Taking advantage of the pro-Hindu BJP rule in Delhi, some rightwing Hindu (Hindutva) organizations threaten that they would continue with the Ghar Vapsi (reconversion) program, especially of Christians and Muslims.

Their recent activities and statements sent shock wave to the followers of these religions and some followers of the majority religions feel excited that the prodigals are returning.

Although the public blindly accepts the number of those reconverted in the Ghar Vapsi programs given by the media, has anyone taken the pains to study whether the number is correct and those who had participated are really non-Hindus?

As a reporter for an international Catholic news agency, I had reported many stories of reconversion programs held in various places in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. But most of them had been filed after the programs were held.

Learning in advance from the local newspapers that a similar Ghar Vapsi program was to be held at Singhoda, in the present Chhattisgarh (Odisha border) on January 27, 1995, I travelled from Raipur, more than 175 km. Since I was aware that many dalit Christian converts in nearby Chhuhipali mission parish had become passive in their religious practices after the US relief programs were stopped in Raipur diocese, I presumed that these converts might be formally renouncing their Christian Faith.

When I alighted from the bus like any spectator, I noticed some agents collecting the names of persons. While some villagers were offering their names and villages, a few questioned, “Why should I join? I am not a Christian.”

On the footsteps of the beautifully decorated temple, amid chanting of Hindu bhajans and prayers, the late Dilip Sigh Judeo, who was spearheading the reconversion programs, was washing the feet of the villagers and offering dhoti to men and sari to women. I was surprised that he was washing the feet of rural women too, which is forbidden in the local culture.

To ascertain the reason for renouncing Christianity, I asked one of the “purified” ones. He said to my surprise, “I am not a Christian.” “Then why did you participate in the purification ceremony?” I encountered. “Well, our villagers were brought here by tractor to have a darshan of the raja sahib,” he responded.

And when I interviewed a few more participants, their responses revealed that none of them was Christian. But they were all Hindus and they had been brought by the agents to tell the media that so many Christians have been reconverted.

When the organizers noticed that a press reporter had been focusing on finding out whether the participants were Christians, they informed the chief organizer, Brijmohan Agrawal, now an important BJP minster and chief minister aspirant in Chhattisgarh. Agrawal with his supporters rushed to me and confiscated my noting pad.

Noticing the commotion, the strong police force took me to their custody. When I insisted that I am a press reporter and showed them my press Id, Agrawal revealed to the mob, “He is a reporter for a Christian news agency.” The strong mob demanded, “Let us first make him a Hindu.”

While the excited mob was attempting to manhandle me and threw vermillion powder on me, the police stood around me like the angels, protecting me from their blows and kicking. Fearing that I might not be spared and their jobs would be in peril, one police officer ordered, “Please go from here.”

They succeeded in bundling me into a passing truck. Though the mob succeeded in confiscating my bag too containing my camera, they could not providentially succeed in pulling me down from getting into the truck.

Saleen Kanwar, the young catechist from the neighboring Sankra parish, who had accompanied me, later told me that two people on their bike chased the truck, possibly to stop the vehicle and beat me up. But God had speeded the truck faster than the bike. Thank God, they did not know that I was also a Catholic missionary priest, hailing from the South!

When I got down at the nearby police station at Saraipali, the munshi (clerk) refused to write my FIR of my confiscated articles, but kept me standing outside in the cold weather, saying that the sahib had gone to Singhoda.

When the police inspector arrived there after about two hours, he barked at me for going to the venue to interview the participants without their prior permission. When my prudence dictated to say, “Sorry, I made a mistake,” the bulky man cooled down and said, “Sir, they are all goondas. They are not gentleman like you.” When I explained that I wanted to study why these Christians are abandoning their religion, the officer remarked, “Christians? You think they were Christians?”

Though the media had been reporting the matter exactly as dictated by the organizers, the incident had opened their eyes that the participants were not Christians. Next day the Deshbandhu daily reported, “Ghar se gaye bina vapsi (Returning without going away from home); another Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar said, “Hinduon ko Hindu banaya gaya hai (Hindus were made Hindus).” Only the Nav Bharat daily reporter wrote sitting in his shop as dictated by the organizers that “2000 people who had left Hinduism were reconverted.”

The media questioned Judeo in a press conference on the following day of the manhandling of the Christian reporter. He said, “He (the reporter) had come to disturb our ceremony,” as if one person can create a havoc amid hundreds of Hindus. When the media persons stated that the participants were all Hindus, he answered them, “Then why did they come at all?” After this incident the newspapers were not saying “Christians were reconverted” but “People were reconverted.”

This is one of my experiences. I have many more to prove that the number they project to be reconverted are false and often the participants were not Christians. Or they might be lapsed Christians.

At the reconversion ceremony held at Kumbichhuha forest village, near Pathalgaon in Raigarh diocese on March 24, 1992, some poor Oraon tribals had participated. Though we posed as some government officials coming from the collector’s office on enquiry, yet these illiterate tribals said, “We had gone there to collect clothes. We have not left our religion. We will go to our Father and ask pardon.”

The parish priests said that some Thuri tribals who had abandoned the faith a long time back had participated in the Ghar Vapsi. These tribals said that since they were still discriminated by their community, they wanted to reveal to them that they were no more Christians. Late Bishop Victor Kindo of Raigarh told us, “We have here more than one lakh (100,000) Catholics. It is not possible for us to look after all of them as they expect. If they are dissatisfied with the Church, let them go.”

The priests at Jashpur claimed that late Judeo was very friendly with them and that he had told them that he was involved in the reconversions to keep up his position. My attempts to meet the reconversion activist at his house always failed, because whenever I went to Jashpur, the parliamentarian was in Delhi.

In the reconversion program held at Bundeli in Raipur diocese, on Sept 15, 2005, only about 50 lapsed Christians had participated, though the media had said about 500 people had been reconverted. The few lapsed converts who had participated said, “We stopped going to church because we were not getting what we expected.”

F M Britto

The village catechists Sankirtan and Joseph of Pithora parish said that these villagers never come to the church. “The chaff has gone away,” remarked then parish priest, Father Mathew Valiyathara.

Though the newspapers said that 200 Christians were reconverted at Paraswani village in Raipur diocese on June 24, 2003, the local catechist claimed no presence of any Christian there. To have a talk with the local organizer Ramchand Agrawal, along with Catechist Madhu Nag of Basna mission, I went to Agrawal’s house. Since the organizer was away, we had a chat with his elder brother in his shop and he confessed that he did not know anything about the program.

Then a local daily reported that the organizer had filed a complaint with the police that we had threatened to kill him and his family if he persisted in reconverting the Christians. And they burned our effigies at their Dharam Jagran office at Mahasamund district headquarters. Though there were police enquiries, nothing happened afterwards, since the state was then ruled by the Congress, headed by the Christian Chief Minister Ajit Jogi.