By Matters India Reporter
Kanpur, March 21, 2022: A delegation of Christians of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh on March 21 met city Police Commissioner P. Jogdand regarding a spate of accusations and arrests for alleged forcible conversions.
The UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversions of Religion Act 2021 aims to stop conversion through allurement, coercion, force or fraudulent means. The law was implemented with retrospective effect from November 27, 2020.
Under the law, even an assurance of a “better lifestyle” or threat of “divine displeasure” is considered an offence. The act defines “mass conversion” as that of two or more persons. So even if a married couple converts it becomes a case of mass conversion.
Unfortunately, the provisions of this Act have been used to harass Christians across the State. Members of certain fundamentalist organizations have been complaining against prayer meetings being held in houses and pressurising the police to arrest those conducting such services.
A preliminary meeting, to discuss the issue was held at St Patrick’s Church presided over by Father K K Antony, the parish priest. Thereafter Pastors Diamond Yusuf and Jitendra Singh together with chhotebhai, former president of the Kanpur Catholic Association were tasked with preparing a memorandum to submit to the police commissioner.
Presenting the memorandum chhotebhai first thanked the commissioner for having earlier called a meeting before Christmas, as a consequence of which carol singing and all Christmas activities had gone off peacefully.
He then explained that Christians have two holy seasons prior to Christmas and Good Friday. Just as carol singing before Christmas, house prayer meetings are organized in Lent. This is a universal practice and cannot be construed to be any form of conversion activity, chhotebhai said.
At the moment Navratra has begun for the Hindus and Ramzan for Muslims is due to begin. All these major religions have household level prayers in various forms.
The commissioner after listening to the delegation assured it that necessary orders would be passed on to all the police stations that house prayer meetings should not be disrupted.
The delegation also included Father Deepak D’Souza, dean of Kanpur, Reverend Abhishek Lyall of the Methodist Church, Mary Christina, a lawyer, Pastors Manoj Kumar, Michael Patras, and Diamond Yusuf.
Several other Indian states also have anti-conversion law. The Supreme Court of India currents deals with a petition against such laws file by the Centre for Justice and Peace of human rights activist Teesta Setalvad.