Religious vs political conversion

BJP National President JP Nadda during a road show ahead of West Bengal Assembly polls, in Malda district, West Bengal. Pic/PTI

After the waiter brought two cups of coffee to our table, placed outside the restaurant where we were meeting, my radical Leftist friend took off the mask she was wearing, and asked: "What is the difference between the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party?" It is her style to spark a discussion with a question. Up for it, I replied, "BJP believes in Hindu nationalism, the Trinamool does not."

She promptly popped up another question: "What is the difference between the Congress and the BJP?" I chuckled and said, "They have two different ideologies, two different histories, although…" I was about to cite instances from the past when the Congress opted for a paler version of Hindutva, but the radical Leftist had already shot another question, "What is the difference between the BJP and the Communists?" That got me, for I remarked, rather irritably, "Oh, come on. They are like chalk and cheese."

My friend took two quick sips of coffee and began to rattle out, from memory, these figures: 18 MLAs from the Trinamool, three from the Congress and four together from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India. "These 25 MLAs have joined the BJP, even after opposing Hindu nationalism all their lives," she said.

I could not fathom why she seemed so horrified, for the explanation for their political shift was simple. "They think a BJP ticket is their best bet to enter the West Bengal Assembly," I said. As an afterthought, I added, "Although a couple of them might have come around to the view that Hindu nationalism or Prime Minister Narendra Modi are the steroids India needs."

"Just what Jyotiraditya Scindia must have thought before jumping ship," she trilled, guffawing. But she wasn't over yet with her questioning: "What is the difference between Hinduism and Islam?" I was taken aback at the change in tack of our conversation. Curious to know what she was driving at, I mumbled, "Hinduism is polytheistic, Islam is monotheistic. Hinduism and Islam are two completely different systems of belief…"

The radical Leftist butted in, "Just as Communism and Hindutva are polar opposites." She paused and asked, "What makes a person switch from believing in Marx to reposing faith in Savarkar?" I said a BJP MP did that in his younger days - and look where he is today! But I don't think she heard me, for she continued in the same vein, "What makes a person abandon the ideas of Gandhi, Nehru, Netaji and Ambedkar to embrace those of, say, Golwalkar?"

I gestured at her to lower her voice - didn't she know of a comedian who was sent to jail for a joke he did not even crack? The issue she was discussing was just too dangerous to do so in hearing distance of strangers. "Please," I said softly, "What are you driving at?"

After taking two gulps of coffee, my radical friend said, "If conversion from one faith to another is impermissible, shouldn't politicians also be banned from switching their political ideologies? Why this double standard?" I promptly countered that the norms governing the realm of politics, or the profane, could not be applied to the world of the sacred. I added, "Besides, switching from Marx and Gandhi to Savarkar and Golwalkar is not quite like switching from Allah to Bhagwan, and vice versa."

She asked me whether I knew what the sociological term for "conversion for marriage" was. Because I shook my head, she said, "It is called the conversion of convenience. Very likely, such an apostate, to begin with, would not be even a believer."

The word convenience had an instant echo in me. I said, "Abandoning an ideology to embrace another is also a matter of convenience or, let us say, advantages."

"That is true for conversion for marriage as well," she said, explaining that couples often convert before marriage to wear down opposition from their families, to qualify for religious ceremonies considered necessary for weddings. She said she knew of cases where couples went through the formalities of embracing each other's faith, to satisfy both families brought together by what we quaintly call love marriage.

"It is jugaad," I said.

The radical Leftist said millions in India are at different stages of conversion, consciously deviating from the path their religions prescribe, breaking taboos, not even visiting temples, mosques or churches.

"They are disinterested in religion," she said, raising her voice. I felt, or perhaps imagined, glances thrown at us. "Switching from one ideology to another helps politicians to become MLAs. Conversion for marriage gets apostates the partners they love."

"Still…," I said, interrupted by the waiter who came with the bill. A voice murmured at the adjoining table, "They must have studied at JNU."

Walking away from the restaurant, I cautioned her from taking to social media to point to the similarity between the conversion for marriage and the ideological apostasy for power. A phlegmatic soul, the radical Leftist responded, "What's the news on journalists against whom FIRs were registered for their tweets on the farmers' movement?" Ask Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli, I nearly said.

The writer is a senior journalist. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com.
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