VHP, Christians slug it out over status of reconverts

The BJP and VHP argue that through the reconversions, tribals were merely returning to the `Hindu way of life’. They brushed aside the GCIC arguments that tribals are not Hindus at all. The National Convener of Global Council of Indian Christians Sajan K George brings these matters to focus in an open letter to the Puri Shankaracharya.

"The white man named us Hindus," the GCIC quotes Shri Sankaracharya as having stated in his Upanyas (Acharya Swamigal-1957) on plurality of religions of India.

According to the Christian Council, the Aryans who lived on the other side of the Indus were called `Sindhus’. The term Hindu thus originally implied residence in a well defined geographical area. The word Hinduism is not found in any earlier Sanskrit or Tamil literature. The word is used in territorial sense and in that sense, it can certainly be claimed the un-touchables are Hindus, but so are the Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Parsis etc, the letter quotes Dr B R Ambedkar.

But the BJP and the VHP disagree. "Hindu is not a territorial name. Hindustan’s territorial confines is defined in the puranas. Hindutva, as the Supreme Court itself has held, is a way of life and all those who practice this are Hindus. People who have belief in the Hindu dhrama and way of life are returning to the fold through the reconversions. "I do not see anything wrong in it," says Orissa BJP president and Rajya Sabha member Manmohan Samal.

"Anyway, all these questions are now being asked in the wake of Manoharpur reconversions. Why such questions have never been posed during the many such reconversion camps we have held so far?" questions Orissa’s VHP organising secretary Dr Basanta Rath.

Meanwhile, the Global Council further argues that in the Decennial Census Commission codified from the 1910 census onwards, the religious communities in India are classified as Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsees, Animists and tribal and Depressed classes. This was done based on the 3,000 years of Brahminical scriptures by census commissioners Risley and Gait, the renowned anthropoligists.

Accordingly, the letter states, non-Hindus were classified as those who (a) deny the supremacy of the Brahmins (b) do not receive mantra from Brahmin or recognised Hindu Guru (c) do not worship Hindu gods (d) are not served by good Brahmins as family priests (e) have no Brahmin priests at all (f) are denied access to Hindu temples (g) causes pollution (i) bury their dead and (j) eat beef.

"This is not correct. There is no set practice in Hinduism. There are some of those who eat beef. There are others who oppose idol worship. Some who swear by the Vedas and others who follow the Upanishads. Many of these owing to different levels of exposure to the shastras or the local practices. We have recognised many flaws in Hinduism itself and this is what we are trying to set right now. It is a wrong perception that we are after the Christians or the Muslims," defends Dr Rath.

The Global Council then quotes Dr Radhakrishnan from `The Hindu way of life’: "Santals, Mundas, Oraons and Hos, these tribes disclosed no leaning toward Hinduism and it is recorded of the Manubhun Santhals that in the famine of 1866 they preferred wholesale starvation to the pollution of eating food prepared by Brahmin cooks. The 1891 census recorded 1.6 crore tribal population. Out of these 98 lakh tribal belonged to their native faiths and was not converted to either Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism or other faiths."

Dr Rath brushes this aside as a statistic, stemming from the ignorance of the people regarding the enumeration process and the enumerators themselves. He also makes light of the apprehensions voiced by the Council in the letter and reiterates again that the process was only an outcome of the Hindu community leaders meeting the people and responding to their aspirations, a deed which was not done earlier. It is not targeted at the Christians or the Muslims and they have nothing to fear, he states.