The Rajya Sabha, the elder house of the Indian Parliament, has not been transacting any business for the last many days. It is adjourned after almost sitting of half an hour and the adjectives like, pandemonium uproarious and noisy scenes etc. have become common to describe the situation in the Upper House. The members representing the political parties in the State Assemblies constitute the Rajya Sabha, which is also known as the Council of States. Hence, on the strength of a political party in the Assemblies of the states decide its representation in the Rajya Sabha. As on today the opposition parties i.e. the Congress, the Samajwadi, RJD, JD(U), TMC, BSP, DMK, AIDMK, BJD etc. have more numbers than the treasury benches consisting of the Bhartiya Janata Party and its allies.
The purpose of this piece is neither to deal with the constitution of the Rajya Sabha nor to tell about the conduct of the Hon’ble members. Its aim, nonetheless is limited to discuss on what issue the Rajya Sabha is not being allowed to run. The only issue is the conversion of a group of Muslims to Hinduism in Agra. It is being termed as ‘Ghar Vapasi’ by those who have converted the Muslims to Hinduism and those who are opposed to it, they say that it is an attack on the secular fabric of the country.
It may not be out of place to mention here that when the Anti-Conversion Bill was to be introduced by the previous NDA Government of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the entire opposition was outraged against the Bill. It was then being said that the Anti Conversion Bill was against the spirit of the Constitution, which gave freedom to every citizen to follow the religion of his or her choice. Many Christian organisations in India and abroad had vehemently protested against the move of the then government to introduce the bill.
Now the opposition is crying foul about the conversion of a small number of Muslims in Agra. The allegation of the opposition parties is that the conversion has been carried out because of the inducement of providing Adhar Cards to those who converted to Hinduism. However,only a week after the Agra incident, five Hindus got converted into Christianity in Bihar and it was not taken any notice either by any political party or even by the media. However, this is the time when spade should be called spade. Let it be asked that how large number of tribal, scheduled castes people have been converted to Christianity into last 200 years, except by the inducement of providing facilities like; education, and health etc. Let it also be noted here that the late Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa was a Christian missionary working and she did a commendable job in the service of lepers in the ‘city of joy’, the expression which is sarcastically used for Kolkata. She opened ‘Nirmal Hridayas’ in many cities of India. But how come not even one person who obtained the service of Mother Teresa’s ‘Missionaries of Charity’ has not got converted to Christianity? A person who went to Nirmal Hriday as a Hindu has not come back with his or her original religion. Almost everybody got converted to Christianity. So how can it be said that the Christian Missionaries did not offer the inducements?
No doubt, Christian Missionaries have opened good schools and hospitals all over the country. They never openly ask the Hindus/ Muslims of relatively well off backgrounds to convert to Christianity but those who are economically vulnerable they are offered all sorts of inducements and facilities to get them converted to Christianity. This is an open and glaring fact. People become Christians not because their hearts have changed by knowing about the religion but it is the greed that played the main role. The fact is the person, who embraces to Christianity does not know about the religion or the Bible. So how can it be the case of the change of heart? Christian missionaries, it must be said , are the past masters in hoodwinking the gullible and poor people and luring them to their own religion. Therefore, our Parliamentarians, and that too, the members of the Rajya Sabha or either naive or knave or amalgam of both, who have been disrupting the proceedings of the House for no plausible reasons.
History bears ample testimony to the fact that the people in India have embraced to Islam because of the fear of saving their lives or properties and Christianity spread its wings across the country by sheer dint of money, which the missionaries have aplenty and they been liberally using for the expansion their religion.Thus ,it is clear that in India proselytisation or religious conversions have taken either by force ,fraud, allurements or inducements.Now if some zealous persons from among Hindus are trying to tell and convince the other religionists that they or their forebears were led to garden path for converting to Islam or Christianity and they should again come back to Hinduism- why should there be so much hullaballo?One fails to understand if Hindus are converted to other religion, it is a non issue and if it is other way round then all hell break loose. This double standard and hypocrisy is now clearly seen through.
Hindus have been largely divided on the caste lines. It has proved dangerous for the very existence of this religion, which otherwise is high evolved in metaphysics, learning and devotion. Tolerance and self-criticism have been the hallmarks of Hinduism but they have also proved detrimental for the sound survival of this religion.
Unfortunately, Bhartiya Janata Party, which got overwhelming support from Hindus in the fond hope that it would provide level playing Hindus is also pandering to the appeasement policy. Why is it feeling shy of vociferously advocating the Uniform Civil Code for the betterment of Muslim women in the matters of divorce, property inheritance, equality and monogamy? It is hoped that it will rise to the occasion and would not be blackmailed by the pseudo-secularist or by falling in their trap.