by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led government is reportedly crafting a sweeping national anti-conversion law that would place a ban not only on forced conversions but also on conversions made in good faith.
According to Zee News, an Indian news outlet, the nationalist ruling party is currently preparing the bill, which would make any conversions illegal in all of India’s 29 states, and will present it at the next session of parliament.
One Christian leader in India told International Christian Concern that “the proposal of a national law that prevents religious conversion gives the hardliners the idea that a ‘Hindu Rastra’”—the rough equivalent of an Aryan Reich—“is to be established. Just the media reports are enough for the radicals on the ground to be more aggressive.”
8 Indian states have enacted anti-conversion laws, which go under the heading of “freedom of religion” acts designed to prevent religious coercion and manipulation, but in practice often serve as the justification for violence against Christians and other non-Hindus.
International Christian Concern reported 29 incidents of violence against Christians in just the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh over the last three months, as saffron-clad nationalist paramilitaries seek to recreate the India of the Hindu scriptures under Modi’s BJP.