He stated, “These anti-conversion laws are not so much a law against forced conversions, but are laws against the freedom of choice”.
Senior Advocate and former Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court, Dr. S Muralidhar, recently expressed strong concerns about India’s anti-conversion laws. Speaking at an ADF India panel discussion on February 28, he highlighted how these laws undermine personal freedom and choice.
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Dr. Muralidhar criticized the basic assumption behind these laws, which is that every religious conversion must be the result of some form of coercion or intimidation. He emphasized that these laws unfairly shift the burden of proof onto the person accused of forcing a conversion, rather than on the person who has converted.
He stated, “These anti-conversion laws are not so much a law against forced conversions, but are laws against the freedom of choice. There is a presumption in all these laws that if a person belonging or born into a certain religion decides to embrace another religion, then such a decision must be due to some kind of intimidation. This basic presumption explains why the law shifts the burden of proof onto the person who’s charged with converting another against the person’s will.”
Dr. Muralidhar further highlighted that these laws target the personal choice of individuals, especially Dalits, who may wish to convert based on personal beliefs and values.
He remarked, “So clearly the law is meant to target any choice, not just a conversion which is made out of volition by a person who says ‘I find these values of this religion more appealing to me’ and so the target is also the Dalits.”
Dr. Muralidhar pointed out how these laws impose difficult procedures, forcing individuals to publicly announce and justify their personal religious choices. This can lead to public humiliation and intimidation, especially for marginalized communities.
He explained,
“Now, a Dalit seeking to embrace Buddhism will now have to explain to a district magistrate why they are making that choice. They’ll have to first of all announce to the whole world: ‘listen I’m exercising my choice to embrace a particular religion’. One can reasonably argue that after the Puttaswamy privacy judgement, this kind of a law should not withstand legal scrutiny because it straight away hits at the freedom of choice, freedom of privacy, choice of religion, of course but what goes along with religion… the choice of dress, the choice of food, the choice of prayer, all of that is hit, so personal choice has become a public choice and is forced to become a public choice and you’re supposed to defend yourself publicly for the personal choice that you’ve made and that is what I think is the most pernicious aspect of these conversion laws.”
Dr. Muralidhar also criticized the broad scope of who can file complaints under these laws. He raised concerns about how vigilante groups misuse these provisions to intimidate individuals.
He said,
“Who can complain about forced conversion is only a person who’s been a victim of a forced conversion. But the law allows anyone…any cousin, any relative…and thus vigilante groups are actually going around looking at notice boards and collector’s offices or registrar offices to find who’s put up a notice that they want to have an inter-faith marriage and in this case they’ll also have ready information on who wants to convert and thus subject the person to public intimidation.”
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Dr. Muralidhar emphasized that legal changes alone may not be enough to eliminate deep-rooted social prejudices. He urged for a broader transformation in societal attitudes to truly uphold constitutional values.
He questioned,
“That’s the question we have to ask ourselves. All these social practices that this country is host to seem to be impervious…to the constitutional values and provisions of the Constitution. The victory will come when we change, transform ourselves as a society and overcome our innate inherent prejudices and emancipate ourselves as true human beings.”
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