A State in India Adopts New Anti-Conversion Legislation

The information was distributed by the Fides Agency on September 10, 2019. A new “anti-conversion” law has just been adopted by the Parliament of Himachal Pradesh, State of North-West India, whose population is 95.17% Hindu, and where Christianity represents only 0.18% of the population.

Such a law, ironically called the “Law on Religious Freedom,” was passed in 2006, then declared partially unconstitutional in 2007, then again in 2012. The State Parliament, wanting to strengthen this law that had been passed by the Party of Congress, decided to replace it.

It is now dominated by the nationalist ideas of the Barataya Janata Party (BJP) which has made the return of any Indian to the religion of his fathers, the basis of its demands. The new bill extends the notion of “crime” to “conversion by coercion,” but also by fraud, force, or on the basis of incentives, according to the very broad definitions of these terms.

And so, by the term “incentive,” the law means to punish “the offer of any temptation in the form of gifts, gratifications or material benefits, in money or work, free education in the school run by any religious body.”

Anyone who is found guilty of breaking the new law may be sentenced to five to seven years behind bars, particularly “in the case of marriage, celebrated for the purpose of religious conversion, to a person belonging to a recognized caste or tribe.”

John Dayal, a Catholic civil rights advocate, tells Fides: “The renewal and worsening of the anti-conversion law by the Himachal Pradesh government is surprising…Himachal Pradesh is located in the lower Himalayas, and is made up of small communities that live far from one another. There are no attempts to convert by force, fraud, or incentives.” The reason for this law is incomprehensible.