For many days I have been meaning to write a few lines about the sheer madness of the 'Ghar Vapsi' (back to home) conversions of Muslims, Christians and other minorities back to being Hindus. As the ancestors of most non Hindu Indians were Hindus the religious right directly or indirectly associated with the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) believe what they promote is not really conversion but a home coming. Hence the term 'Ghar Vapsi'.
As a child growing up in India in the afterglow of the freedom movement I learnt to be Indian first and foremost before belonging to any of its states or any of its many faiths. I did not completely escape the inescapable and ubiquitous reality of its religiosity. It touched me too but the robust secularism and deep religiosity of Mahatma Gandhi helped infuse in me an abiding respect for not just one but of all of India's faiths, believers and nonbelievers. As a result I am moved more by the collective Indian heritage and our common humanity rather than by any one faith.
As I sat down to write these few lines I remembered my wife's affectionate and oft repeated admonishment to be brutally blunt, if I must, but always respectfully so. A scholar friend thought respect was fine in so far as it went but how could one respect imbeciles? I wanted to agree with histter clear statement. But that was an insult to the people in question. Imbecile is an offensive term that deliberately insults my targets' intellect deeming them of low IQ. I decided to not use that term to describe the people I was going to talk about. I made up my mind to call them idiots thinking that to be a relatively innocuous word so often used by all and sundry. But to my utter horror imbecile and idiot were interchangeable; synonyms.
The people I am talking about are neither idiots nor imbeciles. They are some of the smartest people in India; the architects and pillars of the Modi victory in the last Indian election. However being smart does not guarantee good judgement; that is quite obvious from their utterances and actions like 'Ghar Vapsi'. It is unfortunate for Modi and India that these elements now control the machinery and might of the country. So figuring out who they are is not just a semantic exercise. It is fundamental to the kind of India they will build or how they will mould it. The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), Bajrang Dal and many other incarnations of the religious right in the world of Hidutva have essentially derailed Modi's development agenda if he ever was committed to one. The sceptic in me says this because Modi has so far done nothing to rein in the 'religious' forces that substantially fuelled his victory in the national elections. Perhaps his agenda was always Hindutva not development. More charitably one may easily conclude from his actions and omissions so far that his agenda all along may have been development steeped in Hindutva. In either case it is the wrong way to go for the land of many religions, ethnicities and languages that is India.
The 'Ghar Vapsi' campaign unleashed by the religious right sponsors and supporters of the BJP would not have lasted a nanosecond without it's implicit support or encouragement. At any rate it is absolutely nonsensical to describe an extremely ill conceived campaign of religious conversion as 'Ghar Vapsi'. Any religion, without more, cannot a home make. A home is much more than spiritual moorings, religious worship or beliefs. And in that wider and real sense the targets of the 'Ghar Vapsi' are already at home. They are Indians; an integral part of the Indian family. They are in their home; India is their home. They are not homeless. One can never be homeless in one's motherland. In the embrace of mother India they are free to be seekers of spirituality, worshipers of any faith and pursers of worldly or other worldly matters including atheism.
If the geniuses who thought up the harebrained 'Ghar Vapsi' scheme had urged the Indian diaspora to return home to help rebuild the country I would have unconditionally applauded them for arguing that 'Ghar Vapsi'. I would have cheered them on too if they had expressed concern about the condition of the Roma in Europe, the gypsies as some have called them in the past. The Roma are the Indians who were taken as slaves over 1000 years ago in the many invasions beginning with the numerous by Mehmood Ghazanvi. These slaves now known as Roma were transported to Afghanistan and beyond. Once the subjugating sultanate weakened they were free to move on. They trekked westward to Europe. They did not go back home to India the "Bara Thao" as they refer to India. They felt in the India of that age they would not have been accepted having been 'polluted' by being forced out of the country and mingling with the foreigners.. In some places in Europe they suffered slavery for several hundred years and slave like conditions all over Europe. These Indians from North West India and their descendants are still being persecuted in many parts of Europe. Currently France is the worst culprit in it's treatment of the Roma. There are close to 20 million of them all over Europe; a population the size of Punjab being persecuted in many places in Europe. Most of them live in a state of near statelessness. Instead of engaging in divisive and disruptive 'Ghar Vapsi' schemes for people who are already in their home called India the conversion hawkers could have spared a thought for the Roma and given voice to their struggle for equality and social justice in Europe.
If the promoters of 'Ghar Vapsi' couldn't raise a voice for the rights of the Roma in Europe or they did not want to give a call to the diaspora to help rebuild India they could have focused on the millions of life and death issues faced by Indians at home. It isn't as if they have go too far to find them. They could have easily given voice to the glaring need for equality for the Dalits who have suffered and continue to suffer the heinous crime of untouchability. They could have urged the Modi government that they helped elect to move aggressively to end corruption, tackle poverty, end child labour and child slavery and provide free healthcare to each Indian. They could have been out there in the streets of Delhi, Mubai, towns and cities, large and small, to press Modi to move on these and other issues and quickly. These are real issues that affect India's ability to be a real player on the world stage. Instead these supporters of BJP have offered religious "Ghar Vapsi" as if India and Indians need more religion. India does not need more religion. We are steeped in it already and have been for ages. Let the seekers seek and the wanderers wander in search of their own truths. Anyone in India is free to seek the truth, worship what and who one wishes.
Then there is talk of no law or more law on religious conversions. People of India must reject the thoroughly vacuous debate about more law, an anti conversion law or the freedom of religion law as proposed by many. India's constitution already guarantees freedom of religion which includes freedom to choose and freedom from coercion from the pushers of 'ghar vapsi' or of any other variety.
The 'Ghar Vapsi' is dangerous and irresponsible. It has the potential to ignite unrest in the country that could spread like an uncontrollable prairie fire. What makes it even more incendiary in a multifaith, multilingual, multiethnic and multiracial country is the fact that the outfits that are carrying out the Ghar Vapsi campaign are directly and indirectly associated with the ruling BJP. As if that was not dangerous enough the BJP government is home to the those who see Indians as either Ramzadas or Haramzadas; that tell people to vote for Modi or go to Pakistan; that believe Nathu Ram Godse the fanatic killer of Mahatma Gandhi was a patriot. Then there are the Love Jihad, Beti Lao Ghar Bachao and more. All of these schemes and utterances pander to paranoia and subvert whatever peace, sanity and stability remains in the Indian polity.
The most troubling aspect of the communal posturing and muckraking by the likes of RSS is the deafening silence of Prime Minister Modi. He must know he can't run with the hare and hunt with the hound at the same time. That is an impossible feat even for a superb political madari like him. He needs to be part of the conversation on conversion. He needs to rein in his onetime Ghar the RSS. The dangerous dance of communalism, conversions, Ramzadas and Haramzadas must cease. The country' future demands it. Modi's promise and focus on development demands it. If the development politician Modi claims to be is silenced by the RSS Parcharak he once was it will be catastrophic for the country and for the hopes and aspirations of many who elected him. Would Modi turn out to be just a madari or will he prove to be a nation builder that India so desperately needs? For the sake of India I hope a nation builder, not a madari!
