The Politics of Ghar-Wapsi – to Do or Not to Do

© Rati Hegde

PART- I

If anyone thinks that Bharat is still majorly Hindu only because we fought physically against the Invaders, it would not be completely wrong. But one must remember that the Wars against Invaders were of many kinds. Let me enumerate some of the methods by which we fought these wars. This will also help the reader understand why it is impossible to blame Brahmins & Kshatriyas for keeping other Jaatis away from knowledge of our Shastras and their reported ill-treatment of other Jaatis leading to modern day Conversions.

1. Of course the first and most obvious method of fighting the Invaders was by actually going into the battlefield and fighting them. While almost all other countries converted into Christianity or Islam in the face of utmost cruelty and torture by these two cults, Bharat resisted being overtaken by either of these Abrahamic cults, thanks to our Dharmic Rajas and Ranis. They never gave up and kept fighting for Dharma and Honour. Fact is that till today Hindus are trying their best (even the deracinated & secular ones) to resist Conversion into Christianity or Islam.

2. Now read this very carefully because what I’m about to say is something that most people don’t know about or don’t believe or don’t find it convenient to agree upon. Hindu Dharma is the ONLY Dharma which openly welcomed back those who had been converted into other religions/religious paths, back into their fold. Believe it or not, this re-conversion existed even after Buddhism declined in India. Most people who had decided to follow the Buddhist path came back into the Hindu fold, re-learnt the Vedas & other scriptures and followed the Hindu rituals once again. Same was the case with those who had converted into Jainism especially in South India. When the new Rulers gave more importance to Hinduism, Hindu Temples & rituals, the common-man also started re-adopting Sanatana Vedic Dharma as his faith. There was no punishment for Apostasy and hence, going back to the parent Dharma, Hinduism, was simple and the most logical thing to do.

Since this template already existed, Bharat was equally successful in accepting people who had been converted forcibly by the Islamic Invaders, into the Hindu fold as and when a Hindu Raja reclaimed lands from the Invaders. Proof of this is evident in books written by historians, especially before 1500 AD. People of Sindh, Kabul, Lahore and more were reconverted by the ruling Kings of that era into their original religion Hinduism, without any opposition by the common man or Priestly class (Brahmins). In fact such Reconversion was the norm. This is the ONLY reason why though most of our Boundary regions were attacked again and again, we remained majorly Hindu. We wouldn’t give up our culture and came back to our parent Dharma as soon as it was possible. For those who find it difficult to believe, check out the Reconversions during Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s rule and the formation of the Vijaynagar Empire. Factually, our Yatis (Sanyasis & Dharmacharyas) and Brahmins and ofcourse our Kshatriyas, supported these Reconversions.

3. Protecting our Rituals, Scriptures, Temples, Festivals, Culture & Traditions and our Art forms was another way to fight against our Invaders. We all know about the various stories of Brahmin Priests of Temples giving up their lives to protect the Vigrahas of our Bhagwans or how they hid the Murtis till it was right, even generations later, to do Punah Sthapana of these Vigrahas of Bhagwans in our Temples. Similarly when it became more and more difficult to recite from our Vedic Scriptures because of various reasons, the Bhakti Movement took over and people preserved their love for Dharma via Bhakti Sangeet, Satsangs, community festivals and so on. Probably our Puranas were now read more than our Vedas during this era. Both co-existed and both got equal respect. Unfortunately fewer and fewer people spent more time reading and learning the Vedas and other scriptures because of reasons like fear, more work (because of Jiziya payable), constant migration and various other reasons. It fell mainly upon the Brahmins to preserve these memories and texts, on the Kshatriyas to protect the land and on the Vaishyas to spread the culture to far off places.

PART- II

In the first part we saw how neither Jaati-Varna nor Societal practices came in the way of converts returning to Hinduism. People from all walks of life understood that conversions were forced and hence at the first given opportunity, many valiant Rulers who won their regions back from the Islamic invaders promoted “Ghar Wapsi”. If this were true, then when did the situation change and why did it not happen after the 16th century and why is it not happening today?

After the 16th century, we see that Islamic rulers who stayed back in India mostly ruled the country. The invasions by “foreigners” were fewer and hence, though the fight against the Islamic forces continued, fewer Hindu kings indulged in trying to get people back into the Hindu fold. The Christian forces too had started entering the country and we had a new enemy to deal with. By the time the East India Company had started grabbing territories, both Hindu and Muslim rulers had a common enemy – the Europeans, especially the British. In the face of a common enemy, fighting to save their territory became more important than fighting to save Dharma. Even in Karnataka and Kerala where Hindus were fighting against a very cruel Tipu Sultan and the Moplahs, the more important fight was to protect the Temples and the territories – reconverting Hindus lost to Islam hardly featured in the struggle. It was a lost cause. Royal Patronage given to reconverting Hindus reduced – the royal patronage now worked more towards rebuilding Temples and Dharamshaalas to help in somehow keeping the homes of our Deities intact and making sure that devotees were never bereft of their Teerthsthals. Many Temples all over the country which exist till today were rebuilt during the 17^th and 18^th century.

When the Christians started their Inquisition in Goa and other areas, flight overtook fight. Here was an enemy which was vastly different from the earlier invaders. The earlier invaders fought directly but this invader (the East India Company & the Britishers) fought more through deceit than war. They used business and trade as a tool to capture more and more areas. They did not initially convert people into their religion, nor did they put to death those who followed a religion other than theirs. So the defense tactics of the then Rulers and their subjects also was different. They fought for territory, not Dharma. Another important point was that the British played the Muslims against the Hindus very smoothly as per their “Divide and Conquer” policy. Thanks to all this, reconversion into Sanatan Dharma became the least important factor and this continued well into the 20^th Century. By the time we entered into the 20^th century, the British had started converting people into Christianity and also started playing mind games with our people. The roots of hating Brahmins who were the only ones now educated in the Vedas and other scriptures, and were majorly, the protectors of ancient knowledge systems, rituals, traditions, started at this time. Simultaneously, the Thakurs (land owners), the Moneylenders, etc were also now hated because they were responsible for collecting taxes, giving loans at exorbitant rates to help the Empire. The British and their Pastors used all this to make every Hindu hate himself/herself irrespective of whichever “caste” they belonged to and slowly hate the Vedic religion itself by making us believe that we were a race of lowly people who had to be uplifted. The first seeds of victimization also started during this period and thanks to the unlimited poverty and religious hatred by the time we got our Independance, we were now a country divided on the lines of Religion and Caste.

After Independance started the new Era of self-shaming, self-hating politics of victimization. Now we were living in a new India where everyone other than a Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya Hindu, were victims. The Christian was a victim, the Muslim, the Shudra, the Tribal, everyone was a victim and Hindus who belonged to the above three Varnas, were the oppressors. In such a country was it ever possible to think of reconverting people into Hinduism?

Thanks to our new system of Democracy which was completely based on Voting for the Head of the State, religion became the new tool for controlling people. As we see today, the entire North East beyond Assam was captured by the Christian Missionaries thanks to the support of the Congress Governments. The Communist Parties supported Naxalism and Maoism and using Atheism as a façade, they converted tribal people in the Red Corridor into Christianity. Thanks to a Christian as the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, conversion there proliferated right from the 80s onwards, even though one of the most popular Hindu pilgrim site, Tirupati Balaji exists in Andhra Pradesh. Christian schools and colleges maintained a strong hold over the education system all over the country and still continue to do so. In the case of Islam, rampant appeasement policies of various State Governments and Central Governments made it enticing to convert into Islam. This included various funds given for student scholarships, marriages, visiting pilgrim sites, going abroad for studies, complete government support and funding for Madarsas, salaries paid to Imams and Mullahs by the Government from public funds, etc.  All these became possible because of continuous political patronage of the Government in power at the Centre and State. The Hindu who did not convert to any other religion is today left with a begging bowl, seeking alms of Equal Treatment from the political parties of the country.

The situation today is so bad that the so-called minorities indulge in :

• Emboldened attack on government installations and projects like was done in Vizhinjam, Kerala against the port project; closure of the Sterlite plant in Chennai and many more. Both these examples were protests done by Christian groups with their religious heads.
• Constant attacks on Hindus by radical and anti-social Islamists, especially during religious processions and festivals.
• Attacks on public servants like teachers and medical personnel if any government aided programme like Covid vaccination for example, is carried out.
• Rampant infiltration of illegal aliens like Bangladeshis and Rohingyas especially in border areas of the country is happening with active government support.
• Hindu girls are targeted, trapped, raped and killed just because they are Hindu, by motivated Muslim youngsters.

While the above list is not exhaustive, it is enough to make us wonder why our Hindu people have stopped expecting our Political leaders to make the country safe for Hindus, the original inhabitants and the inheritors of this great Sanatan Dharma. Why are we not questioning the politics behind this unfair appeasement of people of non-Indic religions? Our ancient religion is the ONLY ONE which is still standing tall where all other ancient civilizations fell at the swords or deceit or lure of the barbarian Abrahamic cults. Why are we not rising to protect it?

What is needed is that instead of appeasing Minorities, every form of Government needs to protect the most ancient civilization, heritage and religion of this World. Like the earlier rulers who gave protection and patronage to those who resisted the invaders or wanted to come back to their parent religion, it is time that the Government (both Centre and State) give open protection and patronage/rewards to those who want to come back to Hinduism. The fear of apostasy should be removed from people’s minds. Reward those who protect and propagate Indic religions, including our Mathas and Temples. Article 25 of the Indian Constitution should be amended to “propagation of only Indic religions” and should not allow for conversion into Abrahamic religions via lure or violence, especially via mass conversions like “faith healing”. The doles given out currently work strongly against Hindu interests; if one converts/belongs to any Abrahamic religion, one is funded from birth to death, by the government of the ONLY Hindu Nation in the World. This is absolutely against the principles of Self-preservation. Vasudaiva Kutumbakam should not mean that the Carnivorous and the Herbivorous are placed in the same enclosure & the onlooker prays that the carnivore does not prey upon the herbivore. Islam and Christianity have so far succeeded in preying upon all the other ancient civilizations of the World. We have to fight back for Survival.