Opted for 'Ghar Vapsi' to secure back scheduled caste status for kids says woman in Kerala

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The News Minute| December 22, 2014| 1.30 pm IST

VHP, RSS and other affiliates who have started ghar vapasi or reconversions to Hinduism have maintained that the effort was to retain the ‘original’ Hindu identity of the converts and was being done without luring them with any benefits.

On Saturday, the Hindu Helpine and the VHP had organized Ghar Vapasi in Kerala too. But the mother of two young girls who had been reconverted in Kollam has come forward and revealed that the girls converted to Hinduism to secure back their Scheduled caste (SC) category.

Ambika who belongs to Velar Hindu community was in distress as the tenth standard certificates of her daughters mentioned the caste as Christian.

“We needed to get the certificate changed, but government officers were unwilling to help,” Ambika told the media.

She claims that though they have approached concerned authorities many times to change it to their original caste, which belongs to SC category, officials did not agree. Ambika also claims that she had been for some Christian congregations, on her husband's insistence.

Now she confirms that two of them have got converted just to change the mentioned caste in the certificates.

“We wanted to change the mentioned caste in my daughters’ certificates. So I approached VHP and they have asked me to get converted. If government had helped me I would not have opted this way” Ambika said.

Hindu helpline coordinator Anish who coordinated ‘Ghar Vapasi’ conversions has told The News Minute that he was aware about Ambika’s issue and he claimed that VHP tried to help her family.

“She approached us for the corrections in the certificates and we helped her to get it changed. She was ready to get converted” Anish said.

So when asked if Ghar Vapasi was not about faith all the time, but about conveniences too, he replied, “Well, she wanted help. But anyway the big conversion event was in Alapuzzha, not Kollam.”

About 50 people were converted to Hinduism at an event organised by the (VHP) in Alappuzha and Kollam on Saturday.