The Ongoing Communalisation In Karnataka

Nalini Taneja

THE recent communal violence in Mangalore is part of the larger process of communalisation that the Sangh Parivar is engaged in throughout the country, and more particularly in the states where it holds the government, on its own or in partnership. Karnataka has seen considerable amount of Sangh Parivar activism in the last decade. This activism is well thought out and well planned, and does not depend on chance happenings that can be utilised by the Hindutva forces. On the contrary, incidents that appear as spontaneous outbursts are a result of systematic propaganda on issues related to the larger political agenda of the Sangh Parivar, with the issues themselves being cleverly and very deliberately introduced. To say there is an ‘incident’ almost every day is not an exaggeration (G Rajashekhar and K Phaniraj, Communalism Combat, September 2006), small enough not to get reported in the national press or the parliament, but significant enough to raise temperatures and tensions in the area concerned.

In this context, not just Mangalore but almost any city of Karnataka can, given a small provocation, erupt in communal violence, provoked and organised by the Hindutva forces, which have mastered the art of provocation as well as shown considerable ingenuity in finding issues which are varied in their detail, but retain a unified core in purpose.

STEADY GROWTH

The Sangh Parivar has been steadily growing in strength in this state, a fact that has gone unnoticed in the national media, and which continues to be under estimated also by the mainstream political leadership of this country. It is only the focused citizens groups, which have recognised this reality. While the JD (S) continues to maintain that it remains secular (!), even as it partners the BJP, the Sangh Parivar has been carrying on as if it alone decides the political agenda in the state.

The Sangh Parivar’s ride to political strength has paralleled the rise of the Sangh Parivar in the rest of the country, with the LK Advani’s rath yatra and the subsequent campaign for the Ayodhya temple culminating in the demolition of the Babri masjid and communal killings as decisive markers in its growth. The BJP’s vote share in the state was just 4.7 per cent in 1984, and 2.55 per cent in 1989. In 1991 this rose to 28.78 per cent, and in the 2004 elections the BJP became the single largest party in Karnataka, winning 79 assembly seats and 18 Lok Sabha seats in the state. (G Rajashekhar and K Phaniraj). The result is there to see in the form of support that Hindutva forces receive from the state of course, but also from what is today neutrally called as civil society. The Sangh Parivar has managed, as elsewhere in the country, to infiltrate its people in the media and the governing institutions and also to communalise popular consciousness. While thousands of people may still respond to a call for a rally in support of secularism and for taking action against the criminal acts of the Sangh Parivar organisations, there is a pervasive acceptance of the myths constructed and proliferating as a consequence of the sustained campaigns of the Hindutva organisations.

FEEDING ON COMMUNAL ISSUES

Anything can be an excuse as long as it lends itself to the saffron agenda, and feeds into the main planks of the Hindutva campaigns: places of worship; cow slaughter; conversions; population myths; Pakistan and anti-nationalism of minorities.

In recent years, a place of common, syncretic worship has been transformed into a site for an Ayodhya like campaign. Every year since 1992 the Sangh Parivar has been invading Chikmagalur, a town in central Karnataka, with a view to “liberating” the cave shrine on Bababudangiri, named after a sufi saint revered across religions. They have constructed a new ‘tradition’, sectarian, and which claims the place only for Hindus. Much like in Ayodhya, the media, and the middle class intelligentsia has adopted the name given by the Sangh Parivar: just as the Babri masjid area is now referred to as Ramjanambhoomi, and the dispute as the Ramjanambhoomi dispute, so also the Bababudangiri site is being called “Dattareya Peeta”. Hate speeches abound in the region, the district administration turns a blind eye, and the government provides sanction by providing buses for darshan just as it does in the case of Ayodhya, and in another parallel, “the illegal and unconstitutional ritual called Datta Jayanti inside the cave shrine was blessed by none other than the then law minister of the Congress government who even participated in Brahminical rituals such as yagna and Homa.” Tension prevails every year as the days of the “jayanti” approach. In 2003, while secular activists were not allowed a peace rally, and were beaten up and arrested, the then Congress government allowed the sangh parivar activities to proceed unhindered around the site. (VS Sreedhara, Communalism Combat).

Conversions are attributed to Christian organisations as well. The Hindutva forces have used this plank in Udupi and other districts of Dakshin Kannada. Udupi has been not just a Hindu pilgrimage centre, but is also home to very old mosques and churches. Members of the Hindu Yuva Sena and the Bajrang Dal have been disrupting gatherings and meetings of Protestant sects here on grounds of ‘forced conversions’, and the local newspapers have been erroneously reporting in support of them. The RSS on its part has been trying out its reconversion and ‘purification’ programmes in these areas, and continuously intimidating dalit christians.

The law allowing for transportation of cows is being misused to accuse Muslims of large scale cow slaughter, and inciting violence against them, thus hitting out at the livelihood of Muslims, and further marginalising them. In Karnataka, beef is consumed not only by Muslims and Christians but also by Adivasis and dalits. Yet the BJP holds only the Muslims and Christians responsible for “offending Hindu religious sentiments” (G Rajashekhar and K Phaniraj). It also acts unconstitutionally because under Karnataka’s Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Cattle Preservation Act any cow that is twelve years or older, does not yield milk or is infertile can be slaughtered with due permission from the gram panchayat or the city municipality. Any transportation of cows becomes an occasion for deliberate wild rumours and for taking away licences of Muslim butchers, not just with regard to cows, but for carrying out their livelihood occupation altogether. Communalism Combat, September 2006, has reported on how one such campaign resulted in communal tensions, some violence and denial of right to livelihood to Muslims in some villages in the Udupi district. Bajrang Dal members also killed a Hindu priest whose job was to mediate in a general sale of cows, not for slaughter at all.

There are numerous reports of Muslims being targeted, publicly stripped of their clothes, paraded naked, and assaulted for ‘offending the Hindu view of life’. The Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Yuva Sena function in some districts as a law unto themselves, unchallenged by the local administrative machinery. Offenders are in some cases nominated for local posts by the BJP. Some Kannada language newspapers in the state have been getting away with publishing false stories, baseless theories and imagined facts as scoop stories. Vijaya Karnataka, the largest selling Kannada daily actually carried a four column article on September 8, 2006, alleging links between the Mumbai underworld and the Muslims of coastal Karnataka, and concocting ‘facts’ on seizure of explosives and AK 47s from the Muslim areas. This paper was launched in 1999 by Vijay Sankeshwar Rao, who was then a sitting BJP MP. Udayavani is another paper known for its communalised news ‘reports’, presentation of engineered rumours as facts, editorials, and opinion pieces. (Gauri Lankesh, Communalism Combat, September 2006). On the Bababudangiri issue, the media has made considerable contribution in communalising it, and made grounds for controversy where there were none, in a manner similar to Babri masjid, which became a ‘disputed structure’ and finally Ramjanmbhoomi, almost entirely due to the media adopting the favoured Sangh Parivar nomenclature for the masjid.

TARGETING SECULAR STRONGHOLDS

Although Dakshin Karnataka and Udipi district, not to speak of the Mangalore where ‘riots’ were recently engineered, are strong bases of the Sangh Parivar, their activities are widely spread over the entire state. All the areas targeted by the Hindutva forces have historically been home to syncretic cultures. In terms of religions there is a history of interactions between Islam and the various cults broadly termed as Hinduism, and the influence of Christianity and even Buddhism and Jainism. Kannada language and literature have imbibed influences from Persian and Urdu traditions along with the strong component of the entire south Indian literary and language heritage. The same can be said of the architecture in the state, including that of the Vijayanagar Empire, ruled by Hindu kings. The Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Islamic architectural patterns are found cheek by jowl all over the state. The Bible in Kannada is centuries old, the Christian missionaries have contributed significantly to the spread of literacy in the state, and there are old churches that are part of the architectural and religious tradition of Karnataka. Food flavours are varied and specific to regions, with caste and religious variations, and cannot be strictly demarcated only along religious lines though the Sangh Parivar would have us believe that only Muslims eat beef, or that Hindus are not naturally meat eaters etc.

The Sangh Parivar is out to deliberately subvert this entire composite cultural heritage, through the creation of a concocted Kannada tradition, which is sectarian, chauvinistic and Hindu in character. This it is doing not just through the textbooks in the schools run by the Parivar and through influencing changes in the books used in the state school system, but also through utilising all other public channels of communication, and taking advantage of the right to free speech and dissemination of ideas that a democracy entails. It is using democracy to subvert all democratic gains, not just in the cultural but also the political sphere of life. It is doing this through sharing political power in the state, and political clout in the administration and muscle power on the streets.

There is a need to challenge it on all these fronts. Allowing the Sangh Parivar to get away with much that is unconstitutional, not only gives it greater confidence and contributes to its muscle power on the streets, but is also gradually transforming the Indian State itself, by making much that constitutes unconstitutionality a part of our regular political life. The UPA government obviously has no problems with this.

Back to their basics

Ram Punyani

September 22, 2006

The attempt to prevent conversions out of the Hindu fold is not a new phenomenon. It has, however, gained momentum during the last few years, more so in the BJP-ruled states. The excuse for introducing this ‘freedom’, through the Freedom of Religion Bill, is that millions are being converted to other religions in order to weaken the Hindu society.

In Gujarat, the issue has another dimension. This Bill grants Hindus the right to convert to Buddhism and Jainism, but not to ‘foreign’ religions, in which case permission has to be sought from the authorities. The implication is that all religions born in India — Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism — are mere sects of Hinduism, and not full-fledged religions by themselves. One may wonder why Sikhism has been left out of the Gujarat Bill. Perhaps the Bill’s drafters remembered the huge protests by a section of the Sikhs not too long ago when the RSS Sarsanghchalak had said that Sikhism was a sect of Hinduism.

Definitions apart, one also recalls that B.R. Ambedkar had converted to Buddhism. Having borne the humiliations imposed on his community by the Hindu caste system, he pointed out that Hinduism is essentially a Brahmanic theology, based on a rigid hierarchy of caste and gender. Untouchability is just one expression of the same. The Jains demanded and won the status of a minority, which was, however, vehemently opposed by the VHP. The RSS ideology also claims that the Adivasis are Hindus who went into the forests to escape forced conversion by Muslim kings. Thus, they got ‘isolated’ and became lower castes. So, the story goes, they are simply vanvasis (forest dwellers), not adivasis. It follows, then, that bringing them back into the Hindu fold is gharvapasi (homecoming), not conversion.

As such, there are many ‘Hinduisms’. Nathuram Godse followed one variety, and M.K. Gandhi another. ‘Godse Hinduism’, the Brahmanic one, which is the backbone of the RSS combine, is based on the purush sukta of the Vedas, which points out that Lord Brahma himself created castes from the body of the Virat Purush — Brahmins from the mouth, Kshatriyas from the arms, Vaishyas from the thighs and Shudras from the feet. Most of the other religions that are claimed as off-shoots of Hinduism reject this idea as well as the caste system.

The Adivasis worship nature. In Hinduism, polytheism, tritheism, monotheism and even atheism, all run as parallel streams. However, in Buddhism, the very concept of God does not exist. While Hinduism does not have a prophet, all the other faiths do, barring that of the Adivasis, who are animists.

The word ‘Hindu’ began as a geographical category, when those coming from the West identified the people living around the river Sindhu (which they pronounced as ‘Hindu’, since the use of the ‘s’ sound is restricted in Arabic), as Hindus. Brahmanical values prevalent here came to be projected as Hinduism.

The definition of Hinduism evolved over time. As there is no prophet, the religion itself is very amorphous, meaning different things to different people. With the rise of communal politics in the late 20th century, Muslim and Hindu communalists came up from among the feudal classes. The Muslim League propounded the concept of the Islamic nation, helped by the fact that Islam did not require a new definition. The Hindu communalists, however, had to first define what Hinduism was. At this point, V.D. Savarkar put forward the definition of a Hindu as being one who regards this land as the ‘holy land’ as well as the ‘father land’. This political definition of Hindus excludes only Christians and Muslims from the Hindu fold and tries to bring under its hegemony all other Indian religions.

Why is the Sangh parivar so paranoid about people converting to other religions? While it is being said that Buddhism is also part of Hinduism, every effort is being made by the saffron brigade to thwart the attempt of Dalits to convert to Buddhism. The Adivasis are being indoctrinated into worshipping Hindu gods such as Hanuman, and elaborate rituals have been designed for ‘Gharvapasi’, a major phenomenon in Adivasi areas.

The RSS Sarsanghchalak points out that the caste system saved Hinduism — read Brahmanism — as the hierarchy delineated in Brahmanical Hinduism gives the upper castes authority over lower castes. The fear that lower castes or Adivasis will convert to other religions is perceived as a threat because the prevalent system still helps the perpetuation of the social power of the upper caste elite. Similar efforts were made by communalists in the early 20th century when Muslim communalists wanted to swell their ranks by starting a campaign of tanzim (conversion). Hindu communalists then began their own conversion campaign, and started conducting shuddhi of those who had become ‘impure’ by accepting other religions, particularly Islam.

As things stand, the Christian population of India is declining. The poorer Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis have seen a slight rise in their population. The conversion issue is a veiled threat to the minorities. When foreign funds are already regulated by the Home Ministry, why scare people by screaming about the threat of foreign money funding conversions? It seems that for the BJP, with Ayodhya unable to rustle up past fervour, stoking the conversion issue is the best bet to return to the stage.

Ram Punyani is a former professor at IIT, Mumbai

Freedom to believe

Freedom to believe

The debate on religious conversion in India has spiralled out of control

BY RAJEEV DHAVAN

Tolerating conversion

The debate on the people’s right to convert from one faith to another has simply gone out of hand. India is simply losing its sensitivities on this issue. India is a vast country with many faiths. It is the home of many religions. It has the second largest Muslim population in the world – after Bangladesh. It has more Christians than Australia. It is the home of Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and a myriad of other faiths as well as faiths within faiths. Hinduism is not a monolithic faith although the Supreme Court in its decision in the Swami Narayan Temple Entry case (1966) gave such an expanded assimilationist interpretation to the word ‘Hindu’ that it blurred over divisions within and beyond the Hindu faith. It repeated this exercise in the Hindutva cases (1996) by virtually helping to redefine a new political religion. In the Jain case (2005), the court clearly offended the Jains by an assimilationist approach to their religion. All this goes against common sense and the constitutional dispensation that a religion is drawn from the faith itself and not a judicial version of what judges think it is. It was not for the Supreme Court to construct a faith on the basis of what others think.

This takes us to the core of our present discontent about the present and past controversies about religious conversion in India. The entire conversion debate is dominated by the Hindu Right whose political agenda is: (a) to declare the country and Indian civilisation as primarily, if not solely, a Hindu civilisation, (b) to insist that all past conversions over the centuries were induced by fear, fraud and opportunism, (c) to regard all past conversion as essentially suspect and (d) to pursue an intimidating policy to try and ensure that future conversions from Hinduism should not take place, and in any event, be minimised. It is thus clear that the controversy about conversion is inextricably linked to the rise of the new religious faith of political ‘Hindutva’. Belligerent, apprehensive, uncompromising and vicious in its attitude, the new face of ‘political Hindutva’ has surfaced with plans, policies and programmes to attack and discipline all other faiths. The policy of attack is clear from the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the murder of Rev. Staines, the intimidation of Christians and Muslims and murders in Gujarat and elsewhere. The policy of disciplining other faiths includes both a programme to impose fear on others as well as a legal policy to intimidate non-Hindu minorities through the processes of the law. There is a vast trail of legal and illegal censorship imposed by the cohorts of the new political Hindutva. The illegal strategy is articulated in the attacks on Hussain’s paintings and on the Bhandarkar Institute which, ironically, has been home to a lot of learning and archives on Hinduism. The legal strategy has been to arrest and intimidate minorities for hurting Hindutva sensitivities. The sheer aggression of politicised Hindutva is self-evident from the various campaigns the Hindutva Right have followed.

Conversion, the Constitution and Hindutva

One of the areas of legal intimidation has been on the issue of ‘conversion’. A common sense approach would be to say that people are free to convert from one faith to another if they wish to. In fact, historically, India is a country of converts. There were conversions from Hinduism to Jainism, to Buddhism and to Islam and Christianity. Over time, all this had added a richness and uniqueness to India. Today a Muslim or a Christian is a Muslim or a Christian, not a past Hindu. If people want to convert, they have the right to do so – without requiring the permission of the state or setting up a system whereby police officials and magistrates will be watching conversions under a system of conversion by surveillance.

India’s Constitution has to be sensitively read so as to admit to the right to conversion being a constitutional right to pursue a faith and belief of one’s choice – including, perforce, the right not to have any faith. There are two aspects to this. The first is the right of the person to convert to another faith if they want to. This is clear from the text or Article 25 of the Constitution which says "all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion". Nothing could be clearer than this on the question of choice of faith. The second aspect also flows from Article 25. This is a right of adherents to a religion to propagate their faith. This entered the constitutional text because in the Constituent Assembly, M. Rathnaswamy suggested an amendment to the earlier draft of Article 25 to add the word ‘propagate’ to the text. This was done with the object of giving proselytising (and indeed, non-proselytising) faiths a chance to make their faith known to others. That the Supreme Court in Stanislaus’ Case (1977) said that the right to propagate does not necessarily mean the right to convert does not alter the basic approach of the Constitution that (a) people have a right to pursue a faith of their choice and (b) adherents of a faith have a right to propagate their faith.

The real question was whether this right to propagate should be monitored under a system of surveillance under a threat of prosecution for wrongful conversions. Unfortunately, there are too many Hindutva myths about present day conversions. I use the words ‘present day conversions’ advisedly. Something may be made of the conversions of ‘imperial’ Christianity through its priests. But that was all in the past. People rooted in the present, whose ancestors may have converted out of the Hindu (or any other) faith, have to be respected for the faiths they continue to choose to follow. The ‘Hindutva’ faith profiles all conversions as inherently suspect since it seems to hurt Hindutva pride. The idea that Hindus might prefer another faith is anathema. Babasaheb Ambedkar made it clear that he was leaving Hinduism for Buddhism because he found the former insensitive, cruel and corrupt. But proponents of ‘Hindutva’ get more annoyed if Hindus convert to Islam or Christianity. In ‘Hindutva’ minds, these are foreign faiths even though they have been practised and have had a following in India for centuries. This rancour that Hindus are deserting to a ‘foreign’ faith becomes a rallying cry to the Hindutva faithful. Willy-nilly, Muslims and Christians come to be targeted not just because they are different but they are impliedly accused in the Hindutva mind as stealing Hindus to their fold. But in fact there is no evidence of such stealing. A convert can easily decry the process of conversion after the conversion. But years pass by and converts remain happy with the faith they have converted to. Not satisfied with this, it is said that it is the poor that fall prey to conversion. This too seems highly doubtful. Professor Kalam’s excellent research in Tamil Nadu suggests the contrary. It is not the poor but the better off who convert. The Kalam research is dated by a couple of decades. He is going to follow it through with confirmatory explorations. But the myth of desperate conversions by the poor under inducement and fraud does not seem to have any foundation and seems illogical.

Conversion under surveillance

But since the forces of Hindutva cannot police the minorities they have decided to police the conversions. In 1954, the union Parliament refused to pass an Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill or the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill in 1960. But with the change in political power in the states in 1966, state governments began to pass legislation to monitor conversions. First came the Orissa Act of 1967, then the Madhya Pradesh Act of 1968 and then the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act of 1978. Acts were passed in Tamil Nadu, which were sought to be made stringent by Chief Minister Jayalalitha. Similar legislation exists in Gujarat (2003) and Chhattisgarh (2005). More recently, a bill was passed by the Rajasthan legislature which the governor seems to have reserved for presidential assent.
The Orissa and Madhya Pradesh bills were upheld by the Supreme Court in Stanislaus’ case (1977) where the court took the view that the right to propagate did not include the right to convert. But the judgement of the Supreme Court is wrong both in its interpretation of the right to propagate as well as on other counts. Two aspects need to be highlighted. The first is that the Supreme Court looked at the right to convert as part of the right to propagate one’s faith to others but not the right of a person to get converted to another faith. Those seeking to convert another may have the right to propagate but not convert, but this cannot eclipse the right of the converted to choose a religion or faith of their choice. Secondly, the court did not scrutinise the contents of the legislation and test it on the grounds of public order, health or morality, which are the sole grounds on which the rights of a person to choose their faith can be curtailed. In 2004 the Supreme Court used up an opportunity to consider the issue by blindly following the Stanislaus case and giving a short judgement without even issuing notice to the other side to hear the matter properly.

Anyway, the standard pattern of conversion bills is founded on the principles of policing and surveillance over conversion. There is a system of reporting conversion to the authorities, subjecting the conversion to scrutiny on the basis of fraud or inducement and filing criminal prosecutions on those who perform conversions or organise events to enable conversions to take place. One would have thought the Indian legal system has better things to do than policing conversions and subjecting them to surveillance. Unfortunately, the votaries of the new aggressive Hindutva rely on the Supreme Court’s judgement in 1977, made during the height of the Emergency when the Supreme Court’s juristic sensitivities eluded some of the judges. The Stanislaus case (1977) must be reassessed. In any event, the new legislations on conversions must be subject to scrutiny. Such legislation is not getting better. It is only getting worse.

The process is the punishment

With this we must turn to the effect of anti-conversion surveillance regimes on the minority communities who are targeted by this and other legislation. Such legislation immediately puts them on the defensive. They cannot praise their own faith. When people want to convert, they are subject to report back and policing. This is followed by criminal investigation and prosecution. Eventually, they may be acquitted. But in real terms, the process is the punishment.

The fact that the process can be the punishment is what concerns me in respect of a recent judgement of the Supreme Court in the Pastor Raju case (2006). India has created many offences which are aimed at preserving religious and communal harmony. The upshot of these offences is that they prohibit promoting enmity between groups (Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code), imputations and assertions which are a threat to national integrity (Section 153B) and the acts which deliberately outrage religious feelings or insult the religion or religious beliefs of a class (Section 295A). Such offences may be necessary. But there is a significant aspect to these offences that cannot be overlooked. Under the Indian legal system, any individual can simply file a First Information Report (FIR) for serious (cognisable) cases. The effect of this is that as soon as an FIR is filed, the police start investigating and there is an even chance that the perpetrator will be subject to pre-trial imprisonment. If the offence is not serious, the process can be triggered off by complaints to the magistrate to initiate the legal process with all its ensuing consequences. This means anyone can put a religious adversary into a position where they are investigated and jailed. The government was aware of the mischief that could emanate from these provisions. Such mischief could create antagonism between communities.

Wisely, Indian law has interposed a safeguard whereby these sensitive offences can only proceed if the government in question sanctions the prosecution. A similar safeguard is given in cases of corruption by civil servants and actions in defamation of government servants and some matrimonial offences (See Sections 195-199 of the Indian Penal Code). The purpose behind such a sanction procedure is to ensure that there is no frivolous prosecution and trial. In the cases that we are concerned with, if there was no sanction safeguard the forces of Hindutva would unleash prosecution after prosecution on minority communities on the basis of some or imagined hurt to the sensitivities of Hindutva. The question is how comprehensive and complete is the sanction safeguard so as to make sure that the offences to prevent religious strife are not used to create strife.

Pastor Raju lives in Karnataka. On January 14, 2005 there were great celebrations in Rampura, Channapatna. The occasion was the festival of Sakranti. Pastor Raju was also there. It is alleged that he spoke to various people to convert to Christianity in that the latter had more to offer than the Hindu faith. It is not entirely clear as to how and in what manner this speech was made – if indeed such a speech was made at all. This must have irritated a Shri Lokesha who then proceeded to file an FIR and an offence under Section 153B was made out. This section was introduced in 1972 and seeks to criminalise any imputation or assertion which is prejudicial to national integration. The purpose behind this section is to prevent a collective condemnation of any religious, racial, language, regional group, caste or community by asserting that they are not worthy citizens who believe in the integrity and sovereignty of India (Section 153B (a) and (b)). But Section 153B also criminalises assertions, pleas and appeals which cause disharmony, enmity or ill will between people (Section 153B (1)(c)). Where such offences are in (a) religious place or during a religious event, the punishment would increase from three years and/or a fine to five years and/or a fine (Section 153B (2)). Thus the offence is a serious offence subject to considerable penalties.

The police decided to arrest Pastor Raju. It is not clear why he was arrested. But there must have been some compulsions to do so. Pastor Raju was then taken to a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody. Later, a bail application was rejected. Pastor Raju moved the high court to say that the entire proceeding should be quashed because the safeguard of getting a sanction from the state government was not fulfilled. In common sense terms, it seemed fair to raise this plea. The very purpose of the sanction safeguard was to ensure that frivolous and vexatious proceedings should not be launched in cases of this nature. In Pastor Raju’s case the wheel seemed to have turned at least half circle. He was arrested and in jail. The high court took the view that this was clearly a case where sanction under Section 196 (1-A) of the Criminal Procedure Code was required. It seemed like vexatious victimisation where the accuser was creating strife through prosecutorial investigation and litigation. This may have influenced the high court’s decision.

But, in the Supreme Court, the decision of the high court was reversed. The judgement of the Supreme Court by Justice GP Mathur for himself and Justice Dalveer Bhandari concerned itself with the technical interpretation of the sanction requirement. Unfortunately, the court did not go into the intent of the sanction safeguard and why it was part of the criminal process. This might have helped both to interpret the sanction safeguard and apply it to the facts of the case. At this stage, it might be useful to reproduce the offences which contain the sanction safeguard in the Criminal Procedure Code.

"S. 196: Prosecution for offences against the state and for criminal conspiracy to commit such offence.-
(1) No Court shall take cognisance of –
(a) any offence punishable under Chapter VI or under Section 153A, Section 153B, Section 295A or Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code, (45 of 1860) or
(b) a criminal conspiracy to commit such offence, or
(c) any such abetment, as is described in Section 108A of the Indian Penal Code, (45 of 1860)
except with the previous sanction of the central government or of the state government.
(1A) No court shall take cognisance of –
(a) any offence punishable under Section 153B or subsection (2) or subsection (3) of Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code or
(b) a criminal conspiracy to commit such offence
except with the previous sanction of the central government or of the state government or of the district magistrate."

The entire controversy in this case rotates around the idea that cases concerning offences which deal with national integration and religious strife should proceed only with the previous sanction of the central government, state government or the district magistrate. The role of the government in this regard is a critical one. Religious leaders might be arrested out of spite to give rise to public disorder. In sanction cases, the government is expected to make a comprehensive decision and to examine the facts and evidence as well (See Jaswant Singh AIR 1958 SC 125 generally). It is obvious that without a sanction the criminal process must come to an end.

But there is an important distinction between the stage of investigation and the stage of trial. One view is that unless the sanction requirement specifically says so, an offence requiring sanction may be investigated but the trial cannot proceed unless and until government sanctions a prosecution. But in many cases it is the process of investigation under conditions of imprisonment that is onerous. So when does the safeguard of sanction begin to operate?

In dealing with the sanction safeguard, the Criminal Procedure Code does not use clear-cut language to distinguish between ‘investigation’ and trial. Had the code clearly said that an investigation in respect of such offences may continue but a trial may not there would have been no controversy. Whether that distinction may be implied is another matter. The code simply says that cognisance may not be taken of an offence without a sanction from the government. What does this mean? This cannot mean that no investigation of the offence can take place. But can we go to the other extreme and say that the arrest and judicial remand of Pastor Raju could take place and the sanction was only to prevent the trial from proceeding further? Where exactly does the protection of the accused from vexatious prosecution begin? Of course, the sanction safeguard is not just a protection for the accused but also a matter of public interest which necessarily recognises that random prosecutions in the area of potential religious strife are against the public interest.

If Parliament had intended the sanction safeguard to operate only to prevent trials until the government agrees, it would have said so. There are many recognised stages which could have been specifically mentioned including (a) the judicial remand stage or (b) the stage when the challan (police report) is filed or (c) the stage where the trial court draws up the charge sheet or (d) when the trial commences. But Parliament preferred to say that a ‘court’ shall not take cognisance of the offence unless sanction was given. Justice Mathur, in Pastor Raju’s case, accepts that "…(t)here was no special charm or any magical formula in the expression ‘taking cognisance’ which merely means judicial application of mind of the magistrate to the facts mentioned in the complaint and with a view to taking further action." He also admits that "...the word ‘cognisance’ has not been defined by the Criminal Procedure Code" and that the dictionary meaning is "judicial hearing of the matter". Matters of definition need not detain us. In RR Chari’s case (AIR 1951 SC 207), the Supreme Court laid down that "taking cognisance does not involve any formal action or indeed action of any kind but occurs as soon as the magistrate as such applies his mind to the case." This broad approach has been accepted in a large number of cases. Unfortunately, Justice Mathur does not quite tell us when cognisance is taken. He proceeds on the basis that since the sanctioning authority has to apply its mind to all the material collected during the investigation, cognisance must take place later. The real question then must be: When does the magistrate apply his judicial mind to a case? Perhaps when the magistrate simply orders an investigation he cannot be said to take cognisance of the offence (See Gopal Das AIR 1961 SC 986; Devarapally (1976) 3 SCC 252). There is some room for saying that in police cases based on FIRs the investigation takes place without an initial judicial application of mind. But there is considerable room for saying that when a person is remanded to judicial custody there has to be an application of the judicial mind and remand orders should not be "patently routine and appear to have been made mechanically" (Madhu Limaye’s case (1969) 1 SCC 292 at 299). The function of remanding a person to judicial custody is essentially a judicial function and not an administrative one. If we apply the "application of mind" test it would clearly be the case that when the magistrate decided that Pastor Raju should be kept in jail under judicial custody he applied his mind to whether an offence was committed and whether Pastor Raju should be remanded into custody during the investigation. If this was so, the decision to remand Pastor Raju was cognisance within the meaning of the sanction safeguard in Section 196 of the code.

I think we need to go one step further and assert that the term cognisance of an offence may mean different things in different contexts. Such a differentiated meaning has been accepted by the courts and on various occasions the court even took the view that the same word may have a different meaning in the same sentence of a statute (Printers (Mysore) Ltd (1994) 2 SCC 434; Ismail Faruqui (1994) 2 SCC 434). This might have been a better approach to take. Cognisance can mean cognisance for custody, cognisance of the challan, cognisance by way of the charge sheet, cognisance for the purpose of the trial. Ultimately, the purpose of the section must be looked at. The purpose of the sanction safeguard is to prevent the further harassment of a person in certain matters in the public interest. This purpose cannot be lost sight of. This is a matter of juristic policy. Justice Mathur observed; "on the view taken by the high court, no person accused of an offence which is of a nature which requires previous sanction of a specified authority before taking of cognisance by a court can ever be arrested nor can such an offence be investigated by the police." This summary is only partly correct. Investigation can take place. An arrest can be made. But the period for which a police arrest can be made is limited. As soon as this period is over, a judicial decision on custody cannot be made without a sanction. Justice Mathur seemed to have got lost in technical details and lost sight of the purpose of the section.

Arresting people is a serious invasion of civil liberties. That is the reason why so many judicial safeguards exist in matters of pre-trial imprisonment. The sanction safeguard was intended to prevent harassment other than starting a process of investigation. If the police think that they are right to effect an arrest and ask for judicial custody, the sanction safeguard must apply. We cannot forget or lose sight of the evocative phrase: the process is the punishment. Ever so often, it is only the process that is the punishment. Generally, in common law countries, the arrest takes place when the investigation is complete. In India, arrest and judicial custody are treated as routine affairs. This is precisely what should not happen. But if the police decide to combine arrest and investigation, in some classes of cases they must get sanction for the arrest from the government before the magistrate examines the case for custody. If this is not done, the punishment will be the process. In these religious and communal offences cases, Parliament wanted to be more careful than in respect of other offences.

Conversion and secularism

India is witnessing the rise of politically motivated communalism. For this purpose, an entirely new religion called ‘Hindutva’ has been invented. Hindutva lays claim to India as an exclusively Hindu nation. The tactics of Hindutva are unscrupulous. Buildings have been destroyed. Places of learning have been looted. Paintings have been destroyed. Books have been banned. All this in the name of a pseudo-religion which claims secular credentials. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has supported the case for an assimilative Hinduism (as in the Swami Narayan case; Yagnapurushdasji AIR 1966 SC 1119) and treated Hindutva as if it were a natural celebration of India’s culture (See election decision in Ramesh Prabhoo (1996) 1 SCC 130; textbooks decision in Aruna Roy (2002) 7 SCC 368). At the same time, the court has espoused the case for secularism being part of the basic structure of the Constitution. At some stage the judges must declare the inarticulate premises on which they have wandered in these lost directions.

But what we are also seeing is the harassment of minorities through killing and various kinds of actions and inaction. New legislations, like the conversion statutes, are being drawn up to harass the minorities. The campaign to intimidate the minorities is done both through legal and illegal means. Manipulating the law and using the police to arrest and detain people is yet another form of intimidation. This is what has happened in Pastor Raju’s case.

Unfortunately, India’s secular governance is allowing a large number of such instances of abuse and intimidation to occur.

(Rajeev Dhavan is a senior advocate, Supreme Court of India.)

CSW quarterly report on India: April - June 2006

Click this link to go to the report. It is in PDF format.

The history and politics of Vande Mataram

The history and politics of Vande Mataram




Anandmath
is replete with glorification of incidents of “cleansing” of Muslims
like the following one: "The rural people ran out to kill the
Muslims...they torched their houses and looted their everything. 



By Shamsul Islam

The
song Vande Mataram is in news once again, though for wrong reasons. The
current controversy started with a meeting organized by the minority
cell of the BJP in the city of Taj Mahal, Agra on February 25. This
meeting, organized in order to mobilize Muslims for the forthcoming
parliamentary elections, ended up with about 50 of Muslim invitees
singing Vande Mataram. Interestingly, singing of Vande Mataram in this
meeting was an exception as the BJP meetings in general do not have
singing of this song on agenda. The controversy started when a local
Muslim cleric (see MG, 1-15 April 2004) came out with a “fatwa”
decreeing that all the Muslim singers of the Vande Mataram by singing
it indulged in polytheism and as a consequence ceased to be Muslims.
The mufti also decreed that their marriages stood annulled and they
should re-solemnise their marriages. 

Vande Mataram Translation by Aurobindo Mother, I bow to thee! Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Cool with thy winds of delight, Dark fields waving, Mother of might, Mother free. Glory of moonlight dreams, Over thy branches and lordly streams, Clad in thy blossoming trees, Mother, giver of ease, Laughing low and sweet! Mother I kiss thy feet, Speaker sweet and low! Mother to thee I bow. Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands, When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands, And seventy million voices roar, Thy dreadful name from shore to shore? With many strengths who are mighty and stored, To thee I call, Mother and Lord! Though who savest, arise and save! To her I cry who ever her foemen drive, Back from plain and sea, And shook herself free. Thou art wisdom, thou art law, Thou our heart, our soul, our breath, Thou the love divine, thou the awe, In our hearts that conquer death. Thine the strength that nerves the arm, Thine the beauty, thine the charm, Every image made divine, In our temples is but thine. Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen, With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen, Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned, And the Muse a hundred-toned, Pure and perfect without peer, Mother, lend thine ear. Rich with thy hurrying streams, Bright with thy orchard gleams, Dark of hue, O candid-fair, In thy soul, with jeweled hair, And thy glorious smile divine, Loveliest of all earthly lands, Showering wealth from well-stored hands! Mother, mother mine! Mother sweet, I bow to thee, Mother great and free! 'Vande Mataram' translated by Sri Aurobindo. This note of his about this translation is very significant: "It is difficult to translate the National Anthem of Bengal into verse in another language owing to its unique union of sweetness, simple directness and high poetic force."  [Quoted in Bhabatosh Chatterjee (ed.), Bankim Chandra Chatterjee: Essays in Perspective, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, 1994, p. 601.]

Interestingly, the Hindutva gang has been raking up this issue
periodically as part of Muslim-bashing since Independence, especially
on the eve of elections. As part of anti-Muslim propaganda they coined
the slogan "Iss desh maen rehna hae to Vande Mataram kehna hoga" (If
you want to live in this country, you will have to sing Vande Mataram).


The fundamental problem with Indian
nationalist symbols like Vande Mataram is that by simply adding
Muslim/minority angle to these, one can thwart any serious scrutiny and
worthwhile debate about the pre-Independence controversies over these
symbols. The Hindutva gang, especially the RSS which played absolutely
no role in the anti-colonial freedom struggle, now wants to cover up
its betrayal by posing as the sole guardian of nationalist symbols like
Vande Mataram.


A thorough scanning (undertaken by this
author) of the pre-Independence literature/documents published by the
RSS shows that there is absolutely no reference there to Vande Mataram,
what to talk of singing it. Startlingly, Vande Mataram as a term does
not appear in the writings of KB Hedgewar and MS Golwalkar either. And
after Independence the same gang wants to use this song to beat Muslims
with.



The protagonists of a democratic-secular India have failed in exposing
the Hindutva stalwarts who have been pitting Vande Matram against the
National Anthem, Jana Gana Mana and denounce Muslim and Sikh
fundamentalists for their non-allegiance to the Tricolour and the
National Anthem, the two symbols of Indian nationalism. The secular
India has miserably failed to corner the Hindutva gang which itself
wants to replace the secular National Anthem by Vande Mataram and the
Tricolour by saffron flag. This is abundantly clear from the practice
of the RSS shakhas, and the RSS vision of replacing the Indian
democratic-secular state with a Hindu rashtra.


A section of the so-called Muslim
leadership, devoid of common sense and ignorant of nationalist
heritage, reacted to the Hindutva game plan along expected lines.
Playing into the hands of Hindutva brigade 'Muslim leaders' like the
Agra Mufti simply provided legitimacy to its strategy of
Muslim-bashing. Unfortunately, even a section of secular Muslims have
shown panic reaction by declaring that Muslims should not object to the
singing of this song. They innocently believe that Muslims by not
singing this song are inviting wrath of Hindutva. They overlook the
fact that even Dalits, Christians, Buddhists and other minorities, who
have not raised objections against Vande Mataram, have not been spared
by the Hindutva gang. 



The need of the hour is that we should not run away from a serious
debate on the issue of the Vande Mataram under one pretext or the
other. In order to know the truth and understand the whole controversy
over Vande Mataram it is important to be familiar with the following
facts which have been gathered from wide pre-Independence sources.



Vande Mataram was dogged by one controversy or another from the day it
was first printed in Banga Darshan (edited by Bankimchandra Chatterjee)
in 1875. It was a strange composition in the sense that it was written
in two languages. The song consisted of 4 stanzas, the first two in
Sanskrit and the rest in Bengali. Poet Navin Chandra Sen, a close
friend, told Bankim after reading the song: "You see, it is all good,
but the whole thing is spoilt by your potpourri of half Bengali and
half Sanskrit. It reminds me of Govind Adhikari's Jatra songs. People
do not like it."1 In fact, this song was not known by many despite the
fact that Jadu Bhatt, a renowned singer of those days and a
contemporary of Bankim, liked the song and set it to an attractive
tune. The situation did not change even in 1882 when Bankim included
this song in his controversial novel Anandmath. Rabindranath Tagore
composed a new tune for this song in 1885 but despite its rendering by
a very popular Bengali poet it did not attract much attention.



Interestingly, Vande Mataram which came to be known as the “national
song” was composed by Bankim as a “Bengal anthem”, nothing more. The
imagery of the countryside and references to Durga were certainly
confined to Bengal. In this song he is seen concerned about Bengal only
aloof from any emotional attachment to India. Even Sri Aurobindo
(Aurobindo Ghose), propounder of Hindu nationalism in India, translated
it as the "National Anthem of Bengal".2 

Bankim, as we will see in the translation done by Aurobindo, referred
to “seven crores” [70 million] of people worshipping motherland. This
was the population of the then Bengal Province (which, besides what is
now Bangladesh, included Bihar and Orissa too). So the crucial fact
should not be missed that Vande Mataram touted as symbolizing “Mother
India” was in fact meant to glorify Bengal only, a rather narrow and
regional perspective.



Many are not aware that this song was scantly known during the lifetime
of Bankim himself. In his lifetime it did not capture popular
imagination though it was sung at all Congress sessions by people who
identified Indian nationalism with Hindu ethos. It remained confined to
a fringe group. 



In 1905 came Curzon's announcement of the partition of Bengal, and
suddenly Vande Mataram turned into a national mantra, renting the skies
with the protest against the partition of Bengal. Reacting quickly, the
British government banned the song or even raising it as a slogan.
People of Barisal in Bengal bore the brunt of police brutality for
singing this song. Peasant leader Abdul Rasul, was presiding over the
Bengal Congress provincial conference session of 1906 when hundreds
were struck down and grievously injured for singing Vande Mataram. This
brutality at Barisal popularized the song overnight. According to
Bengalee of May 23, 1906, "an unprecedented procession of Hindus and
Muslims singing national songs and crying Vande Mataram and
Allah-o-Akbar passed through all the principal streets of the town.
Both Hindus and Mussalmans carried Vande Mataram flags."3 It is
interesting to know that while Vande Mataram was banned in Bengal, the
British government allowed the Bengali Regiment to attack German
trenches during the first world war with Vande Mataram on their lips.



Soon Vande Mataram became the opening note of all the Congress
gatherings. And the two, Congress and Vande Mataram, became
inseparable, until the early 1930s, when a new controversy about the
song broke out within the ranks of the party. Sections of Muslims,
Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, Christians, South Indians, secular groups and
even Arya Samajis, objected when the Congress decided to finalize it as
the “national song”. Vande Mataram glorified idol worship, they argued,
as it referred to only Hindu deities (it must be shocking for the
present-day Hindutva brigade that the song does not even once refer to
Ram), and that it expressed only a regional aspiration (it is partly in
Bengali and allegorically talks of “Bengal” as India).



Another objection raised by Muslims and secular Indians said that Vande
Mataram was part of the novel Anandmath, which glorified the
annihilation of Muslims and not the British rule in India. This
objection was very relevant, as even a cursory glance of the novel will
prove. The novel was replete with glorification of incidents of
“cleansing” of Muslims like the following one: "The rural people ran
out to kill the Muslims while coming across them. In the night, some
ones were organized in groups and going to the Muslim locality, they
torched their houses and looted their everything. Many Muslims were
killed; many of them shaved their beards, smeared their bodies with
soil and started singing the name of Hari. When asked, they said, we
were Hindus. The frightened Muslims rushed towards the town in group
after group. The Muslims said, Allah, Allah! Is the Kortn Sareef (sic)
(holy Koran) proved entirely wrong after so many days? We pray namaz
five times but couldn't finish the sandal-pasted Hindus. All the
universe is false."4



Bankim's novel simultaneously glorified the colonial British rule. It
portrayed the British masters as saviours of Hindus. This love for the
British masters and exploiters was clearly visible in the last few
lines of Anandmath. When the Hindu army (Santan rebels) was able to
defeat Muslim rulers and move on to fight the British too, a mystic
leader (Satyananda) appeared and told them: "Your mission has been
successful. You have performed the well-being of the Mother. The
English reign has been established. You give up the war and
enmity-mood. There is no more enemy. The Englishman is our ally King.
Moreover, none possesses such power who can win the war with the
Englishmen ultimately."5 Thus the great leader of Hindu rebellion was
finally able to convince Santans about the historic utility of the
British Raj for the resurrection of the Hindu kingdom and many of them
went to Himalayas renouncing this world. Anandmath, which heralded the
Hindu nationalist movement, is full of such perceptions.



The Congress, which under Jawaharlal Nehru's leadership wanted an
all-inclusive nationalism with special stress on Hindu-Muslim unity,
responded positively to these objections. The Congress Working
Committee (CWC) after long deliberations at Wardha and Bombay appointed
a committee consisting of Jawaharlal Nehru (president of the Congress),
MK Gandhi, Abul Kalam Azad and Subhashchander Bose in its Calcutta
meeting (Oct 26-November 1, 1937). 

This high profile committee on Vande Mataram issued a historic
statement on October 28, 1937 with the aim to resolve the controversy.
The statement made it clear at the outset that the first two stanzas of
the song had no religious allusions and only these were commonly sung
even in Bengal. It went on to observe that "the use of the first two
stanzas of the song [which] spread to other provinces and a certain
national significance began to attach to them. The rest of the song was
very seldom used and is even now known by few persons. These two
stanzas described in tender language the beauty of the motherland and
the abundance of her gifts. There was absolutely nothing in them to
which objection could be taken from the religious or any other point of
view."6

The CWC went on to emphasize that "the other stanzas of the song are
little known and hardly ever sung. They contain certain allusions and a
religious ideology which may not be in keeping with the ideology of
other religious groups in India. The Committee while recognizing the
validity of objections raised by Muslim friends to certain parts of the
song... recommend that “wherever the Bande Matraram is sung at national
gatherings only the first two stanzas should be sung, with perfect
freedom to the organizers to sing any other song of an unobjectionable
character, in addition to, or in the place of, the Bande Matraram
song."7



With this judgment the controversy should have been over. But it
didn't. It seems ironical that the present-day champions of Vande
Mataram did not figure anywhere in the struggle against the British.
They cannot name a single martyr for freedom, and their slogans for
Hindu Rashtra only helped the British masters’ divide-and-rule policy
and supplemented the services of persons like Jinnah. The propping up
of an old controversy thus seems to be only for playing the same old
game of dividing the Indian people. The truth of the matter is that
Vande Mataram is just another move in the dangerous game the
fundamentalists are involved in: confusing and dividing people.

NOTES:

1. Cited in P. Thankappan Nair, Indian National Songs and Symbols, Firma, Calcutta, 1987, p. 32.

2.Cited in Bhabatosh Chatterjee (ed.), Bankimchandra Chatterjee: Essays
in Perspective, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, 1994, p. 601.

3. Cited in P. Thankappan Nair, p. 38.

4. Arabinda Das, Abbey of Delight (English translation of Bankimchander
Chatterjee's Anandmath in Bengali), Bandna Das, Kolkata, 2000, pp.
161-162.

5. Ibid, pp. 191-194.

6. AICC Papers on microfilms, Accession No. 8612 [Roll No. 51], Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, pp. 0852-0854.

7. Ibid.

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Should conversions be banned?

M Jamil

August 5, 2006

Recently, the state legislature in Madhya Pradesh has approved a law aimed at making religious conversions harder there.

The law says a person wishing to convert and the priest conducting the ceremony will have to inform the authorities in advance. The new law provides for a year in prison and cash fines to the person who converts and the priest who conducts the ceremony without informing the authorities.

This is hardly India's first instance of such a law.

In 2005, the government in Rajasthan introduced a law banning religious conversion. Three years ago, politicians in Gujarat approved a controversial bill ostensibly designed to stop forced religious conversions.

In 2002, the state legislature in Tamil Nadu passed an ordinance banning religious conversions-though the new government led by DMK announced in May that the law would be annulled soon.

Evidently, these laws are the state governments' reaction to the depressed classes pointing to the lack of socio-economic development as their reason for quitting the Hindu fold.

But does India want to be compared to Islamic states that are imprisoned by an impoverished idea that apostasy should lead to death or death threats?

Mass conversions by the Dalits, whether to Islam or Christianity, have always projected a political message. Mostly, it is an effort by the weaker sections to draw the attention of the government to their development needs.

In many cases, there are "re-conversions" after governmental intervention and promises of corrective measures by the district administration.

A section of the media and political establishment would claim that mass conversions or threats of mass conversions create social tension in the affected area and the government is forced to act in the interests of those threatening conversion.

More importantly one must ask: is banning religious conversion constitutional?
From a layperson's perspective, Article 25 (1) of the Constitution states that "subject to public order, morality and health and other provisions of this part (Part III), all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practice and propagate religion."

Under the freedom of speech which the Constitution guarantees, any religious community is free to persuade others to join their faith. Thus, conversion by free exercise of the conscience has to been recognised and cannot be banned under the constitution.

Arya Samajists, for example, should be free to carry on "Sudhi" ceremonies, open to Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs, and every other religionist, so long as they follow public order, morality and other conditions that have to be observed in any civilised society.

One may argue that the Constitution explicitly grants one the right to transmit or spread one's religion by an exposition of its tenets, but not the right to convert through force or social and economic "bribes".

It has to be remembered that Article 25 (1) guarantees "freedom of conscience" to every citizen and not merely to the followers of one particular religion.

Thus, there is no fundamental right to convert another person to one's own religion because, if a person undertakes the conversion of a person to his religion as distinguished from his effort to transmit or spread the tenets of his religion, that would impinge on the freedom of conscience guaranteed to all the citizens.

This specious reasoning which proceeds on the premise that a person's freedom of conscience gives him the right to practice his own religion ignores that the same freedom of conscience gives him the right to choose another religion and to be converted to another religion.

Sometimes when a person learns about the virtues of another religion and the advantages of following it, he may be persuaded to be converted.

In other words, propagation of religion with a view to its being accepted by a person gives an opportunity to the latter to exercise his right to choose his religion. Hence, the prevention of conversion infringes the right to be converted or to choose another religion and thereby infringes his freedom of conscience.

What is meant by the "ban on conversions?'"

The Constitution clearly empowers each individual to preach his own religion and each to choose his own religion. Based on this, if one chooses to change his religion, there can be no law preventing him from doing so. Apart from the legality, it goes against history and human nature to impose a total ban on conversions.

In addition to Christians, Hare Krishna's and Muslims proselytising, Buddhist monks went to Cambodia, China, Japan, Sri Lanka and other places in the Far East spreading Buddhism.

Though on a small scale, the Arya Samajists are converting or reconverting people of others faiths to Hinduism. Often conversion is a result of marrying outside a person's faith. For instance, when a Hindu marries a Jew or a Christian.

Of course, all these conversions are made peacefully, by persuasion.

Instead of a fracas on preventing conversions, there should be a national debate on why people choose to be converted. If it is by force, fraud or undue influence, such conversions can be prevented by legislation.

But one of the strongest motivations for converting to another religion is low socio-economic status. These individuals feel that they can live with more dignity as members of the religion to which they are converting.

Though untouchability was abolished by the Constitution, it still persists throughout India. For example, in many hotels water is served in separate glasses to the Dalits (who make up 250 million of India's population).

Although the Constitution provides certain safeguards to protect persons who suffer from low socio-economic status, the past 56 years since the Constitution came into being has proved that they are not adequate.

Measures have to be taken immediately to improve their economic and social status to such an extent that they do not convert in order to enjoy a better life as members of a new religious group, but because they genuinely feel convinced of the tenets of that religion.

Hopefully, we will see a day when every person voluntarily chooses which religion he wishes to practice and the expression "conversion" loses its meaning.

India, which is known for its tolerance, has lived with Christianity for almost two thousand years, Zoroastrianism for 1,400 years and Islam for over a millennium.

Let us all remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "I do not expect India of my dreams to develop one religion, i.e., to be wholly Hindu or wholly Christian or wholly Mussalman, but I want it to be wholly tolerant, with its religions working side by side with one another."

Maqbool Jamil is based in United States and can be reached at drj8666@hotmail.com.

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A MEDIA FAQ on `House Churches' and `Conversions'

By Dr. John Dayal

Answers to some frequently asked media questions on House Churches and the definition of Conversions in context of the laws on Religious Freedom in Rajasthan, Gujarat, MP, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Arunachal [and Tamil Nadu]


HOUSE CHURCHES

The Constitution of India gives every citizen the right and freedom of Faith, including its practice, profession and propagation. This is clear in Article 25 which states that `subject to public order, health and morality', we have the right to freedom of conscience.

The only bar is, as for most other freedoms, that it should not create a public law and order situation, or be obnoxious in some other way. This rider is the one so often misused by governments and police who can claim that certain acts of one community can threaten the peace [for instance cow sacrifice at Eid, which is objected to by Hindutva groups]

The law as it exists in India recognizes places of religious worship as physical entities in public domain. The one mention that comes is with reference to the official and legal rulings which, in the aftermath of the violence during Partition of India in 1947, said places of worship which existed at the dawn of freedom could not have their identity or function changed. This was to prevent mosques being converted to temples or demolished or sold.. This was re-stated in Uttar Pradesh in the case of attempts to sell churches -- not all church property which could include schools or grounds, but church buildings which had functioned as churches

House churches, Small Christian Communities, Basic Christian Communities whether Catholic, Evangelical or Pentecost, and religious activity in a person's private home, which includes all property, is a private event protected by laws against trespass, criminal intimidation, breaking and forcible entry and similar criminal activity

The police have to take action as they would in case of attempted murder, assault, burglary or dacoity -- if assailants are armed, and there are more than five of them in number

They - the local police and magistracy -- have no excuse in not acting.

CONVERSIONS

The second question is of Conversions from one religion to another [giving up one's religion for joining irreligious or atheistic groups such as the Marxists, or lapsed believers do not find any mention in legal literature]

The Supreme Court judgment in the matter of earlier, and contradictory, High court judgments on the Orissa and MP Freedom of Religion Acts was clear that induced and forcible conversions at the hand hands of a religious functionary or priest were illegal, but it was NOT illegal - and therefore legitimate -- for a person to change his religion.

Therefore it is quite clear by analogy and deduction that the act of conversion theologically is different from the legal definition.

A person may have Christ experience through many ways or paths, and may consider him [or her] a follower or believer of Christ. He may have found Christ by personally reading the Bible which he bought by himself, saw in a library or his hotel room, or was given one by a friend, evangelist or priest. He may even have had the Bible read to him by his children, in case he himself was illiterate. He may have found Christ through the evangelical actions of others, either done actively as by missionaries, or passively as by watching Christian neighbours or friends. The person may surrender to Christ on his own; and to himself, he will deem to have become a Christian even if he has not undergone any rituals. Some even consider this the Amazing Grace and Work of the Holy Spirit.

For social purposes, however, and requirements of Civic life, which may include the need for passports or other diplomatic or government documents, however, marriage, or even burial of the dead, he may want to `belong to' or `to be admitted to' the larger Christian community, denomination, group or whatever else it is called. This process may involve ceremonies or rites of passage, which is also called baptism. This may vary with denominations. This is like membership of a club or organisation with its own entry and exit laws.

In fact in the knananite church, a part of the Kerala Catholic group, it admits only persons belonging to select families. No marriage outside the ethnic and linguistic sub-community is allowed or accepted, and of course no one can convert to this sect.

Pentecost and Evangelical groups and some mainline churches want full immersion of the adult.

The Catholic Church, especially in the Latin rite, accepts and encourages child or infant baptism -- I was baptized as a six day old, my daughter was a month old on her baptism -- with ceremonies of confirmation [or First Holy Communion] at an age when the child is able to understand what is happening

The Indian law, penal code or however, has no business entering this domain.

The Sikh faith has tasting of the amrit, or holy water consisting of water, sugar mixed together with a ceremonial sword in a groupware -- the Muslim faith has sunnat, circumcision as well as hearing and pronouncing the kalma -- god is but one god is one and Mohammed is his prophet

No one can convert to Zoroastrian. It can be by birth only. That is why they are a dying community. There are no half Parsees, so to say.

You can become a Jew by converting to Judaism but it is a long and tedious [process sand is discouraged if both or one parent is not a Jew.

Buddhism has a few simple rites.

I do not know the Jain rites.

By the way, the special position for Anglo Indians is not on religious grounds, but on genes and language. Their mother tongue has to be English and their descent from the father's side has to be European.

An Anglo-Indian woman's children by a non Anglo Indian man are not Anglo Indians

And, other than the civil powers of Christian priest in terms of Marriages [but not divorces], births and deaths [burial records]; there is no official administrative law or bureaucratic machinery to certify or license or otherwise formally recognize Christian clergy. Ordination and Consecration are strictly denominational activity. The State also does not recognize gradations in clergy and hierarchy. The titles of Father, Pastor, Bishop or Cardinal, are therefore not of legal consequence but are accepted because they are accepted by the concerned community or group. No denomination has monopoly on the titles and even Catholic priests can, and often do, call themselves Pastors. By the same argument, Episcopal and even Evangelical clergy no call themselves Bishops and Archbishops. They can.

John Dayal
New Delhi, July 2006

Why go for Conversion

Why go for Conversion
In 1935 at Nasik district, Maharashtra, Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar had declared his firm resolve to change his religion. He had declared that he was born as a Hindu but will not die as Hindu. About a year later, a massive Mahar conference was held on May 30 and 31, 1936, in Mumbai, to access the impact of that declaration on Mahar masses. In his address to the conference, Dr.Ambedkar expressed his views on conversion in an elaborate, well- prepared and written speech in Marathi. Here is an English translation of that speech by Mr.Vasant Moon, OSD to the committee of Govt. of Maharashtra for publication of Writings & speeches of Dr.B.R.Ambedkar
Conversion is not a game of children. It is not a subject of entertainment. It deals with how to make man's life successful. Just as a boatman has to make all necessary preparations before he starts for voyage, so also we have to make preparations. Unless I get an idea as to how many persons are willing to leave the Hindu fold, I cannot start preparations for conversion.
For a common man this subject of conversion is very important but also very difficult to understand.
Class Struggle
There are two aspects of conversion; social as well as religious; material as well as spiritual. Whatever may be the aspect, or line of thinking, it is necessary to understand the beginning, the nature of Untouchability and how it is practiced. Without this understanding, you will not be able to realize the real meaning underlying my declaration of conversion. In order to have a clear understanding of untouchability and its practice in real life, I want you to recall the stories of the atrocities perpetrated against you. But very few of you might have realized as to why all this happens! What is at the root cause of their tyranny? To me it is very necessary, that we understand it.
This is not a feud between rival men. The problem of untouchability is a matter of class struggle. It is the struggle between caste Hindus and the Untouchables. That is not a matter of doing injustice against one man. This is a matter of injustice being done by one class against another. This "class struggle" has a relation with the social status. This struggle indicates, how one class should keep its relation with another class. This struggle starts as soon as you start claiming equal treatment with others...
Conversion not for slaves
The reason for their anger is very simple. Your behaving on par with them insults them. The untouchability is not a short or temporary feature; it is a permanent one .To put it straight, it can be said that the struggle between the Hindus and the Untouchables is a permanent phenomena. It is eternal, because the religion which has placed you at the lowest level of the society is itself eternal, according to the belief of the Hindu caste people. No change, according to time and circumstances is possible. You are at the lowest rung of the ladder today. You shall remain lowest forever. This means the struggle between Hindus and Untouchables shall continue forever. How will you survive through this struggle is the main question. And unless you think over it, there is no way out. Those who desire to live in obedience to the dictates of the Hindus, those who wish to remain their slaves, they do not need to think over this problem. But those who wish to live a life of self-respect, and equality, will have to think over this. How should we survive through this struggle? For me, it is not difficult to answer this question. Those who have assembled here will have to agree that in any struggle one who holds strength becomes the victor. One, who has no strength, need not expect success. This has been proved by experience, and I do not need to cite illustration to prove it.
Three types of Strength
The question that follows, which you must now consider, is whether you have enough strength to survive through this struggle? Three types of strength are known to man: (i) Manpower, (ii) Finance and (iii) Mental Strength. Which of these, you think that you possess? So far as manpower is concerned, it is clear, that you are in a minority. In Mumbai Presidency, the untouchables are only one-eighth of the total population. That too unorganized. The castes within themselves do not allow them to organize. They are not even compact. They are scattered through the villages. Under these circumstances, this small population is of no use as a fighting force to the untouchables at their critical moments. Financial strength is also just the same. It is an undisputed fact that you at least have a little bit of manpower, but finances you have none. You have no trade, no business, no service, no land. The piece of bread thrown out by the higher castes, are your means of livelihood. You have no food, no clothes. What financial strength can you have? You have no capacity to get redress from the law courts. Thousands of untouchables tolerate insult, tyranny and oppression at the hands of Hindus without a sigh of complaint, because they have no capacity to bear the expenses of the courts. As regards mental strength, the condition is still worst. The tolerance of insults and tyranny without grudge and complaint has killed the sense of retort and revolt. Confidence, vigour and ambition have been completely vanished from you. All of you have been become helpless, unenergetic and pale. Everywhere, there is an atmosphere of defeatism and pessimism. Even the slight idea, that you can do something does not enter your mind.
Muslim Example
If, whatever I have described above is correct then you will have to agree with the conclusion that follows. The conclusion is, if you depend only upon your own strength, you will never be able to face the tyranny of the Hindus. I have no doubt that you are oppressed because you have no strength. It is not that you alone are in minority. The Muslims are equally small in number. Like Mahar- Mangs, they too have few houses in the village. But no one dares to trouble the Muslims while you are always a victim of tyranny. Why is this so? Though there may be two houses of Muslims in the village, nobody dares to harm them, while the whole village practices tyranny against you though you have ten houses. Why does this happen? This is a very pertinent question and you will have to find out a suitable answer to this. In my opinion, there is only one answer to this question. The Hindus realize that the strength of the whole of the Muslim population in India stands behind those two houses of Muslims living in a village and, therefore, they do not dare to touch them. Those two houses also enjoy free and fearless life because they are aware that if any Hindu commits aggression against them, the whole Muslim community from Punjab to Madras will rush to their protection at any cost. On the other hand, the Hindus are sure that none will come to your rescue, nobody will help you, no financial help will reach you. Tahsildar and police belong to caste Hindus and in case of disputes between Hindus and Untouchables, they are more faithful to their caste than to their duty. The Hindus practice injustice and tyranny against you only because you are helpless.
Outside Support
From the above discussion, two facts are very clear. Firstly, you can not face tyranny without strength. And secondly, you do not possess enough strength to face the tyranny. With these two conclusions, a third one automatically follows. That is, the strength required to face this tyranny needs to be secured from outside. How are you to gain this strength is really an important question? And you will have to think over this with an unbiased mind.
From this, you will realize one thing, that unless you establish close relations with some other society, unless you join some other religion, you cannot get the strength from outside. It clearly means, you must leave your present religion and assimilate yourselves with some other society. Without that, you cannot gain the strength of that society. So long as you do not have strength, you and your future generations will have to lead your lives in the same pitiable condition.
Spiritual Aspect of Conversion
Uptil now, we have discussed why conversion is necessary for material gains. Now, I propose to put forth my thoughts as to why conversion is as much necessary for spiritual wellbeing. What is Religion? Why is it necessary? ... 'That which govern people is religion'. That is the true definition of Religion. There is no place for an individual in Hindu society. The Hindu religion is constituted on a class-concept. Hindu religion does not teach how an individual should behave with another individual. A religion, which does not recognize the individual, is not personally acceptable to me.
Three factors are required for the uplift of an individual. They are: Sympathy, Equality and Liberty. Can you say by experience that any of these factors exist for you in Hinduism?
No Equality in Hinduism
Such a living example of inequality is not to be found anywhere in the world. Not at anytime in the history of mankind can we find such inequality, which is more intense than untouchability... I think, you have been thrust into this condition because you have continued to be Hindus. Those of you who have become Muslims, are treated by the Hindus neither as Untouchables nor as unequals. The same can be said of those who have become Christians...
That God is all pervading is a principle of science and not of religion, because religion has a direct relation with the behaviour of man. Hindus can be ranked among those cruel people whose utterances and acts are two poles apart. They have this Ram on their tongues and a knife under their armpits. They speak like saints but act like butchers...
Thus we are not low in the eyes of the Hindus alone, but we are the lowest in the whole of India, because of the treatment given to us by the Hindus.
If you have to get rid of this same shameful condition, if you have to cleanse this filth and make use of this precious life; there is only one way and that is to throw off the shackles of Hindu religion and the Hindu society in which you are bound.
The taste of a thing can be changed. But the poison cannot be made amrit. To talk of annihilating castes is like talking of changing the poison into amrit. In short, so long as we remain in a religion, which teaches a man to treat another man like a leper, the sense of discrimination on account of caste, which is deeply rooted in our minds, can not go. For annihilating caste and untouchables, change of religion is the only antidote.
Untouchables are not Hindus
What is there in conversion, which can be called novel? Really speaking what sort of social relations have you with the caste Hindus at present? You are as separate from the Hindus as Muslims and Christians are. So is their relation with you. Your society and that of the Hindus are two distinct groups. By conversion, nobody can say or feel that one society has been split up. You will remain as separate from the Hindus as you are today. Nothing new will happen on account of this conversion. If this is true, then why should people be afraid of conversion? At least, I do not find any reason for such a fear...
Revolution - Not Reform
Changing a religion is like changing a name. Change of religion followed by the change of name will be more beneficial to you. To call oneself a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist or a Sikh is not merely a change of religion but also a change of name.. Since the beginning of this movement of conversion, various people have raised various objections to it. Let us now examine the truth, if any, in such objections...
A congenital idiot alone will say that one has to adhere to one's religion because it is that of our ancestors. No sane man will accept such a proposition. Those who advocate such an argument, seem not to have read the history at all. The ancient Aryan religion was called Vedic religion. It has three distinct characteristic (features). Beef-eating, drinking and merry-making was part of the religion of the day. Thousands of people followed it in India and even now some people dream of going back to it. If the ancient religion alone is to be adhered to why did the people of India leave Hinduism and accept Buddhism? Why did they divorce themselves from the Vedic religion?... Thus this Hindu religion is not the religion of our ancestors, but it was a slavery forced upon them...
To reform the Hindu society is neither our aim nor our field of action. Our aim is to gain freedom. We have nothing to do with anything else.
If we can gain freedom by conversion, why should we shoulder the responsibility of reforming the Hindu religion? And why should we sacrifice our strength and property for that? None should misunderstand the object of our movement as being Hindu social reform. The object of our movement is to achieve social freedom for the untouchables. It is equally true that this freedom cannot be secured without conversion.
Caste can't be destroyed
I do accept that the untouchables need equality as well. And to secure equality is also one of our objectives. But nobody can say that this equality can be achieved only by remaining as Hindu and not otherwise. There are two ways of achieving equality. One, by remaining in the Hindu fold and another by leaving it by conversion. If equality is to be achieved by remaining in the Hindu fold, mere removal of the sense of being a touchable or an untouchable will not serve the purpose. Equality can be achieved only when inter-caste dinners and marriages take place. This means that the Chaturvarnya must be abolished and the Brahminic religion must be uprooted. Is it possible? And if not, will it be wise to expect equality of treatment by remaining in the Hindu religion? And can you be successful in your efforts to bring equality? Of course not. The path of conversion is far simpler than this. The Hindu society does not give equality of treatment, but the same is easily achieved by conversion. If this is true, then why should you not adopt this simple path of conversion?
Conversion is a simplest path
According to me, this conversion of religion will bring happiness to both the Untouchables as well as the Hindus. So long as you remain Hindus, you will have to struggle for social intercourse, for food and water, and for inter-caste marriages. And so long as this quarrel continues, relations between you and the Hindus will be of perpetual enemies. By conversion, the roots of all the quarrels will vanish... thus by conversion, if equality of treatment can be achieved and the affinity between the Hindus and the Untouchables can be brought about then why should the Untouchables not adopt the simple and happy path of securing equality? Looking at this problem through this angle, it will be seen that this path of conversion is the only right path of freedom, which ultimately leads to equality. It is neither cowardice nor escapism.
Sanctified Racism
Although the castes exist in Muslims and the Christians alike, it will be meanness to liken it to that of the Hindus. There is a great distinction between the caste-system of the Hindus and that of the Muslims and Christians. Firstly, it must be noted that though the castes exist amongst the Christians and the Muslims, it is not the chief characteristic of their body social.
There is one more difference between the caste system of the Hindus and that of the Muslims and Christians. The caste system in the Hindus has the foundation of religion. The castes in other religions have no sanction in their religion ...Hindus cannot destroy their castes without destroying their religion. Muslims and Christians need not destroy their religions for eradication of their castes. Rather their religion will support such movements to a great extent.
Conversion alone liberates us
I am simply surprised by the question, which some Hindus ask us as to what can be achieved by conversion alone? Most of the present day Sikhs, Muslims and Christians were formerly Hindus, majority of them being from the Shudras and Untouchables. Do these critics mean to say that those, who left the Hindu fold and embraced Sikhism or Christianity, have made no progress at all? And if this is not true, and if it is admitted that the conversion has brought a distinct improvement in their condition, then to say that the untouchables will not be benefited by conversion, carries no meaning...
After giving deep thought to the problem, everybody will have to admit that conversion is necessary to the Untouchables as self-government is to India. The ultimate object of both is the same. There is not the slightest difference in their ultimate goal. This ultimate aim is to attain freedom. And if the freedom is necessary for the life of mankind, conversion of Untouchables which brings them complete freedom cannot be called worthless by any stretch of imagination...
Economic Progress or Social Changes?
I think it necessary here to discuss the question as to what should be initiated first, whether economic progress or conversion? I do not agree with the view that economic progress should precede...
Untouchability is a permanent handicap on your path of progress. And unless you remove it, your path cannot be safe. Without conversion, this hurdle cannot be removed...
So, if you sincerely desire that your qualifications should be valued, your education should be of some use to you, you must throw away the shackles of untouchability, which means that you must change your religion...
However, for those who need this Mahar Watan, I can assure them that their Mahar Watan will not be jeopardized by their conversion. In this regard, the Act of 1850 can be referred. Under the provisions of this Act, no rights of person or his successors with respect to his property are affected by virtue of his conversion...
Poona Pact
A second doubt is about political rights. Some people express fear as to what will happen to our political safeguards if we convert...
But I feel, it is not proper to depend solely on political rights. These political safeguards are not granted on the condition that they shall be ever lasting. They are bound to cease sometime. According to the communal Award of the British Government, our political safeguards were limited for 20 years. Although no such limitation has been fixed by the Poona Pact, nobody can say that they are everlasting. Those, who depend upon the political safeguards, must think as to what will happen after these safeguards are withdrawn on the day on which our rights cease to exist. We will have to depend on our social strength. I have already told you that this social strength is wanting in us. So also I have proved in the beginning that this strength cannot be achieved without conversion...
Political Rights
Under these circumstances, one must think of what is permanently beneficial.
In my opinion, conversion is the only way to eternal bliss. Nobody should hesitate even if the political rights are required to be sacrificed for this purpose. Conversion brings no harm to the political safeguards. I do not understand why the political safeguards should at all be jeopardized by conversion. Wherever you may go, your political rights and safeguards will accompany you. I have no doubt about it.
If you become Muslims, you will get the political rights as Muslims. If you become Christians, you will get the political rights as Christians, if you become Sikhs, you will have your political rights as Sikhs. In short, our political rights will accompany us.
So nobody should be afraid of it. On the other hand, if we remain Hindus and do not convert, will our rights be safe? You must think carefully on this. Suppose the Hindus pass a law whereby the untouchability is prohibited and its practice is made punishable, then they may ask you, 'We have abolished untouchability by law and you are no longer untouchables...
Looking through this perspective, conversion becomes a path for strengthening the political safeguards rather than becoming a hindrance. If you remain Hindus, you are sure to lose your political safeguards. If you want to save them, leave this religion. The political safeguards will be permanent only by conversion.
The Hindu religion does not appeal to my conscience. It does not appeal to my self-respect. However, your conversion will be for material as well as for spiritual gains. Some persons mock and laugh at the idea of conversion for material gains. I do not feel hesitant in calling such persons as stupid.
Conversion brings Happiness
I tell you all very specifically, religion is for man and not man for religion. To get human treatment, convert yourselves.
CONVERT -For getting organized.
CONVERT -For becoming strong.
CONVERT -For securing equality.
CONVERT -For getting liberty.
CONVERT -For that your domestic life may be happy.
I consider him as leader who without fear or favour tells the people what is good and what is bad for them. It is my duty to tell you, what is good for you, even if you don't like it, I must do my duty. And now I have done it.
It is now for you to decide and discharge your responsibility.
Reference: "Bhim Chakra 1996" published by Oil & Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. Tripura project, Agartala.