Un Body Warns India For Discriminatory Practices On Marginalised Groups

Is India on a slippery slope on various fronts? The government boasts that India is the third largest economy. But there is an incongruity.

The 2023 Global Hunger Index ranks India at 111 of 125 countries with reference 2023 GHI indicators. Hunger levels are grave. According to the press freedom index, India is ranked 159 out of the 180 nations. India falls to 53rd rank in Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index, India is dubbed as a flawed democracy. Even peaceful street protests are hard to obtain permits for.

The mainstream media is in the hands of the crony capitalists, and lacks even a modicum of objectivity, and deemed as establishment propagandists.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has highlighted apprehensions about discrimination and violence against minority groups, including religious minorities, such as Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and LGBTI people in socio-economic-cultural-and education spheres.

The marginalised Indian in 2014 had Rs 972 a month in rural areas and Rs. 1,407 a month in cities. Contrast this with the Rs 5000 crore spent on a single wedding ceremony and lavish spending on inconsequential government functions.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government's discriminatory and divisive policies have led to increased violence against minorities, creating a pervasive environment of fear and a chilling effect on government critics. Twelve states in India have legislation criminalising religious conversions in various circumstances with more in the pipeline.

A cursory glance at these legislations suggests that they have their roots in prejudice and intolerance. Bolstered by State patronage, right wing nationalists have unleashed violent attacks on religious minorities in India.

Human Rights Watch reports how, on the day that the Ram Temple was inaugurated; there were Hindutva processions that led to sectarian clashes as well as incidents of vandalism, coercion, and assault against Muslims and other religious minorities in several parts of the country.

Militant mobs affiliated to the BJP accused the police of “defending only one side”. One is obliged to ask: “Will they only protect based on religion?”

Religious freedom in India has steeply declined in recent years, marked by the promotion and enforcement of discriminatory laws and practices that negatively impact the country’s minority Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Dalit, and Adivasis populations. Some dominant instances: On May 3 2023, ethnic violence erupted in India's north-eastern state of Manipur between the Meitei people, a majority that lives in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zo tribal community from the surrounding hills.

Various theories about the root causes of this violence are doing the rounds. One thing is clear. It is not merely an ethnic or religious conflict. It is about the competition for resources that lie beneath the surface of the land where the Kuki tribes live.

There is clearly a question about control of resources. This may be why the government is dragging its feet on solutions. Manipur violent conflict that will have a huge impact on the ecologically fragile hill lands of Manipur; extractive mining on lands controlled by indigenous people (vast majority of them Christian) for high profit; mining limestone, chromite, nickel, copper, malachite, azurite, magnetite in violation of Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the statutory rights of indigenous peoples of the state.

In December 2022, in Chhattisgarh, around 200 tribal Christians were hounded out of their homes. The explanation of the people for this was: "Because we go to church, we were expelled from our own homes."

In droves villagers in Chhattisgarh fled their ancestral homes for fear of being attacked for their faith. In another incident in Chhattisgarh, a Christian man from Kondagaon, Chhattisgarh, was arrested at his home on January 7, 2023. The police did not provide a reason for his arrest; and falsely assured him that he would be released after a brief 30-minute investigation.

However, he was detained overnight and brought before the Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) on January 8, 2023. The charges cited by the police were under Sections related to preventive measures to be taken for maintaining public peace, alleging that he was a threat to society.

There are many incidents in many parts of the country where it feels like a life-long penalty to belong to minority faiths and to be “scheduled castes” and “scheduled tribes”, and LGBTI.

International Human Rights Law protects the right of an individual to convert to a different religion or belief or to become non-religious. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) provides that everyone has the right to freedom of religion or belief including “freedom to change” their religious beliefs.

Article 18(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that everyone has the “freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief” of their choice.

Critically, international human rights law also prohibits any individual or group of individuals from coercively converting any other individual or group of individuals to a different religion or to no religion at all.

India’s state-level Anti-conversion Laws share three common features: prohibitions on conversions, notice requirements, and burden-shifting provisions. Each of the three features is inconsistent with international human rights law’s protections for freedom of religion or belief.

India’s state-level Anti-conversion Laws prohibit conversions under circumstances that go beyond coercion, using broad and vague language that can be used to target voluntary religious conversions.

Enforcement of these laws varies across different states. Courts have ordered some states to pause enforcement of their Anti-conversion Laws, while others are actively charging individuals.

In order for these Laws to force deterrence, they make violations punishable by prison terms between one and five years and a fine of at least 15,000 Indian rupees. Punishments are enhanced if an individual converts or attempts to convert a minor, woman, or person belonging to a Scheduled Caste or Tribe, or if a mass conversion in contravention of section three takes place.

The former is punishable by prison terms between two and 10 years and a fine of at least 25,000 rupees; the latter is punishable by prison terms between three and 10 years and a fine of at least 50,000 rupees.

An increasingly common feature of India’s state-level Anti-conversion Laws are provisions aimed at preventing so-called “Love Jihad,” a disparaging idiom for conversions occurring in the context of interfaith marriages.

Haryana’s Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2022 prohibits conversion or attempts at conversion “by marriage or for marriage” and concealing one’s “religion with intention to marry.” These prohibitions violate international human rights law’s guarantee that individuals have the freedom to change their religious beliefs.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s (UNHRC) affirms that the right to freedom of religion or belief does “not permit any limitations whatsoever… on the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice.”

Exposing an individual to criminal sanctions for converting to a different faith or belief, as India’s state-level Anti-conversion Laws do, is a limitation on the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice.

These laws also may have a chilling effect on this freedom, as individuals may be less likely to convert to a religion of their choice if those who have persuaded or supported them to convert may be fined and imprisoned as a result. The prohibitions also violate the rights of individuals who seek to persuade or support another individual to convert voluntarily.

The Special Rapporteur states that ICCPR Article 19(2), which protects freedom of expression, also protects “communicative outreach activities aimed at persuading others, including religious discourse.” International human rights law does prohibit coerced conversions.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee during its latest session in Geneva which comprises 18 independent experts that monitor implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) adopted ultimate observations about India on 22 July after holding hearings earlier in the month.

The Committee, while appreciating the measures adopted by India to tackle discrimination, voiced concern about discrimination and violence against minority groups, including religious minorities, such as Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs, “scheduled castes” and “scheduled tribes”, and LGBTI people.

It called on India to adopt comprehensive laws banning discrimination, raise awareness among the public, and provide training to civil servants, law enforcement officers, and the judiciary and community leaders to promote respect for diversity.

It expressed voiced concern over the application of counter-terrorism laws for decades in “disturbed areas”, such as districts in Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, which it said has led to widespread and grave human rights violations, including excessive use of force leading to unlawful killings, prolonged arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced displacement and torture.

The Committee urged India to comply with its obligations under the ICCPR and to ensure that any counter-terrorism and other security measures in the so-called disturbed areas are temporary, proportionate, strictly necessary and subject to judicial review.

It also asked India to “establish a mechanism to initiate a process to acknowledge responsibility and ascertain the truth regarding human rights violations in disturbed areas. The authorities need to ensure that the law is enforced impartially, and not to the benefit of the ruling party’s supporters.”

The Supreme Court of India continues to receive petitions requesting the body to consider the constitutionality of state-level anti-conversion laws. Several of these States are calling on the Supreme Court to vacate the High Court’s stay on nearly every substantive provision of anti-conversion law.

Separately, the Supreme Court has requested that additional challenges to Anti-conversion Laws in state-level high courts be consolidated into a single petition and filed with the Supreme Court. Despite these legal setbacks, some states continue to consider introducing them.

India has 12 state-level Anti-conversion Laws. Nearly all these laws are inconsistent with international human rights law. Common features of these laws include prohibitions on conversions, notifying the government of one’s intent to convert, and burden-shifting provisions that presume an individual accused of violating an anti-conversion law is guilty.

Each of these features violates rights protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. India’s state-level Anti-conversion Laws have no choice but to comply with international human rights law.

Militant religious violence retards just governance, rule of law, and India’s standing as a democracy. The recent National elections and results from some by-elections thrown open hope that a vibrant opposition will rein in communal forces by collective challenges to communal forces.

Anti-communal and progressive forces could create a rallying space to audit and threaten the design of trouble makers. Inter-religious collaborations comprising powerful community influencers need to work in concert to investigate instances of communal violence.

Governments and Courts should prop up progressive thinkers, social scientists, political scientists, academia, and progressive media.

Communalism is a serious impediment to the development of the country. Only strict adherence to the rule of law and active dialogue including socialising at times of religious festivals can preempt more violence and disruption.

The relationship between religion and humanity has always been intimate, as most religious practices involve human interactions and a union.

Ranjan Solomon is a writer and human rights activist. Views expressed are the writer’s own.