Mumbai: The Christian community is alarmed by news of the Maharashtra government’s move to introduce an Anti-Conversion Bill and has asked Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan to intervene and stop it.
According to Dolphy D’Souza, a Christian leader and former National Vice-President of the All India Catholic Union, highly reliable sources in the government have brought this factor the attention of the community. “That is why, we feel compelled to write a letter to our chief minister,” he told Gulf News.
Expressing his disbelief and shock at this news, he has asked Chavan whether a “secular government in the state of Maharashtra would ever think of introducing such a Bill which is anti-minority and against the constitutional rights of a minority.”
He has also pointed out how in 1996, a BJP legislator, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, had introduced as a private member’s bill under the title of “The Maharashtra Dharma Swantantrya Adhiniyam (Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act) but it did not see the light of the day.”
Later, in April 2005, an Anti-Conversion Bill was proposed by the then home minister Siddharam Mhetre of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition government but was struck down by the then late chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
D’Souza says, Deshmukh’s comments were telling. He had noted that there was no need for a legislation of this kind as the existing laws had enough provisions. “Such a legislation would not only be anti-minority but would increase the persecution of minorities,” says D’Souza.
“We therefore appeal to you to consign such an ‘Anti-Conversion Bill’ to the dustbin of history.”
