Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Omprakash
Kiit law school
Anti-conversion Law and its
Constitutional validity
And there are more states is planning to introduced their Anti-conversion law
like Jharkhand and Uttarakand is ready to enact their Anti-conversion law.
All the seven states which have their Anti conversion law
Before enacting the Anti conversion law , State have following two
assumption on which State Government enact the Anti conversion law:
(1)People who converts in group may not have freely chosen
conversion
(2)Groups are particularly vulnerable to being lured into changing their
religion.
This put a question before us that ,why State taking this two as assumption
for enacting the Anti-conversion. For understand this we have taken the
example of Madhya Pradesh which is the first state to enact the Anti-
conversion, why the M.P State Government enacted the Anti conversion law.
In Madhya Pradesh, having a large population of tribal known as “Adivasis”,
the Government received number of reports that large-scale conversions of
tribal to Christians are taking place by threat, inducement and other
fraudulent means by foreign missionaries and the Government should put an
end to this unhealthy practice. The Government then constituted an inquiry
commission headed by Dr Bhavani Shankar Niyogi, a retired Judge of the
Madhya Pradesh High Court, and comprising five members. One of the
members of the Commission was S.K. George, a Christian and a true
Gandhian and working as a professor in a college at Wardha. The
Commission toured fourteen districts and visited seventy- seven places. It
examined 11,300 persons coming from 770 villages and sent questionnaires
and received reports from 375 institutions, which included 55 Christian
institutions. It also sent questionnaires to prominent individuals of the State.
After such detailed and elaborate inquiries the Commission submitted a
comprehensive report to the government in 1966. Some of the important
recommendations made by the Commission
were as follows:-
1) Christian missionaries are converting innocent and ignorant people to Christianity by offering
various inducements such as free education, free medical facilities and employment
opportunities.
2) Christian institutions are receiving funds and other contributions from foreign countries.
3) These Christian institutions are controlled by the Churches of foreign countries.
4) It is, therefore, necessary to enact legislation banning conversion.
On these recommendations of the Commission, the Madhya Pradesh Government passed the
anti-conversion law known as Madhya Pradesh Swantraya Adhiniyan Act, 1966 prohibiting
conversion from one religion to another religion and following Madhya Pradesh Orissa enacted
the Act called Orissa freedom of Religion Act 1967. This was soon followed by the Arunachal
Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 1978 to provide for prohibition of conversion from one
religious faith to another by use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means. The Union
Territory of Tripura also passed a similar enactment. The Parliament as early as 1954 took up for
consideration legislative enactment banning conversion known as Indian Conversion (Regulation
and Registration Bill and later in 1960 the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill
and they had to be dropped for lack of majority support. A Bill was introduced in Parliament by a
member O.P. Tyagi called “The Freedom of Religion Bill 1978”. The Bill was a modified and
improved version of the legislative enactments of the Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. As there was
no sufficient support in Parliament the Bill was withdrawn by the private member O.P. Tyagi.
Legislative history
The legislative history relating to the issue of conversion in India underscores the point that the
authorities concerned were never favourably disposed towards conversion. While British India
had no anti-conversion laws. The reason being that they were followers of Christianity and
understandably they did not enact a law detrimental to their own interest by prohibiting
conversion from one religion to another religion. During the British regime many Hindus
willingly and voluntarily embraced Christianity to secure pecuniary gains and other advantages
from the British rulers. 1While British India had no anti-conversion law, many Princely States
enacted anti-conversion legislation: the Raigarh State Conversion Act 1936, the Patna Freedom
of Religion Act of 1942, the Sarguja State Apostasy Act 1945 and the Udaipur State Anti-
Conversion Act 1946. Similar laws were enacted in Bikaner, Jodhpur, Kalahandi and Kota and
many more were specifically against conversion to Christianity. In the post-independence era,
Parliament took up for consideration in 1954 the Indian Conversion (Regulation and
Registration) Bill and later in 1960 the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill, both
of which had to be dropped for lack of support. The proposed Freedom of Religion Bill of 1979
was opposed by the Minorities Commission due to the Bill's evident bias.
However, in 1967-68, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh enacted local laws called the Orissa Freedom
of Religion Act 1967 and the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantraya Adhiniyam 1968. Along
similar lines, the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1978 was enacted to provide for
prohibition of conversion from one religious faith to any other by use of force or inducement or
by fraudulent means and for matters connected therewith. The latest addition to this was the
Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance promulgated by the
Governor on October 5, 2002 and subsequently adopted by the State Assembly. Each of these
Acts provides definitions of `Government', `conversion', `indigenous faith', `force', `fraud',
`inducement' (and in the case of Arunachal, that of `prescribed and religious faith'). These laws
made forced conversion a cognisable offence under sections 295 A and 298 of the Indian Penal
Code that stipulate that malice and deliberate intention to hurt the sentiments of others is a penal
offence punishable by varying durations of imprisonment and fines.
As early as 1967, it became evident that the concern was not just with forced conversion, but
with conversion to any religion other than Hinduism and especially Christianity and Islam. In the
Orissa and Madhya Pradesh Acts, the punishment was to be doubled if the offence had been
committed in respect of a minor, a woman or a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste or
Scheduled Tribe community. These may be seen as further reinforcing the several statutory
penalties for ceasing to be a Hindu such as the 1955-56 Hindu Law enactments namely Hindu
Minority and Guardianship Act 1956 (Section 6), Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act 1956
(Sections 7, 8, 9, 11, 18-24), Hindu Marriage Act 1955 (Sections 13 (ii), 13 A) and the Hindu
Succession Act (section 26). The picture is complete if we account for the fact that most of these
laws are aimed to keep the low caste Hindus within the fold of Hinduism. And so while law
prohibits conversion, `reconversion' of low caste Hindus is permissible. If a low caste Hindu who
had converted to another faith or any of his descendants reconverts to Hinduism, he might get
back his original caste (Kailash Sonkar (1984) 2 SCC 91; S. Raja Gopal AIR 1969 SC 101).
Research issues -:
For doing this research,we have faced the following research issues:
Hypothesis :
Hypothesis for this research topic, we researcher have choosen this
Hypothesis:
The first case was Mrs Yulithe Hyde and others v. State of Orrisa which came
before Orissa High Court comprises of two sitting judges bench (R.N Mishra
and K.B Panda). In this case Anti-conversion law of state of Orrisa was
challenged which is known as the The Orissa Freedom Of Religion Act, 1967 .
the brief fact of this case , there are four petitioners who are Indian citizens
and are Christain belonging to the Roman Catholic church are permanent
resident of Orrisa. The petitioners number 2 and 4 are Priests who claim to
have dedicated themshelves to the propagation of the Catholic faith and are
engaged in evangelization leading to conversion of persons belonging to
other faith by and or through preaching exhortation. Father Fernando and
three others who are said to be catechists have been prosecuted under the
Act in the court of a Magistrate at Gunupur in four separate cases .
The main contention raised in these Act is ultra vires the constitution.
The main attack is on the following grounds.
(a) The State Legislature has no legislative competency to legislate on
matters covered by the Act
(b)The Act infringes the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article
25 of the constitution.
Hence this Act is ultra vires the constitution and four criminal cases
pending before the Magistrate at Gunnupur are quashed.
Another case which came before the Madhya Pradesh High Court and
challenged the constititutional validity of Madhya Pradesh Freedom of
Religion Act,1968 which is known as the Madhya Pradesh Dharma
Swantantraya Adhiniyam,1968. Same issued raised in this case which
is raise in the case of Mrs Yulithe Hyde. The brief fact of the case, the
Sub-Divisional Magistarte of Baloda Bazar sanctioned the prosecution
of Rev. Stainislaus for the commission of offence under Sections 3,4
and 5(2) of the Madhya Pradesh Act.