Religious conversion: A threat to India’s unity, integrity and security

Bharat (India) has many challenges, from achieving economic sustainability to securing its border from external forces. However, one of the major challenges before the country today is the changing demography in many states, especially in bordering areas. This is far more dangerous than any other security threat, as the country in the past has faced the betrayal by radical Islamist forces, who looted, tried to destroy the Indian culture and eventually succeeded in dividing the country. One of the biggest reasons behind demography change is an exodus of Hindus from these areas and growing incidents of conversion using foreign funding and the incident of ‘love Jihad’ that really exists. Of course, both radical Islamic organizations and Christian missionaries are involved in this dirty game. Recently, as per the report, in Uttar Pradesh, under the provisions of the anti-conversion law (Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020), that came into existence in 2020; more than 340 people were booked. According to the UP Police, 77 victims before the magistrate accepted that they were forced to convert. Also, UP ATS recently said that nearly 5 lakh people were forcibly converted to Islam, using foreign funding of Rs 57 crore through a hawala network across 24 states.

Importantly, in Kerala, the Muslim population was 17.5% in 1951, which has increased to 26.6%. In Bengal, Muslim population during the same year was 20%, which has increased to more than 30% by 2021. In 1951, Muslim population in Assam was 17.6%, which has increased to almost 37%. Here, it is worth mentioning that in the last 140 years, there is a major demographic change if we look at India combined with Pakistan and Bangladesh from the pre-partition point of view. In 1872, Muslims constituted 24% and Hindus were 72%. Though the Muslim population at the present juncture has reached almost 55 crores (Bangladesh 15 crore, Pakistan 20 crore, and India 20 crore, as per 2011 census), and the Hindu population about 103 crores. Even if we take other minorities then the whole population reaches 160 crore and among them now the Hindu constitutes 64% and Muslim 34%. Therefore, in reality, Hindus population has declined by more than 8% in the last 150 years.

In India, like radical Islamist organizations, several Christian missionaries are equally involved to convert Hindus especially Hindu tribals and Dalits to Christianity. As per ‘The Print’ report in December 2021, which quoted a member of United Christian Front in Punjab, the number of Churches in Amritsar and Gurdaspur district has increased to 600-700 and 60-70% of this growth has happened only in the last five years. Notably, in Punjab, Christian missionaries are converting people through ‘Changai Sabha’ meeting, which is being organised at many places on a daily basis.

Having said that, the changing demography in the country has now become a matter of National security and India has already seen riots and vandalism of public properties in many states. Even in-state like Bengal and Karnataka, police stations have been targeted, which also shows the growing radicalization among a section of Muslim society, who are not even afraid of taking law and order into their hands. In this backdrop, here it is worth mentioning while commenting on government's decision to extend BSF jurisdiction to 50 kilometers inside the international border, BSF DG Pankaj Kumar Singh said that due to the demographic change, there have been agitations, revolts and even the voter pattern has changed in certain districts.

The fact of the matter is that the growing number of incidents of forced religious conversion is a threat to India’s unity, integrity, and overall security because the conversion changes the behavior of the person due to the ideology he or she follows, which does not respect the diversity and not believe in tolerance.