By Omar Rashid
In July 30, the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly amended the State’s stringent anti-conversion law of 2021 to make it even more repressive. The maximum jail term was increased to life imprisonment, securing bail was made more arduous, and the scope of illegal conversion was widened to include promise of marriage and trafficking. These changes express the intentions of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to intensify its attempts to criminalise interfaith relationships and consensual conversions to minority faiths, as part of its Hindutva ideology.
The amended section
The Assembly also amended Section 4 of the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, to allow “any person” to act as a complainant. This means that whether that person was being unlawfully converted or not becomes immaterial. For instance, a right-wing activist could lodge an FIR against a Christian prayer meeting, accusing its organisers of trying to convert the participants to Christianity through allurements. The police would be authorised to register an FIR on the activist’s complaint even if nobody at the meeting lodged a complaint that they were being unlawfully converted.
Section 4 of the original law was much more specific in its scope. It allowed “any aggrieved person, his or her parents, brother, sister or any other person related to him or her by blood, marriage or adoption” to lodge an FIR. However, third-party elements, such as police officers, Sangh Parivar activists, and elected local representatives, regularly lodged complaints under the law. This brazen disregard for law has allowed unruly elements to disturb prayer meetings and peaceful gatherings claiming that these events were being used to coerce or allure “naive” and poor Hindus to turn to Christianity. Muslim men in consensual relationships with Hindu women are also victims of such vigilantes.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
