{"id":217914,"date":"2022-12-10T18:52:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-10T13:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=217914"},"modified":"2022-12-10T18:52:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-10T13:22:59","slug":"supreme-court-on-charity-and-conversion-the-answer-may-lie-in-the-words-of-mahatma-gandhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/supreme-court-on-charity-and-conversion-the-answer-may-lie-in-the-words-of-mahatma-gandhi\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court on charity and conversion: The answer may lie in the words of Mahatma Gandhi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source<\/span><\/b>: The post is based on the article <\/span>\u201cSupreme Court on charity and conversion: The answer may lie in the words of Mahatma Gandhi\u201d <\/span><\/b>published in<\/span> The Indian Express <\/span><\/b>on <\/span>10th December 2022<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/span><\/b>: GS2- Significant provisions of constitution. GS1- Communalism and secularism<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Relevance<\/span><\/b>: Issues related to religion<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

News<\/span><\/b>: The article explains the issue of religious conversion. It also explains the viewpoint of various ruling dispensations and organs of government on this issue.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What do the UDHR and the constitution say about religious conversion?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 provides for the<\/span> right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion<\/span><\/b>. This right includes the freedom to change his religion or belief, and to manifest his religion or belief.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Constitution of India <\/span><\/b>recognised the fundamental <\/span>right to propagate, profess and practice one’s religion<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What has been the view of the apex court on this matter?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

In two cases decided in 1954, the apex court observed that <\/span>Article 25 <\/span><\/b>covered every individual\u2019s right to<\/span> propagate<\/span><\/b> his religious views for the edification of others.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the<\/span> propagation<\/span><\/b> of belief that is protected, no matter whether the<\/span> propagation<\/span><\/b> takes place in a church or monastery, or in a temple or parlour meeting.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What was the policy of rulers in the pre-independence era?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

The British rulers of India, who were never shy of introducing measures to facilitate the conversion of others to their faith. They enacted in 1866 a <\/span>Native Converts Marriage Dissolution Act <\/span><\/b>to provide the facility of divorce to married Indians who converted to Christianity and were thereupon deserted by their non-converting spouses.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Several princely states of the pre-Independence era had enforced <\/span>anti-conversion laws<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the policy on religious conversion in the post-independence era?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

After Independence, the <\/span>Law Commission of India<\/span><\/b> recommended that <\/span>Native Converts Marriage Dissolution Act<\/span><\/b> be revised to make it a general law on the effect of post-marriage change of religion. The government did not take any action on it. It was eventually dropped from the statute book by the <\/span>Repealing and Amending Act of 2017<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

During 1967-68, state legislatures in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh enacted <\/span>anti-conversion laws<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These were challenged in SC court in <\/span>Rev. Stanislaus, 1977 case<\/span><\/b>. It held that <\/span>Article 25 <\/span><\/b>granted not the right to convert another person to one\u2019s own religion but only to <\/span>transmit and spread <\/span><\/b>one\u2019s religion by an exposition of its tenets.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Constitution Bench decision inspired some other states to enact similar laws. Arunachal Pradesh passed the <\/span>Freedom of Religion Act 1978<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today there are such laws in about half of our states. Some of these have been either newly enacted or made more stringent. All of them <\/span>prohibit<\/span><\/b> converting people from one to another religion without their <\/span>free will<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the way forward on religious conversion?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n

India should follow the advice of <\/span>Mahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/b> on this matter.\u00a0<\/span>He once said that \u201call faiths are <\/span>equally true though equally imperfect<\/span><\/b>\u201d. Instead of converting others to one\u2019s own faith, our innermost prayer should be that a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim and a Christian a better Christian\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: The post is based on the article \u201cSupreme Court on charity and conversion: The answer may lie in the words of Mahatma Gandhi\u201d published in The Indian Express on 10th December 2022.\u00a0 Syllabus: GS2- Significant provisions of constitution. GS1- Communalism and secularism\u00a0 Relevance: Issues related to religion\u00a0 News: The article explains the issue of… Continue reading Supreme Court on charity and conversion: The answer may lie in the words of Mahatma Gandhi<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[263,212,10500],"class_list":["post-217914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-1","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}