CONVERSION AS POLITICAL PROTEST

The “institutional murder” of a Dalit PhD scholar, Rohith Vemula in January this year, saw the launch of a fiery protest across India. Rohith was driven to commit suicide due to the institutional harassment meted out to him because he was Dalit. While the investigation into the matter has not proceeded in any meaningful direction leading to justice, the protesting students at the Hyderabad Central University – the epicenter of the protests – have witnessed repeated and brutal attacks by the State to stifle the voice of those who demand strict action against the guilty and those complicit in the violence and discrimination. While the search for justice is on, this year’s 125th Ambedkar Jayanti saw the mother and brother of the deceased Rohith converting to Buddhism. Conversion is usually in the ‘national’ news nowadays only with ‘ghar wapasi’-like incidents in which minoritized communities are targeted, often violently; while violence against such communities continues unabated everyday. The conversion of the Vemulas is, therefore, a very different report and as such should be used as an occasion to reflect on the place of conversion in the social and political landscape of India.

Radhika and Raja Vemula’s actions should be understood as a form of political protest and an assertion of the essential dignity of the human being. The conversion to Buddhism of the Vemulas came after their repeated calls for justice, to the State and civil society, fell on deaf ears. Such a mode of protest is not new to the Dalit movement in India. One can refer to the first of such protests in 1956 when Dr. B. R. Ambedkar along with half-a-million followers embraced Buddhism, in order to walk out of the oppression of the Hindu caste system. Of course this conversion took years in preparation and theological reflection.

This sentiment of protest is precisely what Raja Vemula expressed in his press note before embracing Buddhism. He said that the conversion was due to a desire to change their lives, a life of “[t]he kind…that Babasaheb Ambedkar wanted us to lead. A life without blind belief. A life based on compassion and respect for fellow human beings. A life of dignity and self respect. A life outside the Hindu caste system”.

Though conversion-as-protest has more than half-a-century of history, yet conversions are generally perceived as ‘de-stabilizing’ by the ‘secular’ or left-wing and right-wing elites in India, thus necessitating suspicion. In this imagination, conversion is an act that violates the soul of India.

That conversion movements have been markers of protest against violence and oppression of marginalized communities is something that Indian nationalism has never properly acknowledged. Thus, the violence that has marked – and continues to mark – everyday realities of marginalized groups is conveniently not discussed. Which is precisely why the recent conversion of the Vemulas should remind us of the banal and non-banal violent conditions prevailing in India and that through conversion communities attempt to better their lives.

Following this line of thought, one should also re-think about how we feel and understand the history of Christianization in Goa. That today if we find a Goan landscape dotted by whitewashed churches it is not because of a violent process of proselytization but because Christianization had provided a way out of the violence that had marred the social and political landscape of Goa. Indeed, recent historical scholarship has strongly emphasized this point.

The fact that conversion to Christianity and Islam is seen as ‘de-stabilizing’ while that to Buddhism is not seen as such, exposes the cunning logic of Indian nationalism. The logic operates on two levels. The ‘foreign’ or Abrahamic religions are assumed to be fundamentally violent. Thus, Christianity is represented as responsible for forced conversions and Islam identified as having spread through the sword. However, conversion to Buddhism is understood differently. Buddhism cast as an Indic religion – or a religious tradition emerging from India – and in many ways appropriated as a sect of Hinduism could be used to deflect the radical, anti-caste edge of that re-articulated religious tradition. Mass conversion, whether to Islam, Christianity, or Buddhism, have always been a response to pre-existing violence and oppression of the society, and often also involves a spiritual preparation. These facts are always downplayed. The case of Ambedkar’s conversion in the textbooks is quite illustrative, for it is portrayed as an aberration in an otherwise peaceful Indian society.

Finally, detractors of the conversion of the Vemulas would predictably complain about the ‘ulterior’ political motives and how such conversions lack the necessary religiosity and spirituality fundamental to any religious practice. To them we could, perhaps, point out that religions such as Buddhism and Christianity emerged as political protests: the former against the excesses of the Brahmanical religion, and the latter against the oppression of the Roman Empire. To protest oppression is not to have ‘ulterior’ political motives, but to articulate a utopian and humane vision for the society. In the words of Raja Vemula, “From today, my mother and I will be truly free. Free from shame. Free from daily humiliation. Free from the guilt of praying to the same God in whose name our people have been tortured for centuries”.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 27 April, 2016)

CANTARAM AS COMMENTARY ON GOAN POLITICS

Francis de Tuem has a peculiar voice – a mix of guttural and nasal tones that are not always associated with famous singers. Personally, I thought it was a bit strange that he could be a singer when I first heard some of his songs. But when one listens to his sharp political and social critique one instantly realizes why he is such a runaway hit. Known for his irreverently bold songs, Tuem also displays an acute sense of logical reasoning while singing about Goan politics. Hence, one simply had to find out why his latest tiatr Reporter, is a huge hit.

More than the plot, this tiatr derives most of its strength as a bold performance on stage from the songs sung by Tuem. While the main plot revolves around a journalist Anita, who acts as an ombudsman in a political setup that is riddled with corruption and dishonesty, most of the songs tackle the recent political controversies in Goa and the rest of India head-on such as the ‘ghar wapasi’ issue, or the attacks on Christian institutions, the ban on beef, and so on and so forth. The political cantaram in tiatrs are not simply forms of protests, but are also sincere pleas for a change in the way things function in society. In this context, Tuem’s tiatr and the songs he sings in it are no exception.

Though Tuem’s critique of Goan politics is significantly different, there are areas where this critique displays problems. I would like to discuss this with reference to some of his songs. First and foremost, there is a precise and logical manner in which Tuem crafts his songs. The first song that Tuem sang had a bit about the beef ban controversy. That Tuem is no ordinary composer and singer of political songs was proven by his bold reference to a seminal paper that Dr. B. R. Ambedkar wrote on the beef-eating food habits of brahmins in the Vedic times. Such a reference is reassuring as the intellectual stream from which Tuem relies on for mounting a critique of Goan politics is based on a solid premise – one that is firmly lodged within anti-caste struggles of South Asia.

Another important issue that was highlighted through the songs was the controversy of ‘ghar wapasi’. Through the ritual of ‘ghar wapasi’ Hindu-groups have sought to convert Christian, Muslim, and Dalit groups to Hinduism. In his songs, Tuem makes two crucial statements. The first is related to the manner in which the caste hierarchy operates within Hindu temples, which has continued to exclude the so-called ‘lower-caste’ from equal access to temples. Hence, Tuem counter argues, that assuming Christians (or other groups) convert back into Hinduism, what is the guarantee that such ‘re-converts’ will be allowed equal access to Hindu temples?

The second important point that he makes in relation to the ‘ghar wapasi’ episode is regarding the so-called ‘forced conversions’. For those who have been reading and listening about the ‘ghar wapasi’ controversy over the last few months, one of the reasons cited in favor of ‘ghar wapasi’ was that all conversions to Christianity and Islam were ‘forced’, thus justifying this so-called ‘homecoming’. But Tuem’s sensitive and critical understanding of Goan history allows him to make a crucial distinction between those who converted in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries and the Christians in Goa today. Tuem makes the argument that while one of his ancestors had converted, all the generations down the line cannot be termed as ‘converts’. This is true for a lot of Goan Christians today. Though this seems to be a simple and common-sensical point, it escapes so many of us in Goa and India – that today’s Catholics are born into the religion and therefore cannot be termed as converts.

But the cherry on the cake came in the form of Tuem’s bold assertion wherein he forcefully asserted that if he is a Christian today it is solely due to his own wish and devotion. This, we can suggest is a logical culmination for all those who recognize that all conversions were not ‘forced’ and that there is an element of caste that always plays a part in conversion movements whether in Goa or elsewhere. While the many Hindu groups were busy in trying to convince the nation that converts had no agency and mind of their own, Tuem’s assertion allows us to see that this is not the case. In fact, through this song Tuem can be said to create a language through which minoritized groups can respond to attempts at appropriating their histories.

The sense that one gets from the songs and the plot of Reporter is that individual honesty and sincerity is projected as the panacea for all ills. Emphasis is also placed on institutions like the media who act as whistleblowers and guardians of the truth in a similar context. However, one needs to be a bit circumspect about arguments and visions that place the onus and responsibility of smooth and efficient functioning of politics and governance on a few individuals and institutions. What this ultimately means is that power to decide the fates of others have to be concentrated in the hands of a few, and this indeed can be detrimental to democracy. But this is not how it is supposed to be. Power needs to be shared as equitably as possible with all constituent elements in a polity.

The faith and trust reposed in a few individuals and institutions is a problem in Reporter, and calls for careful re-thinking. That aside, while Tuem should rightly revel in the success of his tiatr and his cantaram, it is also time to recognize that the very structure and form of the Goan tiatr allows a certain empowerment of the Goan people. The structure and form of the tiatr not only allows space for political dissent, but in its core is highly politicized. Hence, if articulated properly, tiatr and its cantaram are effective forms of sharp political and social commentary.

(First published in  O Heraldo, dt: 8 July, 2015)

DIETARY PREFERENCES AND THE MINORITIZED GROUPS

What we eat and what we do not is simply not a question of satiating hunger. Dietary preferences provide us with vital cultural markers of identity. This column would like to explore how dietary preferences are used to subjugate, oppress and systematically minoritize certain groups over a period of time and keep them away from the portals of power and privilege.

About two weeks ago news broke out that the Maharashtra government had banned cow slaughter, and whoever sold, or was found in possession of beef would be penalized with five years’ imprisonment as well as a fine of Rs. 10,000. Thus, consumption and sale of beef now became – as in many other states like Madhya Pradesh and Delhi – a legal and punishable offence. While the case of banning the consumption of beef is extreme, what one often misses is the subtle ways in which the dietary preferences of a large number of people are being manipulated. For instance, responding to a query on twitter, the current Railways Minister, Suresh Prabhu said, “I am a vegetarian myself, and I understand vegetarians may face problems since the food they eat on trains and other railways facilities is cooked in the same kitchens as non-vegetarian food”. Prabhu further said that “[w]hile it would be good if everyone takes up vegetarianism” his ministry would make attempts to provide separate kitchens for vegetarian and non-vegetarian food on trains.

While the connection between the ban on the consumption of beef and the comments of the Railways Minister might not be obvious, what one can clearly see is the discomfort with the consumption of meat and meat products. The subtext to these comments and events is that one should not indulge in the consumption of foods that have meat and meat products in them. While separate kitchens have not yet been, thankfully, enforced in the trains, the ban on the consumption of beef has already caused severe problems for those Muslim communities that are engaged in the trade to supply beef. It is estimated that the “Maharashtra government’s decision to ban beef is likely to affect nearly 20 lakh people of [the] Quresh community, whose livelihoods depend on this business. Apart from them, the leather industry, farmers, middlemen, workers at slaughterhouses and retailers associated with the business have also been affected”. What is also important to note is that not only is the beef industry a source of livelihood to a large number of people, but it also provides a cheap and additional source of protein to the poor, especially those poor who belong to the scheduled castes and tribes.

Days after the ban was imposed on cow slaughter and the consumption of beef, the Maharashtra government withdrew 5 percent reservations for Muslims in educational institutions. This policy of allowing 5 percent reservations for Muslims was introduced by the previous government in Maharashtra on the basis of the report of the Mehmood ur-Rehman Committee. The Committee was set up to assess the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in Maharashtra – which one can presume without doubt, was lacking in several areas. What we can clearly observe is how governmental policies seem to be systematically snatching away from a beleaguered community food, livelihood, and its right to education.

Angela Ferrao

One of the immediate responses to the ban on beef, and indeed all such attempts to ban beef in the past has been to point out that one should not have a problem with the consumption of beef as even in Vedic times the brahmins ate beef. While this is true, and no less a scholar than Dr. B. R. Ambedkar has written a detailed study on this topic, one should be slightly wary of framing a response in such a manner. What such a response suggests is that the benchmark of proper behavior is that of the high caste Hindu and everything else should be accommodated within these norms. This can also be seen in the manner in which consumption of meat, termed as ‘non-vegetarian’, is defined as a negative image of vegetarian dietary preferences. Such a response would only reinforce the current norms of Indian political life that privilege upper caste Hindu cultures. To this extent, one acknowledges that certain communities are excluded from active and mainstream political representation, but one does not create a discourse that would allow these same excluded groups any space in political life.

The effect of de-legitimizing dietary and other cultures of minoritized groups, and the framing of the protests against such acts from the reference point of high caste Hindu subjectivity, obscures the fact of the systematic de-legitimization being carried out as well as not recognize the assertions and claims of minoritized groups in mainstream political life. Atul Anand of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences views the demand of beef being consumed publicly as a political assertion from the “marginalised sections” or the groups that are being minoritized. He further argues that the ban on beef consumption is about maintaining upper caste hegemony in mainstream politics.

What we have seen in the foregoing is how certain events, comments, and policy decisions create conditions that facilitate the suppression of non-dominant cultures, leading them to be eventually minoritized. Thus, it can be suggested that groups are de facto not minorities, but are made so through a slow and insidious process. The snatching away of livelihood and educational opportunities from the Muslim communities in Maharashtra, is a case in point. The issue on the ban of beef cannot be confined solely to an issue that affects the Muslim community alone. Neither should it be seen only in terms of an issue that impinges on our political freedoms. As many of my previous columns on the increasing instances of communalization and anti-minority violence have stressed, what we are witnessing today is not a problem of these last few months, but the culmination of a history of almost a hundred years.

In order to imagine and create a democratic, egalitarian, and a just society, the path ahead is not to delegitimize the cultural practices of minoritized groups, but to actively support and encourage them.

Thanks to Angela Ferrao for permitting me to use her illustration on my blog.

(First published in  O Heraldo, dt: 18 March, 2015)

‘GHAR WAPSI’: OWNER OF THE HOUSE, OR SERVANT?

By

DALE LUIS MENEZES and AMITA KANEKAR

With the BJP coming to power in the last Lok Sabha elections, we have witnessed increasing violence against religious minorities and their places of worship. There has been no action to curb the violence, nor even a statement of condemnation from the Centre. Instead, in the last few months, we have a new campaign: ‘ghar wapsi’, again targeted at the religious minorities: Christians and Muslims are being asked to ‘return’ to Hinduism. How is one to understand this new movement, right in the middle of all the violence? What are its origins? And what is its agenda? To answer these questions, we think it would be useful to focus on a few events of the past.

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The first event is that of 1 January, 1818. On this day, the armies of the Peshwa and the British confronted each other in the third and final Anglo-Maratha War, in which the Peshwa was defeated. It was a heroic victory, since the British army comprised only a small regiment of 250 cavalry and 500 infantry, both dominated by men of the Mahar community, while the Peshwa had about 20,000 cavalry and 5000 infantry. Yet, on this day, in the village of Bhima Koregaon near Pune, the Peshwa army was routed.

The important thing to note is that this British victory was also a Mahar victory; it was the Mahars who ended Peshwa rule. This critical fact is, of course, never mentioned in our history books. Our school textbooks ignore the Mahars and write of the fall of the Peshwas as a tragedy; such is the nationalist version of events. But for the Mahars, and others oppressed and enslaved as untouchables under the Peshwai, the 1818 battle was a successful war of liberation.

For the dominant castes the colonial period was all about humiliation and loss of power, but for many others it was about the beginnings of liberation and justice. For instance, Vasco da Gama’s arrival in the Malabar in 1498 is considered by many Dalits to be a milestone event in the story of their liberation (Nigam, 2006, p. 182). Our nationalist histories ignore this.

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The Movement Initiated by the Arya Samaj

The second event we would like to recall is the birth of the Arya Samaj, sometime in the 1880s.  According to its founder, Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Hinduism had been corrupted and needed reform. That is, Hinduism had strayed away from its supposed Vedic origins and had to be brought back to its former purity and glory. Reform was also required, said the Arya Samaj, to exorcise casteism from the Hindu religion, though as the movement developed its anti-caste claims were seen to be limited. According to Maria Misra (2008, pp. 70-3) however, this reform was a reaction to many untouchable and lower-caste communities embracing Christianity, as well as to the demand from certain sections of Muslims for a greater representation in politics.

The real problem was that the British had introduced electoral politics in India, in which representation was provided for on the basis of religious community. As Misra points out, that the leaders of the Arya Samaj had realized that, “Christian conversion among low caste, untouchable and poor Muslim groups would weaken the power of Hindus in north India”. In other words, if the flow of conversions to Christianity and Islam had to be stopped, the blatant violence of caste-based discrimination had to be attacked. The critique of caste by caste Hindus, therefore, was a strategic act to perpetuate upper-caste dominance.

What was this reform that the Arya Samaj brought about? One of the main components of it was the programme of shuddhi, an old ritual re-invented by the Arya Samajists.  Shuddhi had been used earlier to purify caste Hindus after coming in contact with supposed agents of defilement or pollution. But the Arya Samajists gave it a new form and the shuddhi ritual became the tool of conversion, ‘purifying’ the former Christians or Muslims to make them Hindus, and thus also making a statement about the ‘pollution’ inherent in the non-Hindu religions.

Learning from Christian missionaries, the Arya Samaj also set up public health and educational facilities, and encouraged a modicum of social mobility and social respect within the four-fold varna system. As a result they were quite successful in their campaign of conversion, especially in the Punjab.

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‘Ghar wapsi’ does not mean ‘re-conversion’ but ‘conversion’

Although there does not seem to be a direct link between the Mahar victory at Bhima Koregaon and the activities of the Arya Samaj, there is an important connection which tie them also to the ‘ghar wapsi’ campaign. The connection is the mass rejection of the so-called ‘ghar’. While the Mahars of Bhima Koregaon had greater affinity for the aims and culture of the British than those of the Peshwas, the Arya Samaj campaign of yesteryears, just like the ‘ghar wapsi’ one of today, is a recognition of a mass desire to reject Hinduism.

But the truth is that many of the people who underwent shuddhi in the past, or ‘ghar wapsi’ today, were never in the Hindu fold in the first place. So there is no question of ‘wapsi’. The Dalitbahujan communities of the subcontinent have always followed their own unique religious traditions, many of which, as Kancha Ilaiah (1996) has argued, do not have a link with those of caste Hindus. This difference may be eroding today, thanks to the growth in Hindutva propaganda and the widespread Hinduizing of the polity, but it is certainly erroneous to refer to Dalitbahujans of the past as ‘Hindu’. This identification of Dalitbahujans as Hindus happens not because of religious reasons, but political ones. 

Thus, ‘ghar wapsi’ is not about ‘re-conversion’ to Hinduism, but ‘conversion’. This will of course be contested by all the new ‘anti-conversion’ laws which have been in demand of late, some of which explicitly declare that conversion to Hinduism is fine because it is actually re-conversion. Along with shuddhi and ‘ghar wapsi’, these laws form part of the arsenal to maintain the demographic of caste Hindus in politics.

The RSS’ ‘ghar wapsi’ project especially targets the Dalit, Adivasi, and OBC population, says Ilaiah (Asian Age, 4 January, 2015), who today are embracing ‘evangelical Christianity’ and ‘prayer groups’ in large numbers. He makes the important point that, although many Dalitbahujans today are attracted to evangelical Christianity rather than the Buddhism embraced by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the fact is that ever since the day when Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in Nagpur, conversion became a spiritual and democratic right for the Dalitbahujan people. And this is what all these Hindutva movements – anti-conversion, shuddhi, ‘ghar wapsi’ – recognize, that thousands are just waiting to leave the ‘ghar’.

The reason is not difficult to fathom. Conversions to Christianity and Islam create an opportunity to escape caste. Jaffrelot (2011, p. 205) makes a similar argument: before the coming of the British many artisanal castes had embraced Islam to escape caste-based discrimination. We do not by any means claim that there is no casteism to be found among Christian and Muslim communities of South Asia. But both Christianity and Islam, in principle or theologically, uphold the equality of believers, providing scope for fighting casteism within the faith.

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All Conversions are not Forced

One of the arguments made in favour of ‘ghar wapsi’, is that all conversions to Christianity and Islam were ‘forced’. In the context of Goa, this is of course a reference particularly to the Christianization of its populace during Portuguese rule. Within Goa, meanwhile, we have been fed on stories about how all of us were converted to Christianity by the Portuguese in one fell swoop, and also how ‘forced conversions’ to Christianity were effected by throwing cooked rice into the wells of Hindus, polluting them and forcing their owners to become Christian. Although claiming to be about Goa, it is clear that this latter story is only about brahmins and other brahmanized castes of Goa, given the references to private wells and pollution. Even so, does this story really speak of conversions that were forced, or rather excommunication from Hinduism enforced by the caste authorities? In such conditions, what was Christianity but a refuge to the excommunicated? It would not be the first time that brahmanical traditions of caste pollution and untouchability resulted in people leaving for more humane belief systems; they have been doing it right from the time of the Buddha, 2500 years ago.

There is now copious documentation to attest to a history of voluntary conversions that resulted from caste-based conflicts. Ângela Barreto Xavier, for example, finds in her study of sixteenth-century Chorão that voluntary conversions took place most commonly among the most depressed sections of society, for whom it was a form of political dissent. Among the middle castes, however, the privileges and facilities offered to Christians were a great attraction, while among the elites – who had the most advantages in the old order – conversions were mostly either forced, or portrayed as forced so that their old positions in the village hierarchy remained unchanged (Xavier, 2007: pp. 269–95). Fr. Anthony D’Costa had meanwhile argued as early as 1965, through archival work on Jesuit letters, for genuine spiritual conviction in converting to Christianity in sixteenth-century Goa (see D’Costa, S.J., 1965, p. 50). The millions (both Catholic as well as non-Catholic) who flock to venerate the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier, said to have been one of the leading proselytizers of his time, might argue that, for a multitude of people across castes and religion today, the history of Christianity is not marked by a memory of violence.  But popular memory aside, historical evidence shows conversions took place in Goa for a variety of reasons – from state pressure and incentives, to caste oppression and spiritual search.

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The ‘ghar wapsi’ campaign thus exposes a longer history of caste-based and anti-minority violence that is both physical and intellectual. The launch of the present campaign is of course linked to the rise of Hindutva politics, and more recently to the coming of the BJP to power, but limiting it to these recent events negates both the history of violence and the consolidation of upper caste power in the subcontinent that has been going on for at least a century.

(A version of this essay was originally published in Gulab [February, 2015] in Romi Konkani. The authors wish to thank the editor of Gulab, Fausto V. da Costa, for allowing this translation and re-publication with some modifications, also Gaurav Somwanshi, whose Facebook status update is borrowed for the title, and finally our friends at the Al-Zulaij Collective, for reading the essay and offering important suggestions).

References

D’Costa, S.J., Anthony, The Christianisation of the Goa Islands, 1510-1567, 1965.

Ilaiah, Kancha, Why I am not a Hindu, 1996.

Jaffrelot, Christophe, “India: The Politics of (Re)Conversion to Hinduism of Christian Aboriginals”, in Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, 2011.

Misra, Maria, Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion, 2008.

Nigam, Aditya, The Insurrection of Little Selves, 2006.

Xavier, Ângela Barreto, “Disquiet on the Island: Conversion, Conflicts and Conformity in Sixteenth-Century Goa.” Indian Economic & Social History Review vol. 44, no. 3 (2007): 269–95.

(Dale Luis Menezes is based at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; and Amita Kanekar is the author of A Spoke in the Wheel, a novel on the life of the Buddha)

(Published on Round Table India, here).