Ghar Vapasi in Agra: Mid-term elections in UP behind RSS conversion drive?

The pattern is clearly visible and here’s the motive. The BJP is expecting mid-term election in Uttar Pradesh and the spate of conversion incidents in the state by Sangh Parivar outfits has been announced keeping that in mind. At a meeting held by the state BJP working committee in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur last Saturday and Sunday, the state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai had told the gathering to be prepared for a mid-term election. He had told partymen to organize street protests and demonstrations to highlight the state government’s “failure” to check the deteriorating law and order situation in the state. According to a BJP leader, the coming days could see the situation taking a turn for the worse. The planned re-conversions in this month and the one in January could heighten the communal temperature in the state. It’s going to be a two-pronged attack — one led by the BJP on issues of governance and the other by Sangh Parivar on polarizing topics. [caption id=“attachment_1853783” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Representative image. Reuters[/caption] The state government has understood the design but appears clueless on how to deal with it, particularly the second one. Right now, the Akhilesh Yadav government is approaching it as a law and order problem. On Tuesday, the police in Gorakhpur foiled an attempt by the Hindu Yuva Vahini to convert 15 Muslim families to the Hindu fold. The programme was named a sahbhoj (community lunch). However, policemen surrounded the venue since morning and did not allow the programme to proceed. Later, the state HYV president Sunil Singh was arrested and several others were also detained as they staged a noisy demonstration in protest against the arrest. The HYV activists involved in the programme said that the participants were to be given a copy of the Sunder Kaand of the Ramayan after a sacred thread was tied on their wrists and a tika was applied on their foreheads. The BJP MP from Gorakhpur Mahant Adityanath was supposed to be present on the occasion but he was not in Gorakhpur on the day. The controversy over the 8 December ‘ghar vapasi’ re-conversions of about 70 Bengali-speaking Muslims in Agra has not settled yet even though the state police claimed that the mastermind behind the ritual held in a Dalit-dominated locality of Agra has been arrested. Even as the state law and enforcement machinery was bracing itself for tackling the fall-out of a large scale re-conversion in Aligarh on 25 December, the announcement by various Hindutva-driven outfits about planned re-conversions in eastern UP on coming days has put the police on high alert. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bajrang Dal and Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) are reported to have prepared a blueprint for facilitating the homecoming of more than 2000 individuals on 18 December. These prospective ‘converts’ include 2000 Christians while the rest are Muslims. These rituals are planned for Gorakhpur and Ghazipur, both in eastern UP. The reports came close on the heels of news that the BJP MP from Gorakhpur Mahant Adityanath had presided over the conversion of 40 families of Kushinagar to Hindu fold about six months ago. A Home department official said that the police had been directed not to allow religious conversion ceremony on Christmas or any other day. The police in Aligarh have been told to be on their toes as the place has a substantial Muslim population. “No event will be allowed on 25 December, whether it is conversion or anything similar to it,” a senior police officer was quoted as saying. While the state government has sent a stern warning to all district magistrates and superintendents of police to prevent such conversions, the confidence with which the VHP, HYV and Bajrang Dal activists are going ahead with the preparations indicate a much bigger and ambitious plan to create trouble for the Akhilesh Yadav government in the state. Following the directives of the state’s Chief Secretary in this regard, the police in Agra on Tuesday arrested Nand Kishore Valmiki, who had organized the reconversions on 8 December 8 in Agra. The participants in the Agra fiasco had alleged that they had been called for a meeting where they were promised ration cards, but the organizers ‘tricked’ them by asking them to chant some shlok, tied a sacred thread on their wrists and put a tika on their foreheads. Incidentally, Uttar Pradesh does not have a specific anti-conversion law and if any case of unusual conversion is reported, the police generally book those resorting to forcible or fraudulent conversions under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), and 505(2) and 505(3) (Statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes) of the Indian Penal Code. Although the police claim they would not allow such rituals to be held anywhere, Members of the Muslim community also view the spate of conversion and ghar wapasi incidents as a ploy to keep the communal pot boiling in the state. “It looks like an obvious attempt to destabilize the present government,” said a community leader Athar Husain, adding that the issue of conversions or reconversions as such was not important since it had been happening for years. “The fact that such things are happening with planned regularity indicates a design,” said the Husain.