OPINION:
In India today, laws are being used to silence millions.
Despite Christian protests, Ramen Deka, governor of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, signed the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act of 2026 into law on April 7.
Its provisions are so sweeping that even the smallest Christian gathering now comes under suspicion.
Under the law, which criminalizes conversion made by “force, fraud, inducement or marriage,” anyone seeking to convert to Christianity must first notify a district magistrate. That action triggers public disclosure and an official inquiry.
A personal decision of conscience is now placed under government control.
The law defines “allurement” or “inducement” to include gifts, employment, free education, health care, promises of a better life and even marriage, making almost any act of Christian compassion or prayer potentially criminal.
“Mass conversion,” shockingly redefined as involving just two or more people, now carries penalties from 10 years to life imprisonment, plus fines. Repeat offenders face life behind bars.
The state claims this prevents forced or fraudulent conversions, but the vague wording and reversed burden of proof betray its real intent.
The new anti-conversion laws sweeping India’s Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states are designed with surgical precision to stop Christians from even praying for the sick. Praying for the sick is a millennia-old practice at the heart of the Judeo-Christian faith, from Israel’s prophets to Jesus himself.
People who have suffered for years have been known to suddenly walk, see or breathe freely after simple prayer. They flock to gatherings not for money or coercion, but because they have experienced the power of the Gospel.
The law’s broad net renders these testimonies prosecutable as “conversion activities.” A home prayer meeting can be construed as a mass conversion if even two people later choose Christ. Distributing Christian literature or sharing a testimony becomes potential “undue influence.”
The law does not need to name Christians explicitly; its architects know exactly who will be targeted for enforcement.
Although violent persecution against Christians continues — mob attacks, church burnings — these anti-conversion laws are far more lethal. They kill the freedom of conscience of millions silently, legally and with the full muscle of the state.
Even simple Christian practice is becoming nearly impossible. A public prayer meeting can be branded illegal. Gifting a Bible can be treated as evidence of conversion.
Article 25 of the Indian Constitution guarantees the right to profess, practice and propagate religion. That guarantee is being hollowed out by state laws treating conversion as a crime rather than a sacred personal choice.
Meanwhile, these same laws quietly encourage “reconversion” to Hinduism, as if every tribal or Dalit who found faith in Jesus was somehow Hindu before. The truth is very different.
Most tribal communities follow their own rich animistic traditions, and many Dalits have long rejected the caste-based social order. The Chhattisgarh law does not treat returning to these ancestral ways as “conversion,” but it slams the door shut on anyone moving toward Christ. It is selective protection dressed up as neutrality.
The pressure extends beyond state laws. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment of 2026 has been weaponized to seize the land of Christian schools and hospitals through a government “designated authority” packed with ideological adversaries. These authorities can now take over Christian institutions to which the government never built, funded or contributed a single rupee.
Decades of sacrificial labor, building schools in remote forests and hospitals in underserved regions, are being nationalized under the guise of regulation.
The radical founders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh paramilitary organization openly declared that minority faiths in India could not claim equal rights. That ideology has never been disowned.
Instead, it has been steadily mainstreamed — laws passed with parliamentary majorities, couched in the language of “religious freedom” and “social harmony,” and then used to hollow out the very rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution.
The violence of the mob kills some, but laws such as the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act of 2026 kill the spirits of millions. They do not merely restrict conversion; they also criminalize compassion, prayer and the simple act of sharing one’s faith.
They tell every Indian believer that their conscience belongs to the state, not to God.
Yet history records that when the law itself becomes the greatest persecutor, the light of the Gospel does not dim. It shines brighter in the darkness.
• Archbishop Joseph D’Souza is a renowned human and civil rights activist. He is the archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India and the President of the All India Christian Council.
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