An IAS officer converted recently after he was overlooked for a promotion, he says, because he is a Dalit. What is the intent of proselytization in this case and other such instances?
Conversion to Islam in contemporary India encompasses several themes.
• It is undoubtedly a form of protest and rebellion the lower castes adopt against the oppression of the higher castes.
• It is, simultaneously, a plea to the custodians of Hinduism to reform the religion and render it egalitarian.
• It is a battle the convert seeks to wage on behalf of others, conveying through his or her proselytization that those sharing his or her caste position might emulate him or her in rejecting the hierarchical Hinduism.
But conversion to Islam is also deployed as a threat, a bargaining chip.
• It is used as a tactic to demand enforcement of constitutionally mandated rights, or extract concessions from the powerful.
• Demands are articulated and deadlines set for their acceptance, failing which those voicing them declare they will convert.
• Those who threaten to convert implicitly assume that the custodians of Hinduism, essentially the hegemonic higher castes, have a deep distrust, even dislike, for Islam. They think their demands will be met because the higher castes will not want Islam to grow demographically or acquire popular validity in this era of Islamophobia.
Crossing over to a rival
• Conversion consequently reinforces the Hindutva imagining of Islam as “the other”.
• This is true of Christianity as well. But conversion to it is often spread over time through evangelism.
• Atrocities provoke Dalits to usually embrace Islam rather than Christianity, largely because the long history of communal conflict involving Hindus and Muslims injects their proselytization with a deep political meaning.
• It’s also true that Dalits switch from Hinduism to Buddhism, at times in a spectacular display of mass rejection of Hinduism.
• Yet conversion to Buddhism doesn’t invite hostile reactions because Hindutva ideologues consider that religion indigenous, even as reformed or pure or, to quote sociologist Gail Omvedt, Protestant Hinduism.
Since conversion to Buddhism doesn’t rattle the custodians of Hinduism, its use for political purposes doesn’t have the same political significance as Islam has. This is perhaps why Umrao Salodia, a 1978 Rajasthan cadre IAS officer, recently chose to become Muslim than Buddhist.
Overlooked for the post of chief secretary, Salodia claimed it was because he belonged to the Dalit community.
His statement surprised Jaipur because it was unexpected – he hadn’t, as is usually the norm, issued a prior threat to convert in case he was denied the post of chief secretary. The very absence of threat has given his protest a sharp edge.
• For one, he wasn’t willing to use conversion instrumentally, that is, to bargain with the Rajasthan government of the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose project is to become the unchallenged custodian of Hinduism.
• For another, it sought to reject the moral authority of the government, and portrayed, at least to the Dalits, its caste prejudices.
Threat of conversion
• But conversion to Islam is also used to blackmail politicians, not just of the Hindutva kind.
• For instance, last April, when 55 houses in Topkhana basti in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, were marked for demolition, some 800 Valmikis there threatened to convert to Islam. They even contacted Islamic clerics who, however, refused to convert them, arguing that their proselytization would be un-Islamic as the Valmikis were engaged in, yes, blackmailing civic authorities.
Unmindful of the rebuff, they continued their protests wearing skull caps, popularly regarded as a marker of Muslim identity.
• Decoding their protest is more complicated than analysing Salodia’s.
Did the Valmikis believe their houses were marked for demolition because of them being Dalit and, therefore, powerless?
It is also possible they were exploiting the popular perception of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav being partial to Muslims to their advantage. Their threat to convert could be construed as telling Yadav that they would become Muslim and his voters if their houses were not demolished.
• It is also possible that the Valmikis were stirring a controversy in the hope their cause would be adopted by those politicians who are focused on stopping desertions from Hinduism. This is exactly what eventually happened in Rampur, testifying that conversion is used as a blackmail tactic for survival or to protect their interests.
• The blackmail tactic is also used to have rights guaranteed in the Constitution to be enforced. This was palpable in the response of 10 Valmiki families of Meerut who were denied entry into the Valmiki Ashram near Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, on January 8, 2015. They told the media that they would embrace Islam unless the Ashram allowed them entry by January 26, the Republic Day.
• In the Dalit consciousness, conversion to Buddhism is considered a return to their original religion and identity.
• This is because they believe they were originally Buddhists whose ascendancy the Brahmins challenged and undermined successfully.
As Gail Omvedt notes in her book, Buddhism in India: Challenging Brahmanism and Caste, “The conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism was seen as of the utmost interest to Dalits, because it was in the process of defeating Buddhism that the caste system was solidified, and certain specific groups were particularly degraded and classed as ‘untouchables’.
Thus Ambedkar argued that Dalits were originally Buddhists who had been rendered untouchables…”
• From this perspective, the return of Dalits to their original religion of Buddhism is seen as natural and inevitable, a rediscovery or liberation of their older self from the caste trappings of Hinduism.
• This process of return is predicated on a realisation and understanding of Buddhism as a rational religion. No doubt, conversion to Buddhism still entails rejecting Hinduism, but it doesn’t in the Dalit consciousness signify rebellion in all its fury and rawness, not the least because the Hindutva ideologues are not even remotely hostile to it.
• It is also true that Buddhism in India largely comprises Dalits, except the upper castes in Bengal who converted to it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• In other words, for an individual to say he or she is a Buddhist is akin to saying he or she was Dalit earlier. In this sense, they may consider themselves separate from Hindus and equal to them, but caste Hindus do not consider them so.
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