Planning grand 'ghar wapsi' of over 3000 Muslims in Ayodhya, says VHP

A day after Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on Wednesday said NDA has nothing to do with ‘ghar wapsi’ and the NDA announced ‘Mission Empowerment’ for the minorities, former BJP MP and senior VHP leader Ram Vilas Vedanti announced a ‘ghar vapsi’ event for over 3000 Muslims at Ayodhya in February. [caption id=“attachment_2025767” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] VHP said it is planning the ‘ghar wapsi’ of over 3000 Muslims. Reuters[/caption] “After the recent ghar wapsi event held in Agra, several converted Muslim families from these districts contacted me and expressed desire to get back to Hindu religion. I have asked them to provide me a list of such families who want to come back,” Vedanti told The Indian Express. Vedanti added that the event will be organised after 6 February during a grand ‘Hindu Sammelan’ in Faizabad, during which VHP president Praveen Togadia will also address the gathering. This announcement comes a day after Togadia said that ‘ghar wapsi’ (homecoming) of Muslims and Christians to Hinduism could not be termed as conversion and claimed the practise had been prevailing for several centuries. He said the “home coming” was not started by VHP but has been an age old practice of bringing back the forced converts to Hindu stream for the last 900 years ago. He claimed it was started by Ramanujacharya in Ayodhya, and later by Vidyaranya Saraswati in Karnataka and Shivaji in Maharashtra. “It is illogical and irrational to say that home coming will hamper progress, foreign exchange and development,” said Togadia. On 27 December, VHP had also announced to continue with their ‘ghar wapsi’ programme in Kerala. A batch of people would reconvert to Hinduism at a function to be held in Kerala on 1 January, VHP State General Secretary Bhargava Ram had told reporters. Earlier on 21 December, VHP had ’re-converted’ over 200 Christians to Hinduism by holding rituals at Aranai village in Valsad district of BJP-ruled Gujarat, claimed a local leader. “As part of the ongoing ‘ghar wapsi’ programme, VHP re-converted 225 people from Christian community and took them back into Hindu religion,” Valsad district VHP chief Natu Patel had said. He had also said that VHP organised a ‘Maha Yagnya’ (ritual of the sacred fire) for “purification” of the tribals before taking them back in Hindu-fold and also gave each of them a copy of Bhagwad Gita. Another VHP worker, Ashok Sharma, said around 3,000 people had gathered at the ‘Ghar-Vaapsi’ programme in Valsad. This entire controversial programme of ‘ghar wapsi’ started in early December when around 300 people, mostly Muslim slum dwellers, were re-converted and “brought back” to the Hindu fold in Agra through a ritual carried out by Hindu organisation Dharma Jagran Manch. (With inputs from PTI)