Abstract: The paper deals with anti-religious conversion anxieties and sentiment in contemporary India, tracing the genealogy of this anxiety through the colonial period to the present day. Many anti-conversion legislations, judgements and acts dot the legal landscape in India, which on paper, merely claim to control and regulate religious conversion by force, but more insidiously, have been used to target Muslim and Christian individuals, organizations and proselytizing efforts as a whole. This has led to direct violence, as well as chilling effects. As Laura Dudley Jenkins argues, these laws work within a three-pronged framework of persecution, prosecution, and prevention in the guise of mere protection of religious freedom to actually curtail religious freedom, individual agency and choice, and the rights of communities to proselytize, which is guaranteed under the Indian constitution. I explore these debates in light of the recent ‘love jihad’ arrests and other controversies.Abstract: The paper deals with anti-religious conversion anxieties and sentiment in contemporary India, tracing the genealogy of this anxiety through the colonial period to the present day. Many anti-conversion legislations, judgements and acts dot the legal landscape in India, which on paper, merely claim to control and regulate religious conversion by force, but more insidiously, have been used to target Muslim and Christian individuals, organizations and proselytizing efforts as a whole. This has led to direct violence, as well as chilling effects. As Laura Dudley Jenkins argues, these laws work within a three-pronged framework of persecution, prosecution, and prevention in the guise of mere protection of religious freedom to actually curtail religious freedom, individual agency and choice, and the rights of communities to proselytize, which is guaranteed under the Indian constitution. I explore these debates in light of the recent ‘love jihad’ arrests and other controversies.
