On March 10, the government of Gujarat withdrew the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill, 2006. This amendment to the earlier 2003 legislation had become necessary because of the governor’s objection that it was violative of Article 25 (A) of the Constitution. The unconstitutional nature of it apart, the proposed amendment had displayed a remarkable ignorance of both sociology of religion and theological differences between religions. The amendment had taken a denominational view of religion. It defined Jain and Buddhist as denominations of ‘Hindu religion’, Shia and Sunni as denominations of ‘Muslim religion,’ and Catholic and Protestant as denominations of ‘Christian religion.’ This denominational view permitted inter-denominational conversion within the same religion. The amendment sought to effectively reduce Jainism and Buddhism to ‘sects’ of Hinduism and did the same to Shias and Sunnis as also to Catholics and Protestants. What the amendment sought to do was to effectively impose the Hindu view of religious life on all other religions. It was for this reason that all religious groups that had been classified as denominations opposed the proposed amendment. But the withdrawal of this amendment does not nullify the more dangerous Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003. The title of the act is misleading, it is in fact an anti-conversion law. This act prohibits conversion under section 5 (1) and (2) and makes it mandatory for both the person seeking conversion and the person officiating at such conversion ceremony to seek prior permission of the district magistrate; failure to comply with this attracts punishment of both imprisonment and a fine. This act which is in force in Gujarat construes an act of conversion not as a matter of faith and belief but as a consequence of ‘allurement,’ ‘force,’ and of use of ‘fraudulent means.’ The act, by its very structure and logic, understands each and every act of conversion as one done under coercion or allurement. It further states that any conversion of a minor, a woman, a person belonging to either the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe would be punished with a prison term of upto four years and a fine of upto rupees one lakh. The act clearly believes that these groups are more vulnerable to force, allurement and treachery and that they need special protection. It also believes that their act of conversion has to be understood from a ground different from the possibility of conversion for the rest. The act does not allow for the possibility of conversion to another faith as an act of social protest, as a cry of pain within one’s own religion which might be oppressive. It does not understand the kind of conversion that Babasaheb Ambedkar sought and propagated to Buddhism. It does not grant that conversion could be a political act, especially in times when caste and religious identities have acquired an edge and legitimacy in the political realm. It does not allow for theological disaffection with one’s own religion. Without this deep theological disenchantment with one’s own ancestral religion, many of the world’s great religions would not be. It is a search for divine that moved the great teachers of the world, be it Jesus, Prophet Mohammad, the Buddha or the Jain Tirthankars and allowed them to suggest radical departures with their ancestral faith and modes of worship. Without the recognition of theological disaffection, even in our times, we would be forced to live with a fundamental sense of lack, the absence of faith altogether. But more fundamentally, the act also does not understand either the nature of faith or that of religious quest. It does not grant that a Hindu like me could find the image of Christ on his wondrous cross deeply moving. It does not grant that the hunger of my soul may remain insatiated in my ancestral faith and mode of worship. It does not recognise that Christ’s Sermon could contain for a Hindu such as me, the essence of religious life. It also precludes what philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi described as the ‘availability of religious ideas.’ The act fails to grant me the possibility, both philosophical and experiential, that I could grasp the beauty and the truth of a religion that I was not born in. The nature of religious quest is anchored in this possibility, without which an authentic searching is not possible. It could be argued that a true religious quest, like that of Gandhi’s, makes the need for conversion unnecessary — that I could be simultaneously a Hindu, a Jain, a Christian and a Muslim. But that argument does not hold in this case, because if one were to accept that mode of being religious, an enactment like the one brought by the BJP government in Gujarat would be completely unnecessary. It would have no religious ground. The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act is in its essence a communal legislation. It is communal not because it views all religions except Hinduism with suspicion, which it does. It is communal because it does not understand the true nature of faith, belief and a deep religious quest. It is suspicious of faith itself. The writer is a social scientist based in Ahmedabad
