Indian state wants death penalty for ‘forced’ conversion

At least 11 states in India ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have enacted anti-conversion laws.

A state in central India proposed making the “proselytisation” of girls a capital offence.

Mohan Yadav, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, told a public meeting in the state capital Bhopal on International Women’s Day that his government planned to punish those engaged in religious conversion of girls through fraudulent means with death penalty.

Fr Suresh Mathew, former editor of the Indian Currents weekly, said the “draconian measure” essentially “criminalises” interfaith relationships and violated human rights. He said conversion was a protected right under the Constitution.

Such a measure “reinforces” the patriarchal notion that women are incapable of making their own decisions about their faith, relationships, or lives, he said, a “clear infringement” on women’s autonomy undermining the very principles of equality and justice in the Constitution.

“It depicts the abysmal depth to which fascism has taken the country,” said rights activist Fr Cedric Prakash SJ, speaking to The Tablet.

At least 11 states in India ruled by the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have enacted anti-conversion laws. “This is clearly a ploy, a bogey, to defocus from more serious issues which plague the country today,” Prakash said.

Only state governments have the authority to enact such laws. It cannot be done on a national level as law and order is a state subject under the Indian Constitution, he explained.

India needs honest debates about religion that do not fuel conspiracies

The converts’ trial

On 6 March, Arunachal Pradesh in the north-east witnessed a massive protest, with more than 200,000 people from 46 Christian denominations gathering in protest against the state government’s plan to revive the 40-year old anti-conversion law. Tara Miri, president of the Arunachal Christian Forum, said the prime motive of the 1978 Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act was to victimise Christians.

Such laws have prompted mob violence against Christians. Last month, police in Madhya Pradesh filed a criminal case against a Catholic nun and three others for violating the state’s anti-conversion law.

Sr Sheela Savari Muthu SSpS and three colleagues were conducting a health and hygiene camp for children of domestic workers in Indore city in the state when they were accused of proselytisation by a pro-Hindu mob and detained for over nine hours.

“This unnecessary harassment of Christians indulging in social work, will only deprive the marginalised their right to a dignified life,” said Bishop Thomas Mathew Kuttimackal of Indore.

Anti-Christian violence has increased since the BJP assumed power at the federal level in 2014. Hate crimes against Christians has risen to 834 incidents in 2024 up from 127 in 2014, according to the United Christian Forum, an ecumenical watchdog.

Campaigners report that such anti-Christian attitudes now extend to the judiciary. In July last year, while hearing a bail plea on an alleged conversion case, Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal of the Allahabad High Court remarked “if this process [religious conversion] is allowed to be carried out, the majority population of this country would be in minority one day”. However, the Supreme Court admonished him for his remark and ordered its removal from the record.

A retired Orissa High Court Justice S Muralidhar described anti-conversion laws as “pernicious”, forcing people to make private choices public.

Speaking at a panel discussion on anti-conversion laws, he described the inherent flaws in such legislation that presumes that any religious conversion is “some kind of intimidation”.

He said the law is meant to target any choice, not just a conversion which is made out of volition by a person “who finds these values of this religion more appealing to me, and so the target is also the Dalits”.

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