Ghar Vapsi – of whom?

By F M Britto

Raipur, March 14, 2023: It upsets us Christians when we hear that some Hindu militant groups keep on organizing Ghar Vapsi (reconversion) programs in some places. It pains us more that in every ceremony, a few thousand Christians become Hindus. Naturally, it is matter of concern.

Though I too had believed in such news, my participation in such programs and interacting with those “reconverted” revealed that the participants were either Hindus or lapsed Christians.

My first interaction with the “reconverted” was travelling to remote jungle Kumbichua, 40 km from Pathalgaon in Chhattisgarh on March 24, 1992. The Thuri tribals, who had participated in the ‘ghar vapsi’ a few days back, informed me that they had given up going to church many years back, since the church did not fulfil their material expectations.

Though we posed as government officials, the poor, Oraon tribals at Koilarbadi village confessed that they participated in it to avail the free clothes and food promised to them. And they insisted that they would go to their parish priest and ask pardon. Emil Kujur, the catechist of the local Bairbandh parish, said those who had participated in it were either lapsed Catholics or poor tribals.

Balasaheb Deshpande, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram at Jashpur, admitted to me that the organizers had earlier given to the media the number 5,000; but only 142 families turned up.

Learning from the newspaper that the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram is organizing a Ghar Vapsi program at Singoda village, 182 km away from my Raipur residence on November 27, 1995, I decided to attend it. From that first-hand encounter I expected to learn the reasons for them to abandon Christianity. I had presumed that many Dalit Gada Christians of that Fuljhar region, who had been attracted to the church during the famine years in the 1970s, might be formally renouncing Christianity, since the church had ended all the Catholic Relief Service (CRS) programs.

When I reached Singoda, some three km east of Chhuhipali mission, the ceremony was in full swing. Some agents were approaching the villagers, off-loaded by the tractors, for their names. Many refused to enrol their names, saying that they were not Christians. “So what?” asked the agents.

On the steps of the aesthetically built Hindu temple sat the reconversion activist Dilip Singh Judeo, washing the feet of both women and men and presenting them a saree or dhoti.

After clicking a few photos, I asked a “reconverted” man, why he wanted to renounce Christianity. “Christianity? I had never been a Christian,” replied the simple villager, clutching his new dhoti.

“Then why are you participating in this program?”

“We were told that Jashpur raja is coming here. And I wanted to have his darshan,” was his frank answer.

Approaching another man, whose feet had been just purified by the former royal scion, I posed the question in another way: “To which church you have been going?”

“Church? I have never seen a church,” the simple villager responded.

As I went interviewing a few more “reconverted Christians,” I noticed some agents spying around me.

Suddenly a mob surrounded me. “Who are you? Where are you from?” the leader demanded.

“A reporter. From Raipur,” I answered.

“I have never seen you,” thundered the huge local organiser, Brij Mohan Agrawal, the BJP MLA of Raipur.

He snatched from me my note pad and the Canon camera.

Noticing the commotion, the police came and took me to their officials. A bigger crowd followed me, shouting, “Jai Sri Ram.” Fearing for my life, I got into their jeep.

“Why don’t you show him your press card?” demanded a police official.

When Agrawal read the names of the Catholic news agency and mine, he yelled to the crowd, “He is a Christian reporter.” Thank God, it was not written, ‘Father.’

“Let’s first make him a Hindu,” shouted the crowd. And they started to throw the vermillion powder at me.

Fearing some tragic consequences, an official told me, “Please leave from here. Otherwise, something may happen.” I too was thinking in that line. The police stopped an on-coming truck to pack me off.

I got down at the local Saraipali police station and reported about my confiscated articles.

Waking me up from my frightened sleep, the police official late at night brought my things to me. “They are all goondas, sir,” he explained. “Before meeting them, you should have asked for our protection,” demanded Dubey.

“Yes, sir. I never expected it,” I meekly apologized. “I just wanted to find out why these Christians are leaving the church.”

“Christians? They are all Hindus. They have been all brought here freely by tractors, promising them free clothes and food,” revealed the Hindu official.

This incident, however, opened the eyes of the media too present there. Next day, the largest circulated Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar reported, “Hinduom ko Hindu banaya gaya” (Hindus were made Hindus). And Dainik Bhaskar captioned, “Ghar se gaye bina vapsi” (Returned home, without exit). But ‘Nav Bharat’, which was not present on the spot, published what the organisers informed them that 2,500 Christians were reconverted on that day. Hardly some 1000 people had gathered there.

Masath Kumar, the local catechist, who was present there unknown, said, “None of our parishioners participated. They were not even aware of the program.”

At the press conference next day at Raipur, the media questioned Judeo, “Why was the Christian reporter manhandled?”

“He came to disturb the sammelan,” reported Judeo, a former student of St Xavier’s College, Ranchi. “How can one Christian disturb the gathering of the hundreds of the Hindus?” one reporter dared to question the BJP MP.

When the press asserted that those who had been “reconverted” were all Hindus, Judeo demanded, “Why did then they come at all?”

I have more stories of interviewing the “reconverted Christians” to prove that the Ghar-Vapsi is a mere stunt. The ignorant ones just believe the ignorant media.