Who was Dilip Singh Judeo, the champion of ‘ghar wapsi’ in Chhattisgarh, whose statue Mohan Bhagwat will unveil?

Nine years after his death, Chhattisgarh will get the statue of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Union Minister Dilip Singh Judeo. It will be unveiled by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat in Jashpur.

The 12-feet statue is sculpted by Ram V Sutar, the man behind the 108-feet statue of Bengaluru founder Nadaprabhu Kempegowda, which was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and the famous Statue of Unity of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in Gujarat. The statue shows the Chhattisgarh leader twirling his moustache as he often did during his prime. It was commissioned by the BJP government in 2013 and was ready by 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a delay in the inauguration.

The unveiling of the statue is being looked at as BJP and RSS’ attempts to revive Judeo’s legacy and its influence in Chhattisgarh ahead of next year’s Assembly elections.

The MP from the royal family

Dilip Singh Judeo was born into the erstwhile royal family of Jashpur; his father Raja Vijay Bhushan Singh Deo was its last ruling prince. In 2000, after Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Jashpur became part of the new state.

In the Jashspur district, tribals called Judeo “Rajaji” and “Kumarsaheb”.

He was a two-term member of Parliament from Bilaspur and a three-term Rajya Sabha MP. He was a Union minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Cabinet in 2003 – a Minister of State for Environment and Forests. He was also a member of the RSS and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The champion of ‘ghar wapsi’

According to his Lok Sabha profile, Judeo worked toward “tribal upliftment, preservation of Hindu temples and shrines, checking tribal conversion, and Ghar Wapsi programme of Hindus. He put his weight behind the controversial “ghar wapsi” campaign, where indigenous people of the state were “re-converted to Hinduism”. He famously washed the feet of tribals who had converted to Christianity as part of a ritual for their “re-entry” to the Hindu religion.

“I know the tactics adopted by missionaries in many countries. It’s not just conversion, it will lead to changing the character of the country… I am not against Christians, but only against conversion,” Judeo had said while campaigning for the 2009 Lok Sabha elections in Bilaspur district, according to a report by The Indian Express.

He graduated from a missionary college, St. Xavier College, Ranchi, but was critical about those converting tribals to Christianity.

Dilip Singh Judeo was fondly called 'Rajaji’ and ‘Kumarsaheb’ by locals. Image courtesy: @prabaljudevBJP/Twitter

Other controversies

In 2003, Judeo was considered a chief ministerial candidate in Chhattisgarh. However, his popularity took a hit after he was caught on camera reportedly accepting a bribe for mining rights in Chhattisgarh, The Sunday Express had reported.

He was forced to resign before the November 2003 elections.

Judeo’s legacy

While he faced a lot of criticism for “ghar wapsi”, it played a key role in cementing BJP’s position in Chhattisgarh. The party won three consecutive Assembly elections since the state’s first poll in 2003. In the 2018 election, it suffered a big blow as it lost to Congress, winning only 15 out of 90 seats.

With the unveiling of the statue, BJP hopes to revive Judeo’s legacy as it sets the groundwork for next year’s election. Its campaign will focus on wooing voters from the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.

Religious conversions of tribals in Chhattisgarh are expected to be the talking point ahead of the Assembly polls. The BJP has claimed that there has been a change in voting patterns in the state because of forced conversions and has coined a slogan “‘dharmantaran se matantaran” (religious conversions leading to change in political choices) to raise awareness about it, according to a report in India Today.

Carrying forward the work done by the father is his third son Prabal Pratap Singh. (Judeo’s two sons died early – Shatrunjay Sing Judeo in 2012, and Yudhvir Singh Judev, an MLA, in 2021). “My father fought against all these well-funded foreign forces alone, and he had an unflinching support of the tribals…. He always said that protecting Hindus is more sacred than building temples,” Prabal Pratap, a BJP leader told ThePrint.

He reportedly organised a ghar wapsi of 15,000 tribals this week and is expected to restart a similar campaign in and around Jashpur.

“There has been a rise in conversions ever since the Congress came to power in Chhattisgarh. This has led to tensions in the tribal society and it needs to be checked,” Prabal Pratap told India Today. “The unveiling of the statue of my late father will help galvanise BJP workers to work for my father’s ideals of serving the tribal people.”

With inputs from agencies

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