The Law is not good enough. We need to
1. Regulate Funding by Christian organizations esp from U.S., Germany, U.K., Spain. To know details of foreign funding http://www.
2. Hindu organizations and Govt need to usher in a Social Revolution where the poorer strata of society are not held back by Caste as it exists today.
3. Government and Hindu organizations should focus on opening of Schools because ie the starting point to conversions.
4. Hindus should be allowed to Manage their Temples so that the wealth in temples is used for the benefit of poor Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs and Jains.
5. Increase in Growth Rates will sooner or later percolate downwards to poorer sections of society. We need to grow at 8-10%.
Sanjeev Nayyar
Preserving India's secular fabric will require a law against conversions MINT editorial 25/12/14
On 1 May 1947, Vallabhbhai Patel rose in the Constituent Assembly to move a Constitutional clause that dealt with the right to freedom of conscience and religion. For a subject so controversial, the proceedings in the Assembly were remarkably peripheral. The debate, if it can be called that, was on defining a place of worship and throwing open all Hindu temples to everyone. In his concluding remarks, Patel said, “there might be differences of opinion, but on the whole we have tried our best to accommodate all sections of the people”.
The framers of the Constitution gave ample scope to this vital freedom. They did not single out any religion for special treatment and the notion of a majority religion finding a special place in the fundamental law of the country was anathema to them.
Six decades later, the vision of the founding fathers appears to be in trouble. The generous Constitutional provision—Article 25 that enshrines this freedom—is being contested by some as being too lax. For others, it is too constricted. Parliament has been buffeted by protests by opposition members alleging that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its affiliates have dark designs to convert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism. Others want an unimpeded right to convert persons from one faith to another. The spectre of religious controversy and violence haunts India.
Legally, the position is clear. The Supreme Court has held that there is no fundamental right to conversion. In the case of Stanislaus vs State of Madhya Pradesh (1977), the court made a clear distinction between the right to propagate one’s religion or faith and the right to convert. The former is guaranteed by Article 25 of Constitution. Conversion enjoys no such protection.
The court’s words are worth noting: “The freedom of religion enshrined in Article 25 is not guaranteed in respect of one religion only but covers all religions alike which can be properly enjoyed by a person if he exercises his right in a manner commensurate with the like freedom of persons following other religion. What is freedom for one is freedom for the other in equal measure and there can, therefore, be no such thing as a fundamental right to convert any person to one’s own religion.”
This goes into the heart of the problem and shows why the current debates are misleading. Read properly, Article 25 allows any person—when he makes an individual choice—to convert. Even the laws that allegedly ban conversions—such as the one in Madhya Pradesh that dates back to 1968—allow a person to change his/her religion. That is clear: no law can deny a person his freedom to choose what he wants to profess or believe in.
Trouble begins when such conversions occur en masse. For example, when a large number of members of the Pallar caste were converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram in 1981. There are other examples as well. The activities of Christian missionaries in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha and elsewhere, too, have generated controversy. Such acts stir anxieties. There are historical reasons why this is so. Attempts by Hindu groups at re-conversion—and this includes not just the BJP and its associated organizations—since the 19th century should be seen against the background of colonialism—when the colonial authorities officially backed religious missionaries—and the division of the country in 1947 on religious grounds.
There will be no end to these controversies until an enlightened stop is put to use of religion as an organized force to convert persons from one faith to another. This applies to all religions practised in India. Historically, India has never witnessed persecution purely on religious grounds. Compared with Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, India has had a benign environment in this respect. Religious wars are alien to India. But the country has not been immune from religious violence due to flaring up of passions among different communities. Any idea of a fundamental right to conversion in the name of freedom of religion will badly hurt India’s secular fabric. The country should not go on that path.