NEW DELHI: Away from the stridency on the Ayodhya dispute the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has an embarrassment which is proving difficult to connect.
One of the Parishads founding aims to convert Muslims and Christians in the country to Hinduism has flopped particularly in the Capital.
As Rajeshwar 77 the VHPs Delhi unit president for the last 14 years admitted:” “We have not succeeded in our aim.” According to him the VHP has “probably managed 1000 conversions to Hinduism over the last 15 years in Delhi”
The annual average he said was around 100 (three conversions a month).
However the data is based on court marriages (mainly of Muslim girls marrying Hindu boys). A public notice of an inter-religious marriage is put up a month prior to the wedding and this information is gathered by VHP cadres who hang around in courts.
In a sense the VHPs grand aim of “saying the nation and Hinduism “conversion” has been reduced to lurking in the corridors of courts and applying pressure on Hindu families not to marry into Muslim ones.
Rajasthan added that the number of converts to Hinduism in 15 years in Delhi is less than those taking to Islam in just one year.
Though conversion (or reconversion as the VHP calls it) was one of the 26 founding aims listed in 1966 it was taken seriously only in the late 70s. Today the VHP is finding it difficult to digest the public rebuff to their conversion drive.
But problems are not merely organizational. “Drawbacks in Hinduism and the Congress culture have also affected our objective” Rajeshwar said Class and caste divisions and un-touch-ability have apparently put off prospective converters “No one wants to be called a shudra (an untouchable).
“The Congress has sharpened these drawbacks. In 45 years they should have implemented policies to eradicate un-touch ability and educate the scheduled castes and tribes. This could have helped to set our house (Hinduism) in order and absorb more Muslims” Rajeshwar felt.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 27, 1992
