Freedom of religion in India

Freedom of religion in India is a fundamental right guaranteed by the country's constitution. Modern India also known as Hindustan, came into existence in 1947 as a secular nation and the Indian constitution's preamble states that India is a secular state. Freedom of religion is established in tradition as Hinduism does not recognise labels of distinct religions and has no concept of blasphemy or heresy. Every citizen of India has a right to practice and promote their religion peacefully. However, there have been a number of incidents of religious intolerance that resulted in riots and violence. These incidents have been condemned by the governmental administrations, private businesses, and judicial systems.

India is the birthplace of four major world religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Yet, India is one of the most diverse nations in terms of religion. Even though Hindus form close to 80 percent of the population, the country also has large Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain and Zoroastrian populations. Islam is the largest minority religion in India, and the Indian Muslims form the third largest Muslim population in the world, accounting for over 12 percent of the nation's population.

India has a Hindu President Pranab Mukherjee, Muslim vice-president M. Hamid Ansari, a Sikh Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and an Atheist Defence Minister A. K. Antony. The leader of the largest party, the Indian National Congress, Sonia Gandhi is a Catholic Christian, while the leader of the opposition is Sushma Swaraj, a Hindu. India's ex-President APJ Abdul Kalam was a Muslim. Out of the 12 Presidents of India since Independence, three have been Muslims and one Sikh. India had a prominent former Defence Minister George Fernandes, a Christian. India's Air Force Chief, Fali H. Major, was a Zoroastrian.

History

Historical tradition of religious freedom

The plural nature of Indian society in the 3rd century BCE was encapsulated in an inscription of Ashoka:

"King Piyadasi (Ashoka) dear to the Gods, honours all sects, the ascetics (hermits) or those who dwell at home, he honours them with charity and in other ways. But the King, dear to the Gods, attributes less importance to this charity and these honours than to the vow of seeing the reign of virtues, which constitutes the essential part of them. For all these virtues there is a common source, modesty of speech. That is to say, One must not exalt one’s creed discrediting all others, nor must one degrade these others Without legitimate reasons. One must, on the contrary, render to other creeds the honour befitting them.”

Emperor Kharvela (born in the family of Rajarshi Vasu) declares himself in his inscription (approximately 2nd century BCE):

sava pasa-nd-a-puujako, sava devaayatan-sanskaarako ।
I am worshipper of all sects, restorer of all shrines. ।।

Kharvela's self-description must be contrasted with other rulers around the world, who took pride in calling themselves "but-shikan" or "defender of the (only true) faith".

Badayuni in his Muntakhab-ut-Tawáríkh reports that the Mughal Emperor Akbar, who had established the Din-i-Ilahi faith, decreed the following in AH 1000 (1551–1552 CE):

"Hindus who, when young, had from pressure become Musalmans, were allowed to go back to the faith of their fathers. No man should be interfered with on account of his religion, and every one should be allowed to change his religion, if he liked. ...People should not be molested, if they wished to build churches and prayer rooms, or idol temples, or fire temples."

Refuge from religious persecution

India, with its traditional tolerance, has served as a refuge for groups that have encountered persecution elsewhere.

• Jews: Jews in India were granted lands and trading rights. The oldest of the three longest-established Jewish communities in India, traders from Judea and Israel arrived in the city of Cochin, in what is now Kerala, 2,500 years ago and are now known as Cochin Jews. According to recordings by Jews, the date of the first arrival is given at 562 BC. In 68 AD, more Jews fled to Kerala to escape attacks by the Romans on Jerusalem.
• Christians: Christianity is believed to have come to India in the 1st century through Saint Thomas who formed the Saint Thomas Christians in Kerala. Later in the 15th and 16th centuries European Missionaries brought in Christianity in places such as Goa and Mangalore.Protestant Missionaries came in 18th and 19th centuries to North-East India.
• Parsi: The Zoroastrians from Greater Persia arrived in India fleeing from religious persecution in their native land in the 9th century. They flourished in India and in 18–19th centuries intervened on behalf of their co-religionists in still in Greater Persia. They have produced India's pioneering industrialist house of s and one of the only two Indian Field Marshals in S. F. Manekshaw.
• Tibetan Buddhists: India is now home to the Dalai Lama, a high lama of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
• Baha'i: India now has world's largest Baha'i population who took refuge to India from Iran.

Religious disturbances and conflicts in India before 1947

Notable incidents of religious intolerance, conflicts and riots have occurred at several points in time.

• Some Islamic travellers such as Mahmud of Ghazni committed iconoclasm and genocide of Hindus.
• Various rulers of the Mughal era (such as Aurangzeb) are regarded as perpetrators of religious intolerance towards Hindus and Sikhs through violent acts, oppression, iconoclasm and imposition of jizya.
• The Goa Inquisition was carried out against the Hindu, Muslim and Jewish populations of Goa by Portuguese Rule.

USCIRF indictment of India

A US congressional body has put India on a list of countries which have failed to protect its religious minorities adequately. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom says India was added to the list because of a "disturbing increase" in religious violence. USCIRF had referred to the anti-Christian and anti-Muslim riots in Odisha and Gujarat in 2008 and 2002 respectively.

Religious conversion in India

In India, issues concerning religious conversion have sparked a lot of attention. The step model of transformative religious experiences has seven stages: exposure, disenchantment, crunch, pursuit and test, hostilities, participation and maturation. The conversion of one’s religion is a process of awareness and a point of realization that can be explained in a religious and a social psychological aspect. However, this phenomena implied hostilities in Indian families; indeed changing one’s religion causes a great tremor in the Indian community. Though conversion resolved the pre-conversion crisis, it resulted in more crises in a convert’s life in India. Different kinds of hostilities were: being killed, threatened with death, fear of future troubles or being disowned by parents and friends. Most Indians who converted into another religion reported that it completely changed their lives.

Laws against conversions

The Indian Constitution in Article 25 grants to citizens of India of all religious persuasions freedom to profess, practise and propagate their faith in a way that does not disrupt public order and does not affect public health and morality adversely. The Article 25 of the Indian Constitution is a basic human rights guarantee that cannot be subverted or misinterpreted in any manner. It is in this context that the anti-conversion laws in India must be viewed.Anti-conversion laws are promulgated on the premise that forced or induced conversions happen and need to be prevented. Such laws are controversial because they run the risk of being abused by communal forces who may have the tacit approval of the dominant political party in the state or country.

A consolidation of various anti-conversion or so-called "Freedom of Religion" Laws has been done by the All Indian Christian Council.

In the past, several Indian states passed Freedom of Religion Bills primarily to prevent people from converting to Christianity. Arunachal Pradesh passed a bill in 1978. In 2003, Gujarat State, passed an anti-conversion bill in 2003.

In July 2006, the Madhya Pradesh government passed legislation requiring people who desire to convert to a different religion to provide the government with one month's notice, or face fines and penalties.

In August 2006, the Chhattisgarh State Assembly passed similar legislation requiring anyone who desires to convert to another religion to give 30 days' notice to, and seek permission from, the district magistrate.

In February 2007, Himachal Pradesh became the first Congress Party-ruled state to adopt legislation banning illegal religious conversions.

The US State Department has claimed that the recent wave of anti-conversion laws in various Indian states passed by some states is seen as gradual increase in the traditional nationalism(Hindutva).

Cases of religious violence

• The murder of Indira Gandhi had triggered a riot against the Sikhs, often regarded as a Congress Party and its then leader Rajiv Gandhi supported pogrom. (See 1984 anti-Sikh riots.)
• The riots against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. After the counter attack started by Hindus in which thousands of muslim people were killed and displaced, opposition party BJP and Sangh Parivar often regarded as RSS took the responsibility for the incident.

Situation of Hindus

Militants have murdered and forcibly displaced more than 400,000 Kashmiri Hindus during the Kashmir insurgency. This has been condemned and labelled as ethnic cleansing in a 2006 resolution passed by the United States Congress. In Northeastern India, Christian extremist groups have been accused of harassing, murdering and forcibly converting Hindus, and attacking temples though it has not been proven by a judicial body. In 2000, Tripura police discovered that The Baptist Church of Tripura supplied the NLFT with arms and financial support and to have encouraged forced conversion and murder of Hindus. NLFT has allegedly issued a ban on the Hindu festivals of Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja, and declared it their mission to expand what they describe as the kingdom of God and Christ in Tripura. In Assam, members of the primarily Christian Hmar ethnic group have allegedly placed bloodstained crosses in temples and forced Hindus to convert at gunpoint. Many Hindu holy sites have been regularly attacked by terrorist groups, including Varanasi, Ayodhya, and Akshardham temple.

Situation of Muslims

Main article: Anti-Muslim violence in India

There were widespread riots during the Partition of India in 1947, with attacks on Muslim minorities by Hindu and Sikh mobs.

In 1992,A mob of Hindu militants has torn down a mosque and attacked other Muslim targets in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, in one of India's worst outbreaks of inter-communal violence on their believe that this was built on the birthplace of Ram.

Shiite Islam

Shia muslims are practicing their religion openly in India. No constitutional oppression is imposed on Shia Islam in India. However The Grand Ashura Procession In Kashmir which would mark the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali has been illogically banned by the Government of India decades ago. Mourners who try to come on roads to mourn Imam Hasayn are detained by Jammu and Kashmir Police every year, hence violating fundamental religious practicing rights in secular state.

Situation of Christians

Main article: Anti-Christian violence in India

From 1964 to 1996, at least 38 incidents of violence against Christians were reported. In 1997, 24 such incidents were reported. Since 1998, Christians in India have faced a wave of violence. In 1998 alone, 90 incidents were reported. According to a Human rights Watch report that was published in September 1999, the number of incidents of anti-Christian violence rose in the months following the victory of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in March 1998. Attacks against Christians in Odisha, have occurred in recent years in response to missionary activity by Christians. In a well-publicised case, Graham Staines, an Australian Christian missionary was burnt to death along with his two sons Timothy (aged 9) and Philip (aged 7), while they were sleeping in his station wagon at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district in Orissa in January 1999. He was running the Evangelical Missionary Society of Mayurbhanj, an Australian missionary society. His "distribution of beef & desecrating Hindu Deities" was the alleged excuse for this attack. In 2003, Dara Singh was convicted of leading the gang responsible. In Januray, 2014 a pastor, O Sanjeeva Rao was killed by Hindu extremists from the group 'Hindu Vahini', his wife was also severly injured by them. The president of the Hindu Vahini in Andhra Pradesh said in a newspaper that they were not responsible for the attack, though it was proven after a thorough investigation by the police.

Christian Indians have been threatened by Hindu nationalists with either conversion to Hinduism or displacement.

See also

• Freedom of religion
• Hate speech laws in India
• Partition of India
• 2002 Gujarat violence
• Persecution of Hindus
• Persecution of Muslims
• Persecution of Christians

External links

• "International Religious Freedom Report 2006 – India". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 8 November 2006. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• US REPORT ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN INDIA, a critique
• International Religious Freedom Report – India
• Hindu Genocide
• Christians convert back to Hinduism – http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/3534071.stm