Leaders in Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state with a population of 72 million, are considering imposing the death penalty on individuals accused of coercing others into religious conversion. Christian leaders fear this move could further endanger the state’s small Christian community, which already faces persecution through false accusations under existing laws.
Mohan Yadav, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, announced on March 8 that he intends to amend the state’s anti-conversion law to include capital punishment for those found guilty of fraudulent conversions. He emphasized that “religious conversion will not be tolerated,” according to UCA News, a Catholic news agency. Currently, Christians account for just 0.27% of the population in the state, UCA News reported.
Since 2021, Madhya Pradesh’s anti-conversion law has already carried a penalty of up to 10 years in prison for those convicted of violating it.
Although the Indian Constitution guarantees religious freedom, anti-conversion laws have increasingly restricted the rights of Christians across the country. Over the past few years, at least a dozen of India’s 28 states have passed laws criminalizing “forced” conversions. Many of these laws were enacted in states governed by the Hindu nationalist party, with most of them introduced since the early 2000s.
In practice, these laws have been used to target the Christian community in India, where roughly 80% of the population is Hindu, 14% is Muslim, and only 2% is Christian. These legal provisions have led to the arrests of Christian clergy and have fueled violent attacks against believers.
A particularly troubling example can be seen in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where numerous pastors and even senior Catholic priests have been imprisoned under anti-conversion charges. With a population of 231 million, Uttar Pradesh has witnessed a surge in cases where Christian leaders face legal action for alleged conversion activities.
Despite the challenges Christians face, a Supreme Court hearing in June last year raised questions about the legality of Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion laws. The Indian Constitution, under Article 25, explicitly grants citizens the “right freely to profess, practice, and propagate religion,” a provision that contradicts the strict enforcement of these laws in several states.
Madhya Pradesh, now considering the death penalty for those accused of forced conversions, has previously witnessed harsh actions against Christians under anti-conversion laws. In 2019, a Protestant pastor was acquitted after facing serious charges. The pastor, his wife, and their 6-year-old son were arrested by police, stripped of their clothes, beaten, and held without bail for three days. They were later convicted of forcibly converting people to Christianity, but the charges were ultimately overturned.