The governor of Chhattisgarh state, India on April 7 signed legislation against forcible conversion that is harsher than similar laws that authorities and vigilante groups have used to falsely accuse Christians, sources said.
In one of the states of India where Christians are most persecuted, Chhattisgarh Gov. Ramen Deka gave his assent to the law that will come into force after publication in the official gazette, replacing a 1968 statute that Christian leaders say was already weaponized against their communities. The new law introduces penalties that rank among the harshest for forced or fraudulent religious conversion in India.
The Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Bill (Dharm Swatantraya Vidheyak) 2026 makes it a cognizable, non-bailable offense to convert anyone through force, fraud, allurement, undue influence, misrepresentation or marriage, including through digital platforms such as social media.
The law specifically exempts conversion to Hinduism. Reconversion to one’s “ancestral religion” (Hinduism) is also not treated as a conversion under its provisions.
Punishments are severe and give authorities and third-party complainants sweeping powers of arrest. Standard offenses carry seven to 10 years in prison and a minimum fine of 500,000 rupees ($5,361). If the victim is a minor, a woman, a person of unsound mind or a member of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes, the sentence rises to 10 to 20 years and a minimum fine of 1 million rupees ($10,722).
A “mass conversion,” defined as the conversion of two or more persons in a single event, draws between 10 years and life imprisonment and a minimum fine of 2.5 million rupees ($26,806). Repeat offenders face life imprisonment for each subsequent offense. These penalties exceed those prescribed for offenses such as manslaughter in some states.
The Progressive Christian Alliance, a network of pastors, church leaders and social workers, called the law unconstitutional and a discriminatory measure designed to harass minorities. The Alliance in a press statement said the bill was “not about protecting religious freedom” but about “systematically restricting and criminalizing the legitimate expression of minority faiths, particularly Christianity, in Chhattisgarh.”
Its coordinator added that the 1968 law the new statute replaces had already “been weaponized against Christians for decades,” with “hundreds of baseless FIRs lodged against pastors, evangelists, priests, nuns, and ordinary church members on trumped-up charges of forced conversion.”
John Dayal, spokesperson of the All India Catholic Union and a veteran journalist and human rights activist, said the law formed part of a deliberate political strategy to shrink the space for religious minorities across India.
“The BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] has to slink from state to state to corner Christians and Muslims on some issue or the other because the constitution does not give it a free hand on what is essentially a matter of local policing by states,” Dayal told Morning Star News.
Through such laws, Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) aims to disenfranchise Christianity in to fulfill the goals of core documents written by its founders – the desire for a Hindu nation, he said.
“It is also creeping step by step to make conversion, even of a lawful wife, punishable by death, a desire given voice by no less than a chief minister in the country,” Dayal said. “Totally weaponizing laws such as FCRA and conversion laws put the sword and the axe on the throat of individuals and the roots of institutions such as those of education and medical service, and evangelization including ban on entry of pastors in forest areas.”
Collectively, such laws speak of how little breathing space has been left for religious minorities such as Muslims and Christians in India, he added.
The Rev. Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, said the law reflected a pattern of simultaneous legislative action designed to normalize persecution across states.
“The signing of the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Bill into law deepens our concern as a body that has challenged these laws in courts for over a decade,” Lal told Morning Star News. “The reconversion exemption that frees conversion to Hinduism from all scrutiny while criminalizing every other faith choice exposes the discriminatory intent at the heart of this legislation.”
The growing trend of “anti-conversion” laws is equally troubling, he said, as Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states acted almost simultaneously in March.
“These laws do not emerge in isolation,” he said. “They embolden vigilante groups, as we have witnessed in every state where similar legislation has passed.”
Under the new Chhattisgarh law, any public servant found guilty also faces 10 to 20 years in prison. Christian leaders note that the provision, while ostensibly aimed at preventing state complicity, does nothing to address police consistently acting alongside or in support of vigilantes falsely accusing Christians.
The law places significant obligations on anyone who assists in conversions. Under Section 13, such persons must register with the competent authority and submit annual audited financial accounts of all funds received, including from foreign sources. Church workers and rights groups warn this provision will be used to target Christian organizations whose charitable and social work has long been falsely framed as inducement-based conversion.
Any person seeking to convert must submit an application before an authorized officer not below the rank of additional district magistrate. Within seven days of receiving a complete application, that authority must publish details of the proposed conversion on an official website and display notices at local offices known as the tehsildar, the gram panchayat and the local police station.
The notice must carry the applicant’s name, current religion and proposed religion. Critics say the process effectively turns a deeply personal decision of faith into a public event open to interference by officials, neighbors and organized groups. Conversion certificates issued under the law will not serve as proof of citizenship or identity, and applications lapse if conversion does not take place within 90 days of approval.
The assembly passed the bill by voice vote on March 19 amid a complete boycott by the main opposition, the Indian National Congress. BJP legislators broke into chants of “Jai Shri Ram (victory to god Ram)” on the floor of the House as the vote concluded.
Legislators staged a walkout after the Speaker declined their demand to refer the bill to a Select Committee for wider consultation. Leader of Opposition Charandas Mahant noted that similar laws from 11 states are under judicial review before the Supreme Court and urged the government to await a verdict.
Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, who introduced the bill and holds the home portfolio, maintained that no Supreme Court stay exists on state legislative action in this area and that the government was acting within its constitutional authority under Article 25. Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai described the legislation as a significant step toward preserving the state’s cultural identity and social balance, alleging incidents of conversion through inducement and misinformation targeting vulnerable tribal communities in Bastar, Jashpur and Raigarh as the primary justification.
The government’s case draws on a backdrop of documented communal tension, but Christian leaders say that backdrop has consistently been manufactured and exploited. In January 2023, a mob vandalized a church in Narayanpur District and attacked police, including the superintendent.
In July, two Catholic nuns from Kerala, Sister Preeti Mary and Sister Vandana Francis, faced arrest by the Government Railway Police at Durg station following a complaint by a Bajrang Dal official. The nuns were accused of trafficking and forced conversion, though the women they accompanied denied the charges, saying the nuns were simply helping them find employment. The nuns received bail in August, but the case continues.
On Christmas Eve, Hindu nationalist groups destroyed Christmas decorations at a mall in Raipur during a Bandh called to protest alleged illegal conversions in Bastar.
For Christians in the state, these incidents are not isolated events but part of a pattern, and Christian leaders fear the new law now reinforces that trend with legal authority.
The Christian community responded swiftly and in large numbers. On March 28, thousands of Christians marched across Chhattisgarh in coordinated protests against the new anti-conversion law. Reports from multiple Christian and advocacy groups indicated that demonstrations were held across all 33 districts under the banner of the United Christian Society (Samyukt Masihi Samaj).
Participants carried placards describing the legislation as a “black law,” and in Raipur, large numbers attempted to march towards Raj Bhavan, the official residence of the governor.
Catholic Bishop Antonis Bara of the Ambikapur Diocese said it was the first time Christians across denominations had come together for a single cause under one organizational umbrella. Bishop Emmanuel Kerketta of Jashpur told media, “Our demand across the state is the same – we want the state government to take back the new bill.”
The broader constitutional challenge to anti-conversion laws was already before the Supreme Court when Chhattisgarh passed its bill. On Feb. 2, a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant issued notices to the Union government and 12 state governments on a petition filed by the National Council of Churches in India. Senior attorney Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the NCCI, told the court that the laws incentivize vigilante action.
“The Acts which are in challenge, they are structured in such a manner that it incentivizes certain vigilante groups to take action, because there are rewards out there,” she said. “So even if there is really no case at all, someone will make a case, somebody will be arrested, because there is a reward for those on the vigilante side.”
The court ordered the matter placed before a three-judge bench. Chhattisgarh’s new law now falls squarely within the scope of that challenge.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its 2026 Annual Report documented what it described as a continued deterioration of religious freedom conditions in India through 2025, noting that several states had moved to strengthen anti-conversion laws with harsher prison sentences. In the March 4 report, USCIRF recommended that India be designated a Country of Particular Concern for violations of religious rights such as occurs with anti-conversion legislation. Weeks later, Chhattisgarh passed and enacted one of the most severe such laws the country has seen.
Maharashtra state passed its own Freedom of Religion Bill days before Chhattisgarh’s assembly vote, a convergence that minority rights groups describe as a coordinated legislative push. The Supreme Court, already examining petitions from 12 states, now carries the weight of deciding whether India’s constitutional guarantees of conscience and religious freedom mean anything at all for the country’s minorities.
Chhattisgarh is home to an estimated 490,000 Christians, less than 2 percent of a total population of 33 million. The state hosts the second largest Roman Catholic Cathedral in Asia, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, located in Kunkuri, Jashpur District. For a community that small, in a state where anti-Christian violence already ranked second highest in India in 2025 with 177 documented incidents, church leaders fear the new law hands those seeking to persecute Christians both a legal cover and an institutional mechanism to do so.
India ranked 12th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, up from 31st in 2013, before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.
The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say.
