Many are puzzled by the spate of attacks on Christians since the BJP-dominated NDA-II came to power. Especially why it has not abated — the gang rape of a septuagenarian nun being the latest horror — despite the stirring assurance by the PM from the floor of Parliament.

Let us get one misconception out of our way. This is not a Christian or even a ‘minority’ issue. This sequence of criminal events outlines a national issue — it slights the image and culture of our country. No anaemic explanations that skirt the issue — that these are episodes of burglary — will help. And that is so even if the alarmist rhetoric that Christian missionaries, armed with unlimited funds, are lurking everywhere to ‘wipe out Hinduism from the land of its birth’ has had its effect over time.

Sociologists posit the principle of ‘contagion’. A contrived apprehension articulated by some, and endorsed by a few more, becomes contagious. Soon it begins to spread frenzy. Conversions to Christianity are happening. But its scale is nowhere near what is apprehended. The census data (Christians are 2.18% of the population and that is declining) belies the alleged triumphalist intent of conversions.

How are we to understand the meaning of this manufactured hatred towards a community that is inherently apolitical and innately pacifist? As a rule, if a phenomenon is not explicable by facts, its explanation needs to be sought in psychology.

The key to the current scenario lies in competitive conversions. Hinduism is a birth-based, non-missionary religion. The impetus to convert is what it has imitated from Christian and Muslim faiths. The truth about ghar wapsi is that it is an imitation of the missionary aspect of Semitic faiths. It is Hinduism imitating Christianity and Islam.

Here we have a classic illustration of the Gerardian psychology of imitation. Imitation begins on a note of admiration. This leads to a stage in which the imitator (or ‘disciple’ in mimetic psychology) wants to be like the imitated (the ‘mentor’). But this is only an intermediary stage. Soon, the spirit of imitation gets infected by the acquisitive spirit. So imitation degenerates into competition. The matrix of rivalry distorts the object imitated, the mentor. The disciple comes under the psychological need to caricature and criminalise the mentor.

At this stage the disciple introduces an extraneous element into the equation to ensure his outright victory in the competition. It could be state power, numerical or financial advantage or the ability to intimidate and disable the mentor. So, violence is resorted to.

This is what, in essence, the current situation means. And it calls for introspection by both sides. Religion is not a domain for head-hunting. The purpose of religion is to refine and to ennoble. What little i know of conversions and re-conversions makes me wonder if such projects are wholly free from ulterior motives. Deceit, which animates ulteriority, is poison to the spiritual. The self-appointed defenders of God — trying to outdo each other — belong to the theatre of the absurd and not to the order of religion or of public decency.