Why Conversion Cases Like TCS Nashik Persist?

This unfinished draft was prepared by late Balbir Punj a day before his passing on April 18. A month has now passed since his demise. In light of the recent arrest of Nida Khan in the alleged conversion case, which has once again brought the Nashik TCS matter into focus, the draft acquires renewed relevance

This column continues my earlier piece, “Predatory Jihadis on the Move: ‘Secularists’ Continue Denial Mode” (April 16). There, I had argued that sections of India’s self-appointed secular intelligentsia have, for decades, functioned less as neutral guardians of constitutionalism and more as apologists for organised religious conversion networks, coercive mobilisation, and ideological radicalism. The Nashik TCS sexual exploitation and conversion controversy has once again exposed that uncomfortable reality.

The reactions to my previous article, both in private correspondence and on social media, only strengthened my conviction that a large section of our society instinctively recognises the pattern. Yet an entrenched ecosystem continues to minimise, rationalise, or suppress any scrutiny of conversion-linked networks. The issue, therefore, is not whether such tendencies exist, but how they continue to operate so effectively within contemporary India while retaining moral legitimacy in elite discourse.

The broader subcontinental experience offers important context. Wherever exclusivist Islamist politics has acquired overwhelming social or political dominance, pluralism has steadily weakened. Pre-Islamic cultures, minority traditions, and indigenous civilisational memories have either been marginalised or erased. In such societies, ideological assertion is open and unapologetic; there is little requirement for the language of secular camouflage. The demographic contrast across the subcontinent remains striking. At the time of Partition, Muslims in residual India constituted under ten per cent of the population; today the figure stands near fifteen per cent. Meanwhile, non-Muslim minorities- Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists- in neighbouring Islamic states have witnessed severe decline. In Pakistan, Hindus-Sikhs together accounted for nearly fifteen per cent of the population at independence; today they are reduced to a negligible minority. In Bangladesh, the Hindu-Buddhist population has steadily contracted over the decades. These are not merely statistical developments. They are indicators of bigger civilisational change.

Lahore offers a poignant illustration. Traditionally associated with Lav, the son of Lord Rama, the city once represented a vibrant confluence of Hindu, Sikh, and Jain heritage. Syed Muhammad Latif’s nineteenth-century work ‘Lahore’ documents numerous temples and shrines that once flourished there. During my visit to Pakistan in 2003, I searched for remnants of that civilisational landscape. What survived was largely neglect, silence, and decay. Even the ancient Lav Temple within Lahore Fort appeared abandoned to memory rather than preserved as heritage.

Afghanistan presents an even harsher lesson. Once a flourishing centre of Hindu-Buddhist learning and later sanctified by the travels of Guru Nanak, it housed thriving Hindu-Sikh communities until the late twentieth century. Decades of extremism, sectarian violence, and Taliban rule virtually extinguished that presence. Civilisations do not disappear overnight; they erode gradually when ideological intolerance acquires institutional sanction. Kashmir remains India’s most painful internal example. The land of Rishi Kashyap, once renowned for Shaivite-Buddhist scholarship, underwent profound transformation after the fourteenth century.

Kalhana’s Rajatarangini portrays a society rooted in intellectual plurality, yet subsequent centuries of Islamisation steadily altered its demographic and cultural character. Under Hindu Dogra rule (1846-1947), pluralism witnessed a brief revival. However, during the twentieth century, under the communal politics of Sheikh Abdullah, the irony was that forces of Islamist consolidation grew steadily stronger in the name of secularism, even as the marginalisation of Kashmiri Pandits deepened. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the fragility of that coexistence stood brutally exposed through the mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits. Amid terror, targeted killings, and an atmosphere of fear, hundreds of thousands of Pandits were forced to become refugees within their own country. For many Muslims of the subcontinent during the tumultuous years of Partition, religious allegiance often appeared to supersede territorial nationalism. In this context, the observations recorded by Dr. Karan Singh in his autobiography ‘Heir Apparent’ assume considerable significance. Recalling the Pakistan-backed invasion of Jammu and Kashmir in October 1947, he noted that a substantial section of Muslim personnel within the State Forces, influenced by religious affinity, gradually drifted away from loyalty to the Maharaja and awaited an opportunity to defect. His observations reflected the tragic communal contagion unleashed by Partition across the subcontinent.

India, however, differs fundamentally from its neighbours because its timeless civilisational plural ethos, the constitutional structure still imposes restraints upon overt sectarianism. Consequently, coercive mobilisation often assumes subtler forms. In Islamic Pakistan, reports of abductions and forced conversions of Hindu-Christian-Sikh girls’ surface regularly. Such acts cannot be institutionalised so openly in residual India. Instead, allegations increasingly centre on covert grooming, emotional manipulation, conversion-linked pressure and ‘Love-Jihad’. The recent controversy surrounding the world’s second-largest IT services brand TCS unit in Nashik has been cited as one such instance. Recent years have also witnessed repeated clashes during Hindu religious processions, particularly during Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti celebrations. Earlier this year, Hindu youth Tarun Kumar was allegedly lynched in Delhi’s Uttam Nagar following a dispute during Holi festivities. Such incidents deepen public anxiety and widen the distance between elite commentary and lived social experience. Judicial interventions have occasionally attempted to restore balance.

In 2021, the Madras High Court rejected arguments seeking to prevent Hindu processions through Muslim-majority localities, warning that such reasoning would damage the secular fabric of the nation and encourage fragmentation. Yet this is scarcely a recent phenomenon. More than seven decades ago, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, in his seminal work ‘Pakistan or the Partition of India’, identified three recurring flashpoints underlying Hindu-Muslim tensions: cow slaughter, music before mosques, and religious conversions. At this juncture, an important distinction must be maintained: the actions of individuals or groups cannot and should not be attributed to an entire community.

When Hindu godman Asaram Bapu was convicted, there was no nationwide mobilisation seeking immunity from the law. In contrast, Sections of the Islamist have rushed to defend the accused, while conspicuous silence has prevailed across significant sections of the Muslim community. That asymmetry inevitably raises difficult questions. This phenomenon is not confined to India alone. Following the October 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel, disturbing visuals emerged from Gaza showing crowds celebrating the violence and the taking of hostages. Such scenes, irrespective of geopolitical context, compel a deeper examination of societal attitudes. India’s strength has always rested in civilisational pluralism. But it cannot survive upon biased silence or moral asymmetry. It requires reciprocity, honesty, and the courage to confront coercion regardless of its source.

The lesson for India is neither intolerance nor triumphalism. A confident civilisation neither persecutes minorities nor abandons historical memory. Democracies endure only when laws function without selective outrage and when intellectual honesty prevails over ideological convenience. India’s plural character survived through centuries because of its Hindu civilisational ethos, which is inherently secular, democratic, and inclusive- rooted not merely in constitutional mandate, but in a deeper cultural consciousness. If that equilibrium is weakened by denial, evasiveness, or protected radicalism, the damage will not remain confined to any one community alone; it will gradually erode the very foundations of national cohesion and stability.

Swami Vivekananda was prophetic. Speaking to ‘Prabuddha Bharata’ in April 1899, he warned: “Every man going out of the Hindu pale is not only a man less, but an enemy more.” His words a reminder that a civilisation incapable of preserving confidence in its own cultural foundations ultimately weakens the very pluralism it seeks to defend.

Recent years have also witnessed repeated clashes during Hindu religious processions, particularly during Ram Navami and Hanuman Jayanti celebrations

The writer was an eminent columnist, former Chairman of the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), This article was shared by his daughter Shweta Punj; Views presented are personal.