By IndiaTomorrow.net,
New Delhi, 24 Dec 2014: The foreign media, it seems, has been keeping a bird’s eye view on the issue of conversion in India. International news organizations like AP (Associated Press), New York Times and Washington Post too had been critical of Narendra Modi government and questioned the “silence” of the Indian prime minister on the issue.
“(Narendra) Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist and a longtime member of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Dal (read Sangh), one of the two main groups behind the conversions, has remained mostly silent on the issue,” wrote Associated Press on December 22. The news item titled ‘Indian lawmakers demand Modi speak on conversions’ further said that “Right-wing Hindu groups allied with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have conducted a series of ceremonies across India over the past week to convert Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.”
Talking about “Ghar Wapsi” the news item says that “Hindu hard-liners often call the ceremonies “homecomings,” insisting that members of minority religions are descended from Hindus who converted to Christianity or Islam.” So, the US based international news wire agency was critical of the prime minister and even went to the extent of branding the BJP as a party related with right wing groups.
“Some of the Muslims, though, later said they had changed religions out of fear, raising the specter of religious communalism and a growing political divide in a country that has struggled for years with intermittent Hindu-Muslim violence,” the article further said.
A New York Times report “Hindus bid to re-convert Muslims and Christians Roils Indian Politics” talks about the Hindu nationalists who “claim that Muslims and Christians have been forcing Hindus to convert to their religions for centuries. So there is deep sensitivity to proselytizing by non-Hindus, particularly foreigners”.
The reputed international daily explains that “Visas for religious professionals are strictly limited, some missionaries are instructed not to proselytize openly and, now that a Hindu nationalist has become India’s prime minister, hard-line Hindu groups have begun a long-dreamed campaign to claw back some of those conversion losses.”
Talking about Agra incident of conversion, the daily said: “Some Muslims in the neighborhood of trash collectors told local reporters that it was all a fraud. They said that a Hindu activist had assured them that by attending the ceremony, they will get the government’s coveted “below-poverty-line” identity card and access to state welfare assistance in health and education.”
Bajrang Dal, the organizers of the ceremony and a radical Hindu group associated with Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi’s party, said that the ceremony was held in the open and the religious conversion was voluntary, it added.
Washington Post, another reputed news organization from US in an Aligarh dateline story of December 18 reports about the activities of radical groups.
“The trouble started a few months ago, when Hindu nationalists swept into a small village where several families had converted to Christianity more than a decade earlier. They held a fire purification ceremony with the villagers, tore a cross off the local church and put up a poster of the god Shiva. The space was now a temple, they declared. Then right-wing Hindu groups announced a Christmas Day ceremony where they planned to welcome hundreds of Christians and Muslims into Hinduism. A fundraising flier solicited donations for volunteers to undergo conversion — about $3,200 for each Christian and about $8,000 for each Muslim.”
