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Mass Conversions to Hinduism among Indian Muslims
Yoginder Sikand Manjari Katju
In cases of mass conversion of Muslims to Hinduism, the central
thrust has been on their de-Islamisation rather than on their
accepting the Hindu religion. The Muslim castes which have been
particularly vulnerable to Hindu missionary efforts have been those
which are only nominally Muslim and retain many Hindu customs and
beliefs. Most of the mass conversions have occurred among Muslim
Rajput groups. The Hindu missionaries, too, have shown an
inordinate interest in converting the socially dominant and
powerful Muslim Rajputs and not the 'lower' Muslim castes who form
the majority of the Indian Muslim population. Finally, the mass
conversions have mostly occurred in the backward regions of
northern India where feudalism is still largely intact and where
brahminism has not been challenged by assertive 'lower' castes.
THE origin of the term 'Hindu' can be traced to the ancient
Persians who employed to refer to the inhabitants of India who were
unified not by belief in any single set of religious doctrines but
by membership in hierarchically arranged 'jatis' (castes) which
collectively formed what was known as the 'varna vyavastha' (caste
system). What today goes under the name of the 'sanatan dharma'
(Hinduism) refers essentially to the duties and rights of
individuals as members of castes into which they are born, the
dharma of each caste being different. Hence, caste, and not any
common set of religious beliefs and customs, forms the bedrock of
the Hindu religion and social order.
Unlike, for instance, Islam and Christia-nity, Hinduism lacks
any creed which non-Hindus are required to accept in order to enter
the Hindu fold. Theoretically, since birth in a particular Hindu
caste alone qual-ifies one to be considered a Hindu, non-Hindus
cannot convert to the sanatana dharma. However, the spread of
Hinduism from the Hindu heartland of 'aryavarta' (the Gangetic belt
of north India), not only to the rest of the subcontinent but even
to far-off Indo-China, Malaysia and Indonesia in ancient times
suggests that in actual practise it has been possible for non-Hindu
groups to be Hinduised. This Hinduisation process is, in fact,
still under way among many aboriginal and other non-Hindu groups in
India who are outside the pale of the caste system.
HINDUISATION PROCESS
Till recently, the process of Hinduisation proceeded in a
completely unorganised fash-ion. Typically, itinerant brahmin
priests would venture off into non-Hindu domains and establish
mutually supportive relation-ship' with the ruling chieftains of
those areas. The priests would confer upon them the exalted status
of kshatriya (warrior caste)
and, in turn, the chieftains would recognise the brahmins as
their spiritual preceptors and would grant them extensive
landholdings as well as other forms of state patronage. Grad-ually,
the brahminical values, customs and beliefs would then filter down
from the chieftains to their subjects leading to their eventual
Hinduisation and their absorption into the caste system, mainly as
sudras (untouchables and menial castes).
Today, however, this unorganised Hinduisation process is being
supplemented with planned and organised missionary ef-forts of such
groups as the Arya Samaj, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Ramakrishna Mission, etc.
These outfits do not restrict themselves merely to the propagation
of religious tenets, but also run a network of schools,
dispensaries and community-service centres for many of the
non-Hindu groups among whom they are proselytising.
Traditionally, Hinduisation of non-Hindu groups occurred in a
very gradual fashion over a long period of time, sometimes
ex-tending over several generations. This was because it was
essentially an extended pro-cess of cultural transformation. In
this sense, therefore, it would not be entirely proper to speak of
'conversion' to Hinduism since non-Hindus admitted into the Hindu
caste system were not required to accept any particular set of
beliefs and customs as a pre-condition. What Hinduisation did
entail was the acceptance of certain brahminical no-tions, such as
the Karma theory, belief in the supremacy of the brahmin caste and
obser-vance of the rules of caste purity and pol-lution. Non-Hindus
gained entry into the Hindu fold through this acculturation
pro-cess which occurred alongside their accom-modation within the
caste system.
Unlike, for example, in Islam, where non-Muslim individuals and
groups become Muslims immediately upon their recitation of the
Islamic creed, in Hinduism, which
lacks a set of fundamental tenets binding upon all its
followers, entry of non-Hindus cannot be instantaneous. Hence,
'conver-sion' to Hinduism occurred as the result of a long process
involving not the acceptance of any particular religious doctrine
but, rather, the imbibing of brahminical cultural norms
legitimising the caste system, This went along with the discarding
of customs incompatible with these cultural norms.
This gradual process of Hinduisation through cultural change is,
however, today being added to by Hindu missionary groups which
conduct 'shuddhi karan' ('purifica-tion rituals' or conversion
ceremonies) of non-Hindus, who become Hindus immedi-ately upon the
completion of the initiation rites.1
In India the closest ties that an individual has are with
members of his or her own caste or jati. The jati is an endogamous,
com-mensual unit affording security as well as an identity to its
members. Membership of a jati is restricted only to those who are
born into it. It is difficult, if not impossible, for a Hindu to
exist in isolation from his or her own particular jati. Hence
conversions in India to or from Hinduism (or any other religion for
that matter) generally take the form of mass conversions. Entire
jatis con-vert together instead of isolated individuals changing
their religious allegiances. Today, however,the Arya Samaj,
aneo-Hindu outfit, arranges for both individual as well as mass
conversions. Non-Hindus getting married to Hindus now can, and,
indeed, often do, convert to Hinduism through the Arya Samaj. This
is a very recent development, which the 'sanatani' (orthodox)
Hindus frown upon since the Hindu scriptures explicitly proscribe
inter-caste and inter-religious marriages.
The vast majority of India's over 120 million Muslims arc
descendants of low-caste Hindus who converted to Islam to escape
from the oppression of the higher
2214 Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994
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castes and in search of equality and dignity. Rarely did
individuals convert by themselves, for that would have meant
completely cut-ting off their ties with their castes. Hence, entire
caste groups embraced Islam together and then adopted a new,
Islamised or Arabic caste appellation for themselves. For instance,
the tantis (weavers) of Bihar began to call themselves ansaris
after becoming Muslims. In Punjab, the musallis bhangis (sweepers)
adopted the more respectable title of Musallis. In all these cases,
the endogamous caste unit which was in existence prior to
conversion, remained intact even after that. This is how Muslim
society in India has come to be characterised by a multiplicity of
endoga-mous caste groups. As shall be discussed later on, it is the
existence of castes among the Indian Muslims that allows for the
pro-cess of Hinduisation to operate among them.
HINDUISATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS
Conversions of Hindu castes to Islam for social emancipation
from the shackles of the caste system proceeded steadily so long as
the Muslims were politically dominant in India. Thereafter, with
the establishment of British rule, this process slackened
con-siderably. In the early years of the present century the
British rulers began instituting political reforms granting Indians
a certain measure of self-government. These new op-portunities,
such as limited voting rights and representation on local body
councils, were apportioned among the various religious com-munities
of the country in accordance with their respective numerical
proportions. The Hindu 'upper' caste elite, forming not more than 6
per cent of the then Indian population, represented a numerically
relatively small, yet enormously powerful, minority. In order to
corner the benefits of the British-instituted reforms, this
minority group felt it imper-ative to enhance the Hindu numerical
strength. The only way it could do so was by incorporating into the
Hindu fold the untouchables, the aboriginals and other non-Hindu
groups. The conversion of these non-Hindus, therefore, clearly
represented a political strategy to employ the power of an
artificially constructed "Hindu majority com-munity" to bolster the
fortunes of the 'upper' caste Hindu minority.
As one perceptive scholar observes, There is hardly any region
in the subconti-nent in which 'Hindus', as they defined themselves
before Gandhi attempted to co-opt or incorporate all Untouchables
commu-nities into the 'Hindu', fold, represented a cohesive or
clearly identifiable 'majority' community... The conjuring up of
this con-cept can be seen as nothing more than another attempt by
one elite minority or coalitions of elite minorities to dominate
all others.2
Hence, the organised efforts by 'upper' caste Hindus to
proselytise among the un-touchables (who, being outcastes, were
considered to be outside Hindu caste society) and among Muslims
and Christians cannot be seen in isolation from the wider political
context since political considerations played a very crucial role
in the entire enterprise.3
This continues to be the case to this very day. Orthodox, or
sanatani, Hindus held that it
was not possible for non-Hindus, whom they considered 'impure'
('ashuddh') to become Hindus. It was the Arya Samaj, a revivalist
neo-Hindu outfit set up in 1875 by a Gujarati brahmin, Day ananda
Saraswati, which broke from orthodoxy in this regard. It allowed
for non-Hindus to convert to the Arya Samaj sect through a ritual
known as the shuddhi karan ('purification') ceremony.4
'Shuddhi' ('purity') is said to be an ancient and central
concept in Hinduism. It refers to a state of ritual 'purity' needed
for the per-formance of one's dharma, the central com-ponent of
which is observing the duties assigned by the brahminical
scriptures to one's caste. Since dharma has both ritual as well as
social dimensions, shuddhi refers to the state of 'purity' required
for the perfor-mance of both religious rites and social
intercourse.
Shuddhi may be lost by 'pollution', which may occur through a
death or birth in one's household or by the touch of 'polluted'
materials or 'impure' people. Shuddhi Karan refers to the rite
through which this 'pollu-tion' is considered to be removed and
ritual 'purity' restored, thus enabling one to regain one's caste
status.5 As an orthodox brahmin 'pundit' opines:
The abandonment of prohibited food, separa-tion of contact with
low persons, and living in one's situation according to Varnasrama
dharma (caste-system) is called Suddhi.6
The shuddhi karan rite seems to have been formulated in the 19th
century only, though efforts were made to bestow upon it an ancient
history.7 It first made its appearance in the context of 'upper'
caste Hindus who lost their caste for having crossed the seas. The
ban on travelling abroad had been imposed by Hindu scriptures for
fear of 'upper' caste being unable to observe the rules of the
maintenance of caste 'purity' in foreign lands. With the
establishment of British rule in India many 'high' caste Hindus
went to England for higher education. For this, they were
excommunicated from their castes but now could seek re-admission
after undergoing a 'purification' ceremony. It was this
newly-invented ritual that later came to be used to convert
untouchables and other non-Hindu groups to Hinduism.
Prior to the mass conversions of certain Muslim groups by the
Arya Samaj, there had been isolated instances of individual Muslims
undergoing the Arya shuddhi karan ceremony. Most of these early
Muslim conversions to Hinduism were, however, cases of Hindu
converts to Islam reconvert-ing back to Hinduism.8 The first
instance of
the conversion of a born Muslim to the Arya Samaj was reported
in 1877 when Day ananda Saraswati performed the shuddhi of a
Mus-lim of Dehra Dun, giving him the Hindu name of
'alakhdhari'.9
The mass conversions of Muslims to Hinduism assumed significant
proportions only in the 1920s, in the backdrop of con-certed
efforts by the Muslim and Hindu elites to inflate their numbers so
as to enhance their political bargaining power. The Arya Samaj was
particularly successful among Muslim groups which were only
partially Islamised and had still retained many of their old Hindu
customs and beliefs. Thus, for instance, the sheikhs of Larkana
(Sind), alow half Muslim-half Hindu caste, were converted by the
Sukkur unit of the Arya Samaj as early as in 1905. Similar was the
case with the subrai labanas of Ludhiana (Punjab) and the maiwaris
of Ajmer (Rajputana), who, like the Larkana sheikhs, followed a
curious mixture of Hindu and Islamic practices.10
It is interesting to note that these group conversions to
Hinduism organised by the Arya Samaj entailed essentially the
giving up of a certain Islamic customs such as the burial of the
dead, 'nikah', the visiting of 'dargahs' and circumcision, rather
than the imparting of Hindu religious knowledge to the new
converts.11 This was possibly be-cause the shuddhi movement was
motivated far less by the desire to promote spirituality and moral
and religious values than by strong anti-Muslim passion.
CONVERSION OF MALKANAS AND JATS
The Arya Samaj claimed to be opposed to the caste system based
on birth. However, it is interesting to note, that in the case of
the mass conversions of entire Muslims groups to Hinduism a crucial
component of the Arya Samaj missionary strategy was first to
construct an artificial history of these groups as being the
descendants of 'upper' caste Hindu kshatriya warriors who were
forcibly converted to Islam. It then sought to win them over by
instilling in them a false pride in this constructed caste
identity, prom-ising them the restoration of their 'upper' caste
privileges if they were to de-Islamise themselves. All Muslims,
including those of 'upper' caste Hindu descent, were treated by
orthodox Hindus as 'unclean' and 'impure' ('achchut' or 'ashuddh')
and hence, for Muslim castes of imputed kshatriya descent,
conversion to Hinduism seemed to offer a means to regain many of
their caste privi-leges which they had lost on becoming Muslims.
Appealing to the caste sentiments of Muslim groups, therefore,
played a crucial role in the Arya Samaj's missionary succes-ses.
Indeed, this remains the basic mission-ary strategy of Hindu
missionaries even today. For instance, the present head of the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad, asserts:
Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994 2215
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The Muslims and Christians of this country were made to forget
their Hindu identity, yet their lesser identity is still
meticulously preserved securely Till this day they can recall from
which particular caste they were converted and in most cases they
continue to maintain their caste identity. This identity alone
will, in the future, become the means for them to recognise their
Hindu identity, as a result of which the large numbers of those who
have been cut off from Hinduism will come back into its fold.12
The appealing to caste sentiments formed, as in all other
similar cases, the basis of the most controversial of the Arya
Samaj 's mass conversionsthe shuddhi of the Muslim malkana rajputs
of the western districts of the United Provinces in the 1920s.
The term 'malkana' is not a clan name, but is a title derived
from the word 'milkiyat' or ownership of land. The malkanas are
said to have been nominally converted to Islam under the Afghan
rulers from whom they received extensive land grants in the Jamuna
tract in the neighbourhood of Agra, Mathura and Delhi. They claimed
to be the descen-dants of the Jadun rajputs, though some of them
are also said to have possessed Agarwal bania and tarkar brahmin
ancestry.11 The malkanas followed both Hindu and Muslim customs,
because of which they were also known as adhbariya ("half
Hindu-half Muslim"). Yet in the censuses they tended to return
themselves as Muslims.14 Their population in the 1920s was said to
number several hundred thousands.15
Effor t s to conver t the malkanas to Hinduism began in the
first decade of the present century when shuddhi sabhas were set up
at various places in the United Prov-inces by Pandit Bhoj Dutt
Sharma of the Arya Samaj. In 1907 the Hindu rajputs of the Agra
division Hocked to these sabhas in an attempt to convert the Muslim
rajputs so as to thereby enhance the numerical strength of the
rajput community.10 By 1910, the Rajput Sabha, which was, along
with the Arya Samaj, actively engaged in the shuddhi movement,
claimed to have converted 1,052 rajput Muslims to Hinduism.17
It was, however, only in the 1920s thai the dramatic mass
conversions of malkanas began. The first of these conversion
ceremo-nies took place at Raibana, near Agra. Within the first few
months of 1992, over 5,000 malkanas were said to have been
Hinduised and the figure rose to over 30,000 by the end of the
year.18 This drive continued till 1927 or so, by which time it is
reported that about 1,63,000 malkanas had entered the Hindu fold.
,19
In the conversion of the malkanas, the Arya Samaj was actively
assisted by the Kshatriya Upkarini Mahasabha (Rajput Welfare
Society). On August, 30 1992, the Mahasabha at its meeting at Kashi
under the presidentship of Raja Sir Rampal Singh, decided "to take
back Hindu rajputs who at
one time or another had turned Muslims".20
The Mahasabha sought to win over the Muslim rajputs by
repeatedly playing up the issue of their upper caste kshatriya
ancestry. That the Arya Samaj had to seek the active co-operation
of the Mahasabha suggests that despite its professed disavowal of
the caste system, the Aryas did not hesitate in making as their
central missionary strategy the evok-ing of caste sentiments.
In the conversion of the malkanas the primary aim of the Arya
Samaj seems to have been their de-Islamisation so as to decrease
Muslim numbers. It is also evident that the Arya Samaj was not
particularly concerned about instructing the new converts in the
principles of the Arya faith. Instead, the malkanas seem to have
been rehabilitated, at least partially, as Hindu kshatriyas. As
Chinmayananda Sanyasi, an activc Arya missionary, admitted,
The malkanas do not become Arya or. shuddhi but go to their
community (Rajput ) which is mainly sanatanist (orthodox)^' That
the Hindu rajputs' activc role in
converting the malkana rajputs was spurred more by an interest
in increasing their num-bers rather than by a genuine sense of
brother-hood is evident from the fact that even today the Hindu
rajputs refuse to inter-marry with the malkanas.
The jats are a peasant community inhab-iting north-western
India, including parts of present-day Pakistan. The jats of western
Punjab are, by and large, Muslims, those of central Punjab being
Sikhs and those of the eastern districts mostly Hindus. However, in
the Haryana region of the then province of Punjab, particularly in
the Rohtak division, there lived a significant number of nco-Muslim
jat cultivators known as the Mula jats. This community soon became
the focus of the Arya Samaj 's missionary efforts.22
By 1921, Rohtak had emerged as a major centre of the Arya Samaj
movement. Nearly 90 per cent of the registered Aryas of this region
were drawn from among the Hindu jats. Chhotu Ram, the leading jat
politician, who had a strong base among the jat peas-antry of
Rohtak, was a staunch Arya Samaji and was the main force behind the
shuddhi of the mula jats. At his instance, resolutions were passed
by various Hindu jat panchayats of the Rohtak division calling for
the con-version of Muslim jats. On November 12, 1925, a resolution
to the same effect was passed by a massive gathering of Hindu jats
at the pi1grimage town of Pushkar near Aj mer, which was presided
over by Maharaja Bijendra Singh, the jat ruler of the Bharatpur
state. By 1927, under Chhotu's influence, even the jat mahasabha,
the leading jat organisation, had become actively involved in the
shuddhi movement. In the same year, a committee presided over by
Choudhry Ghasi Ram, a member of the Punjab Council, was set up to
promote the conversion of the
mula jats. Chhotu Ram was appointed as its joint-secretary.
Chhotu promised the mula jats that they would be fully accepted
by the Hindu jats if they were to renounce Islam. A resolution was
passed during the course of a meeting held at Rohtak on April 8,
1923, in which it was declared that,
Shuddh-Shuddha ('purified') Jats will be fully integrated into
the Jar Community. No Jat is to discriminate against shuddh-shuddha
Jats in any matter of eating, socialising or marriage
alliances.13
Despite Chhotu Ram's efforts to integrate the Hinduised mula
jats into the broader jat community, the Hindu jats seemed
unwilling to accept them.24 The shuddhi of the mula jats,
therefore, proved a failure and many of them were reconverted back
to Islam through the efforts of the Ishaat-e-Quran and the
Tabligh-ul-Islam, Muslim organisations set up in 1923 with the aim
of rescuing Muslim jats, gujjars and rajputs who had been
con-verted to Hinduism by the Arya Samaj.2'
As with the conversion of the malkanas, the shuddhi movement
among the mula jats, in which the politician Chhotu Ram played the
key role, was undertaken more for poli-tical gain than out of any
genuine spiritual commitment. Chhotu's personal interest in
ensuring the success of the movement lay in his concern for
increasing his own jat political support-base. As his biographer
ob-serves:
It needs to be emphasised that Chhotu Ram was not interested in
the shuddhi movement, as some other Arya Samajists were, in
claim-ing back some Hindus of lower caste who had embraced
Christianity or Islam in the Haryana region. He only worried lest
the numbers of Hindu jats got dwindled by their conversion.
Pointing to the dwindling num berof Hindu jats in the population of
Punjab, Chhotu Ram advocated wide-scale shuddhi of the mula jats
(Muslim jais) as one of the ways in which it could be over come...
In fact, the failure and success of the entire shuddhi movement was
measured by the Chhotu Ram in relation to the addition it was
likely to make to the total number of Hindu jats. The numerical
strength of any "com-munity" was necessary in the Punjab of Chhotu
Ram's days as that alone gave the 'Community' a leverage to make
claims to the government for allocation of jobs, re-wards,
patronage, etc. Chhotu Ham's inter-est in and advocacy of shuddhi
in relation to jats alone substantiates the theory that he was
acting not for the sake of 'Hinduism' but 'jatism' to maintain the
numerical strength of jats, and to increase it, if pos-sible.
Significantly. Chhotu Ram was advo eating the readmission of the
purified jats into their own jat biraderi (caste-brother-hood) not
as Aryas but as jats. In fact, he resisted all attempts of the Arya
jats to be called Aryas only.26
Chhotu Ram, too, acknowledged the es-sentially political motives
behind the shuddhi enterprise when he stated that:
2216 Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994
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The very aim of the (shuddhi) movement was to integrate the
Shuddh-Shuddh jats into the fold of the jat community so ns to
strengthen the jats.27
It should also be noted that, as in the case of the malkana
rajputs, the supposedly anti-caste Arya Samaj not only sought to
convert the inula jats as an entire caste group (which it would not
have attempted had it really been opposed to the caste system), but
also tried, though in vain, to get the mula jats absorbed into the
Hindu jat caste. Had the shuddhi of the mula jats been successful
this would undoubtedly have further strengthened the caste system,
a social order which the Aryas denounced in theory.
Besides the conversion to Hinduism of nominally Muslim castes
such as the malkanas and the mulajats, the Arya Samaj also reached
out to castes on the peripheries of the Hindu caste order who,
though non-Muslim, prac-tised many Islamic customs. Historically,
it was the gradual adoption of many Muslim practices by non-Muslim
caste groups that paved the way for their eventual formal
conversion to Islam. The Arya Samaj sought to prevent this by
campaigning against these customs and practices. This
de-islamisation among the peripheral castes was soon fol-lowed by
their eventual conversion to Hin-duism alter undergoing the Arya
shuddhi ceremony.
One instance of this is the Arya Samaj's missionary efforts
among the Bishnois, a large farming community spread over Rajputana
and the western districts of the United Provinces. The Bishnois had
adopted several Muslim customs such as burial of the dead,
employing the name Allah' to refer to God and using Muslim names
and, unlike orthodox Hindus, they did not worship idols. A leading
Arya missionary, Shraddhananda Sanyasi, explains this by saying
that:
...having once slain a Qadi, who had inter-fered with their rite
of widow-burning, they had compounded the offence by embracing
Islam.28
The Arya Samaj began working among the Bishnois in the 1920s.
Gradually they were made to give up their Islamic customs and today
they are almost a full-fledged Hindu caste.
Another similar case of the Arya Samaj's efforts to do away with
Islamic customs practised by peripheral non-Muslim castes was that
of its work among the bhangis (sweepers) of Rajputana and the
Punjab. From the point of view of the brahminical Dharmasastras
(law-books), the bhangis, along with all other 'untouchable'
groups, are considered to be non-Hindus or outcastes, since they
fall outside the 'chaturvarnya', the four-fold Hindu caste order.
Hence, the bhangis were largely uninfluenced by the brahminical
ethos. They, in fact, had adopted many Islamic customs and several
of them had converted to Islam in search of social equality and
dignity.
This free borrowing of Muslim customs by the bhangis was noted
by William Crooke who, writing in 1896, observed that,
The religion of the sweepers is a curious mixture of various
faiths. Some ... profess to be Hindus, others Musaimans, others
Sikhs.. The bhangis of the princely state of Jodh-
pur in western Rajputana celebrated Muslim festivals such as
Shab-e-Barrat, Moharrum and the'urs of local 'pirs'. Most of them
were followers of the cults of Sufi saints such as Zinda Pir, Lai
Beg, Sujani Pir and Ghazi Pir. Many non-Muslim bhangis of Jodhpur
kept Muslim names.30
The Arya Samaj began its programme of dc-Islamising the Jodhpur
bhangis in 1923. Its main objective was said to have been "to
eradicate Muslim influence from their socio-religious spheres and
to create a feeling of Hinduism".'' The conversion of the bhangis
to the Arya Samaj fold did not in any way help in ameliorating
their dismal social and economic conditions. Nor did the giving up
of Muslim customs al all help in elevating them from the lowest
rung of the caste system.
In the wake of the partition of the sub-continent in August
1947, bloody riots broke out all over northern India in which
thou-sands lost their lives. In several areas, Hindus forced
Muslims to choose between fleeing to Pakistan, being slaughtered or
else agree-ing to convert to Hinduism. Under duress scores of
Muslims are said to have chosen the third option.-2
By 1950, when India declared itself a republic, the communal
situation had shown some signs of improvement. Fairly strong
modernist and liberal political tendencies had emerged, and Hindu
political outfits such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS had been
considerably marginalised. This, however, was not to last very long
and by the early 1970s, coinciding with the emer-gence of the
general crisis of the Indian state, extreme right wing brahminical
Hindu mil-itancy saw an enormous upsurge. The main force behind
this was the RSS, which op-erates through a large number of frontal
organisations working in different fields. One of the most powerful
of these is the VHP, the "World Hindu Congress", floated in 1964,
among whose main objectives is the conversion of all the non-Hindus
to Hinduism.
RECENT CONVERSIONS
The most recent of the mass conversion of Muslims to Hinduism
organised by the VHP has been that among the Cheeta-Merat rajput
Muslims. This community numbers over 3,00,000 and is scattered
across the districtsofUdaipur, Pali, Bhilwaraand Ajmer in
Rajasthan, with their biggest concentra-tion being in the Beawar
region of Ajmer district. These Muslims are believed to be
descended from the rajput king Prithvi Raj
Chauhan, who fought several battles with the Muslim rulers of
Delhi. According to local tradition, Cheeta, grandson of
MeraChauhan, converted to Islam during the reign of the Mughal
emperor Aurang/eb (1658-1707 AD) and his descendants came to be
known as cheetas, mers or merats. On the other hand, the other
descendants of Mera Chauhan re-mained Hindus and are known as gorat
merats, barar mers or rawats."
In the early censuses, however, al I the mers were classified as
belonging to non-Hindu aboriginal tribes and even today the
distinc-tion between Muslim and Hindu mers re-mains blurred.
Indeed, apart from the prac-tice of circumcision and the burying of
the dead, the nominally Muslim mers are quite indistinguishable
from their Hindu relatives. Until recently, mers, irrespective of
religion, used to freely inter-marry and brahmins would perform
their marriage ceremonies accord-ing to Hindu rites.
Commenting on the admixture of Hindu and Muslim customs among
the merorcheeta rajputs, Lodrick notes that:
Mers (Muslims) and Rawats (Hindus) shared a common culture,
inter-dined, wore similar dress and even worshipped the same Hindu
deities. Hindu mers disregard many of the traditional Hindu
prescriptions concerning ablutions, ceremonial forms and food, and
have no compunction about eating beef or any animal flesh. Many
orthodox Hindus disassociate themselves from the mer com-munity,
and a strong case can be made for regarding mers, whether Katat
mers, Gorat merat or Rawat, as a distinct group that fits neither
the Mouslem nor the Hindu mould.34
The close kinship and other social lies between the Hindu and
Muslim mers, how-ever, came in for vigorous opposition from the
Arya Samaj. Its founder, Dayananda Saraswati, had set up his
headquarters at Ajmer, and he is said to have made the Hindu mers
of the neighbouring Masauda and Merwara regions give up the
practice of intermarrying with the Muslim mers.35
The gradual drifting apart of the Muslim mers and the Rawats was
further accelerated by the introduction of the franchise and
com-munal representation in British India as well as by the bloody
events immediately before and after the independence of India in
1947.36
According to Jamal Khan, president of the Cheeta-Mcrat-Kathat
Sabha of Beawar, the first conversions of Muslim mer rajputs to
Hinduism occurred in 10 to 15 villages in the Bhim tehsil of the
Udaipur district in 1947. Thereafter, strenuous efforts were made
to Hinduise the mers of Beawar. One means that was adopted was the
instruction given to Hindu school teachers by some local rajput
heads of villages to change the names of their Muslim students to
Hindu ones in the official school records.37
In the 1970s, the organised attempts by the VHP to convert the
mer Muslims were further intensified. It has been alleged that
since
Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994 2217
-
1975, the VHP's conversion drive in this region has been funded
by a monthly grant ofRs3,00,000byBirlaand Company, India's largest
industrial house.38 In the same year, the Chauhan Rajput Sabha, a
Hindu rajput outfit allied to the VHP, held a meeting on January 19
at Kana Kheda in the Ajmer district which was attended by Hindu
Chauhan rajput heads of several villages. In its resolution it
appealed to the Muslim Chauhan mers to abide by the following
decisions of the sabha;
(1) Circumcision should be done away with. (2) Keeping in mind
the glory of our caste,
the marriages of our children should be performed in Hindu style
by circum-bulation of fire.
(3) On the death of any Chauhan, no fakir (Muslim mendicant)
should be called and nor should the fatiha be recited.
(4) Since we are the descendants of Prithvi Raj Chauhan, to
maintain the glory of our caste we should give our children only
Hindu titles and surnames such as Singh, Raj, Chand, Kumar, Lai,
Ram, etc."'
As is evident from this resolution, the de-Islamisation of the
Muslim mers, and their acceptance of certain Hindu customs and
cultural norms, rather than a concern for their spiritual and
social development, forms the core of the conversion drive among
them.
The VHP is reported to have made several films on Prithvi Raj
Chauhan and Baba Ramdeo Ji, another Chauhan hero whom Muslim
rajputs also revere, which are reg-ularly screened in mer Muslim
villages. Through these films the VHP is seeking to propagate a
distorted history of the ancestors of the mers as having been
forcibly convert-ed to Islam by the Muslim rulers.40
Taking advantage of the abject poverty of the mers, the VHP is
said to be attempting to win them over by the liberal distribution
of rice and clothes. It has set up free dispen-saries in the Muslim
mer-inhabited hamlets of Shyamgarh, Chana and Kharkhedi in Ajmer
district as well as schools, hospitals and creches in other mer
villages of the Beawar region.41
The process of persuading the Muslim mers to convert to Hinduism
is said to take several months and it involves organising kirtans
(ceremonies at which hymns are sung and sermons are delivered) and
meetings in which the VHP's version of the history of the mers is
narrated.42 Before the actual conversion itself, villagers are made
to sign a joint letter addressed to the VHP which invariably states
that they want to give up their Muslim customs at a ceremony in
which they shall take a solemn oath to adhere to the 'pure
kshatriya dharma', the rules of social conduct appropriate to
members of the Hindu rajput warrior caste. The letter is said to
always end with a request to the VHP to make arrangements to screen
films on Prithvi Raj Chauhan. A letter of this sort is the
VHP's way of ensuring that the conversion ceremony is seen as
purely voluntary.43
The VHP claims to have converted over 47,000 mers, though this
number is said to be a gross exaggeration. In the wake of these
conversions some Islamic organisations such as the
Jamiyat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind, the Rajasthan Dini Talimi Sangh and the
Muslim United Forum of Pali are said to have step-ped up efforts to
bring the mers back to Islam.
The conversions among the mers, quite expectedly, caused great
concern to Muslim leaders and a leading Indian Muslim poli-tician,
Syed Shahabuddin wrote to the govern-ment seeking its opinion in
the matter. In response, the home ministry, in its letter December
29,1983 to Shahabuddin, opined that the Cheeta-Merats who had come
under the influence of the VHP had only thereby "re-affirmed their
faith in Hinduism".44 The choice of the phrase "re-affirmation of
faith" instead of "conversion" was too significant to be
ignored.
The VHP claims to have converted over 20,000 Muslims in the
remote Kutch district of northern Gujarat, though this is certainly
a gross exaggeration. It is now said to be eyeing the 5,00,000
strong Maul-e-Salaam girasiya rajput Muslims of central Gujarat,
who still retain many Hindu customs.45
Muslims in many parts of India live in con-stant fear of attacks
by Hindu mobs in which, especially in recent years, the policeis
known to play an extremely partisan role, often actively assisting
the Hindu rioters. Height-ened insecurity has driven some Muslims
to enter Hinduism to protect their lives and property. Hasmukh
Patel, a leading VHP functionary from Gujarat, explains his
out-fits success in winning Muslim converts by stating that:
We promise the both swabhiman (self-re-spect) and salamati
(security) if they con-vert.46
Seen in the context of the repeated bloody anti-Muslim progroms
that periodically rock Gujarat, this promise to grant Muslim
con-verts security seems but a veiled threat of violence being
unleashed against Muslims if they fail to convert.
The VHP is said to have converted some 200 Muslims of the mir
caste of musicians in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in early 1993. It is also
said to be attempting to convert half a dozen Muslim castes in
central Gujarat who still have not discarded many of the Hindu
customs of their ancestors.47 Conversions of Muslims to Hinduism
arc also said to have occurred in some states ruled by the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right wing Hindu party. Thus, in
1992 the rajput Muslim inhabitants of eight villages in the Hathras
district of Uttar Pradesh were converted by Arya Samaj and the VHP.
According to a report in a leading English language daily:
..over the past many years, volunteers of the RSS have been
systematically raiding
the community (i e, the Muslims of these villages), using their
abject poverty to lure them with promises of employment and a
higher standard of living... Not surprisingly, the exertions of the
RSS band bore fruit and four years ago, a sizeable number of
Mus-lims, as many as 12 each from the villages of Allahpur and
Sujjan alone, took to Hin-duism. The report goes on to add that the
ruling
BJP, too, had a hand in these conversions, and that;
...it (the BJP) has begun to take direct in-terest in the
operation. On October 18, a party delegation led by two MPs from
Hathras, Dr L B Rawal and Mr Suresh Anand, participated in a
shastra pujan ('worship-ping of weapons') ceremony at Sujjan. The
ceremony was organised by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir, a school run
by the RSS-sponsored Vidya Bharati mission. At the ceremony, the
MPs, according to eyewit-ness accounts, gave impassioned speeches
extolling the virtues of the kshatriya (rajputs) and stressed that
the adoption of the kshatriya dharma was the only path to
salvation.
Since Sujjan is an overwhelmingly Muslim village, the purpose of
the visit by the BJP's MPs, according to the report, "could only
have been to secure more conversions".46
The dramatic rise in recent years of the BJP in Indian politics
has ominous portents for the future of the Indian Muslims. It is
likely that if this party were to come to power at the centre,
efforts to convert the Muslims to Hinduism would receive a
tremendous im-petus. After all, the late M S Golwalkar, the head of
the RSS of which the BJP is the political wing, had declared that
the Indian Muslims must,
... either adopt the Hindu culture and lan-guage, must learn to
respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no
idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture,
i e, of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate exist-ence
to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly
subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treat-mentnot even citizen's
rights49
CONCLUSION
The Hindu missionary enterprise seems more of a
politically-inspired movement rather than a purely religious
undertaking. In all the cases of the mass conversions of Muslims to
Hinduism the central trust has been on theirde-Islamisation rather
than on their accepting, in any real sense, the Hindu religion.
This is not merely due to the ab-sence of a set of fundamental
tenets in Hinduism, but primarily because the Arya Samaj and the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad missionaries seem more concerned with weaning
Muslims away from Islam than with the spiritual instruction and
development of their converts.
2218 Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994
-
Muslim castes which have been particu-larly vulnerable to Hindu
missionary efforts have several features in common. They are
generally only nominally Muslim and still retain many Hindu customs
and beliefs. Most of the mass conversions haveoccurred among Muslim
rajput groups. The malkanas, cheeta merats, Maul-e-Salaam girasiyas
and the meos are all of rajput origin, and the mula jats, too,
claim kshatriya ancestry. In con-verting to Hinduism many rajput
Muslims were perhaps attracted by the promises given to them of
their being restored the 'upper' caste privileges due to them as
descendants of members of the rajput kshatriya com-munity.
The Hindu missionaries, too, seem to have exhibited an
inordinate interest in converting the socially dominant and
powerful Muslim rajputs, since the entire shuddhi movement was
largely undertaken to bolster the for-tunes of the entrenched Hindu
'higher' castes. On the other hand, there have been few instances
of mass conversions to Hinduism among the 'lower' Muslim castes,
who form the majority of the Indian Muslim popula-tion. This is
perhaps due to the fact that the Hindu missionary outfits, being
upholders of the brahminical caste order, have not shown great
concern for the spiritual salva-tion and the social upliftment of
the lower castes. Further, since the Hindu missionary organisations
promise to rehabilitate Mus-lim converts into the caste to which
their Hindu ancestors originally belonged, few 'low' caste Muslims
would be willing to enter the Hindu fold since that would mean
being once again accommodated at the lower rungs of the caste
system as untouchables and shudras.50
It is also worth noting that these mass conversions have mostly
occurred in the backward regions of northern India where feudalism
is still largely intact and where brahminism has not been
challenged by assertive 'lower castes as elsewhere. In regions such
as southern India, where Muslims are fairly well-educated and where
'upper' caste Hindu communalism has been, to a great extent,
countered by low caste anti-brahminical militancy, few conversions
to Hinduism among Muslims have been report-ed. There have, in fact,
been no instances of any major mass conversions of Muslims outside
the orthodox brahminical heartland of northern India.
N o t e s
1 J F Seunarine, Reconversion to Hinduism through Suddhi Madras,
Christian Literature Society, 1977. See pp 100-105 for a detailed
description of the actual conversion cere-mony.
2 Robert Eric Frykcnburg, 'Fundamentalism and Revivalism in
South Asia' in James Warner Bjorkman (ed), Fundamentalism,
Revivalists and Violence in South Asia, New Delhi, Manohar, 1988, p
39.
3 A leading Hindu Punjabi leader, Lala Lajpat Rai, writing in
The Tribune of Lahore on December 13, 1924, stated that, "The
Prin-ciple of Shuddhi has now been accepted by the Hindu Sabha, and
I am free to confess that the idea at the back of this decision
is
partly political partly communal and partly humanitarian"
4 See Rajeshwar, Paravartan Kyo aur Kaise7 (Hindi) ('Conversion:
Why and How?'), New Delhi, Suruchi Prakashan. 1992. The author is
the former head of the south Delhi unit of the RSS and served for
many years as the president of the Delhi wing of the VHP. The book
is an account of shuddhi by one who claims to have performed many
conversions of non-Hindus.
5 See JTF Jordens, 'Reconversion to Hindu-ism: The Shuddhi of
the Arya Samaj' in GA Oddie (ed), Religion in South Asia, New
Delhi, Manohar, 1977 for a detailed treatment of the issue.
6 Shriman Mehta Ramachandra Ji Shastri, Patiton Ki Shuddhi
Sanatan Hat {'Shuddhi of the Backward Classes is Ancient') Lahore,
Arya Pradeshtk Pratinidhi Sabha, 1908, p 76.
7 See Seunarine, op cit, pp 29-31 8 Kenneth W Jones, Arya Dharm
Hindu Con-
sciousness in Nineteenth Centur)' Punjab, New Delhi, Manohar,
1972, p 131.
9 Jordens, op at. p 147. 10 Ibid, p 152. 11 Jordens observes
that, "In the extant reports
there is a noticeable absence of any reference to the religious
instruction of converts, shuddhi was not a rite that presupposed an
inner religious conversion reinforced by instruc-tion to foster a
new interior life. It was a rite of access... A change in the
individual's (neo-Hindu's) religious life is not a question
pri-marily of inner conversion, hut rather the acquisition of the
right of entry into the manifold sects, panths. orders and sabhas
and the right of access to the very heart of ortho-doxythe Vedas
and the Vedic rites," (op cit, P 154)
12 Quoted in Rajeshwar, op cit, p ix 13 Mushirul Hasan,
Nationalism and Communal
Politics in India 1885-1930, New Delhi, Manohar, 1991, p 21
Of.
14 Jordens, op ( it, p 158 15 Horst Kruger (ed), Kunwar
Mohammad
Ashraf An Indian Scholar and Revolu tionarv, Akademie-Verlag
Berlin, Berlin. 1966, p 350,
16 M Hasan, op cit. p 237 17 Jones, op cit, p 131. 18 M Hasan,
op at. p 210. 19 Seunarine, op cit, p 37 20 Ibid, p 37. 21 Quoted
in Seunarine, op cit, p 37. 22 Prem Chowdhry, Punjab Politics- The
Role
of Sir Chhotu Ram, New Delhi, Vikas, 1984, p 121.
23 Ibid, quoted on p 121. 24 Ibid, p 122f. 25 Ibid, p 121. 26
Ibid, p 122. 27 Ibid, quoted on p 122. 28 Shraddhananda Sanyasi,
Hindu Sanghathiin,
Kurukshetra Gurukula, Kurukshetra, 1924, p 36.
29 W Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North Western
Provinces and Oudh, Vol 1, Office of the Superintendent of the
Govern-
ment Printing Press, Calcutta, 1896, p 267. 30 ShyamLal,
'Sanskritisationand Social Change
among the Bhangis in Jodhpur' in Indian Journal of Social Work,
Vol 34, No 1, 1973, p 39.
31 ShyamLal, \Social Reform Movement among the Bhangis of
Western Rajasthan' in Eastern Anthropologist, Vol 32, No 2, 1979, p
101
32 See Partap C Aggarwal, 'The Meos of Rajasthan and Haryana' in
Imtiaz Ahmed (ed), Caste and Social Stratification among the
Muslims, New Delhi, Manohar, 1973. p 25 for an account of forced
conversions and killings of meo rajput Muslims by Hindus and royal
authorities in the princely states of Bharatpur and Alwar in
1947.
33 Deryck O, Lodrick, 'A Cattle Fair in Rajasthan' in Current
Anthropology, Vol 25, No 2, April 1984, p 221.
34 Ibid, p 221. 35 V K Vashishtha, 'Arya Samaj Movement in
Rajasthan during the 19th Century' in S C Malik (ed). Dissent,
Protest and Reform in Indian Civilisation, Indian Institute of
Ad-vanced Study. Simla, 1977, pp 229-30.
36 Lodrick, op cit, p 221. 37 Mohammad Ahmad Kazmi, 'The Story
of
Muslim Conversions in Rajasthan' in Radi-ance, September 20-26,
1992, p 7.
38 Ibid, p 7. 39 Ibid, quoted on p 6. 40 Ibid, p 6. 41 Ibid, p
7. 42 Sreekant Khandekar, Rajasthan: Conversion
Convulsions', India Today, June 30, 1986, p 143.
43 Ibid, p 143 44 Quoted from a letter dated December 29,
1983 from the Home Ministry of the Govern-ment of India to Syed
Shahabuddin, MP, Muslim India, Vol II, No 14, February 1984, p
55
45 India Today, February 28, 1993, p 100. 46 Ibid, The India
Today report quotes a certain
Abdul Rashid Mir, now Prakashbhai, a scooter mechanic of
Ahmedabad, who ex-plained his conversion to Hinduism by say-ing,
"We want our sons to be secure in the future "
47 Ibid, p 100. 48 Vidya Subrahmaniam, 'Muslims in Western
UPSpectre of Conversions Haunts a Mi-nority', The Statesman, New
Delhi, April 10, 1992.
49 M S Golwalkar, We, or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat
Publications. Nagpur, 1939, pp 47-48.
50 As for those Muslim converts to Hinduism who were not aware
of the caste of their Hindu ancestors, the Hindu Mahasabha, the
leading orthodox Hindupolitical organisation, proposed that a new
Varna or broad caste category, in addition to the existing four
varnas be created to accommodate them. Thus N C Chatteijee,
delivering the presiden-tial address at the Hindu Mahasabha's 30th
general session at Bhopal on December 28, 1952 asserted that, "We
should not neglect Shuddhi and Sangathan (Hindu unity) and we
should declare all converts to Hinduism who cannot be fitted into
their old families as belonging to the Mahasava Varna" (see N C
Chatterjee, Presidential Address, All India Hindu Mahasabha, New
Delhi, 1952, p 19)-
Economic and Political Weekly August 20, 1994 2219