‘Ghar Vaapsis’ and name changes, some sociological pointers in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: What’s in a name? A rose by any name would still be a rose, the nominalist would say. Oh no! Everything is in a name. A rose is what it is due to its essence and can’t be called a lotus, counter the realists. Even as this conceptual battle remains unresolved over the ages, for the name-changers it is the realists who are the people of substance and who need to be taken more seriously than the nominalists.  

The change in names, whether for astro-numerological purposes or by virtue of change in one’s religion, is no mere setting-the-records-straight ritual. They seek to get into the Tamil Nadu Government Gazette to be official.This prosaic, innocuous daily line-up of tens of scores of applicants at the gates of the old, high-ceiling government press building-, in anxious wait of whether their names figure or not in the latest weekly bulletin-, would have hardly grabbed attention if not for the controversy stirred by the ‘Ghar Vaapsis’ in different parts of the country to ‘bring home the pro-changers’.  

A look at the long list published in state gazette’s two recent weekly bulletins of those who have changed their names by virtue of their religious conversion throws up interesting sociological pointers, some of which have wider ramifications in the era of economic globalisation. While a majority in the name-change lists pertain to Hindus, particularly women, converting to Islam, followed by Hindus having adopted the Christian faith, what the numbers say allude to more than the issue of conversion. As markets supposedly turn more liberal in the economic sphere, opportunities for freer movement among religions seems more.   

Instances of people from Islam converting to Hinduism, from Christianity to Hinduism and switchovers among the religions of the Judea-Christian faith- namely from Islam to Christianity and vice-versa- are also noticed, though the numbers there are much smaller for now. But they speak for a growing freedom to choose one’s faith amid a global basket of religions. Interestingly, some of the instances of re-conversion from Christianity or Islam to Hinduism as published in the gazette list, show they have been post- May 2014, after the BJP came to power at the Centre. Several other conversions to Islam are also noticed after this period. Is it some sort of a backlash to the ‘Ghar Vaapsi’ campaign backed by some pro-Hindu groups? The response was a firm and categorical ‘No’, when DC spoke to some political party leaders and religious representatives on this issue. They aver that many of these name-changes following religious conversions stem from legal and institutional requirements, like say when a Hindu woman marries a Muslim or a Christian, and not out of any religion-tinged ideological issues.

“I think more like a Congressman rather than as a Christian,” says former MP, Peter Alphonse, who is now with the G.K. Vasan-led Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC). “There is no backlash in Tamil Nadu. Muslims and Christians are unconcerned about the ‘Ghar Vaapsi’ programmes, which are more propagandistic than performatives,” says Prof. K.M. Khader Mohideen, Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader and former MP.

“The secular ethos is deep-rooted in Tamil Nadu, thanks to the Dravidian Movement; historically, conversions have taken place from almost all castes including the Brahmins to Islam in the past; they have not been under duress but out of understanding of the true nature of Islam,” says the IUML leader. Some political leaders admit to caste discrimination and hierarchy being an issue in Dalits in particular converting to other religions. But Prof. Khader Mohideen claims that even at Meenakshipuram in Tirunelveli district and nearby villages in the early 1980s’ where Dalits embraced Islam, it was more voluntarism at play than Islamic propaganda. The IUML also took a strong stand against ‘misguided’ Muslim groups like the ISIS, he pointed out. There was no need to change names even after becoming a Muslim, but people do it for “official, record purposes,” he opined.

“The aim of the Church is to serve the people beyond caste and creed and not conversion,” asserts Fr. Michael Raj of the Sivaganga Diocese; I am a catholic, because of my choice and the choice of my parents,” he stressed to drive home that anyone voluntarily opting Christian faith has to go through a long drawn process, beginning with training on the basic tenets in the parish. Baptizing to take a Christian name given by the Church comes only at the end of that long process when converts put everything in writing, he said. Thus, the ‘Ghar Vaapsi’ campaign has no impact in Tamil Nadu, he added.  

Barring a brief wavering phase since October 2002 -  when the previous AIADMK regime had brought in a law banning religious conversions “by force, allurement or fraudulent means” only for Ms. J. Jayalalithaa to revoke it in May 2004 after her party lost the Lok Sabha polls then - parties reflecting the more inclusive social ethos have stood to politically gain in Tamil Nadu. The latest instance is Amma’s own astounding win in the May 2014 Parliament elections, going it alone amid a pan-Indian Modi wave.

Religious conversions and the conceptual challenges posed to Hinduism, as modern India engaged with the West, has largely been a colonial legacy. However, one of India’s great sociologists, late M.N. Srinivas, as pointed out by another well-known sociologist Prof. Andre Beteille, had found that “Hindu intellectuals responded better to the challenge that their religion faced in the early phase of colonial rule, than their counterparts are doing today.” Isn’t it food for thought for today’s advocates of ‘Ghar Vaapsi’?