The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly meets at the Vidhan Bhavan in Mumbai. Government of Maharashtra, Attribution via Wikimedia Commons
More than half of India’s population is on course to live under controversial anti-conversion laws as states continue to expand statutes effectively restricting religious conversion. The latest measure, passed in the western state of Maharashtra, pushes the total population covered by such laws to about 718 million people in a country of roughly 1.4 billion.
Termed Freedom of Religion Acts, the laws claim to regulate religious conversion so as to prohibit conversion by force, fraud or allurement. However, local Christian and civil society leaders say the provisions and loose terminology deter conversions in general and are used by Hindu nationalist groups to target Christians.
On March 16, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly passed the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Bill 2026. In so doing, it extended the reach of legislation already in force in 12 other states, namely Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Rajasthan.
About 605.4 million people currently live in 11 of the 12 states where anti-conversion laws are already in effect. The northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh also enacted such legislation decades ago, but the law has remained unimplemented because the rules required for its enforcement were never framed.
With Maharashtra’s population of about 112.37 million added once the new law takes effect, the number of people living under such statutes will rise to roughly 716.7 million. This is greater than the combined populations of the European Union and the United Kingdom, and more than twice the population of the United States.
Pending Supreme Court review
Maharashtra’s legislature passed the bill about a month and a half after India’s Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of anti-conversion laws following a constitutional challenge filed by Christian groups and civil society organizations.
On February 2, the court issued notice on the petition and referred the matter to a three-judge bench because of the constitutional questions involved.
Petitioners told the court that the laws contain vague provisions, intrusive procedures and provisions that allow complaints by unrelated third parties. Lawyers argued that “innocent persons are being arrested,” because of politically motivated or fabricated accusations.
Christians account for about 2.3 percent of India’s population, yet allegations of forced conversion have frequently been promoted by Hindu nationalist groups, according to local Christian leaders.
Police promptly register First Information Reports, or FIRs, against Christian pastors, worshipers and entire congregations after complaints alleging forced conversions, particularly in rural areas where small prayer meetings attract attention.
Legal observers say many complaints rely on general accusations by third parties rather than specific grievances from individual converts.
In 2025, police arrested more than 400 Christians on allegations linked to anti-conversion laws across the 11 states, and over 125 Christians remained jailed at the end of the year, according to CSI’s local partners. Some 600 Christians were released after detention or imprisonment during the same year while courts acquitted more than 170 people, they said.
Expansion of the law
In the past decade, several states have brought in new anti-conversion laws or strengthened existing ones.
New laws were enacted in Jharkhand in 2017, Uttarakhand in 2018, Uttar Pradesh in 2020, Madhya Pradesh in 2021, Haryana in 2022 and Karnataka in 2022. Himachal Pradesh replaced its earlier 2006 Freedom of Religion Act with a stricter law in 2019, while Gujarat amended its 2003 anti-conversion law in 2021 to expand provisions governing conversions linked to marriage.
Most of these measures were introduced under governments led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Provisions of the legislation
In some states, the laws require individuals intending to change religion to submit a declaration to local authorities about 60 days before the conversion takes place. The declaration triggers a police inquiry into the circumstances of the proposed conversion.
After the ceremony, the individual must submit a second declaration confirming the conversion, and authorities are required to publicly display details such as the name, address and location of the ceremony. This exposes new converts to attacks.
In several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, the burden of proof rests on the accused person, who must demonstrate that the conversion was voluntary and there was no inducement or fraud.
Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state with 241 million inhabitants, has the most stringent statute currently in force. The state’s Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act allows prison terms of up to 10 years for unlawful conversion. And in certain cases involving coercion, marriage-related conversion or conspiracy, it permits sentences ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment .
Conversions carried out solely for marriage can be declared invalid under the statute, and converting two or more people together may be treated as “mass conversion” and be subject to enhanced punishment and fines.
Concerns raised by UN experts
International human rights experts have raised concerns about the impact of such laws on religious minorities.
In a 2023 communication to the Indian government, Nazila Ghanea, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, warned that such legislation risks becoming “a tool of persecution by those who are genuinely opposed to religious tolerance.”
The UN experts cautioned that the laws could “create further polarisation and generate an atmosphere of fear among religious minorities,” and noted that international human rights law protects freedom of religion including “non-coercive attempts to persuade others.”
They further wrote that “a general prohibition of conversion by a State necessarily enters into conflict with applicable international standards.” Ghanea and Varennes indicated that such legislation restricts the freedom of all residents of a state to change their religion or belief, rather than only affecting the ability of Christians to propagate their faith.
The experts said that “a law prohibiting conversion would constitute a state policy aiming at influencing an individual’s freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief and is therefore not acceptable under human rights law.” They added that they were “seriously concerned” that laws designed to monitor conversions could “negatively impact and limit an individual’s freedom of conscience.”
An earlier United Nations report by former Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir also warned that “anti-conversion legislation is being used to vilify Christians in general.”
