a

bitof intra-

Christian

polemic

(A

German

Protestant

diatribe

against

Jesuits and the

inquisi-

tion)

to

establish

his

argument

about

Christian oercionand

trickery.

Not

too

convincingly,

t must be

admitted,

ince

all

the

instances are

confined

to

16th

centuryGoa) [Sanyasi1926:14-20].25

Anti-conversion entiments

eceiveda

major

timulus romSavarkar's

ery

far-

reaching

and influential

definition

of

'Hindu'

n

1923 as those who

uniquely

combined

pitribhumi'

nd

punyabhumi',

fatherlandwith

holyland.Through very

effective

appropriation

f nationalism

y

Hindu

majoritarianism,ndigenous rigin

of

religious orby

extension,

ther)

beliefs,

practices,

r

nstitutions

was made nto he

supreme

riterion f value.It

became

asy

to

brandMuslimsandChristians

s

some-

how

alien,

unpatriotic

by

definition a

charge articularlyffectiveagainstChris-

tians

in

the colonial

era

due to their re-

ligious affinity

with the

foreign

rulers.

The

aggressive

Hindu-nationalistdeo-

logical-political

loc thathad

come

to be

constituted

y

the mid-1920s

Savarkar's

1923

text

and the foundation f the RSS

in 1925

providing

he

obvious

benchmarks)

also tended to

be

socially

conservative,

even

though

reformist trandshad con-

tributed

ignificantly

o ts

making

t

imes.

The

point

can be madeclearer

hrough

glance

at the

precise

ways

and

extent to

which much-hated onversion

or more

generally

the

presence

of alternative

proselytising eligious

tructures

could

contribute

owards

empowerment

f

the

downtrodden

n

Hindu

ociety.

Here t is

easy

to both

exaggerate

or

-

downplay.

Proselytisation,

most of the

time,

seeks

new

adherents,

not

social

justice

except

perhaps

as means towards hat

end,

and

it would

be absurd

o

portrayChristianity

(or

Islamor

Buddhism)

as

having

been

consistently

galitarian

n

its

this-wordly

impact.

Conversion

gain

eldom

guaran-

teed

equal

treatment,

or

it

is well known

1696

Economic and Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999


8/11

that caste

prejudices

and hierarchies have

often

persisted

among

converts to Christia-

nity

orIslam,

despite

theoretical

principles

of

equality

in

the

eyes

of

god

or allah.

Yet an

instance from the

history

of

the

lower

caste Namashudra movement

in

central

and

south Bengal

in the

early

20th

century

uggests

that

a

degree

of

empower-

ment was

possible

through missionary

presence - even where that presence did

not lead

to

significant

conversions. The

metrical

biography

of Guruchand Thakur

(1847-1937),

leader

of

the

dissident

Vaishnava Matua sect which constituted

the

core of the Namashudra

upthrust,

explains

in

vivid detail the circumstances

that led

the Matuas

to

seek

the

assistance

of the Australian

Baptist missionary

C S

Mead-striking

an alliance that

proved

very

fruitful for the Namashudras

in their

quest

for

educational

facilities,

salaried

jobs,

and

eventually political advantages.

The Namashudras wanted

to start

a

high

school at Orakandi, Faridpur (the centre

of

their

movement),

the

poem

explains,

because

landlords and

moneylenders

constantly

tricked illiterate

peasants

like

them in

everyday

matters of

rent

or debt-

payment

receipts.

They

encountered

stiff

opposition

from

the

local

high

caste

kayasthas,

who were afraid

that

heir

share-

croppers

and servants would

no

longer

work

for them

if

they

became educated.

That.

they

are

reported

as

arguing,

would

disrupt

he

age-old principles

of 'adhikari-

bheda'

(hierarchy),

as

enshrined

notably

in the

Ramayana.

The

biography

explains

thatit was such 'bhadralok'hostility that

made Guruchand

accept

the offer

of finan-

cial

and other

assistance

from

Mead,

and

it is also

very

careful

to

emphasise

that

the

motives

were

entirely

pragmatic,

to

get

money

for

the

school

and

also

obtain

access

to British

officials. The Namashudras

were

quite

satisfied with their Matua faith

founded

by

Guruchand'

fatherHarichand

Thakur,

and

very

few of them turned

Christian

[Haldar

1943:100-10].

The Christian

conversions issue fell

somewhat

nto

the

background

n the 1930s

and

1940s,

with

communalism turned

nto

an

obsessively

Hindu-Muslim

affair,

cul-

minating

in the blood-baths of

1946-47.

That

it

had not

vanished, however,

was

suddenly

revealed

by

a

near-explosion

on

the floor of the constituent

assembly

on

May

1,

1947 in course

of debates

on the

fundamental

right

to

religious

freedom.

Many

members

objected

to freedom of

religionextending

o the

iight

to

propagate,

with Purushottamdas

Tandon even

declar-

ing

that "most

Congressmen

are

opposed

to this ideaof

'propagation'.

But

we

agreed

to

keep

the word

'propagatet

out of

regard

for our own

Christian friends." And once

again

the social dimensions of the issue

got

exposed particularly

in

a

speech

by

Algurai

Shastri,

who listed

among

the

'unfair means'

adopted by

Christian mis-

sionaries

the utilisation

of

'bhangis

and

chamars':

"disputes

between members

of

such castes

as

the

sweepers

or

the chamars

on

the

one side and the

landlords or some

other influential members on the other

have

been

exploited

to

create

bitterness

among

them. No

effort has been made

to

effect

a

compromise.

This crooked

policy

has been

adopted

to

bring

about the con-

version of

the former"

(Constituent

As-

sembly

of

India

Debates,

Volume

II,

pp

483,

492).

Eventually.

the

right

to

propa-

gate

-

in

effect,

to

convert

-

was not

rejected,

but,

if

the

memory

of

the al-

ready-cited

Gandhian

opponent

of con-

versions

is

to be

trusted,

this was because

such a ban "would make a reconversion

difficult"

(IndianExpress,

January

,

1999,

cited in Rabindra Agarwal, Seba ki ad

me...,

op

cit).

It is worth

recalling

also that

along

with

promotion

of

highly

Sanskritised Ilindi

and cow

protection,

the

fight against

Christian

missions was

made into

an

early

plank

of Jan

Sangh

activity

in

the

early

1950s as

hindutva

forces

sought

to

regain

the

ground

lost

after

the murderof Gandhi.

In

November 1954 the Jan

Sangh

organised

an

Anti-Foreign

Missionary

Week

in

Madhya

Pradesh. Much had

started

being

made

of

insurgency

in

largely-Christian

Nagaland.

Then,

as

often

now,

what was

conveniently forgotten was thatmany so-

called 'secessionist' and/or 'terrorist'

movements have

had

nothing

to

do

with

religious

minorities

(e

g,

the

predomi-

nantly

high

caste

Hindu

ULFA),

while

relatively

little can be understood about

the

deeper

reasons behind such

move-

ments

by simplistic 'foreign

hand'

expla-

nations.

The

Madhya

Pradesh

Congress

reacted to the Jan

Sangh agitation

in what

had

already

become

a

strong

base of the

Hindu

right

in a manner

quite

character-

istic

-

and

always

in

the

long

run disas-

trous. It tried to outflank its rival

by

becoming

more

'Hindu',

a

move

condi-

tioned also

by

the

strong presence

of

very

similar elements within its own

members

and

leaders.

(The

Mahakoshal

Congress

was

the one

provincial

unit

which had

supported

Tandon

against

Nehru

in

1951.)

The

Niyogi

Commission it set

up

to

enquire

into Christian

missionary

activity

is still

repeatedly

and

reverentially

cited

by Sangh

parivar

spokesmen

and

publications,

for

it

suggested

a

ban

on conversions

unless

explicitly

proved

to have been

entirely

voluntary

-

passing

the onus of

proof

in

effect

on missionaries and

converts.26The

Jan

Sangh-led

Madhya

Pradesh

govern-

ment of 1967-68 did

actually

implement

some of

these

recommendations,

and

imposed

a strict test for

proving

voluntary

choice on Christian

converts.

Under the

post-emergency

Janata

government

with

a

strong

Jan

Sangh

component.

the

de-

struction of some churches in

the then

union territory of Arunachal Pradesh

became the

occasion for a law

(1978)

which

made

erection

of

places

of

worship

subject

to

administrative

permission

in

that

region.

A

private

bill

to

ban

conver-

sions was

also

moved in December

1978,

and was

supported by

prime

minister

Morarji

Desai,

but had to

be

dropped

in

the face

of Christian and other

opposition

[Jeffrelot

1993:163-65, 224,

287].

Vajpayee's

suggestion

for

a

'national

debate' on conversions is

therefore

not

a

liberal

proposal put

forward

by

a

good

man

fallen

among

unfortunate

associates,

but part of a well-thought-out Sangh

parivar strategy.

Till the recent anti-Christian

campaign,

the Vishwa Hindu Parishad

may

have

been associated

in the

public

mind

prima-

rily

with Ram

Janmabhumi

and

the on-

slaught

on

Muslims

culminating

in the

destruction

of

the Babri

masjid.

But at

the

lime

of its foundation

in

1964,

and

for

quite

some time after

it,

the main

thrust

had

been

directed

primarily

against

Chris-

tian

proselytisation

in tribal areas

(the

north-east,

MadhyaPradesh,

south

Bihar).

Significantly,

those who

figured promi-

nently at the inauguralmeeting of the VHP

at

Mumbai

included,

along

with

the RSS

boss

Golwalkar

and RSS

'pracharak'

S

S

Apte

(who

became the first

general

sec-

retary

of

this new affiliate of the

Sangh

parivar),

Brahmachari Dattamurti of the

Masurasram,

which

had

been

carrying

on

shuddi-sangathana

work with a

pro-

nounced anti-Christian slant

ever

since its

foundation

n

1920

[Hellman

1993:70-71].

The 'acara samhita' drawn

up

by

the VHP

in 1968

included

'paravartan' (turning

back,

i

e,

reconversion)

among

the

basic

'samskaras'

of

the Hinduism

it was

trying

to redefine

-

which amounted

really

to

a

major

nnovation,

and

ndicated

once

again

the

centrality

of this motif for this branch

of

hindutva.

There was thus

a

continuity

with

early

20th

century

shuddhi,

but also

some

departure.

Early Arya

shuddhi had

a

measure of

reformist,

anti-caste

(or

at

least

anti-untouchability)

thrust

critical

of

orthodox

practices,

and had at times

served

as

channel for

upward

mobility

for sub-

ordinated

groups irrespective

of the

ques-

tion

of reconversion.

But

paravartan

is

intended

solely

"for those who have left

Economic and

Political

Weekly

June

26,

1999

1697


9/11

Hinduism

or

foreign

creeds

like Islam

and

Christianity",

nd is

not

envisaged

"as

a

meansof

removing

untouchability"

(ibid,

pp

110-11).

Jaffrelot

ives

somedetails

of

VHPanti-

Christian work

among

tribals of the

Chhattisgarhegion

of

Madhya

Pradesh,

which has been channelled

hrough

he

Vanavasi

Kalyan

Ashrama,

et

up

already

in 1952by an ex-official of the govern-

ment

ribal

welfare

department

ith

RSS

Documents

Conversions and Politics of Hindu Right - Sarkar