Supreme Court on Religious Conversion

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

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 Supreme Court views on the Issue

• 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”.
• 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.
• 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”. 
• 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.
• The current context of the conversion debate appears to be missionary activity in tribal areas and inter-religious marriages, labelled as “love jihad”.

Anti Conversion Laws

• Princely states headed by Hindu royal families were the first to introduce laws restricting religious conversions during the British colonial era, especially during the latter half of the 1930s and 1940s.
• Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh passed anti-conversion laws that outlaw religious conversion solely for the purpose of marriage.
• Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Ordinance, 2020 also requires a 60-days-notice. However, it also requires the Magistrate to conduct police inquiry to ascertain the real intention behind the conversion
• Under the Madhya Pradesh law, the burden of proving that the conversion was done in a legitimate fashion lies with the person converted.
• Under the law, any marriage where a husband or wife has converted (even consensually) will be declared null and void unless prior notice is given to the state government.
• Recent Karnataka law says any person intending to convert to another religion after the law comes into force will have to notify the district magistrate two months in advance.

Judicial pronouncements on such laws:

• In 2020 the Allahabad High Court cancelled a case against a Muslim man (Salamat Ansari), filed by the parents of his wife (Priyanka Kharwar (now Alia)) who converted to Islam before marrying him.
• The verdict comes as a reminder of the Constitution’s cherished values in the backdrop of some state governments bringing in legislations against what they call as “Love Jihad”.
• Right to privacy: It held that an individual’s ability to control vital aspects of her life inheres in her right to privacy. Puttaswamy judgement, has recognised that every individual possesses a guaranteed freedom of thought.
• The Uttarakhand HC, in November 2017, held that conversions for the sake of marriage “a sham” and urged the government to enact the law against such conversions. This became the basis for the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018.
• Sarala Mudgal case: The court had held that the religious conversion into Islam by a person from non-Islamic faith is not valid if the conversion is done for the purpose of polygamy.

Conversion in India is legal but not the conversion made using force/allurement/inducement to convert people. Various Court judgments have made conversion laws a legal one but not the laws which have whimsical/fanciful/arbitrary laws by State. So, there is a clear limit for the State to intervene in the religious conversion, this can be further demarcated by small but significant steps such as model law, enhancing awareness, etc.