Opinion On religious conversion, Supreme Court must set the bar high, remain mindful of danger of spectre-mongering on a fraught issue

While hearing a PIL on religious conversion, the Supreme Court said that “forced” religious conversions are “very dangerous” and may “ultimately affect the security of the nation as well as the freedom of religion and conscience of the citizens”. The bench urged the government to “make their stand clear and file counter on what steps can be taken by Union and/or others to curb such forced conversion, maybe by force, allurement or fraudulent means”. Over the last few years, religious conversion has become a politically fraught issue. When the court singles out the issue for its attention, asks what action the government proposes to take, it implies both that “forced” religious conversions are a significant problem and that existing laws are insufficient to deal with it. In a polarised moment, this could end up providing grist to political spectre-mongering about large-scale demographic change in the country, especially through conversions involving marriage.

Article 25 of the Constitution says “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion”. But at least 10 states have legislated anti-conversion laws, beginning in the 1960s. The claim is that legal safeguards, including IPC provisions, have failed to stop religious conversions through “coercion”, “intimidation”, “allurement”, “threats”. However, these are loosely worded terms prone to misinterpretation. The bar for action against “fraudulent” conversions has to be set high so that it does not interfere with fundamental freedoms. Mass conversions in independent India, though rare, have been acts of protest against social discrimination. The conversion of BR Ambedkar and over three lakh followers, mostly Dalits, to Buddhism in 1956 as well as the 1982 Meenakshipuram conversions, when 180 Dalit families in a Tamil Nadu village embraced Islam, were acts of political revolt.

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The current context of the conversion debate appears to be missionary activity in tribal areas and inter-religious marriages, labelled as “love jihad”. In the case of the latter, anti-conversion laws now demand that the bride and groom seek prior permission for marriage from the district magistrate. In the event of any complaint of “coercive conversion”, the burden of proof is on the groom’s party, which needs to disprove the charges of coercion to the authorities. In states such as UP, the anti-conversion law has been weaponised for political campaigns against inter-religious marriages. A judicial and judicious intervention on religious conversion must be mindful of the context, avoid vague terminology and carefully sidestep prejudice.