The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday approved the draft of a stringent law to deal with religious conversion for the sake of marriage, which BJP leaders refer to as “love jihad”. An official spokesperson said the approval for the ordinance was given at a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow.
“The UP Cabinet has decided to introduce an ordinance against unlawful religious conversions,” said State Cabinet Minister Siddharth Nath Singh. “The way in which religious conversions are done using deceit, lies, force and dishonesty is heart wrenching, and it was necessary to have a law in this regard.”
Singh said punishment under the new law is a jail term from one and five years, and a fine of Rs 15,000. But if the woman involved is a minor or belongs to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, the jail term would range from three to 10 years, he said. The fine would increase to Rs 25,000.
“In the case of mass conversions, the punishment is from three years to 10 years and a fine of Rs 50,000 on organisations which indulge in it,” he said, adding that if anyone wants to change their religion after marriage, they can do so. But the district magistrate has to be informed two months in advance in a prescribed form, and the person can convert once permission is granted. Singh claimed that this will resolve law and order problems.
Adityanath had earlier asked officials to formulate a strategy and bring in the ordinance to prevent religious conversions in the name of love. The state Bharatiya Janata Party government had declared it would bring a tough law to tackle what right-wing outfits call ‘love jihad’.
Some saffron groups and BJP leaders have used the term ‘love jihad’ to target interfaith marriages, accusing Muslim men of engaging in a mass conspiracy to turn Hindu women away from their religion by seducing them. The party has termed it a “serious problem” and backed the decision of its state governments to enact laws against it. BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have expressed their intention to bring a law against ‘love jihad’.
Opposition parties have dismissed this as an attempt by the BJP to divide the society and said any such law will be violative of the Constitution.
The legislation on ‘love jihad’ that was under consideration of the UP law department, prepared by the state law commission, was initially sent to the government last year. An amended copy of it was recently sent again to the state’s home department.
Last year, the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission had submitted a report to Adityanath suggesting a new law to check forcible religious conversions. “The report was submitted along with a draft legislation, Uttar Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill, 2019,” law commission secretary Sapna Tripathi had said.
The report was prepared after going through pre and post-independence laws in the country and neighbouring countries like Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan besides keeping in mind court judgments.
“The commission is of the view that existing legal provisions are not enough to check religious conversions and on this serious matter, a new law is needed like in some other states,” the 268-page report had said, including newspaper clippings regarding forcible conversions, international covenants on the right to religion, anti-conversion laws in neighbouring countries and India. It said states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand had made special laws to ban conversions by force, fraud, marriage or allurement.
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