"Ghar Wapsi" [Homecoming] and the Not-so-veiled Threat of the Sangh Parivar (John Dayal)

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I have had occasion to document Ghar Wapsi events in various villages of Orissa, and not just in Kandhamal, where the process has involved shaving off the head of men and women, their purification through a mixture of cowdung and cow urine, the chanting of mantras around the fire and, wherever possible, the burning of “alien” books such as the Bible. Colleagues, who have documented the Ghar Wapsi organised by former BJP Minister and strongman Dilip Singh Judeo, speak of how his armed cadres—armed with bows and arrows as much as with modern guns—would surround the place and keep watch while he “initiated” the Christians into the Hindu fold.

My own observations after field studies are of Ghar Wapsi as a movement that uses armed force and violence, certainly the threat of violence, towards a conversion of neo-Christians to Hinduism.

It cannot be called a homecoming because the tribals do not accept Hinduism as a default language, and over the past years, there has been a vigorous movement among those of them who are not Christians to assert their roots in the Sarna and other indigenous religions. The 2011 census was slightly better than the 2001 census in allowing some space for indigenous religions to have their voice heard as opposed to the past when they were all routinely lumped under the Hindu label. This lacuna still remains in law and the BJP ruled States list all so-called “Indic” religions as Hindus. The matter needs to be taken to one of the superior courts in the interests of constitutional provisions for freedom of faith and belief guaranteed to every Indian citizen.

The Ghar Wapsi activities also encourage lumpen elements and smaller organised village level groups to gather strength and demand homogenisation in the villages. This is not a simple matter and has in it the seeds of future violence in rural groups deeply divided on the basis of a new, militant version of Hinduism.

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