Conversion politics, the challenge to secularism

Anti-conversion laws risk deepening social divisions

There have been recurrent media reports of arrests of Muslims from diverse social and professional backgrounds — they include gym owners, medical practitioners, and religious clerics — on allegations of participating in organised networks that facilitate religious conversion from Hinduism to Islam. These reports have predominantly emerged from North India, particularly Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Most of the cases remain under investigation. If substantiated, such developments could indicate a new form of ideological churn within segments of Muslim society in India. Otherwise, they risk being perceived as manufactured narratives driven by an ideologically motivated state.

The last widely acknowledged instance of mass conversion to Islam in India occurred in February 1981 in Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, where 558 Dalits embraced Islam to escape entrenched caste oppression. Reflecting on the episode, Atal Bihari Vajpayee observed that Hindu society suffered from long-standing ills, particularly distinctions based on birth and caste. The conversions were thus rooted in inequalities internal to Hindu society.

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Religious conversion — particularly from Hinduism to Islam and Christianity — has long been a contentious issue. Mahatma Gandhi, in particular, according to Laura D. Jenkins, author of Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India, viewed mass conversions not only as a threat to the poor and the uneducated but also to anti-colonial unity.

The most symbolically powerful conversion in modern Indian history was that of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who embraced Buddhism in 1956. On October 13, 1935, Ambedkar had declared his intention to leave Hinduism at the Depressed Classes Conference in Yeola. He said, “I was born a Hindu, but I will not die a Hindu.” For Ambedkar, conversion was an act of emancipation. In the intervening period, he repeatedly urged Dalits to leave Hinduism for any religion of their choice, including Islam.

He even took the initiative for Dalits to convert to Sikhism, which found unexpected support from Dr. B.S. Moonje, a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, who encouraged Hindu leaders to endorse the conversion. However, this met opposition from Mahatma, C. Rajagopalachari and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya. One of Gandhi’s principal arguments against Ambedkar leaving Hinduism was the belief that Dalit followers would abandon him once he ceased to be a Hindu. Had Gandhi been alive today, he would have realised how profoundly mistaken this assessment was. The enduring reverence for Ambedkar among Dalits, despite, and indeed because of, his conversion, stands as a powerful rebuttal to that prognosis.