Some might feel the Rajasthan government’s recent move to pass a law banning religious conversions was long overdue, while others might call it an infringement of the fundamental right to religious freedom. But, undoubtedly, life after conversion in a backward hamlet can be traumatic.

I remember travelling to the south Rajasthan districts of Ajmer and Pali in 1992 for a cover story I was doing for a weekly magazine on a ten-year, meticulously executed programme of conversions. Traditionally, the colourful Mehrat and Rawat communities, living in the districts of Ajmer, Pali, Udaipur and Bhilwara, were a tolerant, homogenous community. Though predominantly Muslim — following Muslim rituals like burial, the nikaah ceremony, the eating of halal meat and the abjuring of idol worship — they celebrated festivals like Eid, Holi, Diwali and Shab-e-Baraat with equal fervour. But their peaceful lives were disrupted after the launch of an RSS-VHP programme to bring them back to the Hindu fold, with religion acquiring a new meaning.

After months of persuasion, the building of a temple, and a slew of development projects like hospitals, balwadis (nurseries, where children aged six upwards were taught the fundamentals of Hindutva,) and schools to initiate teenagers into Hinduism, the villagers succumbed. A three-hour-long film on legendary Rajput King Prithviraj Chauhan screened in a mobile van, reminded villagers of their Hindu lineage.

The campaign worked. Over a decade, close to 50,000 people were baptised as Hindus in a ritualistic ceremony called “homecoming”. RSS worker Uma Shankar Sharma gloated over his achievement, putting it rather crudely, “People wondered how we could bathe a donkey and transform it into a horse!”

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