Laba Digal, 50, sits mending flat tires of bicycles and two-wheelers near the thoroughfare in Kasinipada, a village in the district of India that saw the most anti-Christian violence this fall. Digal says he was a Christian until September, when a local head of the radical Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) came to him twice.
"He told me to become a Hindu. He said if I did not, I would lose my home. He said I couldn't live in the village as a Christian. I did not want problems. So I accepted," Digal says.
Now a Hindu, Digal says he will get a government certificate stating that he is a Dalit. Such a certificate will make Digal eligible for other affirmative action benefits, such as government jobs reserved for Dalits.
The RSS has been reconverting people like Digal to Hinduism — usually from Christianity — for over a decade. Their reconversion campaign is called "homecoming." It is well organized and has cadres assigned to it almost across the whole of India.
The RSS ...1