‘Love Jihad’: Maharashtra CM Needs Regulation, MP CM Seeks Dying. The place Different States Stand On Unlawful Non secular Conversions – News18

‘Love Jihad’: Maharashtra CM Needs Regulation, MP CM Seeks Dying. The place Different States Stand On Unlawful Non secular Conversions – News18

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Unlawful non secular conversions or love jihad: How will Maharashtra deliver within the anti-conversion regulation? Is non secular conversion unlawful in India? What does the Structure say? What number of states in India have such legal guidelines? What are the objections?

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis (left) and MP CM Mohan Yadav. (PTI File)

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday pushed for a “love jihad regulation” within the state, saying the federal government has acquired over 100,000 complaints of unlawful conversions and that there’s a “methodical insanity” behind them. In the meantime, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav lately stated that his authorities would make a provision for the loss of life penalty for non secular conversion of women, alongside the strains of punishment for rape of minors.

On February 4, 2025, the Rajasthan authorities tabled the Rajasthan Prohibition of Illegal Conversion of Faith Invoice, 2025, which seeks to criminalise non secular conversion by way of the technique of coercion, fraud, pressure, and marriage.

Whereas Fadnavis stated the regulation’s enactment can be primarily based on the findings of a committee fashioned final month below state police chief Rashmi Shukla “to stop love jihad and fraudulent or compelled conversions”, Rajasthan has now joined different states which have handed anti-conversion legal guidelines.

Is conversion unlawful in India? What number of states have such legal guidelines?

WHAT IS ‘LOVE JIHAD’?

Though jihad isn’t a damaging time period, it has gained further consideration in current many years by way of its use by Islamic terrorist teams. Therefore, the time period ‘love jihad’, as utilized by politicians means marrying somebody with a sole intent to transform them to 1’s faith.

RELIGIOUS CONVERSIONS

Article 25 of the Indian Structure ensures the liberty to observe, profess, and propagate any faith, which incorporates the suitable to transform voluntarily, with out coercion or pressure.

Article 16 of the Common Declaration of Human Rights, to which India is a signatory, acknowledges inter-faith marriages as part of human rights.

There isn’t any nationwide regulation explicitly regulating non secular conversions.

Nonetheless, a number of states have enacted anti-conversion or ‘Freedom of Faith’ legal guidelines to ban conversions by way of fraudulent means, undue affect, or allurement.

IN MAHARASHTRA

The CM has tasked the committee with evaluating the present state of affairs, dealing with complaints of ‘love jihad’ and compelled non secular conversions, analyzing the legal guidelines of different states, establishing authorized frameworks and reviewing authorized implications.

“Varied organisations within the State and a few residents submitted representations concerning enacting a regulation to stop love jihad and fraudulent or compelled conversions. Some States in India have additionally enacted legal guidelines to stop love jihad and fraudulent or compelled conversions,” the federal government order learn. There isn’t any stipulated time-frame for the report.

In the meantime, through the Maharashtra Meeting’s ongoing price range session, BJP legislators Atul Bhatkhalkar and Sudhir Mungantiwar launched a personal member’s invoice, searching for to enact a regulation in opposition to non secular conversions allegedly happening below the guise of marriage. The invoice proposes authorized provisions to curb what the BJP calls “one-sided non secular conversions” occurring after marriage. It seeks to introduce strict measures to make sure that any particular person aspiring to convert to a different faith should declare their intent to the district Justice of the Peace at the very least 60 days upfront. Moreover, non secular monks conducting the conversion would even be required to tell the authorities earlier than continuing. Failure to stick to those provisions might lead to authorized penalties, together with imprisonment starting from six months to a few years and fines between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000.

MAHA OPPOSITION

Opposition events and activists have criticised the Invoice, calling it an try and polarise society alongside non secular strains. The Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), and NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) have questioned the need of such laws, arguing that present legal guidelines in India already deal with problems with compelled conversions and fraudulent marriages. They imagine that the Invoice might be misused to harass interfaith {couples} and limit private freedoms.

THE STATES THAT HAVE PASSED ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS

  • Uttar Pradesh: The Uttar Pradesh authorities handed the Prohibition of Illegal Conversion of Faith (Modification) Invoice – 2024 whereas amending the prevailing anti-conversion invoice, which proposes stricter guidelines, life imprisonment from the prevailing sentence of 10 years and hefty fines of as much as Rs 10 lakh.
  • Rajasthan: The Prohibition of Illegal Conversion of Faith Invoice prescribes extreme penalties for compelled conversions, together with imprisonment starting from two to 10 years and fines as much as Rs 25,000. Conversions involving minors, girls or people from Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) carry harsher penalties, with jail phrases between three and ten years and fines of Rs 50,000.
  • Arunachal Pradesh: Though the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Faith Act 1978 was handed by the state in 1978 and President’s assent acquired, this regulation was not applied in Arunachal Pradesh for over 4 many years. In September 2024, the Itanagar Bench of the Gauhati Excessive Courtroom, after listening to a petition, ordered the federal government to border guidelines for this inside six months.
  • Chhattisgarh: The state is ready to switch its present anti-conversion regulation with a brand new one like Uttar Pradesh’s draconian anti-conversion regulation to make it tough to vary one’s faith.
  • Gujarat: The Gujarat authorities in 2024 clarified that Buddhism and Hinduism should be thought of as two separate religions for non secular conversions within the state. The Gujarat authorities took word of Hindus – predominantly Dalits – changing to Buddhism within the state, and said that each the particular person changing and the particular person getting them to transform should inform the District Justice of the Peace and get their permission, in response to the provisions of the Gujarat Freedom of Faith Act, 2003 (GFR Act). In line with the state authorities, the GFR Act “seeks to take care of non secular conversion by way of allurement, pressure or by misrepresentation or by every other fraudulent means.” Part 3 of the act criminalises an try and convert any particular person from one faith to a different “by use of pressure or by allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or by getting an individual married or by aiding an individual to get married”.
  • Haryana: In 2022, the state authorities Monday notified guidelines to implement a regulation that stops forcible non secular conversions — and locations the burden of proof of innocence on the accused.
  • Madhya Pradesh: The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Faith Act, 2021 was handed to stop or discourage compelled or fraudulent non secular conversions.
  • Himachal Pradesh: The invoice was handed in 2022.
  • Jharkhand: The state handed a invoice in 2017.
  • Uttarakhand: In 2022, the state made the regulation extra stringent.
  • Odisha: The Authorities of Odisha (then Orissa) was the primary state to institute anti-conversion regulation. The Orissa Freedom of Faith Act, 1967 “supplies that no particular person shall convert or try and convert, both instantly or in any other case, any particular person from one non secular religion to a different by means of pressure or by inducement or by any fraudulent means.”
  • Karnataka: Karnataka had handed the Safety of Proper to Freedom of Faith Invoice, 2021, in 2022, however the brand new authorities introduced plans to scrap it.
Information politics ‘Love Jihad’: Maharashtra CM Needs Regulation, MP CM Seeks Dying. The place Different States Stand On Unlawful Non secular Conversions

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