INDIA: States Ratify Anti-Conversion Laws

Source: Jubilee Campaign, December 31, 2020

On December 29, it was revealed that lawyers and government officials of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have approved The Freedom of Religion Bill of 2020 which has raised many concerns among the nation’s religious minorities. This new legislation, according to Reuters, “would make pressuring a woman to convert to their husband’s religion a crime punishable with imprisonment.”

Just a month prior, the Indian state Uttar Pradesh passed a similar law, the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance. In both Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, officials claim that the legislation is aimed at “curb[ing] religious conversions using misrepresentation, allurement, force, threat, undue influence, coercion, marriage or any other ‘fraudulent means.’”

However, though there is no specific religion mentioned in the bill, critics believe it may indiscriminately target the nation’s Muslim and Christian communities. For some time, radical Hindu nationalists have accused—without credible evidence—India’s Muslims of engaging in a “Love Jihad” campaign by which they coerce Hindu women to convert to Islam with the promise of marriage. Similarly, politicians in Madhya Pradesh have repeatedly criticized and condemned Christian missionaries, who they claim make promises of education and financial support to Hindu women in exchange for their conversion to Christianity.

» Read the full story.

» Morning Star News reports the arrest of a Korean Christian and several other suspects under the new anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh.

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