Secularist’s Chronicle – Different Parameters

There was a huge ruckus in India couple of days back, led by the ruckus-par-excellence inside the Newshour studio. Apparently, some fringe Hindu groups successfully converted around 200 Muslims to Hinduism in Utter Pradesh. I didn’t use the word ‘allegedly’ like what NDTV routinely does with every news since, the men accused of this conversion were all present at the Darbar of justice Arnav Goswami to testify and were seen quite openly admitting their achievement with swollen chests.

Now there are two-or-three things to it.

• Why there was this ruckus when the matter involves the personal beliefs of few individuals
• If at all this demand for ruckus is necessary since most of us are jobless people, does it really required an hour long heated debate
• If at all the debate was necessary, one can’t help but ask, where was Arnav Goswami till today when we have got thousands of tribal and poor Hindus who get converted to other religions daily

But before we ponder on these three questions, I feel, the need of the hours is to understand our constitution, very specific to religious conversions. Firs-and-foremost – our constitution never objects religious conversion. But there is a caveat. Though it never opposes but it clearly outlines that no religious conversion may be allowed under duress, provocation, force or hoodwinking. It is fine as long as those converting are doing it on their own and with a clear mind.

This leads us to the first question that I have listed above. Was there a need for this episodic outrage, both in our media and academia for something which is still as murky as one can get. Does anyone from the outraging lot know even one name from the 200 of those converted? Is anyone sure, either way, if the conversions were as per our constitution or exactly opposite to it? If no, which is the most likely answer, then what is the point in outraging when we are not sure if we should outrage or not? That is like working towards a solution when we are not sure if there actually exist a problem in the first place. But we people are a bunch of done-nothing-doing-nothing creatures, who love to get involved for the heck of it. So there goes the outrage.

That said, for a moment we can forgive the masses for going nuts without validating the facts on the ground. But what about the media, the so called intellectuals or even the state government of UP? The state government took the onus on their own to file an FIR and start investigating on the whole matter. I am not sure how it looks from a distance but for the life of me, I can’t comprehend, why a state should lose its sleep over something when there is no apparent danger to the law-and-order situation. Even if there is a potential danger of things getting out of hand in future, shouldn’t the state be matured enough to investigate it first than doing grand standing and communalizing the whole issue? Has the highly secular SP government had any conclusive evidence of constitutional violation in this conversion drama for them to behave the way they behaved? But irony, none in our media or the intellectuals ever cared to debate on this very point yesterday. This was rather surprising for me when people like Arnav can discuss the role of every possible individual in the matter at hand but conveniently sidestepped the role of the state. Was it deliberate or was the point missed by accident? Now this leads us to the second question of mine.

There were at least a dozen people in Times Now studio to debate. And as per practice, AG himself has concluded through his own justice system that the Hindu groups did the unpardonable and deserve his divine intervention to short the matter. And, those who have seen the show would agree with me that, the wrath of great AG fell squarely on the lone BJP representative, the two Sanyasies and a malnourished looking individual addressed as the secretary of some Hindu organization. Arnav Goswami, who has even left absurdity bankrupt a long time back, was in full swing to deliver profane to these four guys as if there is no tomorrow. ‘Who are you to talk on behalf of Hindus’, he thundered while remaining silent on who he is to talk on behalf of an entire nation. And who all were there as sidekicks of Arnav ‘Nation Wants To Know’ Goswami? The likes of Asaduddin Owaisi, Kamal Farooqi, the Samajwadi party’s own Arnav, Gaurab Vatia and couple of Ulemas. Lest we forget, the secular characteristics of these panelists have stood the test of time and are legendary. But this is the beauty of Arnav that only he can see that these highly secular people are the best minds in India to debate on harmony and constitution? As expected, the overtly aggressive crowd in the studio turned the debate to complete chaos with none caring an ounce to listen to any other. A dozen people shouted for one complete hour but nothing noteworthy came out of the debate. This is perhaps why I asked, if we really require a debate to ponder on this.

Even if we accept the fact that nothing fruitful ever came out of any TV debate, the manner in which BJP’s pet ‘Anti-Conversion Bill’ given a miss gave me some raised eyebrows. The ones who were taking high moral grounds were never asked – if they feel so strongly of this conversion then what on earth was stopping them when they thought to oppose BJP’s proposed Anti-Conversion bill by tooth-and-nail? Or is there something that I am missing here? Anti-conversion bill could have been instrumental in sabotaging the nefarious agendas of many Vatican sponsored conversion factories mushroomed across the tribal belts of Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. This is something which is unwelcome with our ultra-secularists. For them, it hardly matters if millions of Hindus are converted but when the tides flow the other way, there it becomes communal. In one hand they will oppose something because that would be Hindu friendly but when things get paid back in the same coin with respect to non-Hindus, the secularists would cry wolf. Now this logic of convenience is beyond me. This Ostrich attitude precisely drives us to the third question in the list.

Where was Arnav when thousands of poor were getting converted to Christianity in every corner of India? I never saw him debating on them. Now Arnav shouldn’t claim that the poor tribal were getting converted on their own wish. If people, who may not be aware of the capital of the state they belong but quite aware about Christianity and the beauty of it, then it can’t be any less than the biggest miracle of 21^st century. Now if the argument is the uncertainty (if forced or suo motto) of the nature of conversion by the Christian zealots then it isn’t certain either in this 200 conversion of Muslims to Hinduism. Then why jump the gun and have a debate so insinuating against the Hindus for one complete hour? As correctly stated by the BJP representative, the state should complete the investigation first and then arrest people if they are found violating our constitution. Where is the role of Arnav Goswami in all of this? Why he shouted like a werewolf unstopped? Who gave him the liberty to speak on behalf of an entire nation?

Taking advantage of their own shoddy so called investigation, these media houses seem to have that license of both commission and omission to destroy and degenerate anything and everything that stands for Hinduism. Who gave these filthy doormats that liberty? How the testimony of someone, who is alleged to have changed his /her religion for money and a BPL card, can be taken on face value? If someone doesn’t have the basic moral toughness to stand by his/her religion in time of crisis then how can he/she be trusted with his/her words? Why I as an individual won’t believe that the person shown admitting taking favors for religious conversion would also have greased his/her hand by money from Times-Now to spew against Hindus? And most important; does these Arnav Goswami’s of the world know that such media stings stands to naught in our court of law? How something that doesn’t have the authenticity to stand in our courts can be used to blast Hindus and Hindu organizations for day’s altogether? But sanity is farfetched from these media goons when it comes to Hindus and Hindu bashing.

I am sure, the same media morons would have shouted for proof, had there been a conversion the other way. This is precisely the reason why none in our media ever ran programs spanning over a week to debate on the ghastly murder of Swami Laxmanananda. They didn’t because the Swami was running a program in Kandhamal district of Odisha to reconvert all those tribal to Hinduism, who were once converted to Christianity in exchange of a bag of rice. They won’t run a program to deeply analyze the deplorable actions of Dara Singh. Because, if they then it would expose the involvement of entire Stains family in dubious mass scale conversion in and around Koraput and Kalahandi. But ask them to run amok on Dara Singh, they would deliver justice, in connivance with a handful of secularists passing of as political panelists. But strange – they would self-adjudge as the voice of the nation and custodians of truth and honesty. If only we could change the definition of truth and honesty in our dictionaries.

For me, the reconversion of Muslims in UP is perfectly in line with our constitution, as long as proved otherwise. If doubts are engulfing then it requires a thorough and independent investigation before the flag bearers of secularism start howling full throat. Is that a big ask? Where is Arnav Goswami?