For many years now, organisations such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad have taken up the reconversion of Dalit Christians to Hinduism as ‘Ghar Wapsi’. But activists say without the reservation barrier, most Dalits would not leave Christianity, which is a core anxiety for Hindutva groups.
Aneesh* read Kunju Kaaryangalude Odeythampuran, the Malayalam translation of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, when he was in college. He picked up the book prompted by a casual remark from a classmate.
“He told me that there’s a character called Velutha in the novel who reminded him of me,” Aneesh recalled.
“Velutha was a Dalit Christian like me, who was in love with a Syrian Christian woman,” he said, a faint, painful smile crossing his face.
In the novel, Velutha is brutally tortured and killed for his ‘forbidden’ love. Though Aneesh, who belongs to the Pulaya community, has never faced physical violence like Velutha, he has encountered caste abuse, public humiliation, and social exclusion.
“It was 2010. Ours was a hilly village in Kannur district. A girl from my parish and I were in a relationship. We went to the same school and attended catechism classes together. Our families were not very different financially,” he said.
The relationship ended when the girl’s family came to know about it. “They publicly called me ‘Pelayan’, a casteist slur for Pulaya, ‘parassala christian’, and many other things. My skin colour, my caste, my family, everything was dragged out in public and insulted,” Aneesh said. ‘Parassala Christian’ is a derogatory term used for landless Dalit Christian families who moved from Parassala in Thiruvananthapuram to northern Kerala in search of work and land.
Aneesh’s grandparents had converted to Christianity long ago. His parents had migrated to the village in Kannur nearly five decades earlier from Parassala.
When the abuse began, Aneesh said there was no support from the church. “The church, the priest, no authority stood with us. It was a Syrian Christian-dominated area under the Syro Malabar Church. With that one incident, my family was casually ostracised,” he said.
Unable to continue living there, Aneesh left the village and went to north India to pursue further studies. His parents eventually moved back to Thiruvananthapuram.
Today, Aneesh is 40, married, and the father of two children. A few months ago, he, his wife, and their two children – both below the age of 10 – formally converted to Hinduism.
The conversion, Aneesh said, was facilitated by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a prominent right-wing Hindutva organisation. A ceremony was organised at a nearby temple. Volunteers helped him with the paperwork, to change his name through a gazette notification and obtain a caste certificate from the government.
“My conversion has nothing to do with faith or spirituality,” Aneesh said. “I still go to church. I also go to the temple. But being Christian gave me nothing… no protection, no dignity, no opportunity. By converting to Hinduism, at least my children will be eligible for reservation.”
Aneesh’s decision to convert was not rooted in faith but in paperwork. Like several others TNM spoke to, his move was driven by the loss of reservation benefits after generations within Christianity. This motivation runs through the data as well. Of the Dalits who converted to Hinduism in Kerala in 2024, a majority cited access to reservation in affidavits submitted to the VHP, which has been facilitating these conversions under the banner of ‘Ghar Wapsi’.
Activists and church representatives argue that this is not incidental. They point out that the continued denial of Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians is part of a long-term political design, one that leaves families with little choice but to return to Hinduism on paper to access constitutional protections. Conversion then becomes less a matter of belief and more a survival strategy shaped by law, caste, and state policy.
For several years now, organisations such as the VHP have taken up the reconversion of Dalit Christians to Hinduism as a mission.
The VHP confirmed to TNM that it facilitated around 100 Dalit conversions to Hinduism in the past year. The organisation requires those seeking reconversion to submit an affidavit stating the reason for the change. According to VHP functionaries, many affidavits cite reservation as the primary reason.
Anil Vilayi, VHP state president, however, says Dalit reconversions are not just about reservation. “Their ancestors may have gone to other religions due to false promises. When those promises were not fulfilled, they started returning. There is no forced conversion here. We are only helping them return to their swadharma, the faith to which they or their ancestors once belonged,” adding that they do not have any specific strategy.
Anil also said that the VHP manages around 200 temples across Kerala, where the reconversions are facilitated.
“Hindu communities are not economically strong. That is how Christian and Muslim organisations lure people, by offering money, housing, jobs abroad, and other material benefits,” he alleged.
“Christian organisations receive foreign funding, which makes it easier for them to provide these incentives. Poor families are easily drawn in,” Anil said, invoking the common rhetoric against Christians used by the Sangh in the country.
According to Anil, the VHP’s broader objective is to prevent people from leaving Hinduism. “Since the formation of the VHP, that has been our mission, in different forms,” he said.
He further said that the organisation has identified around 70 taluks in Kerala – most of them in Kottayam and Thiruvananthapuram districts – where conversions from Hinduism are “rampant”.
“In these regions, we are doing intensive and extensive work to prevent conversions. Across the state, we have around 100 Dharma Rakshakas who work at the ground level. They visit families and intervene,” he said.
Anil also described the ritual process involved in reconversion. “There are Shuddhi Kriyas, or purification rituals, to embrace Hinduism, along with other ceremonies conducted by temple priests. In VHP-managed temples, a separate group called Aayams oversees these reconversion rituals,” he added.
Another family TNM spoke to in Kottayam belongs to the Cheramar community. Gazette notification data shows that in 2024, 148 Cheramar Christians converted to Hinduism, along with 54 Sambavars and 22 Pulayas.
Rajan*, 62, converted to Christianity with his parents when he was 25. He said members of his family had already returned to Hinduism.
“My sister and her husband converted back some years ago. I decided to reconvert because it may help my son get a job. He converted along with me,” Rajan said.
Like Aneesh, Rajan framed the decision in pragmatic terms. “We still go to church. This is mostly on paper,” he said.
SC status key reason for reconversion
According to data from government gazette notifications accessed by The News Minute, in 2024 alone, 483 Dalit individuals in Kerala converted to different religions, accounting for more than half of all religious conversions recorded in the state that year. Of them, 262 Dalit Christians converted to Hinduism, while 150 Dalit Hindus converted to Christianity and 58 Dalit Hindus to Islam.
Several affidavits submitted to the VHP list access to reservation as the primary reason for reconversion. At least five families TNM spoke to independently cited the same as a key factor behind their decision.
Shibi Peter, who works with the National Council of Churches in India, a forum of Protestant and Orthodox churches, said the continued denial of Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians must be seen as part of a broader Hindutva project.
“The petition seeking an amendment to the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 to extend reservation benefits to Dalit Christians and Muslims has been formally opposed by 14 Dalit Hindu organisations from Kerala,” he said.
“No other state has seen such organised opposition. All this needs to be read together and understood as part of a larger agenda,” he added.
Kerala Pulayar Maha Sabha (KPMS), Kerala Velan Mahasabha, and Kerala Paravar Service Society are some among the organisations that have joined the petition opposing reservation for Dalit Christians.
According to KPMS coordinator Lojanan Ambatt, “Dalit Christians are numerically larger than the SC Hindu community in Kerala. Even the existing reservations are already being undermined. If Dalit Christians are also included in the SC category, the reservation system will be completely diluted. They may seek separate reservations, but they cannot share what already exists. They cannot be included under SC reservations.”
Manoj, a recent convert from the Cheramar community in Kottayam, also pointed to reservation as central to his decision. “I had a friend in the BJP who connected me with VHP workers. My wife and I converted through a ceremony a few years ago,” he said.
A daily wage worker, Manoj said his decision was shaped by personal experiences of vulnerability. “Some time ago, I was attacked by a person from my own church over a trivial issue. When a case was registered, the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act was not added because I did not have SC status,” he said.
“At the time, I did not think much about it. Later, when I spoke to my friend in the BJP, he told me it would be safer to return to Hinduism, especially when the BJP is ruling the country,” Manoj added.
He was firm about the insecurity he felt as a Dalit Christian. “Dalit Christians are not protected by the church. We are not provided jobs or legal support. In that situation, seeking SC/ST status becomes a necessity,” he said.
For 28-year-old Mahesh*, who belongs to the Pulaya community, it was securing a government job that led him to conversion. “I have been trying to crack the Kerala Public Service Commission examinations ever since I completed Class 12. But I was not able to. That is when a relative told me that there is an option to get reservation since we are converted Christians. He arranged everything. There were no issues in my family as we have many Hindu relatives. That is how I decided to convert last year,” he told TNM.
All the converts TNM spoke to said that VHP and other Hindu organisations, including Hindu Aikya Vedi, clearly explained the benefits of Ghar Wapsi to them, including eligibility for reservation and legal protection.
Not ‘Ghar Wapsi’
Though the VHP projects these as Ghar Wapsi, even the converts TNM spoke to, as well as Dalit activists, pointed out that the conversions have little to do with spirituality or religious belief.
The trend is also not recent. Data shows that a decade ago, in 2015, more than 600 Dalit Christians converted to Hinduism in Kerala. In 2020, over 170 Dalit Christians were recorded as having converted to Hinduism, indicating that such reconversions have not emerged suddenly.
Dalit activist Sunny Kapikad rejected claims of large-scale reconversions being framed as Ghar Wapsi, arguing that the phenomenon is being exaggerated for political purposes.
“This whole claim of Ghar Wapsi happening on a large scale is false. There is no mass return to Hinduism as it is being projected,” he said. “What is happening is limited and driven largely by the question of reservation, not religion.”
Kapikad pointed out that in regions like central Travancore, where missionary activity led to large-scale conversions decades ago, religious boundaries within Dalit communities remain fluid.
“In many families, people belong to both Christianity and Hinduism. Marriages between Pulaya Christians and Pulaya Hindus are very common,” he said. “Even within the same household, you will find people practising both religions. When there are documentation or reservation related issues, people choose to convert on record.”
Vinil Paul, Assistant professor at Kollam’s Fathima Matha National College who has researched Dalit Christian communities in Kerala, said the political projection of Ghar Wapsi does not reflect the ground reality in the state.
“Ghar Wapsi is projected as a major movement of the BJP government, but in Kerala it is not prominent,” he said. “It is often claimed to be happening just for the sake of saying it is happening.”
Vinil pointed to what he described as a discriminatory approach in policy-making around reservation. “Dalit Buddhists and Dalit Sikhs were included under the reservation framework without any detailed study or commission being appointed. There was no opposition then,” he said. “But Dalit Christians are repeatedly asked to prove the discrimination they face, even though many other castes were added to the Scheduled Caste list later without objections.”
He also rejected the argument that Dalit conversions were driven by material gain. “If Dalits had converted for monetary benefits, their social status would have changed by now. They would have education, assets, and social capital,” he said. “History shows none of this. We do not see any tangible benefits from conversion. These changes can only be understood as inner transformations.”
Vinil reiterated that caste is not erased through conversion or reconversion and that structural exclusion continues across religions. Reconversion, he said, offers only limited material relief while leaving deeper hierarchies untouched.
“Reconversion can at best provide access to reservation. Even after returning to Hinduism, casteism continues. Dalits still do not hold positions in temple committees, and there is not a single Dalit in the Devaswom Boards,” he said. “The same pattern exists in Christianity as well. In that sense, nothing really changes.”
Vinil argued that reservation might help a little to secure jobs but does not translate into social capital or dignity. Without the reservation barrier, he said, most Dalits would not feel compelled to leave Christianity, which he described as a core anxiety for Hindutva groups.
Syrian Christians, custodians of caste hierarchy
For centuries, Dalits within Hindu society were subjected to severe social exclusion, denial of dignity, and violence. In the 19th century, the arrival of Western Christian missionaries in Kerala offered many Dalit communities a sense of hope. Conversion to Christianity was seen as a collective escape from caste oppression and everyday humiliation. Large numbers of impoverished Dalits converted with the belief that changing their religion would also transform their social status.
However, the promise of equality did not materialise. Those who claim to have converted from Hindu upper caste groups to Christianity much earlier refused to accept Dalits as equals within the church or the broader community. Caste discrimination continued in the same form and sometimes with greater rigidity.
Syrian Christians of Kerala, also known as Saint Thomas Christians, trace their presence in the region to the earliest period of Christianity in India. The term ‘Syrian Christian’ reflects their historical association with the Church of the East and the use of Syriac as a liturgical language. Over time, the community diversified into multiple denominations, including the Syro Malabar Catholic Church, Syro Malankara Catholic Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Jacobite Syrian Christian Church, Malabar Independent Syrian Church, and the Chaldean Syrian Church.
Historically, Syrian Christians have asserted social superiority through two dominant narratives. One claim traces their conversion directly to St Thomas the Apostle, dated to around 52 AD, placing them among the earliest Christian communities in the world. Another claim holds that their ancestors were Brahmins who later embraced Christianity, a narrative that has been used to preserve caste status even after religious conversion.
Scholars have pointed out that religious texts were also selectively interpreted to justify hierarchy. The biblical verse, “Cursed be Canaan; the lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers,” which Noah is said to have pronounced on his grandson, was historically invoked by white Christians to legitimise the enslavement of African people. Critics argue that similar theological and social justifications were adapted locally to rationalise the continued subordination of Dalits within Christian communities in Kerala.
“When missionaries first came to Kerala, their aim was to convert Syrian Christians to Protestant denominations. These were financially well-off families, not necessarily devout Bible followers, but ancient Christians of Kerala,” activist Kapikad said. “In fact, widespread engagement with the Bible among Syrian Christians happened only after the Udayamperoor Sunnahadose in 1599. They practised untouchability and strongly resisted conversion because they claimed descent from St Thomas, Cana of Mesopotamia, and even Brahmins, which reinforced a sense of superiority.”
According to Kapikad, it was this resistance that redirected missionary attention towards Dalit communities, who were described by the British as the depressed classes.
“When converting Syrian Christians proved difficult, missionaries turned to Dalits. The first recorded Dalit conversion to Christianity in Kerala was in 1851,” he said. “These communities were not originally Hindus. They were the indigenous people of this land, with their own gods, rituals, and ways of worship. Mass conversion followed, driven by many factors including spirituality, faith, and the hope of dignity.”
Kapikad rejected the narrative that Dalits converted merely for material benefits and described how caste violence followed them into the church. “Syrian Christians created a story that Dalits came to church for wheat and clothes, but that is a lie. Dalit communities were deeply inspired by the Bible,” he said.
There were instances where Syrian Christians burned churches attended by Dalits. Dalit Christians were assaulted and many had to pray at night in hiding. “Conversion was also an attempt to escape untouchability, but even there they were treated badly, even in death,” he said.
He added that most Dalit conversions did not happen through Syrian Christian churches but through missionary organisations like the Church Missionary Society and London Missionary Society, followed later by Pentecostal groups, where Dalits still form the majority. Yet caste hierarchies, he said, remain deeply entrenched.
“There are around 25 lakh Dalit Christians in Kerala, and caste is visible in every denomination,” Kapikad said. “Unmarriagability is the clearest marker of caste. Catholics and Protestants will marry each other, but marrying a Cheramar Christian is unthinkable for Syrian Christians. It does not matter if that family has been Christian for three generations. Syrian Christians are a caste, not a religion.”
Vinil Paul pointed out that caste operates differently across communities that converted to Christianity, with some groups being absorbed into dominant Christian castes over generations while others remain permanently marked. According to him, communities other than Pulayar, Paravar, Kuravar, Ayyanavar, and Nadar often merge into Syrian Christian or Latin Catholic identities by the second or third generation, depending on the church they join. In contrast, members of these five communities continue to be identified as Dalit Christians even after several generations and are not socially accepted.
“What Syrian Christians have claimed for years is that they are descendants of a few Brahmin families converted by St Thomas,” Vinil said. “But if that were true, the descendants of those families today would number only a few lakhs. Instead, the Syrian Christian population stands at around 60 to 70 lakh, while the Brahmin population is about five lakh. This growth happened because many communities converted and were absorbed as Syrian Christians, except for those five castes who were never allowed in.”
Vinil added that historical population shifts can also be traced through the evolution of churches such as the Mar Thoma Church. He argued that caste hierarchies within Christianity are most visible in everyday social practices, especially marriage.
He says, “matrimonial websites and community spaces openly advertise separate categories for Cheramar Christians, Nadar Christians, and others, revealing how caste continues to structure Christian society in Kerala.”
The law
The original Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order of 1950 restricted SC status to those professing the Hindu religion, linking eligibility to the practice of untouchability within Hindu society. In 1956, the order was amended to extend reservation benefits to Dalits who had converted to Sikhism. More than three decades later, in 1989, Dalit Buddhists were also brought under the reservation framework.
In 1960, a separate government order laid down a procedural route for reconverted Dalits to access reservation. Under this order, individuals who returned to Hinduism could become eligible for reservation if they produced a certificate from a recognised Hindu organisation confirming their reconversion, along with a gazette notification declaring the change of religion. Since then, this provision has remained one of the key pathways through which Dalit Christians have reconverted to Hinduism, largely to regain access to reservation benefits.
Dalit Christians have been demanding an amendment to this provision for more than 70 years now.
Successive government-appointed commissions have also acknowledged caste-based discrimination faced by Dalit Christians. From the Kaka Kalelkar Commission on backward communities in 1955 to the Mandal Commission in 1980, official reports have recorded the persistence of caste hierarchies even after religious conversion. The Mandal Commission went a step further, recommending that Scheduled Caste converts to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and other religions should not be denied the benefits extended to Scheduled Castes, and that similar principles should apply to Other Backward Classes as well. The most recent of these, the Ranganath Misra Commission, constituted in 2004 to examine the issue of religious and linguistic minorities, also took up the question of extending reservation to Dalit Christians and Muslims, underlining that conversion had not erased social discrimination.
Conversion for the benefits of reservation is not legally approved. In November 2024, a bench comprising Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice R Mahadevan observed that conversion without genuine belief, undertaken only for reservation, amounts to a fraud on the Constitution.
“If the purpose of conversion is largely to derive the benefits of reservation but not with any actual belief in the other religion, the same cannot be permitted,” the court said. “The extension of reservation benefits to people with such ulterior motives will only defeat the social ethos of the policy of reservation.”
In the same judgement, the court examined the procedural validity of reconversion claims and noted the absence of credible evidence.
“The conversion had not happened by any ceremony or through Arya Samaj. No public declaration was effected,” the bench observed. “There is nothing on record to show that she or her family has reconverted to Hinduism.”
* Names changed
Written by:Haritha John
Edited by:Vidya Sigamany
Courtesy : TNM
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