Will BJP be third time lucky in enacting anti-conversion law in Rajasthan?

The Bill also mandates those seeking to convert to inform the District Collector concerned 60 days in advance.

In a recent interview with The Indian Express, Rajasthan Law Minister Jogaram Patel said the Bill has been brought in to prevent forcible conversion, especially among members of vulnerable communities like tribals, and to keep a check on “love jihad”, among other things.

If the Bill, set to be tabled in the next session of the Assembly, gets passed, Rajasthan will join 11 other states – Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – to have anti-conversion laws.

Patel has said that Rajasthan’s anti-conversion Bill will draw from the existing laws in these states.

In the state’s first attempt to bring in an anti-conversion law, Raje in 2006 tabled the Rajasthan Dharma Swatantraya Vidheyak or the Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill to check conversions through “force, allurement or by fraudulent means”. It carried a punishment of two to five years in jail and a fine up to Rs 50,000 for violators, with the offence being cognisable and non-bailable, and to be investigated by an officer of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) rank or higher.

“It has been observed by the state government that some religious and other institutions, bodies and individuals are found to be involved in unlawful conversion from one religion to another by allurement or by fraudulent means or forcibly, which at times has caused annoyance in the community belonging to other religions. The inter-religion fabric is weakened by such illegal activities and causes law and order problems for the law-enforcing machinery of the state. In order to curb such illegal activities and to maintain harmony among persons of various religions, it has been considered expedient to enact a special law for the purpose,” then state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria had said in a statement on the objectives and reasons for the Bill.

However, then Rajasthan Governor Pratibha Patil had refused to give assent to the Bill following opposition from the Congress, human rights organisations and minority groups, who claimed that the law was being brought in to harass religious minorities while appeasing Hindu groups.

In 2008, an amended version of the 2006 Bill, also titled Rajasthan Freedom of Religion Bill, with new provisions, including mandating prior approval of the concerned District Collector, was introduced in the Assembly. However, this Bill too was rejected multiple times by then Governor S K Singh before he eventually gave his assent.

Subsequently, the Bill was stuck with the Centre. But Raje, upon assuming the CM’s chair for the second time (2013-2018), again tried to get the 2008 Bill enacted and pursued it with the Centre, which returned the legislation in November 2017 reportedly claiming it “deviated from national policy”.

In the absence of a law, the Rajasthan High Court in 2017 issued guidelines to prevent “forcible conversions”. According to the guidelines, anyone who wished to convert was mandated to give information “to the District Collector/SDM/SDO of the city and Sub-Divisional Area” before conversion while the authority was to put it up on the notice board the same day and marriages in such cases would be solemnised only a week after conversion.

The guidelines also empowered the District Collectors to “take appropriate action in accordance with law, so as to check the forcible conversion”.

The state government, in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court earlier this year in June, said that it was in the process of bringing in a fresh legislation against forcible conversions. With the BJP in power in the state as well as the Centre, the Bill is expected to see the light of day.