Karnataka/The anti-conversion bill stands in the way of people’s dignity: Cynthia Stephen

“Why does the majority fear a minority community that comprises only 2-3% of the population? Why is the ‘56-inch chest’ afraid of us?” Cynthia Stephen, activist, researcher and independent journalist, thundered into the microphone at a protest in Bengaluru’s Freedom Park last December. About 40 civil society organisations had gathered there to protest the anti-conversion bill, formally the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, introduced by the State government. “This Bill that the ruling BJP legislators want to pass is against the very Constitution they took their oath on while assuming power. It furthers the Manusmriti-sanctioned agenda of Brahminical patriarchy that delegitimises women, Dalits and other minorities,” Cynthia said.

The Bill seeks to punish forced or induced conversions. It prohibits conversion by “misrepresentation, force, allurement, fraudulent means, or marriage.” The Karnataka Assembly passed the Bill by a voice vote on December 24, even as the Congress and JD(S) opposed it. It is yet to be tabled in the Legislative Council.

Timely distraction

According to Cynthia, “The Bill is a red herring to distract us from real issues like the multi-crore bitcoin scam in the State and the pothole-ridden roads in Bengaluru despite a whopping ₹20,000 crore being spent on them.” She goes on to say that, under this law, even acts of charity can be construed as inducement, attracting stringent punishment. “During the pandemic, I raised funds to distribute rations among women through my NGO. This action can attract a 10-year sentence under the statute. Services provided by convent schools and Christian hospitals can be similarly penalised.” Every offence in the Bill is non-bailable and cognisable, with imprisonment between three and ten years and fines up to ₹50,000.

Over the past few years, similar laws have been introduced in many other States like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh.

Vocal on issues of Dalit oppression and women’s representation, Cynthia has often been trolled as a “rice bag convert”. It is an intimidation tactic used to thwart dissent, she says. One of her tweets reads: “The reference is to the fact that my ancestors, three generations ago, allegedly converted to Christianity to get rice. I’m glad they did coz they also got education. That’s why I can speak of injustice on social media”.

Cynthia’s was a middle-class Christian family. Her father was an engineer and her mother, a teacher. “I did not grow up with caste consciousness. I grew up thinking of myself as privileged, cocooned by my social circle. Only much later did I realise that society was seeing me as Dalit. This realisation was distressing but eye-opening. It was a watershed moment. I unpacked and unravelled my Dalit ancestry,” she says.

One grandparent each on her maternal and paternal sides are Dalit. But it took her years to figure it all out because her family was hesitant to talk about it or acknowledge that they were Dalit. “I am proud to be part of a very talented and compassionate people, who have shown courage, struggled and persevered. I acknowledge my privilege and have no intention of taking the spaces that belong to those who have faced discrimination. I’m only advocating for the people until they find a voice. Once they do, I will retreat into the background,” she says.

Thrice removed

Any time there has been mobilisation by the Dalits, especially for access to natural resources like water, poromboke land, or land for housing, there’s an invariable retaliation by the upper castes. “An immediate response to any attempt at assertion of rights by Dalits is subjecting Dalit women, who face thrice removedness by virtue of gender, caste and class, to systematic sexual violence,” Cynthia says. The 2006 Khairlanji massacre is one such caste atrocity in the context of land rights. Educational aspirations of Dalit children, too, are ruthlessly crushed. “Decades ago, Dalit boys with good academic records would be murdered and girls raped and impregnated. The new-age version of this is institutional murder, such as in the cases of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi.”

It is ironical that the current dispensation speaks of “ghar wapsi” or returning to the Hindu fold, Cynthia says. Because it was only by the stroke of a pen during the census operation that communities of Adivasis and Dalits were made Hindu. “Culturally and historically speaking, they are not Hindus. The Brahminical forces have co-opted indigenous gods and goddesses with their grand and meta narratives. And after appropriating these faiths, they have the audacity to fine Dalits for entering temple premises,” she says, referring to an incident last September in Koppal district, where a Dalit family was fined ₹25,000 after their toddler stepped into a temple.

Under such conditions, the state cannot bully people seeking dignity, she says. “You cannot win over love with violence. The Brahminical system that people want to abandon is a clinical, cruel and cold system with no conception of love but of control.” How else do you explain one’s own family committing violence against one in the name of caste, Cynthia asks. She talks of the ‘othering’ that is practised by Brahminical patriarchy. “Brahminical patriarchy others women and anyone who is not a Dwija male.”

Karnataka is the only southern State where the BJP is in power, and it wasn’t until 2007, when the JD(S) brokered power with the BJP, that the party got an opportunity to rule the State. With influential caste groups, the power struggle in Karnataka has always alternated between the Vokkaligas and Lingayats. Cynthia says, “This was the first time the Vokkaligas and Lingayats came together to form a government. The powerful Lingayat community mostly backed BJP’s B.S. Yediyurappa, under whose leadership the party grew.”

Unlike Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, which are led by culturally-rooted regional parties, Karnataka hasn’t had any iconic politicians who have held sway as opinion leaders. It is also culturally very diverse and fragmented, a cultural Rubik’s cube with a lot of possibilities. “The diversity of the State, which used to be our strength, has become its Achilles heel,” says Cynthia. She says, “Although not surprising, the increased instances of intolerance, moral policing, hate crimes and vigilantism definitely go against the ethos of Bengaluru.”

And yet, society is in a churn and all hope is not lost. Cynthia says, “My generation will remember a pledge: ‘India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters’. The pledge ends with: ‘In their well-being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness’. I want to bring back those values into the formal structure of education and change the way we teach and raise our children in order to create a harmonious, inclusive, respectful and equal future.”

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru.