UP government has instituted a bill titled ‘Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020’ in the state. The title of the bill clearly relates to unlawful conversions which means that any willing religious conversions by adults are excluded. The bill also does not target any religion in particular as it is applicable for all religious conversions. Madhya Pradesh government too has passed a similar bill recently. A few other states too are likely to bring similar legislation in the near future. As expected, there is a lot of hue and cry over these bills from some quarters in the country. The question is do India and Indians need such a bill? Perhaps it may be prudent to clarify and understand some key issues involved before one can answer this question.

It is no secret that Christianity and Islam religions believe in conversions. Over centuries they have converted people from other faiths in all parts of the worlds. History is replete with instances where forced mass conversions were carried out at the point of sword, by terrorizing or by levying taxes. The fact that both these religions believe that the only God is their God and his teachings are contained in their respective holy books. Is it any wonder that despite being younger to Hinduism by thousands of years, the world today has around 84 Christian and 50 Islamic majority nations?

As opposed to such beliefs in Christianity and Islam, Hinduism has never resorted to conversions as it believes that one can only be born a Hindu. It also believes in co-existence as it does not see itself as the only religion. Therefore, it is not surprising that India and Nepal are the only two Hindu majority nations in the world. Mauritius, which has a majority Hindu population is made up of migrant from India who settled there starting from middle of nineteenth century. Thus, it may be logical to assume that the onus of protecting Hindu religion and culture rests with India by default.

While most western nations have been very liberal and tolerant towards other religions in recent times, the same cannot be said of Islamic nations who continue to impose all kinds of restrictions on people of other faiths. But today most western nations have realised that this freedom, that they offered to migrants of other faiths, has been misused and is now posing all kinds of challenges to their own culture and beliefs. Many have now started taking corrective measures to curb such misuse.

Both Islam and Christianity are imports in India. They have been allowed to flourish in the country because of the spirit of coexistence and tolerance that is inherent to Hindu religion. Most of the conversions that occurred over centuries from within the Hindu population were either forced or out of fear since India was under Mughal rule and colonial subjugation by European nations for nearly ten centuries. But today India has no such limitations and instead is a master of its own destiny. Therefore, while continuing to follow its coexistence and tolerant policies in spirit and word, by no stretch of imagination can it continue to be a fertile land for any nefarious designs of other religions. The nation will, and it must, take steps to safeguard its own religion and culture.

In recent times the methodologies for conversion by Christianity and Islam have changed. Christianity mainly converts through inducements and promises of access to a better quality of life to the less privileged sections of our society in different parts through well planned programs conducted by their network of Churches and missionaries. Free rations, education and medical facilities are some of the common inducements. They specialize in focusing on remote and less accessible areas by targeting Dalits, Tribal and Adivasi population. Today there are four Indian states in North East where Christians are in majority. The funding is received from Vatican, Christian philanthropic and non-profit organisations apart from some governments in western world, both openly and covertly. Funding has been perhaps the least of their problem.

Islam on the other hands relies more on conversions through persuasion that at times turns to brain washing. The targets are mainly individuals or in small groups. Islam focuses on strengthening the identity of Muslims, both locals and migrants, to use them in service of Islam. They are encouraged to consider themselves as part of a global Muslim nation or fraternity. They are advised to act as devout Muslims, to build Muslim institutions such as mosques, madrassas and charity organizations with a view to serve political interests of Muslims worldwide and to proselytize. Perhaps this also explains why Muslim refugees invariably head to non-Muslim nations rather than Islamic countries. Once again there appears to be no shortage of funds that come mainly from Middle East Islamic nations. These funds are used to build mosques and madrassas to spread the message of Islam.

Muslim are charged with the duty of summoning non-Muslims to their faith. It is estimated that in England, France and Spain alone about twenty-five thousand Christians convert to Islam every year. For USA the figure is about twenty thousand. Unfortunately, there is no reliable data available on conversions in India. While these figures by themselves may not be very alarming, what is worrisome is when a small percentage of such converts turn fanatics. The presence of such converts from western nations and India in conflicts in Syria, Iraq and other places is testimony to this fact.
As already stated at the beginning there is no problem with lawful religious conversions for adults. The problem lies with forced or unlawful religious conversions or if children are targeted. The bills under discussion are applicable for only unlawful conversions. The bills are not religion specific and provide protection against unlawful conversion to people from all religions. To that extent the bills are not discriminatory and respect all religions equally.

Do the bills in question curtail the fundamental rights of any citizen? It is obvious they do not since willing conversions are not included. Any law that protects the citizens from an unlawful activity has to be a good law and cannot be seen as an infringement of their fundamental rights. Prevention of crime is a responsibility of the state and therefore it is duty bound to enact laws to that effect. Any forced, deceitful or inducement based religious conversion has to be seen as unlawful and therefore it has to be classified as a crime.
(To be continued)

 

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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