Chennai, April 13: Over 800 “Dalit Christians” will convert to Hinduism in Tirunelveli town tomorrow, allegedly because of discrimination at the hands of “upper caste” Christians.

The Hindu Makkal Katchi (HMK), a Sangh parivar outfit, has arranged the ceremony, where 185 families will be sprinkled with water from the Ganga, the local river Tamiraparani and the Palk Strait off Rameshwaram.

“These families were originally Hindus who had converted to Christianity five or six generations ago. They can no longer bear the humiliation and discrimination within the Church,” HMK leader Arjun Sampath said over the phone from Tirunelveli.

The people who will convert are mostly farm labourers and their families — a mix of Protestants and Roman Catholics from villages around Tirunelveli.

Sampath claimed these families were forced to bury their dead in separate graveyards, drink from separate tumblers and had had their land “appropriated” so that churches could be built on them. “Their struggle against this oppression for the past six years has been of no avail.”

The new converts will file court affidavits saying they were embracing Hinduism of their own will, without coercion or enticement.

New Hindu names will be given to them and each family will be assigned a “sect symbol” — sacred ash for the Shaivas and the thirumann (U-shaped tilak) for the Vaishnavs — depending on past allegiances.

The state government has refused the use of Tirunelveli’s Nellaiappar temple, so the ceremony will take place at the Nellai Arangam, an auditorium. It starts at 6am with Ganapathy and Sundarshana homams (fire rituals), to be followed by a prayaschitta (atonement) ceremony.

In the evening, the converts will pray at the Nellaiappar temple.