Tags:
Journalism of Courage
When the Gujarat home minister tabled the controversial ‘Freedom of Religion’ Bill in the Gujarat Assembly on March 22, it was said that the bill would be taken up for discussion on March 26. However, the assembly was unable to hold the discussion because on that day Haren Pandya was murdered. But why was the Gujarat government in such a hurry that it didn’t wait to allow the discussion on the bill some other day?
When a similar bill was passed in Tamil Nadu, there were nation-wide protests by minority communities. And this bill was drafted even more stringently than the one in Tamil Nadu, knowing well that it would disturb minorities in Gujarat. In this bill it is mandatory for any person converting to another religion to take government’s permission. Imagine you could be fined Rs. 1,000 with an imprisonment of one year for exercising your freedom of conscience because it is the government that is supposed to decide for you! One wonders how this bill, which clearly violates one’s constitutional rights, was not only passed in the assembly but has also been given consent by the governor despite the National Commission for Minorities’ plea to delete Clause-5 (1)?
Besides this clause, the wordings and their definitions in the bill are likely to be open to misinterpretation. Even opening Christian schools and giving scholarships could be seen as ‘allurement’. Social relief and development work done by Christians in the state could also be termed as ‘allurement’. This raises another question. Is conversion by unfair means the real issue or social work done by Christians among the poor and downtrodden that empowers and educates them? According to the statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau, Gujarat ranks third in the country in crimes against dalits. In the year 1998 alone, 8,894 cases of atrocities against dalits were registered in the state.
Not only this, the arguments advanced in favour the bill fall flat on their face when one analyses the evidence available.The Census says there were 0.43 per cent Christians in 1991, while in 2001 there were only 0.42 per cent Christians. What then does the government want to restrict? Aren’t there already enough provisions in the Indian Penal Code to restrict conversion by unfair means? Moreover, this law—which obviously targets minority communities, Christians and Muslims in particular—is being enacted in a state like Gujarat that has already witnessed killings of those belonging to minority communities in the past. Keeping this in mind, who will not doubt the motives of the government?
