New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Chhattisgarh government’s proposed law to regulate religious conversions in the state is largely silent on the subject of reconversion or ghar wapsi.
This has been highlighted by a few Christian organisations, which see the provisions of the law as against the constitutional freedom to propagate one’s religion, and as going soft on the BJP-RSS’s ghar wapsi campaign to bring people “back” to Hinduism.
In cases of reconversion, the draft suggests merely informing the district administration. There is no requirement for any prior notice, police verification or personal appearance before the district magistrate.
Speaking to ThePrint, the spokesperson of a church in tribal-dominated Bastar district said, “The Constitution guarantees the freedom to practise and propagate one’s religion. A person also has the freedom to convert. How will you establish forceful conversion? We are against any forceful conversion but using police and state power to regulate conversion is also coercion. It is threatening the community for political benefit.”
The proposed law, which has been drafted as a bill, was announced by state minister Brijmohan Agrawal in the assembly last week. It empowers the police to “verify the real intention and purpose” behind conversion and suggests fines and jail time of up to 10 years for “illegal conversion”. This comes in the backdrop of the BJP’s charge that conversions — mainly of the Adivasis to Christianity — had risen in Chhattisgarh under the previous Congress government.
The legislation is also significant as the Lok Sabha polls loom and the BJP makes efforts to consolidate the votes of tribal people, who are estimated to make up more than 30 percent of the state’s population. The law will further fulfil the BJP’s poll promise to bring a comprehensive bill in the assembly to check conversion.
The draft bill states that conversion “cannot be done from one religion to another by the use or practice of abuse, force, undue influence, coercion, inducement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage”.
Those found forcefully converting minors, women, people from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes will face a minimum punishment of two years and a maximum of 10 years in jail as well as fine of Rs 50,000 for mass conversion, sources in the Chhattisgarh government told ThePrint.
The burden of proof that a conversion was not illegal will be on the person who conducts the ritual, according to the draft bill, which also states that for reconversion, only intimation is enough, no verification is required and no penalty has been proposed.
The bill stipulates that a person who wishes to convert to another religion will have to fill in a form with personal details at least 60 days in advance and submit it to the district magistrate (DM), who will direct the police to ascertain the real intention behind the “dharmantaran”. The DM will also maintain a registry of all converts, the sources said.
The person who performs the conversion ceremony will have to fill in a form at least a month in advance, while the person converting will have to present himself/herself before the DM for verification within 60 days of conversion. In case of objection by relatives or an adopted child, an FIR can be registered and charges will be non-bailable, according to the sources.
Last month, chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, who comes from the tribal-dominated Jashpur region, had alleged that Christian missionaries were carrying out mass conversions of tribal people in the state.
“Due to Dilip Singh Judeoji’s ghar wapsi campaign, Jashpur district has been protected. Otherwise, Asia’s second largest church is in our area and conversion take place rapidly,” he said.
The late Judeo, a BJP leader and former Union minister, had started the ghar wapsi campaign in Chhattisgarh. He would wash the feet of those who had converted to Christianity at highly publicised events, and facilitate their “re-entry” into Hinduism.
Last year, ahead of the Chhattisgarh polls, home minister and BJP leader Amit Shah had also said that the “Congress government has made poor tribals change their religion and the BJP will bring a strong law to check conversion”. Earlier, in 2015, Shah, who was then the BJP president, had said “the (BJP-led central) government can bring a central law to check conversion but has left it to states to bring out such a strict law”.
Agrawal told the media last week: “The government is committed towards checking conversion and the BJP promised the electorate that it would bring such a law after the polls. That is why it will table the bill in the assembly. Conversion has become a serious issue in tribal areas.”
Political analysts, however, said that convictions for forceful conversions were low and the law seemed an eyewash to satisfy Right-wing voters.
Faizan Mustafa, former vice-chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, told ThePrint: “Many states have strict anti-conversion laws but they haven’t been able to convict a large number of people to show that conversion is happening at a mass level. The data doesn’t substantiate these claims. Also, most state laws are silent on the reconversion issue. It is more like the optics of the political party.”
The rival Congress too said the Sai government was bringing the bill to consolidate its tribal constituency and that conviction rate was low for forceful conversions.
Party MLA Umesh Patel said a “witch hunt should not be done to make the BJP constituency happy”.
“The BJP says that mass conversions are happening, but where are the convictions for such cases,” he asked.
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‘Forceful conversion is a big issue’
The BJP has in the past few years built up a narrative about the threat of religious conversion among the tribal population. Soon after its defeat in 2018, the party — together with the cadre of the RSS, which has an enormous presence in the tribal districts through the institution of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram — began to raise the issue actively.
Another RSS affiliate is also holding a campaign to delist tribal people who become Christian from the ST list, so that they don’t get the benefit of reservation.
Ranvijay Judeo, a former BJP Rajya Sabha MP and the nephew of Dilip Judeo, told ThePrint that “forceful conversion is a big issue in the state and the BJP has long demanded a check on it”.
“We are demanding to delist from the ST list such people who are using the benefit of reservation under the tribal category but have converted to Christianity. We are also demanding that a census should be conducted to ascertain the gravity of the issue. The converts should be stripped of all benefits. However, if anybody wants to make ghar wapsi, they can be allowed to return to their original religion without hinderance,” he added.
The Raman Singh-led BJP government in Chhattisgarh had in 2006 sought to introduce legal provisions to regulate conversion but they were held up by the then governor, reportedly over the stand on reconversion. The bill, Chhattisgarh Dharma Swantantraya Adhiniyam, said that the return of a person to their ancestors’ religion or their own religion couldn’t be construed as conversion.
In the current draft, most provisions are taken from the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act that criminalises religious conversion by “force, undue influence, coercion, or allurement”.
The UP law includes within its ambit marriage for the sake of religious conversion. According to the law, a marriage shall be declared “null and void” if it is found that its sole intention was to convert the woman.
A similar provision on interfaith marriage as a means to carry out forced conversion had caused the Gujarat High Court to stay a similar bill in the state in 2021. The court stayed the law observing that the “burden of proof fell on the parties entering into interfaith marriage that it was not solemnised on account of any fraud, allurement or coercion”.
Chhattisgarh’s latest draft bill also has a clause on interfaith marriage that could face legal obstacles.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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