Christmas Homecoming: Conversion is a tool to fool people into believing something will change

• Last Christmas
• I gave you my heart
• But the very next day you gave it away.
• This year
• To save me from tears
• I'll give it to someone special.
•  
• ~WHAM!

This Christmas, more than 5,000 families will come back to Hinduism, if the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s claim is to be believed. About 4,000 Christian and 1,000 Muslim families are expected to attend the Homecoming Ceremony in Aligarh. Christians and Muslims converting to Hinduism on a Christian holy day in a city most famous for a Muslim university. "Aligarh was chosen because it's time we wrested the Hindu city from Muslims. It is a city of brave Rajputs and their temples on whose remains Muslim institutions have been established," RSS regional pracharak Rajeshwar Singh told The Economic Times.

On Wednesday, India’s Parliament witnessed another furore, this time over more than 57 Muslim families in Agra, who "converted" to Hinduism. The Opposition said the conversion was not out of free will but a result of inducement, hence illegal. "We were promised that our IDs will be made. We were just asked to dress properly. The men were asked to wear skull caps," a woman at Agra’s Madhunagar slum told indiatoday.in.

The spotlight is back on conversion, the old seed of strife in a melting pot called India. "People should be free to choose their own religion. If they have again adopted Hinduism, there is no harm," senior party leader Vinay Katiyar said on Tuesday. BSP chief Mayawati said these were “forced conversions”. Even the converts said they were misled. That makes my belief stronger that their belief in their religion was weak. If you can leave your religion and adopt another for an ID card, you never believed in your religion. You just go with the flow. But it is important to know who these people are. They are at the bottom of the social structure. Even among Muslims, they remained Dalits. After converting to Hinduism, they will remain Dalits. Katiyar says people should be free to choose their religion. He can’t ever say the same about choosing your caste.

Class act

Conversion is about class. Poverty. Most poor people convert because of allurement or force. It can range from material like food and medicine, what Christians offered in the 19th Century to tribals, to spiritual, a promise of heaven after death and equality in life, stuff Sufi saints employed before them. Hinduism was not a religion you could convert to, because you were either born a Hindu or not. Conversion in Hinduism is a recent development. At least at this scale when it makes news. In any case, very few conversions take place out of free will.

It is also not a coincidence that most free will conversions take place when the rich people are involved. Even in that case, the idea of free will is foggy. Because it depends on social conditioning and the place where you live. In fact, your religion is based on the place you are born. In India, there is a 80 per cent chance of a child being a Hindu. In Saudi Arabia, no chance. The same applies in conversion. A Hindu man living in comfortable conditions in, say Pakistan, doesn’t enjoy the same comfort among people he lives with. So much so that it becomes pointless after a point. That’s why the share of Hindus in Pakistan’s population came down from 11-12 per cent in 1951 to 2-3 per cent now.

It’s easy to fall prey to a tableeghi preacher and accept Islam in Pakistan. The Pakistani cricket team, under Inzamam ul-Haq, not only prayed five times but also converted their non-Muslim players. Recently, a Pakistani player attempted to convert someone from a rival team. On the field. Because even cricketers are constantly taught that offering dawah has its own rewards. Why not win some afterlife rewards while trying to win the match? It’s not an everyday thing in India because Hinduism doesn’t welcome conversion, no matter what the RSS says.

Love thy neighbour

We have just had a huge debate about what the Hindu Right calls “Love Jihad”. They claimed that young Muslim men were tricking Hindu girls into falling in love and then marrying them to convert the girls’ faith. For every one such case, there were scores of cases where there was no trick involved and conversions were not out of faith in another God but out of love of the man. The debate has not died down, even after dividing society. In Pakistan, there is no such thing as tricking someone into it. In Sindh, there have been over 20 cases where girls were kidnapped, forcibly converted and married. Recently a 13-year-old girl was married to a 62-year-old man in one such case. Since Pakistan is founded on Islam and there the minorities can’t do much in the face of rising Islamism, they are highlighting these facts on technical grounds like marrying girls under 13 is illegal.

Conversions are either by force, early Islam spread under the shade of swords, or by allurement, the tool used by Christian missionaries. Or a mix of both, the combination being used by the Sangh Parivar. They all target the poor, because it is easy to force, lure or herd them.

The Sangh Parivar is emboldened by the saffron rise. It has more resources and establishment support at its disposal than it ever had. It can promise them ID cards too. But its biggest weakness remains. It cannot promise them a promotion in social hierarchy. It cannot promise to improve their lives. So those who convert are basically doing it for nothing.

Useless universe

It is also futile from another point of view. It doesn’t matter. It is stupid to begin with. A Muslim converting to Hinduism means you stop believing in one god you have not seen to many gods you have not seen. It’s a journey from one promised heaven you may not go to to another you may not go to. Because you will be dead. You are the centre of this blooming universe and the world ends the day you die. That’s Pralaya, Qayamat or Judgment Day or whatever you fancy. The earth explodes into pieces, the stars into dust and the sun loses all its light. Till that day, you will have to work to feed your family. But try telling that to a poor man who can’t get his BPL card promised by the government. For him/her, God is where the BPL card is. Free will, my foot.