July 7, 1981, Forty Years Ago: TN conversions

Home Minister Giani Zail Singh assured members of the consultative committee of Parliament attached to his ministry that the government would investigate the reported large-scale conversion of Hindus to Islam in a village in Tamil Nadu. The committee members include Niren Ghosh (CPM), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Janata Party) and Madhu Dandavate (Janata). The panel alleged that a huge sum of money had been spent to bring about these conversions. They also referred to complaints that foreign money had been involved in the conversions. The Home Minister said that the Constitution gave every citizen the right to profess, practice and propagate religion. But indulging in forced conversions would be an abuse of this right.

Sailo’s complaint

The Chief Minister of Mizoram Brigadier T Sailo has protested to the prime minister that while talking peace with Laldenga in Delhi, the government is allowing his followers in the Mizo National Front a free run to terrorise people in the state. Armed men, he alleged, have been stalking government officials and forcing them to pay a part of their salaries. “A lot of government officers have had to pay out of fear,” he said. He said gun-totting MNF members were extorting money on the Silchar-Aizawl highway.

UK racial violence

As Liverpool was counting the cost of two successive nights of street violence, Skinheads who had triggered off a riot in Southall last week warned of a “rough summer” of racial violence in Britain. Interviewed over London radio, the Skinheads threatened another riot this week. They blamed coloured people for the trouble. But some listeners who came in on the phone in service of the programme described the Skinheads as “a disgusting lot of illiterate louts” and alleged that they had been proving Asians by making abusive remarks against them.