A new anti-conversion law was passed on Friday in Himachal Pradesh, a state in northern India, to keep Hindus from changing religion.
The change to an earlier law from 2019 forbids a convert to Christianity from benefitting from any privilege attached to his family’s caste – lower caste Hindus benefit from quotas in education and state employment – and increases the maximum punishment for “forced conversion” to ten years imprisonment. The amendment also defines the conversion of more than one person in a single ceremony as a “mass conversion,” despite the fact that Catholics and other liturgical Christians often perform baptisms for all converts at the Easter vigil.
In addition, any “marriage for the sole purpose of conversion is declared null and void” under the legislation. Finally, anyone seeking to convert to another religion as well as those performing the conversion must give a month’s notice to a local government magistrate.
In response, a Catholic bishop, Ignatius Loyola Mascarenhas of Shimla–Chandigarh, says he is “more than disappointed and so are people of other faiths”.