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The amendments adopted by the Uttar Pradesh Assembly to make its regressive anti-conversion law more stringent seems to have ease of its misuse as its principal aim. The original law, enacted in 2021, led to the registration of over 400 cases by 2023. The amendments seek to increase the jail terms prescribed under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. If minors, women or “certain communities” were the target of conversion through use of force, threat or coercion, it could entail imprisonment up to 20 years and even for life. It also prescribes a stiff sentence and fine for receiving funds from foreign organisations for the purpose of unlawful conversion. A concerning feature is the introduction of stringent requirements for grant of bail that enhance the purported gravity of the offence. The amended law states that a person accused under the Act cannot be granted bail, unless the public prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose it, and that there should be reason to believe that the accused is not guilty of the offence, and is unlikely to repeat it while out on bail. The section is similar to the bail-denying provisions in the NDPS Act and the PMLA.
Another new feature, by which anyone can file a complaint against supposedly forcible or fraudulent conversions, is reprehensible, as it gives communal organisations and sundry busybodies to get those opting for or supporting an inter-faith marriage arrested. Earlier, only an aggrieved person, that is, the victim or a close family member, could file a complaint against unlawful conversion. The move to amend the provision is likely motivated by the fact that bail has been granted to many arrested under this Act because the complainants were not aggrieved parties in those cases. The idea of giving more teeth to the law is rooted in the claim that the cases of “forced conversions” are on the rise in the State, but whether such a spike is a fact or a result of the widespread misuse of the Act against those opting for inter-faith marriages is something to be studied. The validity of the law has always been in doubt, inasmuch as it tries to criminalise inter-faith marriages by treating “conversion by marriage” as one of the means of ‘unlawful conversion’, by declaring marriages for the purpose of conversion as null and void, and mandating prior intimation to the authorities for those intending to change their religion. The amendments worsen the multiple violation of fundamental rights and betray a medieval-mindedness unbecoming of a democratic government functioning under a forward-looking Constitution.
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Medieval-minded: On anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh, its amendments
