Vishva Hindu Parishad - Communal Tensions and Reconversions

Communal Tensions and Reconversions

In 2002, Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya were burnt alive by a mob of Muslims, in a train at Godhra; leading to the infamous Gujarat Riots. The VHP endorsed unsubstantiated rumours about Muslims kidnapping three Hindu girls during the Godhra train attack, which initiated the violence during the Gujarat riots. Anil Patel, a VHP departmental chief, said:

Our war cry was ‘Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims from the inside’

The VHP engages in several programs to reconvert Hindus who had previously converted to Christianity through their trained missionaries called "Dharma Prasaar Vibhag" (Religious Propaganda Cell), The VHP has deputed large number of its missionaries in those remote villages and tribal areas which have substantial Christians and Muslims. In recent years the VHP has emerged as one of the most active Hindu evangelistic organisation and has organised several mass reconversion programmes of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism. In one of the recent programmes on 24th Feb 2012, it reconverted more than 3000 Tribal Christians from 658 families to Hinduism in Sundergadh district of Indian State of Orissa (as per Zee News); similarly, it reconverted 228 Christian families to Hinduism on 28th Feb 2012 in Valsad District of Gujarat and in one of the another programmes organised on April 19, 2004, it converted 3200 Muslims belonging to Chita, Mehrat and Kathat caste in Beawar, Ajmer District, Rajasthan.On 11th Aug 2009 in Dindigul District in State of Tamilnadu,all 207 Christians of Tamarikullam Village were converted to Hinduism by VHP,leaving no Christians in the village. VHP claims that villagers were offered financial rewards for converting to Christianity and that those rewards never materialised, so their return to Hinduism was relatively straightforward. Following the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, the VHP engaged in reconversion programmes, involving both voluntary and forced reconversion.

In Punjab, the VHP has played an active role to prevent conversions of Sikhs, especially low caste Sikhs being converted to Christianity. This is as a result mostly from oppression by high caste Sikhs; however, the VHP have helped stopped Christian missionaries from converting Sikhs nonetheless.

The VHP collaborated with Christian Association for Social Action and played an active part in providing relief to both Hindu and Christian families affected by the Love Jihad activity in Kerala during 2005–2009 period.

In August 2008, the VHP blamed Christians for the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda, though Maoist militants had claimed responsibility for the killing. In the resulting disorder, Christian settlements were set on fire, and 25,000 Christians were forced to flee their villages. The Roman Catholic Church claimed that at least 67 Christians were killed. Various news sources also reported that a nun was raped during the violence. A judicial commission probing the violence said that conversion and re-conversion were among the major factors that led to the disorder, without blaming any religious groups or the CPI (Maoist).