The Allahabad High Court has made a significant observation regarding the issue of religious conversions in Bharat. The court, while hearing a case of unlawful conversion of religion in Hamirpur district of Uttar Pradesh, said that if large-scale illegal religious conversions continue, the majority population of this country would be in a minority one day. The court also emphasized the need for putting an immediate stop to mass gatherings that facilitate the religious conversion of Bharatiya citizens.

Justice Rohit Ranjan Aggarwal made the observation while rejecting the bail plea of Kailash, a resident of Maudaha in Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh, under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2021. The court noted serious allegations made against the accused who was charged with facilitating illegal religious conversions.

The complainant had reportedly filed an FIR stating that the accused had taken her brother Ramphal to Delhi to attend a social event. However, several other villagers were also taken to this event which turned out to be a Christian conversion event where they were allegedly lured and converted to Christianity.

According to the complainant, her brother was mentally ill. After the arrest of the accused, his lawyer reportedly claimed that the accused did not convert the complainant’s brother. The event was organized by Pastor Sonu, who carried out the conversions and has since been released on bail.

Most importantly, the court emphasized that Article 25 of the Constitution provides individuals the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate their religion, but it does not provide for conversion of individuals from one religion to the other. The Allahabad High Court added that propagation did not amount to a license to convert individuals from one religion to another. Thus, the court also pointed out that such unlawful conversions are rather in direct conflict with the right to religious freedom guaranteed by Article 25.

The court also observed that unlawful conversion of Bharatiya citizens belonging to the SC/ST community and other castes including economically poor sections to Christianity was being done at a rampant pace throughout the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Allahabad High Court’s significant observation regarding fraudulent religious conversions in Bharat comes at a crucial time; we have a coalition government at the centre with the BJP having a somewhat weakened mandate the Western deep state is constantly pressuring Bharat to roll back anti-conversion laws passed by various states. The US State Department recently released the latest version of its annual International Religious Freedom Report. The report accused the Bharatiya government of covertly facilitating attacks against religious minorities. Most importantly, the report vehemently attacked anti-conversion laws passed by various Bhartiya states, claiming that these laws interfered with the right of religious minorities to proselytize and thus continued a “violation of the rights of minorities”.

Thus, the US State Department not only attacked laws democratically passed by Bharatiya state legislatures, but also misconstrued Article 25 of the Bharatiya Constitution by insinuating that the right to practice and propagate one’s religion invariably translated into a right to proselytize and convert. If the right to propagate one’s religion is stretched to the right to convert people from one religion to other, then it will indeed interfere with the freedom of Bharatiya citizens to follow the religion of their choice without coercion or interference.

Christian conversions in India often involve financial incitement and brainwashing of various sorts through claims of miracles curing diseases and other problems in the lives of those being converted. Thus, the Allahabad High Court rightly observed that if religious conversions continue at such an alarming pace, the day is not far when the majority of this country will become a minority.

While many states in Bharat including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, and Jharkhand have passed and implemented anti-conversion laws, there hasn’t been much discussion on the need for Bharat to pass anti-conversion law at the national level. Supreme Court lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay has raised this issue multiple times by filing numerous petitions to the Supreme Court, demanding that the court instruct the government to introduce a Bill to prohibit fraudulent conversions.

In November 2022, the Supreme Court took note of Ashwini Upadhyay’s plea regarding the need for a national law to prohibit forceful religious conversions. The apex court called forceful religious conversions a “very serious issue” and it asked the Union government to make its stand clear on the issue.

The Supreme Court had reportedly sought responses from the Union Government, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Union Law Ministry regarding the status of forceful conversions in Bharat. The Court further asked the government to file a counter on what further steps can be taken by the central government and others to curb forced conversions made by force, allurement, or fraudulent means.

However, in January 2023, the Supreme Court bench hearing Ashwini Upadhyay’s plea was changed. The new bench warned Upadhyay against filing multiple petitions before different benches of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court and also reportedly directed him to delete certain paragraphs against minorities from his plea.

In 2023, Jerome Anto, a practicing Christian, a politico-religious observer and an anti-conversion campaigner, also filed a PIL in the Supreme Court questioning fraudulent conversions allegedly being undertaken of Hindus and minor children. The PIL requested the Supreme Court to issue directions to the government to bring a law to control religious conversions in Bharat. The court however dismissed the PIL saying that if it were a live challenge and someone was to be prosecuted, we could have entertained but what kind of a PIL is this.

Hindupost interviewed Jerome Anto in 2023 in which he spoke at length about his motivations behind filing the PIL against forceful religious conversions in Bharat:

As a student of history, I’ve observed patterns where the process of conversion has been directly associated with broader geopolitical and cultural shifts. Throughout history, we’ve seen instances where missionaries, in various parts of the world, have been involved in activities that extended beyond the realm of religious outreach, especially in the case of Abrahamic faith. Religious conversion is intertwined with broader geopolitical agendas, leading to unintended consequences and even the destruction of indigenous cultures.

My concern, as a concerned citizen of Bharat, is rooted in this historical context. I believe it’s essential to learn from history and be cautious about any actions that might inadvertently harm the rich tapestry of our civilization. The experiences in Africa, America, Asia, and Australia have shown that conversion industry destroys people and enslaves them which leads to irreparable consequences and a sure erosion of indigenous civilizations. ( Shri Jerome Anto, from the Hindupost interview).

The biggest roadblock to passing a national anti-conversion law in Bharat is the lack of data regarding forceful religious conversions in Bharat. The global media and think tank ecosystem is geared towards whitewashing the issue of large-scale conversion of Hindus in Bharat. The mainstream Bharatiya media, especially the print and digital English media, also unfortunately propagates the same narrative. Whenever local Hindu groups and organizations try to resist the missionary ecosystem of forceful conversions, raise their voice against a conversion event, or file FIRs in states under the anti-conversion law provisions, the whole media and think tank ecosystem starts crying “ minorities are in danger”.

They start publishing one-sided reports of these incidents portraying Bharatiya minorities as victims, completely whitewashing the fact that it was their coercive attempts to convert Hindus that created the situation in the first place. The whole narrative is geared towards keeping the Bharatiya state in a perpetual level of guilt regarding the “rights of minorities” so that the issue of large-scale conversion of Hindus in Bharat is perennially hushed-hushed.

There is a lack of official data regarding the number of Hindus who have been fraudulently converted to minority religions like Christianity and Islam throughout Bharat. The nationalist media routinely gives coverage to incidents of conversion from here and there, but there hasn’t been a concerted effort to commission large-scale research to gather data on the nationwide religious conversion of Hindus.

Unless and until the government or independent organizations commission such a study at the national level, it gets hard to argue the case of Hindus. But the fact that Bharatiya citizens are now raising their voices against fraudulent conversions by filing FIRs against such religious conversions in their respective localities, is indeed a step in the right direction. A national law to curb fraudulent religious conversions might be a bit far off, as of now, but in the meantime, Bharatiyas must continue to create awareness on the issue of fraudulent religious conversions in Bharat.