Freedom for Whom? Thoughts on Jharkhand’s Religious Freedom Bill

Thanks to Jharkhand’s Religious Freedom Bill, religious conversions get their own hierarchies.

Recently, the Jharkhand state assembly passed an anti-conversion bill called the “Religious Freedom Bill 2017’. It is, allegedly, aimed at ‘coercive’ religious conversions and not ones that are undertaken with consent. Still, the nature of the bill – in fact, the very idea of an anti-conversion bill – presents certain conceptual and practical complications.

It is no secret that right-wing forces are behind this particular development. An alarmed BJP leader, in this context, reportedly pointed to an increase of around 30 percent in the Christian population in Jharkhand from 2001 to 2011. The RSS has, since some time back, been concerned with the accelerating numerical growth of minority religions which surpasses that of the Hindus, and have sought ways of checking, or even reversing, this process – ghar wapsi being a favorite tool.

The passage of this bill is one such move, and there is speculation that the RSS is looking towards the BJP-ruled states of Assam and Manipur to enact similar laws.

It can be granted that an anti-conversion law has, at least prima facie, positive implications for minority religious communities. With such a law, they are protected from the domineering influence of the majority religious group. In fact, one could argue that the right-wing groups, by bringing about the enactment of such laws, are effectively curtailing their own ability to tip, as it were, the scale of conversion in their favor. Ghar wapsi, for example, which is a form of forcible conversion (I see no difference between conversion and “reconversion”), is explicitly prohibited under such legislation.

But a closer and more critical examination reveals certain problems. This concerns the very notion of ‘coercive’ conversion. The meaning of conversion is clear enough, but problems start to emerge once we attempt to delineate what sort of conversions count as ‘coercive’.

Reportedly, and interestingly, in addition to the more obvious ones like threat to life or property, or ouster from the community, the Jharkhand legislation also includes threats of “divine displeasure’’ – exploiting people’s superstitious beliefs – as a form of forceful religious conversion.

A day before they tabled the anticonversion Bill in the assembly, the Jharkhand government, by way of local newspapers, circulated a quote which they attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, in which the latter repudiated Christian missionaries for luring the ‘”simple, illiterate, poor and forest-dwellers” into Christianity with the promise of material rewards. Whether Gandhi really said this is extraneous. Rather, what is of significance here is the implied position that coercive conversions can also take the form of an enticement – the prospect of economic gain, of attaining social status, etc.

Without any contradiction, this can also be extended to other factors like the allurements of educational upliftment, promises of emotional and spiritual fulfillment, or even fear of eternal damnation after death. But, given that much, if not all, conversions involve such promises and expectations, what, one must ask, qualifies as a willful conversion? Surely, one needs not statistics but common sense to see that conversions are always motivated: One does not merely sleepwalk into religions. Anyone who converted under such conditions would claim that it was, indeed, voluntary.

And who is to judge that certain conversions are coerced while certain others are free, heedless of the convert’s testimony? Some want spiritual redemption; others want redemption from hunger or illiteracy. Going by this broad and problematic interpretation, most, if not all, religious conversions are in one way or another ‘coercive’ and, normatively, everyone conniving in such activities ought to be behind bars.

Religious institutions and their functionaries should also be penalised and their activities banned, as they are usually at the helm of such projects. If not a total closure of religious institutions, at least their functioning in public should be prohibited, for it is through these public forums that religious messages are disseminated and followers recruited.

This conclusion, however ludicrous, follows from the reading of the term ‘coercive’ by the Jharkhand government. But such a conclusion must immediately be flagged, for it directly contradicts a Fundamental Right found in the Indian Constitution, Article 25 - the right to not just ‘practice’ a religion but to also ‘profess’ and ‘propagate’ it. It also leads to conceptual contradictions, for the very idea of freedom in “Religious Freedom Bill” presupposes that there is a choice – a choice between religions. But if the tradition of dissemination and propagation of religious ideas and beliefs is discontinued, one is bereft of such a choice and is stuck with the religion (or the absence of it) into which one is born.

In the light of such implications, to call the bill a “Religious Freedom Bill” is a misnomer. Moreover, this obscure but postulated distinction is susceptible to manipulation by the bureaucracy and those in power.

Right-wing groups can easily use their influence to term conversions to minority religions as ‘coercive’ and their imperious projects as voluntary. So much for the hope that such a law will be a check on their policies! But, to be fair to the legislators, it is very much possible to steer clear of such practical and conceptual difficulties: One can take a narrower and stricter view of what counts as a “coercive conversion”. Here, only those conversions that are explicitly involuntary like those owing to threat to life or property, imposed religions, forced induction into a religious organisation, etc, would be considered ‘coercive’.

The endorsement of this limited interpretation would have to be made clear by the legislation, and phrases that admits of ambiguities, like “threats of divine displeasure’’, or clauses that posit certain conversions as “coercive” – regardless of the convert’s declaration – would have to be expunged from the bill.

As the definition narrows, so does the number of conversions that can be labeled ‘coercive’ and thereby halted. This, in no way, helps the Sangh Parivar and their policy of decreasing conversions to minority religions while augmenting intake into the Hindu fold – for which the law was conceived in the first place. But, thankfully, that is their headache.

(Reuben Paulianding Naulak is a final-year undergraduate student of philosophy in St Stephen's College, Delhi.)