Mohan Bhagwat ‘quotes’ Pranab Mukherjee: If no Ghar Wapsi, Adivasis would turn anti-national

In his address, Bhagwat said, “Dr Pranab Kumar Mukherjee Rashtrapati the. Tab main pehli baar unse milne gaya. Sansad mein Ghar Wapsi ko lekar bahut bada halla chal raha tha. Main taiyar ho ke gaya bahut poochhenge, bahut batana padega. Lekin unhone kaha ki kya aap logon ne kuch logon ko wapas laya to press conference… aisa kaise karte ho aap? Aisa karne se ho halla hota hai. Kyunki wo politics hai. Main bhi aaj agar Congress party mein hota, Rashtrapati nahi hota, to main bhi Sansad mein yehi karta. Fir unhone kaha, lekin aap logon ne ye jo kaam kiya hai uske kaaran Bharat ka tees pratishat Adivasi… Is line pe aa gaye dikh hi raha tha unke tone se to humko bada aanand laga… maine kaha Christian ban jaata… bole Christian nahi, deshdrohi ban jaata. Aisa unhone kaha. (When Dr Pranab Mukherjee was the President, I had gone to meet him for the first time. There was ruckus in Parliament over the issue of Ghar Wapsi then. I thought I would have to answer quite a few questions and so went prepared. But he said you brought back some people and (then held) a press conference. What are you people doing? This creates controversy. Because this is politics. Had I been in the Congress, not holding the President’s post, even I would be protesting in Parliament. Then he said but this work that you have done, because of that 30% tribals… I understood the line he was taking and I was happy… I said, — would have become Christian? He said not Christian, but anti-national. This is what he said).”

Elaborating, Bhagwat said this was so because conversion takes one away for their roots.

“Conversion andar se aata hai to koi baat nahi. Hamari dharana hai ki sab tareeke (of prayers) sahi hain. Ek hi jagah pahunchayenge. Sabko apna tareeka chunne ka haq hai. Lekin agar lok laalach, zabardasti se hota hai, to uska uddeshya adhyatmik unnati nahi hota, jadon se katkar apna prabhav badhana hota hai (If conversion comes through an internal calling, it is fine. We believe all forms of prayers are right. But if conversion is achieved through allurement or through force then its real aim is not spiritual enlightenment but increasing influence through uprooting),” he said.

Notably, in 2018, Mukherjee’s participation in an RSS event in Nagpur had got considerable attention.

Bhagwat’s statement is significant since such views have not been associated with Mukherjee when he was in the Congress although some local party leaders in tribal belts had been in favour of delisting converted tribals in the past.

When asked by The Indian Express  about Bhagwat’s remarks, Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmishtha Mukherjee declined to comment.

Conversion of tribals into Christianity has been among the key issues of the Sangh Parivar, which has agitated against it for decades through organisations such as the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. Several outfits linked with the Sangh have been running a campaign in tribal-dominated regions to deprive converted tribals of reservation benefits for the past couple of years.

Sources in the Sangh said Bhagwat made his Indore speech in context of realising India’s “swa (self)” and how it flowed from Lord Ram, Krishna and Shiva. He also quoted Mukherjee as having said that the world should not teach India secularism as secularism was part of India’s 5,000 years of civilisational history. Bhagwat said this civilisational history was nothing but one that flowed from Lord Ram, Krishna and Shiva.

Bhagwat’s statement is in line with the Sangh’s longstanding campaign against conversion of tribals. It assumes significance at a time when the Opposition has made caste census and tribal rights its political pitch for the elections.