India’s Second-Largest State Passes Discriminatory Anti-Conversion Law

The Maharashtra Assembly passed a bill this week to legally adjust spiritual conversion. Paradoxically titled the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Invoice 2026, the legislation imposes stringent restrictions on participants’ rights to convert to but another religion tradition. 

Those came upon responsible of an “unlawful conversion” now face fines and as a lot as seven years’ imprisonment in India’s 2nd-most populous command. Repeat offenders face as a lot as 10 years in prison. 

As is common of anti-conversion rules across India, the bill used to be passed in the context of unfounded Hindu nationalist conspiracy theories alleging mass compelled conversions of Hindus by Christians and Muslims. 

In actual fact, census details signifies that these faiths have remained a reasonably staunch percentage of the inhabitants for a long time. Despite extra than a dozen such rules across the nation and thousands of charges introduced against spiritual minorities, convictions underneath these statutes are exceedingly rare. 

Level-headed, the human toll of these rules is titanic, costing spiritual minority communities incalculable losses in earnings and large factual charges as they combat unfounded charges in court docket. The rules also present merely backing for Hindu nationalist mobs which have taken it upon themselves to position in power these statutes. In quite loads of cases, native police facet with the mobs, enabling frequent violence against Christians and Muslims. 

Written underneath the guise of defending voters from coercion, these rules criminalize conversions so broadly that they effectively outlaw most minority spiritual bid. A usual instance is Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion legislation, passed in 2021 in India’s most populous command, which prohibits “conversion from one religion to but another by misrepresentation, power, undue impact, coercion, allurement, or any fraudulent formulation.” 

While international legislation helps prohibitions on coercion, the legislation’s definition of “allurement” is cripplingly mammoth and itself in stress with international norms. Underneath the Uttar Pradesh legislation, allurement comprises “the provide of any temptation,” resembling “gratification, straight forward money … free education in [a] reputed faculty poke by any spiritual body … better map of life, [or] divine displeasure.” 

Underneath this definition, almost any spiritual bid might presumably also presumably be construed as an strive at compelled conversion. Even one thing as innocuous as explaining one’s beliefs about divine reward or eternal consequences might presumably also presumably be deemed criminal underneath the statute. 

While these rules hint their roots to an early publish-colonial India wary of Western missionaries imposing religion on Hindu populations, their continued expansion a long time later — particularly underneath the Modi administration, which started in 2014 — suggests the using enlighten is much less about foreign impact and extra about conserving the Hindu-dominated dwelling quo. 

In a March 2023 change on India’s anti-conversion rules, Luke Wilson, a researcher for the United States Commission on World Non secular Freedom, wrote that “India’s enforcement of command-stage anti-conversion rules suggests the legislation intends to forestall conversions to disfavored religions — resembling Christianity and Islam — and now no longer to provide protection to against coerced conversions.” 

World Christian Wretchedness (ICC) regularly documents how these rules assemble minority spiritual life in India extra advanced and works with pastors who mobs have attacked at some level of services, where singing and love are perceived as possible avenues for conversion. Comparable mob raids occur outdoor church services as correctly, generally focusing on neighborhood outreach programs resembling food or garments distributions.