group "reconverted" thousands of India’s most impoverished Christians back to Hinduism, as an attempt "to instigate" religious tensions.
The World Hindu Council, known locally as Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), said its followers were responsible for the "reconversion" of up to 5000 ‘Dalit’ Christians from 14 churches in two key districts of the central Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, local media reported. The churches were transferred into Hindu schools for Dalit children and former Catholic priests became teachers after they changed their cross tattoo for a Hindu sign, news reports said.
Krishna Prabhakar Upadhyaya, district editor of a regional Hindi daily, told BosNewsLife he obtained a list of "a total of 4096 Christians" who he claimed "reconverted" during a Hindu-ceremony last Sunday, February 13. The event reportedly took place after VHP-activists spread out to 26 villages of the Etah and Firozabad districts of Uttar Pradesh.
However "the VHP’s claims about the reconversions" of Dalits "are false," a Catholic priest from the Archdiocese of Agra in troubled Uttar Pradesh told BosNewsLife on condition of anonymity. "They [the VHP] are merely doing this to instigate tensions between Hindus and Christians. We should ignore such incidents," he said.
"NO INFORMATION"
Father J. Logo of the regional Bishop House claimed he had not heard of the incident. "We have no information about the reconversions [of Dalits], it might be a rumor," he added.
The term Dalit refers to the estimated 240 million "Untouchables" or the "Outcastes" in the subcontinent of India, who have traditionally occupied the lowest place in the complicated caste system of Hinduism. Human rights groups call them "a people broken, forgotten and exploited," as many of them work in the fields or carry out slave work for the much richer men and women of the "higher caste."
There has been a growing Christian movement among the mainly Hindu Dalits, and militants are known to have attacked churches and Christians, human rights watchdogs say. Local authorities ordered an inquiry into the alleged February mass conversions to see if Dalits were forced to accept the Hindu religion, India’s national daily Tribune reported. The VHP has denied that it used force to "reconvert" Dalit Christians.
DALITS "MISLED"
"The Dalit Christians are disillusioned with Christianity," after they gave up their "Hindu heritage" the Pioneer newspaper quoted VHP Secretary Mohan Joshi as saying. He reportedly said that the Dalit "Christians had been misled by Christian missionaries into accepting Christianity through lucrative offers of financial security and social equality."
Christians comprise less than one percent of the over 166 million population of Uttar Pradesh, according to estimates. The latest tensions came just days after India’s Supreme Court decided to study the legal implications of denying job, education quotas and social benefits to Dalit Christians.
Under a quota system at least 15 percent of jobs and educational placements have been reserved for members of lower castes including Dalit Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, but Dalit Christians and Muslims were excluded.
"We hope that the Supreme Court will soon finally end a historic injustice that was done in 1950 to the Dalits professing the Christian Faith," said John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union. "Whenever the Supreme Court gives its final judgment recognizing the cruel and debilitating inequities and injuries of the 3,000 year old caste system" it will "cross all boundaries of religion, region and ethnicity in India…" he added in a statement received by BosNewsLife.
(Based in New Delhi, Journalist Vishal Arora, 32, has covered persecution and other hard hitting news stories for a variety of international and national publications, including the Hindustan Times, the Indian Express, the Deccan Herald, the Statesman and the Tribune. He has traveled around the country on invitation by NGOs for seminars and talks on human rights, communalism, and religious persecution. Vishal Arora can be contacted at e-mail address vishalarora_in@hotmail.com or visit his website http://www40.brinkster.com/vishalarora/ )
