Conversion politics...?
Consider this - religious conversions are permissible if they are genuine, and not brought about by fraud or coercion. That many reasonable people would agree with this statement demonstrates the extent to which the Hindu right has transformed the terms of public debate in India. What, after all, do "fraud" and "coercion" mean? Of course, no decision taken on the basis of actual physical force, or the threat of it, can be legitimate... But nobody believes that conversion "by the sword" is an issue today. (It is another matter that if it had ever been seriously practised in India, Muslims would not be a mere 12 per cent of the population, and Christians less than 3 per cent, after centuries of rule.) Going by the last election manifesto of the Bharatiya Janata Party, fraud and coercion refer to "promises of social or economic benefits" but many opponents of the BJP, too, would endorse this interpretation. Genuine religious conversion, on the other