Ignoring opposition in Parliament and private exasperation from their own political leader, spokesmen for India’s fundamentalist Hindu movement in late December mounted a vigorous defence of a campaign to bring Christian converts back to Hinduism.
‘This is our own country, our Hindu rash- tra (nation)’, said Mohan Bhagwat, head of Rashtriya Swayasevak Sangh which gives a nationalistic expression of Hinduism. Bhagwat made the statement in Kolkata, India’s third-largest city, during the golden jubilee celebrations of the World Hindu Council, which claims to have ‘reconverted’ several hundred thousand Christians and Muslims to Hinduism. ‘Those who strayed were lured away. They were looted from us’, Bhagwat was variously quoted as saying.