09-12-2006, 06:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2006, 06:44 AM by Bharatvarsh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Shuddhi movement needed Hindus should promote religious conversion
By Ravi Shanker Kapoor
It is a measure of Hindu insecurity that today Hindu organisations and leaders are against religious conversion. However, there was a time when prominent Hindu groups were zealously promoting religious conversion; thousands of Muslims were brought back to the Hindu fold; and Muslims vehemently opposed conversion.
The conversion movement gained momentum in 1923 by Swami Shraddhananda, the great Arya Samaj leader who did pioneering work in the field of social reform, particularly uplift of the so-called untouchables and women education. In Swami Shraddhananda: His Life and Causes (Oxford University Press), J.T.F. Jordens writes: âThe case of the Malkana Rajputs propelled the Swami into a new kind of leadership and brought his name back into headlines. The Malkana Rajputs, scattered among many villages between Mathura and Farrukhabad, were nominally Muslims, but their actual cultural and ritual customs were a strange mixture of Muslim and Hindu practices. Moreover, the mixture was itself varied: although many were practically completely Hindu, here were groups in which the Muslim aspect predominated.â
Attempts had been made earlier to reconvert them to Hinduism. âUnder the Swamiâs lead things started moving right away,â writes Jordens. âA Bharatiya Hindu Shuddhi Sabha was established, of which the Swami became President⦠The committee was inclined to proceed cautiously but the Swami argued for urgency⦠Ten days later the famous appeal appeared in the papers under the heading âSave the dying raceâ.â
The Swami had lamented earlier too that the Hindus were a âdying race,â though he worked ceaselessly for its survival and well-being. Not surprisingly, according to Jordens, âthe Swami threw himself wholeheartedly into the work. On Sunday 25 February he was present at the ceremony of reclamation of Malkanas to Hinduism at the village of Raibna, near Agra, and he spent next two months in the field, going from village to village. In those two months, about a hundred villages were converted. Within the first month five thousand Malkanas were reclaimed, and by the end of the year the total had risen to about thirty thousand. Shraddhananda and his Arya [Samaj] collaborators were the acknowledged leaders of this initial push, and they naturally became the main target of Muslim agitation against shuddhi.â
The Muslim ulemas were enraged, and they spread all sorts of calumny and canards against the Swami. On March 18, 1923, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema condemned him in no uncertain terms. The brave Swami paid dearly for challenging the sword of Islam: three years later, he was assassinated by a Muslim fanatic.
What is interesting to note is the Congress, which had already gone into the Muslim appeasement mode, too did not take a very charitable view of the Swami Shraddhanandaâs great work. On April 8, Motilal Nehru said, âI would have been glad if the movement had not been started at this juncture when feelings are strained between Hindus and Mussulmans in Punjab.â His son, Jawaharlal, also opposed the movement at that point of time, though he was not against the principle of shuddhi. There was a Congress delegation to study the issue. It comprised Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Devi Sarojini, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The delegation alleged that the shuddhi workers had harassed some people, a charge firmly denied by the Swami.
One wonders what would be the response of modern-day Muslim appeasers if some Hindu groups were to fervently start a campaign to bring back Muslims to the Hindu fold. Immediately, there would be a role reversal: the liberals, secularists, and Leftists who wax eloquent about religious freedom would start talking religious harmony; they would argue that peace and communal amity should precede religious freedom. In the same fashion, in which they supported a practical ban on anti-Muslim Danish cartoons, though earlier they had passionately argued for the freedom of expression when the Hindus had protested against M.F. Husainâs nude Saraswati.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=148&page=38<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Funnily enough there was no Congress delegation when Muslims converted Hindus at Meenakshipuram in TN enmasse.
By Ravi Shanker Kapoor
It is a measure of Hindu insecurity that today Hindu organisations and leaders are against religious conversion. However, there was a time when prominent Hindu groups were zealously promoting religious conversion; thousands of Muslims were brought back to the Hindu fold; and Muslims vehemently opposed conversion.
The conversion movement gained momentum in 1923 by Swami Shraddhananda, the great Arya Samaj leader who did pioneering work in the field of social reform, particularly uplift of the so-called untouchables and women education. In Swami Shraddhananda: His Life and Causes (Oxford University Press), J.T.F. Jordens writes: âThe case of the Malkana Rajputs propelled the Swami into a new kind of leadership and brought his name back into headlines. The Malkana Rajputs, scattered among many villages between Mathura and Farrukhabad, were nominally Muslims, but their actual cultural and ritual customs were a strange mixture of Muslim and Hindu practices. Moreover, the mixture was itself varied: although many were practically completely Hindu, here were groups in which the Muslim aspect predominated.â
Attempts had been made earlier to reconvert them to Hinduism. âUnder the Swamiâs lead things started moving right away,â writes Jordens. âA Bharatiya Hindu Shuddhi Sabha was established, of which the Swami became President⦠The committee was inclined to proceed cautiously but the Swami argued for urgency⦠Ten days later the famous appeal appeared in the papers under the heading âSave the dying raceâ.â
The Swami had lamented earlier too that the Hindus were a âdying race,â though he worked ceaselessly for its survival and well-being. Not surprisingly, according to Jordens, âthe Swami threw himself wholeheartedly into the work. On Sunday 25 February he was present at the ceremony of reclamation of Malkanas to Hinduism at the village of Raibna, near Agra, and he spent next two months in the field, going from village to village. In those two months, about a hundred villages were converted. Within the first month five thousand Malkanas were reclaimed, and by the end of the year the total had risen to about thirty thousand. Shraddhananda and his Arya [Samaj] collaborators were the acknowledged leaders of this initial push, and they naturally became the main target of Muslim agitation against shuddhi.â
The Muslim ulemas were enraged, and they spread all sorts of calumny and canards against the Swami. On March 18, 1923, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema condemned him in no uncertain terms. The brave Swami paid dearly for challenging the sword of Islam: three years later, he was assassinated by a Muslim fanatic.
What is interesting to note is the Congress, which had already gone into the Muslim appeasement mode, too did not take a very charitable view of the Swami Shraddhanandaâs great work. On April 8, Motilal Nehru said, âI would have been glad if the movement had not been started at this juncture when feelings are strained between Hindus and Mussulmans in Punjab.â His son, Jawaharlal, also opposed the movement at that point of time, though he was not against the principle of shuddhi. There was a Congress delegation to study the issue. It comprised Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Devi Sarojini, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. The delegation alleged that the shuddhi workers had harassed some people, a charge firmly denied by the Swami.
One wonders what would be the response of modern-day Muslim appeasers if some Hindu groups were to fervently start a campaign to bring back Muslims to the Hindu fold. Immediately, there would be a role reversal: the liberals, secularists, and Leftists who wax eloquent about religious freedom would start talking religious harmony; they would argue that peace and communal amity should precede religious freedom. In the same fashion, in which they supported a practical ban on anti-Muslim Danish cartoons, though earlier they had passionately argued for the freedom of expression when the Hindus had protested against M.F. Husainâs nude Saraswati.
http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=148&page=38<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Funnily enough there was no Congress delegation when Muslims converted Hindus at Meenakshipuram in TN enmasse.