On Saturday (December 25), veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad courted controversy after he tried to trivialise the growing menace of forceful religious conversion. He made the comments while celebrating Christmas with the Christian community in the Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir.
While speaking to news agency ANI, Azad claimed, “People convert after getting influenced, as they see this particular religion is serving humanity, taking everyone along and not discriminating.” He also suggested that religious conversions in India were being carried out through voluntary consent and not the fear of sword. “If anyone is converting people, he is not using a sword. It is good work and character of individuals which are influencing people,” he further alleged.
If anyone is converting people, he is not using a sword. It is good work & character of individuals which influence others to convert. People convert when they see a particular religion serving humanity & not discriminating: Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad in J&K (25.12) pic.twitter.com/bDRimH4u9H
— ANI (@ANI) December 25, 2021
His comments came at the backdrop of the recent anti-conversion bill tabled by the BJP government in Karnataka. The Bill says, “No person shall convert or attempt to convert either directly or otherwise any other person from one religion to another by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage, nor shall any person abet or conspire for conversions.”
Despite the attempt of the veteran Congress leader to downplay the severity of forced conversions, facts show otherwise. People are lured into religious conversions through deceit and the recent surge in such incidents is a testimony to it. In one such recent case, the Etah city police in Uttar Pradesh had arrested a youth named Shoaib Irshad for allegedly trapping a Hindu girl by posing as a Hindu boy and later abducting and forcing her to convert to Islam.
The family of the victim had filed a missing complaint on December 7, based on which the Etah police initiated an investigation and arrested the youth in a kidnapping case and sent him to jail. The girl was recovered and handed over to her family members.
Earlier this month, the Makarpura police in Vadodara in Gujarat had registered an FIR against Missionaries of Charity (an organization founded by Mother Teresa) on the charges of allegedly hurting Hindu religious sentiments and luring young girls to convert to Christianity.
The organization ran a shelter home in Vadodara city. The case was registered based on the complaint filed by Mayank Trivedi, District Social Defence officer. The organization was booked under Sections 295A (deliberate and malicious acts to outrage feelings of any class by insulting its religious beliefs), 298 (deliberately uttering words to wound the religious sentiments of a person) of the Indian Penal Code, and Section 3 (prohibition of forcible conversion) of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003. The punishment for forcible conversion under the act is up to three years with/or a fine of up to Rs. 50,000.
Similar cases have been reported from Uttar Pradesh and Bharuch in Gujarat where there are allegations of foreign funds having been received for aiding religious conversion and also distributing money to those who embrace other faith.
