Headline from this week: 'Pune Police withdraws conversion law provisions from 2 cases after officials find Act not in force yet.'

Our ever-vigilant law enforcers have not only sorted out and solved the problems of previous laws but also those of future ones. The new law referred to has since come into effect and is one of the gifts the BJP has given India since 2018, when the first such law came into force in Uttarakhand.

Freedom to propagate religion is both a fundamental right in India (Article 25) and a criminal offence. This might puzzle some people about what we are actually trying to do, but the mother of democracy is wise and knows how to keep her children in line.

I have written here before about the specific problems these laws pose, and I will not repeat them. But we should take a look at what the problem actually is that these laws are attempting to solve. How big an issue is religious conversion in India?

Conversions in India have historically happened through communities. It is difficult for an individual to change her faith in India because ties to community and family are strong. For this social reason, as well as the restrictions placed on freedom of religion, the numbers of conversions in India are quite low.

In its issue dated 15 September 1981, India Today reported that ‘figures painstakingly tabulated by the Home Ministry showed that in the past fourteen months the number of........

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