Oh, not difficult to short-out their warped imaginations

Submitted by Devasahayam (United States), May 19, 2008 at 15:27

"...They could never be considered unimaginative ..."

One topic that I've never seen any imaginative (the total range was between lame and ultra-ultra-lame) replies on is that of back-conversions--more specifically those of Dalits.

Even during Curzon's Viceregency, 80% of Dalits who embraced Islam would back-convert to "whatever" (as they were not considered Hindus for census purposes until 1926) as they generally found the oppression of Islam to exceed that which they faced (and had been facing throughout life) from "uppercaste" Hindus. Contrastingly, less than 1% of those who embraced Christianity did so (despite of oppression from "uppercaste" converts and descendants***).

The proportions are still generally true (actually back-conversion rates of Dalits in 2001 was 89%) today.

***Caste system continues to be a problem in Indian church, especially Catholic. I can remember hearing (on a 1974 vacation trip to India) Mumbai's police chief Julio Ribeiro claiming his daughter "would only be allowed to marry a Saraswat Christian" (descendant of Brahmin convert) to my uncle (who was then in police service). Without thinking, I piped-up "what meaning does caste have for a Christian?" (I actually didn't really understand even why it would be so much of an issue for Hindus) for which my uncle had to do some "damage control".

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