A new controversy is set to dog religious conversion and re-conversion with the Himachal Pradesh High Court ruling that changing religion is a matter of one’s personal belief and the State has no role to know whether it is a forced or free conversion.
If upheld by the Supreme Court, this order delivered on Thursday last, can have widespread ramifications on the raging debate on conversions and pave the way for people to change their religion at will without requiring them to give prior mandatory intimation to the local District Magistrate.
Holding that the Act was contrary to the right to practice any religion and the right to privacy linked to Article 21 of the Constitution, the bench of Justices Deepak Gupta and Rajiv Sharma held on Thursday, “A person’s belief or religion is something very personal to him. The State has no right to ask a person to disclose what his personal belief is.”
The decision is expected to be challenged before the Supreme Court owing to its impact on the State’s effort to curb forced conversions.
The Court was dealing with Section 4 of the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act 2006 that required any person changing his original religion to intimate the District Magistrate of his decision a month in advance. On receiving such notice, the Magistrate would satisfy whether the conversion was by force, fraud or inducement. If the case was found to be a forced conversion, the DM was free to initiate criminal action against the accused persons.
There was even a penalty clause of up to Rs 1,000 attached in case of failure to give notice. But interestingly, if the person re-converted to his original religion, he was not required to give such notice. Finding this dichotomy unconstitutional, two NGOs — Evangelical Fellowship of India and Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD) — had approached High Court.
Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy had opposed the petitions on the ground that conversions were anti-Hinduism as the original religion of every person in the country is Hinduism.
The court held that every human being had a right to question and change his own belief. It dismissed Swamy’s argument as being “more philosophical in nature” but at the same time held, “this change must be an act of his own conscience — an act which has come from within himself, an act uninfluenced by force, fraud, or inducement”.
The State argued that prior notice alone could ensure if it was a forced conversion. But the Court felt, “This may open a Pandora’s box and once notice is issued, this may lead to conflicts between rival religious outfits and groups.” Only one case had been registered since the Act came into force.
The Court further reasoned, “If a person of his own volition changes his religion, there is no way that one can measure or fix the date on which he has ceased to belong to religion A and converted to religion B this has to be an ongoing process and therefore, there can be no notice of 30 days as required under the Act.”
The petitioners represented by a team of lawyers including Manoj V George of the Supreme Court said that disclosure by a convertee could endanger his life. Going a step further, the bench was of the view, “…Chances of the convertee being subjected to physical and psychological torture cannot be ruled out.” In such an event, the remedy could become more harmful than the problem. – The Pioneer, 3 September 2012
Filed under: india | Tagged: arunachal pradesh, christian, christian missionaries, christian terrorism, christianity, conversion, cultural relativism, evangelicals, forced conversion, foreign funds, freedom of religion, geopolitics, government, hindu, hinduism, hindutva, history, human rights, india, judiciary, neo-colonialism, politics, proselytize, protestant church, psychological warfare, re-conversion, religion, roman catholic church |
BHARATA BHARATI 
For Rwandans, the pope’s apology must be unbearable
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/29/pope-catholics-rwanda-genocide-church
An African version of the infamous Aryan invasion theory propagated by missionaries and colonial rulers triggered the Hutu-Tutsi massacres. The churches played a key role in racial politics.
http://folks.co.in/blog/2012/08/31/tutsi-invasion-behind-the-racial-genocide-in-africa/
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Fisherman protest against P Chidambarams family for corrupt landgrab. Three news item.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/92128-pcs-wife-son-accused-of-land-grab-by-fishermen.html
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/tn-fishermen-register-case-against-karthi/288200-62-128.html
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Chennai/Allegation-of-land-encroachment-against-Chidambaram-s-wife-son/Article1-924060.aspx
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Interesting if true. When I checked the story this morning it was posted in detail on a legal news site. But it is gone now and I didn’t bookmark it.
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Swamy says it is a bogus story planted by missionaries. He says he is sending a rocket to Pioneer. Just read the following twitter converstaion between Swami and Aditya
Please see
Subramanian Swamy @Swamy39
See how Christians have penetrated even the pro BJP Pioneer newspaper. Rocket from me going to the paper.
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22h Aditya Bajoria @adityab99
@Swamy39 State has no right to meddle in conversion cases: Himachal Pradesh HC http://www.dailypioneer.com/home/online-channel/360-todays-newspaper/92000-state-has-no-right-to-meddle-in-conversion-cases-hc.html … @kalyan97
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21h Subramanian Swamy @Swamy39
@adityab99: Bogus story planted by Xtian missionaries
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Why can’t the honorable courts understand that a ‘voluntary’ conversion particularly in the poor strata of our society is a myth ? The filthy rich Church throws money like water to lure the poor for whom survival gets precedence over faith. Therefore all conversions in areas where poverty is widespread are forced repeat forced, not voluntary.
It seems that our whole political system is a conspiracy to convert our entire country to the ‘desert bloc’ religions. That is why we have been deliberately kept poor so that more souls can be available for harvesting. That is why the mai-baap sarkar will hand out doles but hate to empower people so that they can earn their living and keep their self-confidence and pride intact.
The battle against the more powerful Church is getting harder day by day because even the courts don’t want to see the ulterior motives of the West and the ‘Socialistic Pattern of Society’.
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The Constitution itself is acccelerating the
death of Hindustan. It was assembled by
anti-Hindu intellectual lightweights like
Dr. Ambedkar. Too many parts in it were simply
cribbed from similar documents of several other
countries. It has never had any relevance. It
has failed to promote a stronger, a more unified
and a more prosperous nation in the 65 years of
its existence.
It is a purloined first world Constitution unsuited
to a poverty-ridden overbreeding third world country.
Judges should rule based on our historical
encounters and experiences with the fascist and
predatory political movements like Islam and
Christianity. They should also bear in mind that
we live in a country where more than a billion people
cannot read and write. The courts should prevent those
people from being coerced into Islam or Christianity
whose mission is to turn new converts against the
land of their birth.
In matters of proselytization activities the worthless
Constitution should be ignored.
All decisions should be rendered in favor of Hindus,
Hindustan and Hinduism.
Let the Constitution be damned.
Let the sand dune prophets and their false religions be
damned. There is no space for them in the land of the
Hindus.
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