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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.