Poorer Muslims flee forced faith conversions in India

Hundreds of poor Muslims have fled their homes in India’s northern town of Agra, after 57 families were forcibly converted to Hinduism by an organisation affiliated to prime minister Nareendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

About 250 Muslim slum-dwellers changed their faith at a recent ceremony in Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal, 230km east of New Delhi, after being offered government identity cards that entitled them to subsidised wheat and rice.

Opposition parties demanded that Mr Modi rein in BJP-aligned religious groups and accused him of seeking to promote a Hindu state by chipping away at India’s secular credentials.

“This house must be assured the constitution of India will not be violated,” Anand Sharma, leader of the opposition Congress Party, told parliament last week. “There is a diabolical agenda [afoot],” he added.

Hindu organisations cause unease among India’s minority Muslims, who constitute about 15 per cent of India’s population of some 1.25 billion people.

Muslims accuse the Hindu groups of a deep-seated bias and say they have become more assertive since the BJP's rise to power in a dramatic electoral victory in May.

Anti-Muslim riots

Mr Modi, who was accused of failing to contain anti-Muslim riots in his home province of Gujarat in 2002 when he was chief minister, insists Muslims have nothing to fear.

However, communal remarks by many of his ministers praising Hindu fanatics and the furore over Agra’s conversions indicate such hardliners have the BJP’s tacit encouragement.

Mr Modi is backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, India’s powerful albeit surreptitiously Hindu revivalist organisation, which he joined as a novitiate.

Founded in 1925 as a right- wing paramilitary volunteer Hindu organisation, the RSS provides spiritual guidance to the BJP.

It has been proscribed twice since independence in 1947 for its extremist beliefs.

The RSS’s fundamental role and that of its myriad affiliates is to defend Hinduism by keeping it “pure” from outside influences such as Islam and Christianity.

It instructs its millions of members in military drill and involves them in ideological discussions in neighbourhoods across the country.

Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin reportedly subscribed to similar tenets, murdering him because of his secular approach to India’s minority Muslim community.

Passionate debate

Religious conversions have been a topic of passionate debate in India for decades.

Hindu groups have accused Christian missionaries and Muslims of converting poor, low-caste Dalits – formerly untouchables – and tribespeople with cash inducements and promises of a better life.

Over the past few years, though, Hindu hardline groups led by the RSS have begun organising reconversion rituals called ghar vapasi, or "returning home". One such function is taking place in the largely Muslim town of Aligarh, 140km east of Delhi, on Christmas Day.

A major advocate for this campaign is BJP MP Yodi Adityanath, who yesterday urged the authorities not to interfere in this proselytising endeavour.

“Indian society is under attack from Muslims, Christians, Maoists and terrorists and they want to end us as a nation,” according to a pamphlet distributed by the Hindu group organising the conversion campaign.

“We being the ones fighting, for [the] gods are on the defensive, while they have gone on an all-out offensive to destroy the Indian culture,” it added, promising to right this “injustice”.

70% turnout

Meanwhile, the high voter turnout of about 70 per cent in three of four phases of voting that have taken place in India’s northern Muslim-dominated Jammu and Kashmir province is likely to be a setback to the BJP’s hopes of continued electoral success.

Political analysts said Kashmiri voters had turned out in large numbers to ensure the BJP’s defeat in state elections, as they viewed its rise to power in their state as a threat to their exclusive Muslim identity.

Kashmir’s fifth and last phase of polling takes place on December 20th and results will be known three days later.