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'Love jihad' and religious conversion in Uttar Pradesh

People take part in a religion conversion ceremony from Christianity to Hinduism at Hasayan town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh

LUCKNOW: For reconversion or ‘ghar wapsi’ of Hindu families that converted to other religions, outfits like Dharm Jagran have to bear a huge cost. An offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh ( RSS ), Dharm Jagran coughs up on an average Rs 8 to 10 lakh per month alone mainly as fuel cost and some miscellaneous expenses in the western UP area alone.Claiming that on an average 1,000 families are re-converted, mostly in western UP region in a month, the cost incurred on such programmes comes to around Rs 50 lakh per month. The average cost incurred on each family comes to around Rs 5,000, Dharm Jagran's western UP in charge Rajeshwar Singh told TOI.The fuel cost incurred is meant for the outfit ’s about 100 full-time volunteers, whose job is to identify people, who converted to other religions from Hinduism, make them aware about what good they are missing by not being a Hindu and convince them to re-convert. ‘Ghar wapsi’ is what Rajeshwar Singh called this re-conversion as.Western UP region of the Dharm Jagran has three ‘praants’ that include Braj, Meerut and Uttarakhand .Interestingly, this is not the only expenditure incurred by the Dharm Jagran. Since most of these volunteers are full-timers, they have a task in hand to carry on such awareness campaigns in the region throughout the year. On most of the occasions, once a family gets convinced to re-convert, volunteers have to pay for the affidavit on behalf of the family head, Ajay Sinha, a full-timer (as they are called within the organization) from Shahjahanpur told TOI. Interestingly, the requirement of affidavits is mandatory only in case of certified Christian converts, Rajeshwar told TOI, added that while for the ghar wapsi of those whom he refers to as “crypto-Christians”, there is no need for certificate as such people are not converted on papers but have adopted the tradition and culture associated with Christianity.(Reuters Photo)Since the number of certified Christians is far less as compared to the ‘crypto’ category, the expenditure on affidavits hardly comes to Rs 2,000 per month, he said. According to a rough estimate, ghar wapsi of around 1,000 families is done on an average every month in the western UP area, Rajeshwar claimed.Though not every time, the organization also spents money for holding ‘shuddhi yagya’ (purification ritual), a must for those who are reconverting. Since most of the times such yagyas are held with the contribution from either the family re-converting or through voluntary contribution by like-minded people, the average expenditure on such yagyas comes to Rs 20,000 per month per district, Rajeshwar said.But holding shuddhi yagyas or submitting affidavits is not end the job for the Hindu outfit. The fact that the re-conversion holds no meaning if the members of the caste they belong to don't accept them back into their fold, he said and added that it is to ensure that the re-converted families aren't discouraged. The cost on an average the outfit has to bear on community feasting comes to around Rs 40,000 to 50,000 per month.A full-time volunteer from Meerut praant requesting anonymity said on an average RSS provides Rs 12 to 15 lakh as annual budget to each of Dharm Jagran's praants and rest is through contributions from the respective districts. This funding by the RSS is reviewed annually, he said.Such expenditure is nothing in view of the impact of such efforts, said Ajay from Shahjahanpur. Rajeshwar claims members from other communities claim to spend at least Rs 3 crore on one family that converts to their religion from Hinduism. Rajeshwar claimed he was busy with his aim of 'ghar wapsi' of around 20,000 families or 1.25 lakh individuals in December.