Stifling dissent
By Radha Venkatesan
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister,
Jayalalithaa, is no new convert to Hindutva. So, it was small surprise
that the convent-educated Chief Minister suddenly unleashed an ordinance
last fortnight to clamp down on "forcible" religious conversions
in the State.
But what prompted the AIADMK
regime to hurriedly promulgate the controversial Tamil Nadu Prohibition
of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2002, when the Assembly
was to meet in 20 days? No major communal clashes in the last one year.
Nor any palpable tension over sporadic cases of religious conversions
in the southern districts. And, neither the State Police nor the State
Adidravidar Department had asked the Government to ban conversions to
prevent communal tension. But, the explanatory statement of the ordinance
claimed: "The legislation will act as a deterrent against the anti-social
and vested interest groups exploiting the innocent people belonging
to the depressed classes. It may be useful to nip in the bud the attempts
by certain religious fundamentalists and subversive forces to create
communal tension under the garb of religious conversion."
The Hindutva forces have
been worried by the open threat by 59 Dalit families of Koothirambakkam
in Kancheepuram district to embrace Islam as recently as last month.
And a little before that, 250 people were "mass baptised"
in Madurai. Obviously, the over one crore Dalits reeling under exploitation
by caste Hindus and one-sixth of the 89 per cent Hindu population below
the poverty line remain vulnerable to conversions through inducements
of dignified living, food, education and employment. The Madurai Archbishop,
Arokkiasamy too admits that some institutions resort to "forced
conversions". The ordinance slaps a more stringent penalty
up to four years imprisonment and a fine of Rs. 1 lakh on those
"forcibly" converting Scheduled Castes\Scheduled Tribes.
Tamil Nadu has a horrendous
record of atrocities against Dalits as many as 191 villages have
been officially declared as prone to atrocities against Dalits and 2,084
cases of untouchability crimes are pending this year in the State. Even
four decades after the Protection of Civil Rights Act came into force
in the country, Dalits in several parts of the State are served tea
in coconut shells or separate glasses at tea shops, not allowed to enter
temples administered by caste Hindus or draw water from village wells
and lakes, and forced to beat drums at funerals.
A few months ago, at Thinniam
in Tiruchi district, faeces was forced down a Dalit labourer's throat
for demanding wages from his caste Hindu employer. Not far away, in
Dindigul, a Scheduled Caste farmer had urine poured into his mouth over
a land dispute. And, in Walajabad in Kancheepuram district, not just
the Dalits, their deities too are untouchables. During the Navarathri
festival, the deity of the caste Hindus is covered with a black cloth
to prevent it from "seeing" the "polluted" Dalit
deity!
Especially in south Tamil
Nadu, where caste outrages are rampant, there has been a history of
conversion as a form of protest. Possibly, it was sparked by Meenakshipuram,
a non-descript village tucked away in Tirunelveli district, which caused
a national sensation when its entire Dalit colony embraced Islam, in
protest against the practice of untouchability, in March 1981. National
leaders including A. B. Vajpayee flocked to the hamlet, but the undeterred
Dalits swore never to return to "oppressive" Hinduism. A month
later, Uttharakosamangai village in Ramanathapuram "metamorphosed"
into Mohammadiapuram after 150 Dalit families converted to Islam. Interestingly,
while several Dalits in Tamil Nadu worship Ambedkar, they have chosen
not to go his Buddhist way. While Christians and Muslims account for
11 per cent of the State's population, there are just 2,000 Buddhists.
In the 1980s, the conversion
spree did trigger communal riots in Mandaikadu and Melmanalgudi where
six persons died in police firing. And, indeed, the Justice Venugopal
Commission of Inquiry in its 1986 report on the riots had recommended
a ban on conversions "by fraudulent and foul means". But the
Commission had also hit out at the "dangers of RSS philosophy,
ideologies and methodology" and called for prohibiting their "drills
and parades" as they create "fear and insecurity" among
the minorities affecting public tranquillity. The then AIADMK Government
led by M.G. Ramachandran "accepted" the recommendations, but
chose not to come out with an anti-conversion law. But, 16 years later,
driven by different political compulsions, the Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK
regime has chosen to "prevent conversion by use of force or allurement
or by fraudulent means".
However, the crucial question
Dalit activists raise is: if people cannot be forced to renounce their
religion, can the State force people to remain in the religion they
were born into. "When I am not given the right to offer worship
in Hindu temples, how can the Government force us to remain in Hinduism?
First, let the Government stop the exploitation by caste Hindus and
then prevent exploitation by religious fundamentalists," says a
Dalit youth in Koothirambakkam.