{"id":218083,"date":"2022-12-12T19:46:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T14:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=218083"},"modified":"2022-12-12T19:46:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-12T14:16:06","slug":"what-are-the-existing-laws-on-religious-conversions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-are-the-existing-laws-on-religious-conversions\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the existing laws on religious conversions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201c<strong>What are the existing laws on religious conversions?\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Hindu<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0<strong>12<sup>th<\/sup> December 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 Governance <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance: <\/strong><strong>anti-conversion laws and problems associated.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>News: <\/strong>Charity works are being misused by some communities for religious conversion which is a concern for India.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Which states have laws for conversion?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><strong>Odisha<\/strong> became the first state after independence in 1967 to enact a law to stop forceful\/fraudulent religious conversion.<\/p>\n<p>Further, in 1968 Madya Pradesh came up with <strong>Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantraya Adhiniyam Ac<\/strong>t. It required the person who converted others to inform the concerned District Magistrate.<\/p>\n<p>Presently, many states have passed anti-conversion laws restricting religious conversions through marriage.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, the <strong>Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021<\/strong>, says that a marriage would be declared \u201cnull and void\u201d if the marriage is solely for that purpose.<\/p>\n<p>Madhya Pradesh also passed a new law in 2021\u2014 the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act <strong>(MPFRA<\/strong>). It makes mandatory for both the individual and the priest facilitating the conversion to inform the District Magistrate prior to the conversion.<\/p>\n<p>These laws also provide for greater punishment for forceful conversion of persons from <strong>Scheduled Castes<\/strong> or <strong>Scheduled Tribe communities<\/strong>, <strong>minors and women<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, more than 10 states have enacted anti-conversions laws. Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka have passed the laws.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What has been the judicial stand on these laws?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Many of these laws have been challenged in the court and have been termed as <strong>unconstitutional.<\/strong>\u00a0 <strong>For example<\/strong>, the Himachal Pradesh High Court in 2012 struck down certain provisions of the State\u2019s 2006 law restricting conversions.<\/p>\n<p>The Court said that the individual converting their faith also enjoyed their <strong>right to privacy<\/strong> and the provision to give a month\u2019s prior notice to the District Magistrate violated this right.<\/p>\n<p>Further, the <strong>Gujarat High Court<\/strong> stayed some provisions of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003 in 2021 and even this year, the <strong>Madhya Pradesh High Court<\/strong> has held certain provisions of the MPFRA unconstitutional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on an article\u00a0\u201cWhat are the existing laws on religious conversions?\u201d published in The Hindu\u00a0on\u00a012th December 2022. Syllabus: GS 2 \u2013 Governance Relevance: anti-conversion laws and problems associated. News: Charity works are being misused by some communities for religious conversion which is a concern for India. Which states have laws for&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-are-the-existing-laws-on-religious-conversions\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What are the existing laws on religious conversions?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"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":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-218083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218083","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\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}