Anti-Conversion Laws In India: Are We Ready To Debate Presumptions, Prejudices And Preferences?

Religious conversion in India is not a new matter of political contention. Since independence, several states have come up with laws to prohibit the conversion activities. However, in the recent years since Narendra Modi government came to power in 2014, there have been plethora of laws passed by the state assemblies in the name of ‘Freedom of religion’ that in reality is directed to deter any effort to convert people to other religion through allurement, force or on pretext of marriage.  

The latest addition to the list is Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion (Amendment Act), 2022. The new bill passed yesterday by the Uttarakhand assembly amends the prevalent Freedom of religion Act of 2018 and imposes a fine of Rs. 50,000 on any person who tries to convert the other through “misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means.”  

It also makes it a cognisable and non-bailable offence with a minimum prison term of 3 years that can be extended up to 10 years. As per the new law, the convict will have to even pay Rs. 5 lakhs to the victim.  

Recently while hearing a plea by Ashwini Upadhyay, the Supreme Court also expressed grave concern over the alleged ‘rampant conversions’ going on in the country. Earlier, the same court of Justice Fali S Nariman had rejected Upadhyay’s petition on the ground that Article 25 also allows ‘propagation’ of religion. Though the available data hardly suggests any possible demographic change through conversion, as peddled by the Hindu rights, the matter has now entered our drawing room conversation.  

A 2021 incident in Karnataka shows us the fragility of such presumptions. BJP MLA of Hosadurga, Goolihatti Shekhar when alleged that his mother had been forcefully converted to Christianity, the police were directed to conduct a survey on churches. The police in its report while said that they couldn’t identify any ‘illegal church’; Tahsildars who were recruited to examine the charges of forceful conversion noted they identified 50 families from two villages who embraced Christianity without any allurement or force. Interestingly, in December Goolahati himself retracted his statement and said that he was “not sure” whether his mother was actually converted.  

This was just one of the several major data drives that couldn’t support the massive scale conversions for which a law is necessitated. Referring to the first anti-Conversion bill that was passed by Odisha government in 1967, Cynthia Stephen in her EPW paper Anti-Conversion legislation in Karnataka notes when the state passed the bill, the Christian population of the state was around 2 lakhs, 1.1% of the population in comparison to 1.7 crores Hindus. Madhya Pradesh also followed Odisha line and in 1968, passed its first Freedom of religion bill. Notably, as per the 2011 census the Christian population in Madhya Pradesh stands at 0.29%.  

However, these data sets are not much helpful in front of existing societal prejudices on conversions. If one goes through Justice G R Swaminathan’s verdict during a bail plea in Madras High Court on January 7, 2022, one can realise the deep-rooted existence of presumptions.  

“Demographic change also challenged the basic national values and the very sacred geometry of India … In postcard scenarios the ringing of a church bell meant joy and happiness but in Kanyakumari district of 1980s it meant for the Hindus a call for their destruction. We lived the way Jews lived in a pre-Holocaust German village. When Hindus retaliated then with the strong media support only the retaliations and reactions were highlighted in vacuum. But the retaliation was surely forceful and nothing to be proud of. Either way, people of the district suffered. But remember the physical violence starts with psychological violence and psychological violence comes from the violence embedded in the propaganda,” Justice Swaminathan said.  

The objective of quoting such long verdict is to show how the very political reference of ‘Hindu Khatre mein hai (Hindus are in danger)’ several times comes up in the judicial statements through the references of ‘we living in pre-holocaust German village’.  

If one looks closely at the recent anti-conversion laws passed by Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand, one can easily note that conversions of SC, ST, OBC, women and minors have more extensive punishment than for those that efforts to convert an upper caste man.  

As per the Jharkhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2017 whereas conversion of any adult upper caste men is punishable with a three year of imprisonment or Rs. 50,000 fine or both; the same for converting SC, ST, women and minor invites four years’ imprisonment and Rs. 1 lakh fine or both. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Ordinance, 2020 similarly mandates higher punishment for converting the lower castes and Adivasis besides minors and women. Such difference in penal provision in these laws is actually quite common.  

The reason behind such conversion lies in the history of thousand years of oppression faced by Dalits and Adivasis in the hands of Hindu upper castes. Since B R Ambedkar converted to Buddhism to get rid of the caste oppression, there have been several instances where Dalits have embraced different religion. Renowned academic Gyanendra Pandey in his 2006 EPW paper titled The Time of Dalit Conversion said, “The term “dalit” (literally, “crushed”, “downtrodden” or “oppressed”), widely used as a term of description for those at the very bottom of the social, cultural, economic heap, is also now used as a term of militant self-assertion on the part of many of those so oppressed.”  

To assert themselves and to get rid of the internal colonisation that they bore for thousands of years they search for separate identity. In most of the cases minorities are co-opted in a hyphenated way with the majority communities like African-American, untouchable Hindus and so on. Dalits wanting to leave such burden of co-option embrace different religions mostly Buddhism and Islam for their propagated equality. 

John Webster in his book Religion and Dalit Liberation, published in 1999, said that religious conversion is “Strategy” for Dalit communities to secure social justice and dignity. On the other hand for Adivasis who got converted to Islam or Christianity, their cultural aspects hardly changed. Sujith Kumar, a known researcher on Jharkhandi Adivasis and their religion rightly points out, “If one looks at the religious census, we find that hardly one-third of the Adivasis still submit themselves as Sarna followers, while around 40% and 15% present themselves as Hindus and Christians, respectively. Despite this, the religious rites and festivals of the Adivasis are celebrated by every Adivasi irrespective of their religious persuasion.”  

As the Dalits and Adivasis are the major communities who have embraced different religions to get rid of the Hindu caste society, the anti-conversion laws certainly impose enhanced penal measures on the efforts that try to take them away from, as the Hindu rights claim, their ‘original religion’. Since the days of second round table conference in 1931 where M K Gandhi and B R Ambedkar differed on the question of Dalit representations, the debates on who should represent Dalits have continued. The sole focus of the anti-conversion bills on SC/STs also traces its roots to it.  

However, while the Hindu rights have been crying foul over the conversions of lower caste Hindus to other religions, the reports of Kerala government gazette accessed by the New Indian Express in 2020 showed in the Covid year, 47% of the total people converted, embraced Hinduism. Among 506 people converted in that year, 241 were those who left Islam and Christian to embrace Hinduism whereas the correspondent numbers for Islam and Christians were 144 and 119 respectively.  

The conversion laws must be strengthened and rightly so to stop use of lures and force but it should not discriminate among religions while identifying the perpetrators. What should be good for goose, must be good for the gander.