Forced Conversions to Hinduism

-Mahavir Sanglikar

(Shivdharmi Marathas should think about this subject seriously)

Hinduism is being forced on the followers of Non-Vedic religions like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, and people like Dalits, Adivasis and NTs. The people forcing it do not tell you to go to Hindu temples or perform rituals, but they just change your religious identity on documents. They write your religion as Hindu wherever possible.

All this starts right from the admission of the pregnant woman to the maternity home. When the registration process goes on, the clerk writes her religion as Hindu, without asking her or her relatives accompanying her. For these clerks, if the woman is not a Muslim or Christian, then she is a Hindu. After the birth of the child, the doctor issues a birth certificate mentioning the child's religion as a Hindu. For the parents, the religion is not important at that time as they are in heaven. They do not take pain even for reading it. But thereafter, whenever they see the birth certificate, they find that their child is converted to Hinduism.

Same thing happens in the school while the admission of the child. The parents do not know that here also their child is growing as a Hindu. They realize it only when the student gets a `School Leaving Certificate' from the school. It mentions the religion of the student as Hindu-Sikh or Hindu-Punjabi in case of Sikhs, Hindu-Jain in case of Jains and Hindu-Buddhist in case of Buddhists. Sometimes it mentions just `Hindu'. So the School Leaving Certificate is actually Certificate of Religious Conversion to Hinduism.

The most stupid thing in these School Leaving Certificates is that there is no standardized format for it. One school mentions `Religion and caste', other mentions `Race and religion', another mentions `Race and caste'. Who knows about race? But many schools have a `Race' column on the leaving certificate. It is there because it was there while British rule. Change is not acceptable for most of the people.

Now let us speak about the census. On every tenth year, the Census Commission of India counts the people of India. The Census form mentions 7 religions namely Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi. The followers of other religions are counted under `Other' column. But while census, the data
collectors do the same thing what the clerks in hospitals do. They do not ask religion at all. For them all those are Hindus if their name is not a Muslim or Christian name. This happens not just because of lack of knowledge. It is being done systematically by the Hindutwa minded people working as Census Data
Collectors.

The population of Hindus in India is about 79%. It is because of the forced Hinduism. We can not know the actual population of Jains, Buddists, Sikhs and people having 'No' religion in India. We can not know the actual population of Adivasis and Nomadic tribes, who are not Hindus but they are counted as Hindus.