The Supreme Court on Monday said religious conversions by means of force, allurement or fraud may “ultimately affect the security of the nation and freedom of religion and conscience of citizens” while directing the Centre to “step in” and clarify what it intends to do to curb compulsory or deceitful religious conversions.
“There may be freedom of religion but there may not be freedom of religion by forced conversion… This is a very serious issue. Everybody has the right to choose their religion, but not by forced conversion or by giving temptation,” a Bench of Justices M.R. Shah and Hima Kohli said.
The court ordered the Centre to file an affidavit on or before November 22, detailing what actions it proposed to take to curb forced conversions. It said such conversions were reported to be found more in poor and tribal areas.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the Centre, said forced conversions were “rampant” in tribal areas. “Giving of rice, wheat, clothes, etc., etc., can never be a ground for asking a person to change his conscience, or bargain on my fundamental right to religion,” Mehta agreed.
The petitioner, advocate Ashwini Upadhyay, said there should be a special law against forced conversions or the Act should be incorporated as an offence in the Indian Penal Code.
“But the difficulty is, who will file the complaint?… the State concerned may not file also… That is why the Union must step in,” Justice Shah reacted.
“In many cases, the victims would not know he has been the subject matter of a criminal offence… He would say that he was helped,” Mehta intervened.
The court said the Union has to now make “very serious and sincere efforts to stop forced conversions”, while scheduling the case for hearing on November 28. Mehta said the word “propagate” had come up for consideration in the Constituent Assembly debates. “It was decided that the term did not mean forcible conversions,” the law officer said.
He submitted that the apex court had dealt with Acts passed by Madhya Pradesh and Orissa against forcible conversion and had held that “freedom of conscience of every person includes freedom not to be allowed to change his conscience and convert…”
The Solicitor General was referring to the Supreme Court’s 1997 judgment by a Constitution Bench in Rev. Stainislaus Versus State of Madhya Pradesh, which had held that the word “propagate” in Article 25 did not give “the right to convert another person to one’s own religion, but to transmit or spread one’s religion by an exposition of its tenets”.
The Constitution Bench had also held there was “no fundamental right to convert another person to one’s own religion”. Freedom of religion is not guaranteed in respect of one religion only, but covers all religions alike.
“If a person purposely undertakes the conversion of another person to his religion, as distinguished from his effort to transmit or spread the tenets of his religion, that would impinge on the ‘freedom of conscience’ guaranteed to all the citizens of the country alike,” the 1977 judgment had reasoned.
Article 25(1) of the Constitution says that “subject to public order, morality and health... all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice and propagate religion”. Upadhyay has alleged “mass conversions” of socially and economically underprivileged people, particularly those belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Earlier this year, the Delhi High Court, hearing a petition by Upadhyay to frame laws to prohibit religious conversions by force or deception, had observed that, “First and foremost, conversion is not prohibited. It is a right of an individual to profess any religion, religion of his birth, or religion that he chooses to profess. That is the freedom our Constitution grants.”
Govt tells SC ‘detailed consultations’ at a ‘particular level’ needed on the fate of Places of Worship Act
The government on November 14 in the Supreme Court sought more time to clarify its stand on the validity of the Places of Worship Act, saying “detailed consultations” are needed at a “particular level”.
The 1991 Act protects the identity and character of religious places as they were on August 15, 1947. A Bench led by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud ordered the Centre, represented by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, to file its affidavit clarifying its views by December 12. The court agreed to list the case for hearing in the first week of January.
Senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for petitioner Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, said the government had sought similar adjournments in the case twice before. On October 10, the court had asked the government whether a Constitution Bench judgment in the Ram Janmabhoomi case had already settled the question of validity of the Places of Worship Act.
The Ayodhya judgment of the Supreme Court had found that the 1991 Act spoke “to our history and to the future of the nation… In preserving the character of places of public worship, the Parliament has mandated in no uncertain terms that history and its wrongs shall not be used as instruments to oppress the present and the future”.
Mehta, in that hearing, had ventured his personal opinion that the remarks in the Ayodhya judgment about the 1991 Act would not preclude the court from examining the validity of the statute now.
“That (Ayodhya judgment) was given in a different context and may not cover the issue here,” Mehta gave his opinion. Dwivedi had agreed that the comments in the Ayodhya verdict was merely ‘obiter dicta” and did not have the force of law.
Advocates P.B. Suresh, Vipin Nair and Vishnu Shankar Jain, appearing for petitioner Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh, had said the validity of the 1991 Act was not in question before the Constitution Bench in the Ayodhya case.
A slew of petitions has been filed in the apex court against the Act, contending it has illegally fixed a retrospective cut-off date (August 15, 1947), illegally barring Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs from approaching courts to “re-claim” their places of worship which were “invaded” and “encroached” upon by “fundamentalist barbaric invaders”.
The main objective of these petitions is to set right a “historical wrong”. The court’s readiness to test the law is significant considering the recent happenings in courts in Delhi, Varanasi, Mathura and the Supreme Court which test the protective grip and probe the boundaries of the 1991 Act.
Retail inflation cools to 6.77% in October from 7.41% in September
India’s retail inflation cooled to 6.77% in October from 7.41% in September, slipping below the 7% mark for the first time in three months and only the second time since April’s eight-year high mark of 7.8%.
This is the tenth month in a row that inflation has been over the 6% upper tolerance threshold mandated for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The last time consumer price inflation was below the 7% mark was in July, at 6.71%.
Economists expect the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, which earlier this month deliberated on explaining to the government its inability to meet the inflation target for three successive quarters, to continue interest rate hikes in December, but at a lower pace than the 50 basis points increases in its last three reviews. One basis point equals 0.01%.
Rural consumers continued to face 7% inflation in October, slightly lower than the 7.6% in September, while urban India consumers’ price rise eased to 6.5% from 7.3% in the previous month.
Inflation measured by the Consumer Food Price Index moderated from 8.6% in September to 7% in October, but rural households faced 7.3% inflation while the same rate was 6.5% for their urban counterparts.
“Rural India has witnessed higher inflation as food prices are higher here and have a higher share in the basket,” explained Bank of Baroda chief economist Madan Sabnavis. Food prices remain a risk to the inflation trajectory as vegetable prices and cereals have increased and don’t show signs of moderating right now, he added.
“Given that the RBI had given an explanation on inflation to the government, we do expect it to continue to increase the repo rate, albeit by a smaller quantity of 25-35 basis points (bps) in the coming policy to be in tune with what other central banks are doing,” Sabnavis reckoned.
ICRA’s chief economist Aditi Nayar expects the RBI to hike rates by about 35 bps and expects inflation to soften further to 6% in November thanks to a high base, even though the near-term outlook is clouded by risks such as higher global commodity prices and supply disruptions for perishable items due to excessive rains.
In meeting with Xi, Biden objects to China’s ‘coercive’ action towards Taiwan
President Joe Biden on Monday told Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping they were both responsible for preventing their superpower competition from turning into conflict, in rare talks aimed at thawing ties that are at their worst in decades.
Ahead of their first in-person talks since Biden became President, the two leaders smiled and shook hands warmly in front of their national flags at a luxury hotel on Indonesia’s Bali island, a day before a Group of 20 (G20) summit set to be fraught with tension over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s just great to see you,” Biden told Xi, as he put an arm around him, before a meeting that lasted a little over three hours.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, in Bali, Indonesia. | Photo Credit: AP
However, Biden brought up a number of difficult topics during the three hour meeting, according to a White House readout, including raising U.S. objections to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan”, Beijing’s “non-market economic practices”, and practices in “Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and human rights more broadly”.
Biden said beforehand he was committed to keeping lines of communication open on a personal and government level. As the leaders of our two nations, we share responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from turning into conflict, and to find ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation,” Biden said in remarks delivered in front of reporters.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken will travel to follow up on the discussions, the White House said. Neither leader wore a mask to ward off COVID, though members of their delegations did.
Responding to Biden, Xi said the relationship between their two countries was not meeting global expectations. “So we need to chart the right course for the China-U.S. relationship. We need to find the right direction for the bilateral relationship going forward and elevate the relationship,” Xi said.
“The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship,” he said, adding he looked forward to working with Biden to bring the relationship back on the right track.
There was some early drama in Bali surrounding Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who scolded Western media over a report that said he had been taken to a local hospital, suffering with a heart condition.
“This is a kind of game that is not new in politics,” Lavrov said in with an ironic smile. “Western journalists need to be more truthful.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it “the height of fakery” and posted a video of Lavrov sitting outdoors dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and reading documents.
However, Bali Governor I Wayan Koster told Reuters Lavrov had briefly visited a local hospital for a “check-up”, and the Russian was in good health. Lavrov is representing Putin at the G20 summit —the first since Russia invaded Ukraine in February—after the Kremlin said Putin was too busy to attend.
In Brief
The U.K. and French interior ministers signed an agreement on Monday that will see more police patrol beaches in northern France in an attempt to stop people trying to cross the English Channel in small boats — a regular source of friction between the two countries. The British government has agreed to pay France some 72.2 million euros ($75 million) in 2022-2023 — almost 10 million euros more than under an existing deal — in exchange for France increasing security patrols along the coast by 40%. That includes 350 more gendarmes and police guarding beaches in Calais and Dunkirk, as well as more drones and night vision equipment to help officers detect crossings.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
