Patna: Eight more Hindus converted to Christianity in Bihar amid the raging conversion controversy that has badly paralysed the functioning of the Indian parliament.
The development comes hours after the Dharm Jagaran Samiti leader Rajeshwar Singh declared on Friday that India would be free of Muslims and Christians by 2021.
Local media on Saturday reported all the eight Hindus who embraced Christianity are extremely poor, belonging to Dalit community. They hail from Ratanpura village in eastern Bihar’s Munger district.
“We have ordered an investigation into the entire matter,” the local district magistrate Amarendra Prasad Singh told the media on Saturday.
But, the converts reportedly told a team of officials who visited the spot to probe into matter that they embraced Christianity voluntarily to lead a life of “honour and dignity”. Reports said one of the converts identified as Prakash Manjhi even performed the last rites of his mother Vimla Devi with Christian rituals.
“We have converted to Christianity to lead a life of dignity and honours. Also, we hope to arrange better education for our children and adequate health care facility for our family now that we have embraced Christianity,” Manjhi told the local media which reached the spot after receiving news of their conversions.
Another convert Narendra Manjhi said he had been impressed with the message of Christianity and hence, had embraced this religion. “Long time back, I had studied the Bible and its message impressed me quite a lot. So, I finally decided to embrace Christianity,” he explained.
The incident comes barely three days after a group of poor Hindu villagers at Barohia village in Bhagalpur district of Bihar converted to Christianity on Tuesday. Three of them later returned to Hindu fold after strong protests from Hindu groups.
A spokesman of the Vishwas Hindu Parsihad Rakesh Sinha said three of the converted Hindus had “returned back home” and efforts were on make others follow suit. “They were asked to take a holy dip in Ganga and offer prayers in a temple before accepting them as Hindus,” Sinha said.
India is currently rocked by intensive ghar wapsi (homecoming) campaigns launched by various hardline Hindutva groups which have badly paralysing Parliament the whole past week. Even as the matter appeared slowly settling down, a hard-core Hindutva leader kicked up another controversy by publicly declaring that India would be free of Muslims and Christians by 2021.
“India would be made free of Muslims and Christians by 2021, and they would all be converted to Hinduism. India is the country of Hindus alone and (Muslims and Christians) have no rights to live here,” Dharm Jagran Samiti region head Singh was quoted as saying in the local media during a function held in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.
