STATE ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS IN INDIA

India is a country where diversity of religion prevails. Around Four major religions of the
world i.e. Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain. Can be traced here whereby many can be found
originated in this holy land itself. Their also prevails Jews, Christian, Portuguese in some part
of the county for example in north east we’ll find ample numbers of Christian, where as in
Northern side we’ll find Muslim dominated areas. Due to presence of different type of
religion there also occur a feeling of dominance in this area dominated by subsequent
religious people.
Also, people are being forced to convert to a religion which is in dominance in that area.
These people often contended that it’s their fundamental right under article 25-28 to freely
propagate their respective religion, but that article also include word like ‘without any sense
of fear’ which on the contrary is happening. People are been made to convert to other religion
under a sense of fear towards them or their families. In order to curb all these vicious
happening the government came up with an idea of ‘Anti-Conversion’ laws which will put an
end to these forceful, fraudulent conversions.
These laws are not the talk of recent times but it has history way long back to British colonial
time in 1930s where some of the Hindu princely state adopted these kinds of law in order to
‘protect Hindu’s identity with respect to that of Missionaries.’ Some of them were Raigarh
State Conversion Act,1936, Udaipur State Conversion Act, 1946 etc. These tales of Anti
Conversion don’t stop even after independence as then when Britishers were gone the
problem wasn’t. Now there were internal conflicts between several communities that resides
in India namely Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist etc. these are some of words major
religion residing in India. Looking at the heat of the matter the Centre Legislature came up
with a uniform idea of ‘Freedom of religion Act’ or in other words ‘Anti Conversion law’
which was first introduced in Parliament in year 1954 which was concerned with registration
of conversion be informed to the Central government. This legislature somehow was not
passed and the plan was dropped. The government again in the year 1960 came up with
‘Religious Protection Act’ which aimed at keeping information regarding conversion of
Hindu to ‘Non-Indian faith’ which include Islam, Judaism, Christianity etc, but unfortunately
this was also not passed by the lower houses of Parliament. With the inability of government
passing a Union Anti conversion bill, this time the Several State took the matter in their hand
and passed a state legislature concern the same matter which was first implanted in Madhya
Pradesh and Orissa. At present there are only eight states out of twenty-nine that have Anti
Conversion laws having different guidelines but the sole matter of the law i.e. to curb
forceful, fraudulent conversion is same for all the eight states. The core of these laws have
also changed from time to time, for example in 1980s it was mainly concerned with that to of
Muslims trying to convert non- Muslims, whereas in 1990s it was concerned with
Christianity due to its role played in proselytizing in being a good Christian and also
influence of western civilization over it. Although Christianity is the most affected religion
due to these Anti Conversion laws as several instance regarding brutal treatment with them
have came forward. These bills punish those who tries to convert other people to their own
religion either forcefully, fraudulently or without their will. This law is penal in nature which
awards jail term of one year to three years and also impose fine of 5000/- to 50000/- Indian
rupees. If the act was done towards ‘weaker’ section of the society i.e. children, women, or
Schedule Tribe or Schedule Castes the punishment is higher in this concern. In order to curb
this The Apex Court has taken several steps in some landmark cases. In Ratilal Panachand
Gandhi v. State of Bombay1 the court discussed about Article 25 of the Constitution and also
said “every person has a fundamental right under our Constitution not merely to entertain
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(1954) SCR 1035
such religious belief as may be approved of by his judgment or conscience but to exhibit his
belief and ideas in such overt acts as are enjoined or sanctioned by his religion and further to
propagate his religious views for edification of others”. Also, in Rev Stainislaus v. State of
Madhya Pradesh2 it raises the issue that whether right to profess and propagate one’s religion
also include right to convert. It said that right to propagate one’s religion does not include
right to forceful conversion of any other person. It should be taken care that the principles of
Article 25 profess that a person can enjoy it if the practises that he does is in accordance with
other religion.
Although some scholars do think that the verdict of the Apex Court in Rev Stainislaus case is
doubtful as the court has failed to recognise the meaning of the word ‘propagation’ which in
every sense include right to propagation. They also said that ‘propagates’ was include in
Article 25 as a demand of Christian in accordance that it would include the right to propagate.
This was not the first time Christian community felt cheated or demean. There have been
instances which puts more light on this issue. for example, in 2017 there were 7 Christians
who were arrested on the account of having ‘private home prayer meeting’ they were
suspected of converting other peoples and were send to Prison for 14 days the very next
morning. In Madhya Pradesh a Christian teacher was arrested on train who was taking these
children for a school camp on the ground that they are forcefully converting these children’s
religion. A Christian nun was arrested in village of Jharkhand for forcefully converting the
tribal of the village although there has been no evidence regarding this. In another case in
2017 in the state of Madhya Pradesh Christian were arrested on the saying of a major political
leader of the Central Right-wing party who said that ‘they are forcefully converting the
Hindus by handing over them a Bible and by making them sing Carole’. Apart from
Christians there have been instances with Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhist etc whereby they are
been discriminated in places where they are less in numbers and are often allured with food
and shelter in the village after their conversion to the Majority prevailing religion. Children,
women, Schedule Tribes and Schedule Caste are the most affected sections of the society as
they first are already considered as the weaker section in the society and secondly, they due
to their condition they are most vulnerable for this situation. Steps have been taken towards
implementing these laws there still exist several loops hole that are left to be covered. For
example, these laws though talk about punishment but if we look back there is almost 50
years since the enactment of these law but the rate of conviction is too low. This law didn’t
adhere to with the motive of which it was been introduced but rather it creates a hostile
situation of minorities. In a Hindu dominated village there was a dead horse lying, the people
without any second though contended that this can only be done by the Muslim butchers who
lives in that village.

Various Human Rights organisation have also expressed their concern over these ‘Anti
Conversion law in India and also contended that being a Hindu dominated country, the
government is only concerned with people who are converting to Hindu rest for them is
punishable under the law, which in the other way can be look as a challenge to the very
important principle of our constitution i.e. Secularism. On the contrary a Hindu American
organisation stated that these laws protect weaker section of societies from being exposed to
forcefully conversion in return of food, work etc. USCIRF published a report in which it
contended that although these law covers all the vicious conversion of every religion but in
the matter of conversion of ‘Non-Hindu’ to ‘Hindu’ the law protects this conversion under
the name of ‘Ghar Wapsi’ (Returning Home). There have been instances in country where by
in accordance of this Ghar Wapsi program thousands of Muslim and Christians were planned
of converting to Hinduism. Various Right-Wing political groups hold a good hand over
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(1977)2 SCR 611
Hindus in some parts of India which in lieu of this power in hand make them do whatever
they wanted to even though it is unethical to their own religion. USCIRF also stated that
‘There have few prosecutions and no conviction under this law’. They also contended that
these laws create a havoc atmosphere for weaker section of the society as they do not include
sufficient evidence to support criminal charges. Looking at all these mishaps it can be said
that these laws have been against the right guaranteed under article 25-28 of the constitution
and also not in accordance to some treaty of which India is a part of. Even these international
organisations in their report have discusses about the certain incidence of arrest which in lieu
was done without any investigation but was done due to some political pressure of the ruling
party of the state. This affects the reputation of our country as well as our claim of being a
secular state in the books of other countries.
Looking at all these matters in hand one thing that needs to be made clear is that the matter
related to religion should be handled with care as these are some of the very sensitive strings
of the society which if not handled with care can cause mishaps. Now the problem is how to
handle these matters so precisely so that there prevails no disharmony among people of
different religion as there have been already some of the states which have implemented these
vicious laws in their books and the way of a Union Anti Conversion law is not clear.
The answer to this question is that as we know religious practises are not new in nature but
are being followed from many years. This law is nothing but a sense of alienation inflicted
upon the innocent people who belong to faiths which constitute the minority. It is
democracy’s foremost and paramount duty to keep everyone engaged and drive the country
with no exclusionary steps and policies, whatsoever. Thus, the whole law is immoral in the
bigger scheme of things and hence we must realize that this is a doom which is impending on
us. We all are sleeping with a big monster beneath our beds and we must realize it’s existence
and uproot it from its existence before it’s too late. In all these years till now there have been
continuous reforms in people’s belief in their respective religions, even though it is good or
bad it didn’t matter. So, in order to change the mindset of people which has been changing
since a long time, there needed to be a complete understanding of each and every religion that
lives in that region. Beliefs and Disbelief’s of every religion needed to be taken care of, and a
complete policy should be prepared of implementing a Uniform Anti-Conversion law which
as if should not be considered to be against any particular community of the society as seen in
the case of Christians. The matter should be handed over to the respective High Courts of the
state to formulate a uniform policy regarding this as if the matter is given in the hands of the
government, they’ll use it as a vote bank policy which will be against the spirit of democracy
(which we contends to be largest in the world). Even though after uniformly applying these
policies, thing will be taking their time to come in effect , as a long-lasting idea cannot be just
flourished away by some recent developments.