SDPI Condemns Rajasthan’s Draconian Anti-Conversion Law as Unconstitutional and Communal

Yasmin Farooqui, National General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of India has strongly condemned the passage of the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Bill, 2025, in the State Legislative Assembly. The Bill, hurriedly pushed through on September 9 without meaningful debate and amid the opposition’s boycott, represents one of the gravest assaults on the Constitution, democracy, and personal liberties in the country.

The new law imposes draconian punishments including 7 to 14 years of imprisonment and heavy fines for so-called fraudulent conversions, extending to 10 to 20 years when the person involved is a woman, minor, member of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or differently-abled. In cases classified as mass conversions or alleged coercion, it prescribes life imprisonment along with financial penalties that may go up to ₹1 crore. It further empowers the state to cancel registrations and seize properties of organisations, directly targeting NGOs, schools, healthcare centres and welfare institutions that serve marginalised communities.

SDPI asserts that the legislation is unconstitutional and discriminatory. It violates Article 14 by selectively targeting minorities through vague provisions, Article 19 by criminalising genuine religious discourse, Article 21 by forcing individuals to make public their personal faith decisions, and Article 25 by curtailing the right to profess, practice and propagate religion. By compelling individuals to submit a 90-day prior notice to the district magistrate before conversion and priests to notify two months in advance, the law intrudes into the private sphere, reducing faith to a matter of surveillance and mob scrutiny.

The communal agenda behind this law is evident from the rhetoric used by the ruling BJP. The state’s Home Minister invoked baseless notions of “Love Jihad,” “foreign funding” and “demographic change” to justify it, while BJP legislators openly branded Muslim members of the opposition as “converted” and urged them to return to their so-called original faith. Such statements expose the divisive intent of the legislation and its aim to stigmatise minorities rather than protect rights.

SDPI demands the immediate repeal of this unconstitutional and anti-democratic law. The party calls upon civil society, opposition forces and human rights organisations to unite against this dangerous assault on India’s secular and democratic ethos.