Freedom of Religion, Conversions

PUCL CONDEMNS THE PASSING OF THE FREEDOM OF RELIGION ORDINANCE IN KARNATAKA

Ever since the coming to power of the Basavaraj Bommai government, .. Hindutva
groups outrightly threatening to demolish churches, engaging in acts of vigilantism in the
name of ‘moral policing’, calls to regulate azan and boycott Muslim businesses and the
prohibition of the wearing of the hijab. The Karnataka Government has failed to step in and
take action against these Hindutva groups... The cabinet decision to take the
ordinance route, in the midst of such circumstances only shows the implicit support of the
government to the vigilante elements who blatantly violate the Constitution..

 PUCL had specifically documented sixty two hate  crimes perpetrated against the Christians in Karnataka by Hindutva groups. The report  exposed the modus operandi of the Hindutva groups using the bogey of conversion to attack
minorities. For Full Text 

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Dalits who converted to Buddhism oppose Bill G T Sathish  DECEMBER 28, 2021 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/dalits-who-converted-to-buddhism-oppose-bill/article38051705.ece 

In recent years, many families in Hassan district have converted to Buddhism. Swamy Nittur, among the first to get converted in Nittur in Hassan taluk in 2014, told The Hindu that conversions took place as Dalits were fed up with caste-based atrocities. 

They said that conversion brought changes in the lives of Dalit families. “Religious conversion and the teachings of B.R. Ambedkar influenced our thoughts and acts,” said Thotesh Nittur. These families in the village celebrate Buddha Poornima, Ambedkar Jayanti, and hold prayer meetings regularly at the Buddha Vihara.

Instead of this Bill, the families said, the State Government should take measures to stop atrocities against Dalits.

Anti-Conversion Laws 

https://www.epw.in/engage/article/anti-conversion-laws

the conversion debate is the denial of reservation by those members of the Scheduled Castes converting to other religions. By insisting that Scheduled Castes exist only among the specified religious groups, the acts, in fact, have implicated the judicial and administrative apparatuses in a process that turns religion into a tool of manipulation.

the question of the dalit conversion is tied up with the question of decolonisation in the subcontinent. The problem with this kind of internal colonialism is that the colonised cannot escape in a physical sense. They have no independent territory of their own: they cannot emigrate, and they cannot send the colonisers home. What is more, they cannot easily lay claim to an independent history and culture: indeed they gain their identity at least in part by their incorporation into the dominant culture or society: ‘African-Americans’, “the Muslims of India”, “untouchable” Hindus.

Rather than struggle to maintain the old status quo, a constructive approach would be responsive politics and economic equity, religious reform and cultural renewal. Protection against proselytisation is today rightly seen as a response to a community’s right to its own religious tradition, much in the same way as the right to its own language and culture. Yet if their concern is only over religious conversions and not the wretched situation of their people, can opposition to their conversion be justified on religious grounds? What kind of religious community would be indifferent to the misery of its oppressed members and yet be opposed to them wanting to leave it? What is being affirmed and what negated here?

How have legal cases seeking to strike down India’s anti-conversion laws fared?  https://scroll.in/article/1014042/how-have-legal-challenges-against-indias-anti-conversion-laws-fared 

Since 2017, five states, all led by Bharatiya Janata Party governments, have either passed new anti-conversion laws or updated existing ones. The new versions of the laws put in place stricter punishments and newer grounds for restricting conversions, such as conversion “by marriage” – where a person who adopts another faith to enter into a marriage would be deemed to have been forcibly converted.

In addition, two other BJP-ruled states, Harayana and Assam, have announced plans to move similar laws. 

the verdict in , Stainislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh, has been criticised by constitutional experts.

Abhinav Chandrachud, a lawyer and academic, has written that how in upholding these laws, the Supreme Court “went too far”. It could just have held that the right to propagate a religion did not extend to forced conversions, he writes. However, the court held that this right does not even include voluntary conversions.

Sanjay Hegde, a senior advocate, has said that if a larger bench re-examined Stainislaus, its logic would not stand in the light of the 2017 judgement in the Puttaswamy case recognising the right to privacy as a fundamental right.

“We now have a nine-judge judgment in the Puttaswamy case which is with regard to privacy,” Hedge said. “I cannot think of anything more private than your relationship with God.” In 2017, the Supreme Court had recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right in the Puttaswamy case.

However, one High Court judgment stands out for striking down provisions in an anti-conversion law. In 2012, the Himachal Pradesh High Court held that some provisions of the state’s 2006 anti-conversion law were unconstitutional.  The High Court said that while a person has the right of belief and the right to change their beliefs, they also have a right to keep their belief secret. As a consequence, the court said that the requirement for a person to give notice to the district magistrate 30 days before converting to a different religion would affect her right to privacy. “If a person of his own volition changes his religion, there is no way that one can measure or fix the date on which he has ceased to belong to religion A and converted to religion B,” the court said.

In 2021, both the Gujarat and Allahabad High Courts have watered down the provisions relating to inter-faith marriages in the anti-conversion laws of their states.   the Gujarat High Court granted an interim stay to the provisions prohibiting conversion by marriage. It also stayed the provision that put the burden of proof on the parties entering into an inter-faith marriage to prove that the marriage had not been solemnised on account of any fraud, allurement or coercion. However, this is only an interim stay that will be in operation only until the court gives a final decision on the validity of these laws.

In November, the Allahabad High Court allowed the registration of the marriages of 17 interfaith couples even though they had not obtained the district authority’s approval for conversion, as required by the Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law. the court asked the state authorities and the families of the couples to restrain themselves from “interfering with the life, liberty and privacy” of these individuals.