State Anti Conversion Laws In India PDF Free Download

State Anti Conversion Laws In India PDF Download Info

State Anti Conversion Laws In India, Indian States, Supreme Court, What Is Anti Conversion Law In India, First State To Pass Anti Conversion Bill PDF Free Download

State Anti Conversion Laws In India PDF Download

The Research Papers In This Regard Enlighten Us That The Princely States Started Ordinances Against Religious Conversions. Hindu Royal Households Ruled These Princely States During The British Colonial Rule. To Be Precise, It Was Between The Later Half Of The 1930s And 1940s.

There Were Particular States With Anti-conversion Laws In India. These Laws Were Enforced To Protect The Identity Of The Hindu Religion. Some Princely States With These Laws Were Jodhpur, Patna, Bikaner, Surguja, Kalahandi, Udaipur, And Kota.

Post India’s Independence, Many Anti-conversion Bills Were Introduced In The Parliament. But Unfortunately, None Got Enforced. The First Bill Was Introduced In 1954 And Was Called The Indian Conversion Bill. The Idea Behind This Bill Was To License The Missionaries, And Anybody Who Gets Converted Should Be Registered With The Government Officials. However, The Bill Did Not Get The Required Support In Lok Sabha.

The Next Bill Or Anti-conversion Law Was Brought To Parliament In 1960 And Was Called Backward Communities Bill. This Bill Stated Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism, And Judaism As Non-indian Religions. And It Aimed To Discover The Conversion Of Hindus To These Non-indian Religions.

This Bill Was Followed By The Freedom Of Religion Bill In 1979. This Bill Also Crashed In Parliament By Not Gather Enough Support. It Aimed At Curbing Inter-religious Conversions.

Finally, In 2015, The Union Law Ministry Said That It Is Not Possible To Enforce A Bill On Fraudulent Religious Conversions At The National Level. Since These Matters Come Under The States, The States Are Free To Enact State Anti-conversion Laws In India As Per The Constitution.

State Anti-Conversion Laws in India PDF

Punishments prescribed under the UP and MP Ordinances for offenses by individuals for causing/facilitating the conversion

Anti-conversion laws in India

The Constitution guarantees the freedom to profess, propagate, and practise religion, and allows all religious sections to manage their own affairs in matters of religion; subject to public order, morality, and health. To date, there has been no central legislation restricting or regulating religious conversions. Further, in 2015, the Union Law Ministry stated that Parliament does not have the legislative competence to pass anti-conversion legislation.

However, it is to be noted that, since 1954, on multiple occasions, Private Member Bills have been introduced in (but never approved by) the Parliament, to regulate religious conversions. Over the years, several states have enacted ‘Freedom of Religion’ legislation to restrict religious conversions carried out by force, fraud, or inducements.

These are:

• (i) Odisha (1967),
• (ii) Madhya Pradesh (1968),
• (iii) Arunachal Pradesh (1978),
• (iv) Chhattisgarh (2000 and 2006),
• (v) Gujarat (2003),
• (vi) Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019),
• (vii) Jharkhand (2017), and
• (viii) Uttarakhand (2018).

Additionally, the Himachal Pradesh (2019) and Uttarakhand legislations also declare a marriage to be void if it was done for the sole purpose of unlawful conversion, or vice-versa. Further, the states of Tamil Nadu (2002) and Rajasthan (2006 and 2008) had also passed similar legislation. However, the Tamil Nadu legislation was repealed in 2006 (after protests by Christian minorities), while in case of Rajasthan, the bills did not receive the Governor’s and President’s assent respectively. Please see Table 2 for a comparison of anti-conversion laws across the country.

In November 2019, citing rising incidents of forced/fraudulent religious conversions, the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission recommended enacting a new law to regulate religious conversions. This led the state government to promulgate the recent Ordinance in 2020. Following UP, the MP government also decided to promulgate an Ordinance in January 2021 to regulate religious conversions. We discuss key features of these ordinances below.

State Laws 

Many states have passed the ‘Freedom of Religion’ ordinance to restrict or reduce forceful or fraudulent religious conversions. Such laws are presently enacted in eight states for years. These states, in order of enactment, are,

• Odisha in 1967
• Madhya Pradesh in 1968
• Arunachal Pradesh in 1978
• Chhattisgarh in 2000 and 2006
• Gujarat in 2003
• Himachal Pradesh in 2006 and 2019
• Jharkhand in 2017
• Uttarakhand in 2018

Interestingly, the anti-conversion laws in HP and Uttarakhand declare a marriage to be void if the main reason behind marriage was conversion. States like Tamil Nadu in 2002 and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2008 also passed similar clauses. But unfortunately, for Tamil Nadu, it got repealed in 2006 due to protests by Christian minorities. And for Rajasthan, the State Governor and the President of India did not pass their consent on it.

Due to rising cases of fraudulent or forceful religious conversion in Uttar Pradesh, the state government had to bring up a new anti-conversion law to regulate conversions.