Following several BJP governed states, the Haryana cabinet today approved a law against illegal religious conversions. Referred to as a law against so-called "love jihad" by the state home minister, it aims to stop conversions through force, threat, coercion, fraud, allurement, misrepresentation, and by marriage or for marriage. The Bill will now be tabled before the Vidhan Sabha.
The Haryana government had put together a three-member team to draft the law soon after the Uttar Pradesh government had cleared a draft ordinance against conversion through force or fraudulent means two years ago.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, in a video posted on his official Twitter account, said that The Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Bill, 2022 has been approved to stop illegal and forced religious conversion.
The "Statements of Objectives and Reasons" of the draft Bill says, "In recent past several instances came to the notice that with an agenda to increase strength of their own religion by getting people from other religions converted, people marry persons of other religion by either misrepresentation or concealment of their own religion and after getting married they force such other person to convert to their own religion."
It further states that there have been "umpteen cases" of religious conversions in the state and there's a presence of "pseudo-social organisations with a hidden agenda" to convert the vulnerable sections of other religions.
According to the draft Bill, anyone who wishes to convert from one religion to another will be required to submit a declaration that the conversion was not by misrepresentation, use of force, under threat, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or for marriage. It also empowers the relevant authority to make an inquiry in such cases.
The Bill also provides for declaring marriages that were solemnised by concealment of religion null and void.
The draft also mentions that the burden of proof lies on the accused. "Provide that the burden of proof as to whether a conversion was not affected through misrepresentation, use of force, under threat, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage or for marriage for the purpose of carrying out conversion lies on the accused," it says.
The BJP's key ally in Haryana and Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala had earlier said that he was not entirely on board with the law. In an interview with NDTV, he had said that he did not agree with the term "love jihad", used by the rightwing to describe what they call a ruse by Muslim men to reel in Hindu women and force them to convert.
"I don't agree with this term called 'love jihad'. We will get a law specifically for checking forceful religious conversion and we will support it. If anybody converts willingly or marries a partner of another faith, then there is no bar," Mr Chautala had told NDTV.
