Ancient Faiths, Modern Anxieties: Savarkar, Ambedkar and Gandhi on the Issue of Conversion

The decision of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Haryana government to pass an anti-conversion law has once again put the contentious political issue of religious conversion at the centre of political discourse (The Hindu, 22 March 2022). This is not an isolated case; the issue of conversion has always been accorded great importance by the forces of Hindutva. Two years ago, after the Allahabad High Court observed that religious conversion just for the sake of marriage, without any knowledge of or faith in the religion being adopted, was unacceptable, four BJP-led state governments had announced that they would introduce a law to curtail ‘love jihad’. Although many legal experts believe that such a law would be unconstitutional, this has become a very important political issue (Mishra 2020).