A regressive agenda, a new low in governance

Context: The U.P’s anti-religious conversion ordinance is not only in violation of fundamental rights but also in conflict with existing personal laws.

Basis of U.P’s Anti-Religious Conversion Ordinance

• Priyanshi @ Km. Shamren and Others v. State of U.P. and Another 2020: The High Court held that the High Court observed that conversion “just for the purpose of marriage is unacceptable”.

• Salamat Ansari And 3 Others vs State Of U.P. And 3 Others 2020:

• It was based on the judgement delivered in Priyanshi @ Km. Shamren and Others v. the State of U.P. and Another 2020.

• Scope of lodging complaint against any conversion: is expansive to include parents, brother, sister, or any other person related to him by blood, marriage or adoption (under Section 3).
• Burden of proof: lies onto the person who has converted or caused conversion (under Section 12).

Arguments against the U.P’s Ordinance:

• Violates the right to life and personal liberty: under Article 21 by declaring any conversion for the purpose of marriage as void (Section 6), which is intrinsic to the right to marriage of individuals.

• Section 12 of the ordinance flips the burden of proof onto the person who has converted or caused the conversion of religion to establish and prove that there is no fraud.
• Any conversion for the purpose of marriage can be declared void under Section 6 of the ordinance.  
• Under Section 3 of the ordinance, the scope of which the aggrieved person may lodge a complaint against any conversion of religion is expansive to include parents and other family members.

• Judicial Pronouncements: Salamat Ansari And 3 Others vs the State Of U.P. And 3 Others 2020 – 

• Neither any individual nor a family nor even the state can have any objection to the relationship of two major individuals who out of their own free will are living together.

• Deepens social divide and disharmony: by criminalising inter-faith marriages and by derecognising its efficacy as an effective tool to break social barriers 
• Babasaheb Ambedkar found the real remedy to discrimination in intermarriage.
• Periyar E.V. Ramasamy argued to protect the agency of women in making life choices as a pathway to achieve a liberal society.
• The Self Respect Conference in Tamil Nadu (1929) allowed women to file for divorce and to remarry. (Tamil Nadu allowed (1967) self-respect marriages within the Hindu Marriage Act) 
• Promotes red-tapism and state paternalism: by providing expansive powers to District Magistrates, under the guise of prohibiting “unlawful conversions”.

Conclusion: U.P. ordinance is a manifestation of an exclusionary and regressive agenda, which presents a new low in governance.