OPINION: 'Kerala Story' makes us feel conversion pangs, shames us for not doing enough to protect victims

Director Sudipto Sen's movie 'The Kerala Story' has used claims of three young Hindu/Christian girls from different parts of the State to expose the dark truth behind conversion practiced by some Muslim groups and the horror victims have to live through in later years. Conversion per say is not bad. It should be an individual's choice whether to convert to marry or live together as separate entities. In fact, a large number of individuals from different religions get married and live happily without embracing religion of their spouse.

But problem arises when religious organisations and radical preachers use love, coercion, deceit, money, brainwashing, etc as part of an agenda to convert people of other faiths for taking part in terrorist activities as 'jehadis' and for changing demography. As a consequence, law enforcement agencies step in to deal with such unlawful activities and affected communities, fearing loss of their religious, cultural and political relevance, become restive leaving social harmony in tatters.

Religious conversion is happening all over India but in Kerala, enormity of the problem is glaring. It is neither new nor recent. In 1981, hundreds of oppressed caste Hindus were converted to Islam at a widely publicised mass conversion event at Meenakshipuram. Muslims run several recognised religious conversion centres like Therbiyathul Islam Sabha in Kozhikode and Markazul Hidiya at Malappuram to lure and radicalise young non-Muslim women.

Though it is generally not acknowledged, Kerala's former Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandi admitted in 2001 that every year 2,800 to 3,200 girls get converted to Islam. A year later he was more specific with numbers. According to him, 2,667 girls were converted to Islam in 2002, of whom 2,195 were Hindus and the rest were Christians.

Presuming that this trend has continued for last 22 years, the figure of converts to Islam by now should be in several lakhs. Another report places the figure of converts at 5,793 during 2011-15, of whom 50% were women and 76% below 35 years of age. Even V.S. Achuthanandan, the veteran CPI(M) leader, accused radical Islamic groups of tempting young girls outside their community to marry Muslims for increasing their population and trafficking them for terror organisations in gulf countries with State government support led by Congress/UDF.

A State intelligence report also confirmed rumours of a large number of girls missing who were converted, indoctrinated and taken to service Afghan, Taliban, ISIS and Al-Qaeda jehadis. Four of them (Sonia Sebastian @ Ayisha, Raffeala, Mervin Jacob@ Mariyam and Nimisha @ Fatima) have since surfaced in Kabul and waiting to be deported to India after their husbands were killed in war.

Instead of showing compassion for traumatised families and chastising PFI and other groups for converting young girls to work for ISIS and as sex slaves, Jamaat Ulema-I-Hind, Congress and CPI(M) are busy contesting a non-issue - i.e. figure of conversion. Their worry is that a public discourse on the subject will cause hatred and enmity between different religious communities.

This is bizarre. The trust among communities you see on the surface is existing purely for reasons of political expediency and existential necessity. Let me explain how. The movie is not going to be screened in Kerala and Tamil Nadu because the State governments have refused to give protection to theatres. The truth is their Chief Ministers do not want to anger Muslims and lose their electoral support.

What about people of other faiths? They are too scared to risk their lives to see what they daily go through. In a State where Muslims convert Hindu and Christian girls rampantly, Christians convert Hindu girls regularly, though not so aggressively, and Hindu organisations like Arya Samajam work overtime to bring back deserters to their roost (7,500 have already come back since 1999), any talk of social harmony is dishonesty.

The situation is deeply troubling and calls for a serious public debate and creating social awareness. Movie has done its bit. The people, media and judiciary have to do the rest and not leave lives of gullible men and women in the hands of radical religious groups and vote-crazy politicians.

(Amar Bhushan worked with the Research and Analysis Wing for 24 years after briefly serving in the BSF intelligence, State Special Branch and Intelligence Bureau. He served as the Special Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat before he retired in 2005.)

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