The India Policy Foundation (IPF), a pro-RSS think tank, is in the midst of preparing drafts for a central anti-conversion law.
IPF’s honorary founding Director Rakesh Sinha, who is also the biographer of RSS founder KB Hegdewar, has his own take on the genesis of the thought process behind the law.
At the time of the Janata Party government in 1978, he says, senior leader OP Tyagi presented an anti-conversion Bill in the Lok Sabha, leading to a huge debate.
On March 25, 1979, Nobel laureate Mother Teresa wrote to then Prime Minister Morarji Desai criticising the Bill as a violation of the freedom of religion. According to Sinha, Desai wrote back on April 21, saying that “philanthropism and conversion cannot go together”. “In other words, he justified the Bill, which was never discussed in the House because of the fall of the government,” says Sinha. “At that time also, Christians used their NGO, international and media network to build up pressure against such a law. Conversion is an expansionist idea to create an imperialism of a particular religion. There is a difference between expansionism and propagation. Hinduism is a non-proselytising religion, hence it needs protection from proselytising religions,” Sinha adds.
“Ghar wapsi,” as per the RSS ideologue, is the homecoming of those who were “converted by foul means, unconscious of their action, and realise to restore their original faith, way of living and dharma”.
“It is not reconversion. Its narrative is fundamentally different from the conversion narrative. RSS asserts it should be voluntary, with full consciousness, and constitutional optimism,” he says.
RSS chief Bhagwat, too, without naming Islam or Christianity, said, “We will bring back our brothers who have lost their way and belongings stolen by a thief.”
“The Indian tragedy is a lack of theological debate. Instead, here the debate is on the comparative status of followers of religions,” Sinha says. Swami Omji Maharaj of the Hindu Mahasabha claims that “everyone who is re-converted is made a Brahmin to avoid the allegation that the person re-converted to avail benefits of Scheduled Castes”. RSS functionaries add that “in any way, RSS does not believe in the caste system”.
Hindus do not want to change anybody. If you do not want anybody to convert, then do not convert Hindus too
—Rakesh Sinha, rss ideologue
