Dalit Christians "re-converted to Hinduism" during a widely published ceremony this month, BosNewsLife learned Monday, May 9. D. B. Hrudaya, secretary of the Orissa branch of the All India Christian Council (AICC), an influential advocacy group, told BosNewsLife that only "non-Christian people" attended the May 1 ceremony of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), or ‘World Hindu Council’.
The VHP claimed it "re-converted 567 Christians" from the ‘Dalit’ caste, India’s most impoverished and deprived group, "back to Hinduism" at a local school of Bijepur village in Orissa’s Bargarh district.
However "according to the fact-finding report [only] non-Christian people" [from surrounding villages] "were [brought in] trucks and tractors to the re-conversion ceremony," said Hrudaya.
"There were a total of 567 people who attended the re-conversion ceremony, 261 women and 306 men. After the ceremony each person was given new clothes and good food, and was returned to his or her respective village," Hrudaya added.
COUNCELING CHRISTIANS
VHP officials told the Press Trust of India (PTI) that their activists had been in touch with Dalit Christians for a long time, "counseling them to return to Hinduism."
The PTI quoted local police sources as saying that over 700 affidavits sworn by those intending to reconvert had been submitted with the authorities. Orissa’s Freedom of Religion Act requires that a prospective convert and the religious priest take prior permission from the local administration before holding a conversion ceremony.
However PTI said that members of 169 families from seven nearby villages who had "sworn" to
re-convert did not turn up for the event. Two sections of armed police and five officers had
been deployed at the ceremony’s venue to ensure law and order, said the PTI.
"WORLD PEACE"
The ceremony was held under the banner "religious gathering for world peace" and attended by a Hindu politician and several VHP leaders, news reports said. It was the latest attempt by
Hindu militants "to target especially tribal and Dalits-dominated areas where Christian missionaries had developed a strong base over the years," commented a national daily, The Pioneer.
Hindu parties and organizations are also urging the government to restrict what they see as "illegal conversions", a move church groups fear could target Christian missionaries and evangelists. They are "engaged in a bitter turf war with Christian missionaries," said The Pioneer.
There are an estimated 5.1 million Dalits in Orissa state, which has long been dominated by
often violent Hindu-militants. In one incident, Australian Missionary Graham Staines and his two minor children were burnt alive in Orissa in 1999, apparently by an angry Hindu mob.
GROWING CONCERN
There is concern among Christian organizations about what they see as the growing influence of Hindu militant groups in politics and every day life.
Among the three main militant Hindu organizations, the VHP has a membership of 60,000 in the state while another group, the Bajrang Dal, has 20,000 members working in 200 Orissa areas, according to estimates obtained by BosNewsLife. The influential Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is estimated to operate 2,500 daily morning gatherings in Orissa with a 100,000-strong supporters base.
Over four million people are believed to be members of Orissa’s governing Hindu nationalist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). (Based in New Delhi, Journalist Vishal Arora, 33, has covered persecution and other hard hitting news stories for a variety of international and national publications. 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/ )
