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Raman Kirpal
DINDOLI, (MP), Feb 14: At dawn in Dandoli, 176 `Christians', including 70 women, were lined up for the much-publicised reconversion ceremony by the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, an RSS outfit. After a holy dip in the river Narmada, they were taken to the seven havan kunds. Amidst heavy police presence, the sacred thread ceremony was performed amidst chanting of mantras by Arya Samaj pundits. After the yagna, BJP MP Dilip Singh Judev welcomed the `reconverted Hindus', washed their feet and welcomed them `home'. The `Ghar-Vapasi ' was over by 11 a.m.
Soon The Indian Express spoke to as many as 40 people who were reconverted and found that not even one of them is a Christian. All of them said they are Hindus. Only seven of them had attended the Sunday Mass occasionally, but they had not converted. Barring three, none of them came from the predominantly Christian villages in the district.
The ashram activists are sheepish as they have to submit a list of reconverted Hindus within sevendays to the local administration, under the Madhya Pradesh Swantrata Adhiniyam. The administrative officials in Dindoli and neighbouring Mandla, have already carried an `unofficial' census of the Christians. And once the list of reconverted Hindus is submitted, the local administration will verify it with its own list of the Christians. District Collector B.L. Thakur said that he had asked the Ashram to submit the official list.
Soon after the reconversion ceremony, the district president of the ashram, Prem Singh Marco, admitted that many of those who had attended the ceremony were already Hindus. ``We would now determine as to how many of the reconverted Hindus were Christians,'' he said. Though they did not release any official list, the Ashram activists said that they had converted about 110 Christians as against their target of 2,000.
Sunita is a typical `reconvert'. The 15-year-old girl came from village Ghotas with her father Fakir Singh, who is an Ashram activist. ``We are Hindus but my fatherasked me to attend the pooja.'' She didn't know that the ceremony was about reconversion.
Rati Bai of Lugdara was told about something else. ``A bus came to our village last. All our men had gone to the jungle and mostly women were at home. They said that the government had invited us to a medical camp and prayers will also be offered there,'' she said. She added that the Ashram activists brought 30 persons, mostly women and children, from her village and kept them overnight in the Shishu Vidya Mandir school, the venue of the ceremony.
Rati Bai, a Hindu Gond tribal, accompanied her neighbour Basakhiya, who suffers from arthritis. Basakhiya is upset as she could not find a doctor. The ashram activists had called seven doctors for the free medical camp to be held along with the reconversion ceremony, but only one doctor turned up. She came at 12 noon and left after an hour.
Judev said that only heads of the families had come for the reconversion ceremony. ``Do not go by the numbers, the families of thosewho were reconverted have also converted with them.''
That was not the case. Mohan Singh, a Gond, had come along with his wife Bilsa and daughter Sukriti from village Nejhar. He was one of the seven persons who had said that they used to go for Sunday mass. ``Six months ago many of us were down with Malaria. Swamiji (the priest at the church) told us that they should come to the church and they would give us medicine and God will cure us. So I started going to the church,'' he said. Judev, who boasted of reconverting 1.75 lakh Christians in the last 15 years, still claimed that all of those who attended the thread ceremony were Christians. ``There is an international conspiracy to convert Hindus to Christianity. I will not stop till all the converted Christians come back home.''
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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