India’s Uttarakhand passed an amendment to its controversial anti-uniform law last week.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was able to introduce the Religious Freedom (Amendment) Bill, 2025, during a chaotic parliamentary session against rigging in the Panchayats (local assembly). The amendment will result in a fine of 1 million Indian rupee (US$11,446) for “coercive conversion” and a fine of 1 million Indian rupee (US$11,446) for a “coercive conversion,” ending the fine and expanding the penalty.
The bill, passed in a short session of Parliament on Wednesday (August 20), presents India’s most sobering restrictions on religion and freedom of speech. Among the provisions is that measures will criminalize “social media and digital media propaganda” as participation in religious conversion, and the government will prohibit and punish “acts that promote or incite conversion via social media, messaging apps or online media.”
“When law criminalizes social media debate about faith, they threaten the fundamental rights of all citizens to religious expression in the digital age,” said Pastor Vijaish Lal, General Secretary of India’s Evangelical Fellowship. “These provisions are subject to penalties that span life sentences, represent some of India’s toughest counter-change measures, and could turn normal conversations about belief into criminal behavior.”
The law reserves the most severe penalties for conversion, including those that take into account the state’s vulnerable groups. Cases involving minors, women, scheduled caste, planned tribes, disabled or mentally challenged people are currently subject to a sentence of five to 14 years in prison and a fine of at least 100,000 Indian rupees ($1,150). Large-scale converts will result in seven to 14 years in prison, while conversions with foreign or external funding will result in at least 1 million Indian rupees (USD 11,446) in prisons for 7 to 14 years.
The 20-year most severe punishment for life imprisonment and fines of at least 1 million Indian rupees apply to power, threat, induction, human trafficking or conversion using promises of marriage. People who hide their religion for marriage are faced with three to ten years of imprisonment and fines of 300,000 Indian rupee (USD 3,434).
“The pastors have been calling me ever since the bill was introduced,” Uttarakhand lawyer Rohit Singh told Morningstar News. “Many people have removed sermons and social media posts from online platforms. Some pastors are thinking of leaving the state. Online donations have almost stopped at churches and Christian organizations because no one wants to be bothered.
In particular, the anti-conversion revisions have not faced legislative opposition despite recent expressions of concern from the leaders of the Indian National Assembly Party over attacks on Christians. The assembly disrupted the election lawsuit for the Panchayat (local village councillors), but the party made no effort to challenge laws warned by religious minorities.
“Congressional leaders have written to the Prime Minister about attacks on Christians in other states, but say that when a strict anti-change law is passed, the same party will not offer opposition,” Lal told Morning Star News. “This shows how Christian concerns can be treated politically as consumables if the important Christian voting banks are not at risk.”
This amendment requires the Governor’s consent as there is no opposition from Congressional parties. Therefore, while the amended law may come into effect immediately, no dates or timelines have been made public for the Governor’s consent.
Officials who framing the law expand on anti-fusion laws to “depict the biased portrayal of religious practices, rituals, rituals, or essential parts of them in relation to other religions.
The law also criminalizes vaguely defined online activities with ambiguous language that leaves Christian social media groups, religious discussion forums, and faith-based community platforms vulnerable to prosecution.
“The anti-transformation law has been weaponized through ambiguous terms, procedural abuse and selective enforcement,” John Deal, spokesman for the All-India Catholic Union, told Morningstar News. Terms such as “power,” fraud are widely interpreted as including acts such as dissemination of the Bible and providing medical assistance. ”
Mainstream editorial opinions denounce the law as overreaching. The Times of India editorial board described the amendments as “Draconian” and “inadequately designed law” that “requires thorough review or reversal,” and said it would create a system that “anyone can arrest on mere suspicion of “intention”” and “the accused property can be seized.”
Particularly troublesome is allowing district magistrates to confiscate property based on mere suspicions of connection to alleged conversion activities, critics said. The law allows property personnel to have “reasons to believe” is related to conversion “regardless of whether the court recognizes such a crime.” Such overreach in enforcement, they said, would allow for the confiscation of property without evidence, court oversight or just proceedings.
The law introduces cleaning enforcement measures that say civil liberties violate basic constitutional rights. All crimes are only brought to trial in session courts as they are recognizable and cannot be released on bail. Police can arrest without a warrant, but bail is granted only if the court is confident of the defendant’s innocence and the possibility of a re-attack.
Deial condemned the enforcement provisions as “a complete attack on constitutional rights.”
“Before these arrest authority without warrants and property confiscation, it creates a climate of terror designed to threaten minority communities, particularly Christians, which make up only 0.37% of Uttarakhand’s population,” he said.
Prime Minister Pushkar Singh Dami justified the amendment by arguing that “demographic changes” were created through the state’s “illegal/forced conversions.” However, the population of Uttarakhand remains at around 14% of Hindus and Muslims, with only a small percentage of Christians and others.
The 2025 amendment represents the latest escalation in the trajectory of Uttarakhand anti-combination laws, first introduced in 2018 and built on the basis of the laws amended in 2022.
The law continues the increasingly restrictive pattern of “anti-group” laws that Hindu extremists use on a daily basis to misdemeanorize Christians for forced conversion.
“Twenty years ago, it was the police that bothered you and confused your worship service, but now you’ve come with the police as if non-state actors are law enforcement and engaged in all sorts of disability and vandalism,” Attorney Singh said. “This is a huge change.”
Uttarakhand’s 2018 Religious Freedom Act was the seventh law in India, joining Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand.
AC Michael, convened the United Christian Forum, said the amendment was “completely violated the Indian Constitution, which states that everyone has gained the right to profess, practice and spread religion with freedom.
He said during a Supreme Court hearing on Uttar Pradesh’s anti-unit law on May 16, the court “appears to violate the fundamental rights of religion as guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution.”
The concerns of Christian leaders go beyond legal skills to the fundamental issues of India’s democratic values. Rev. Richard Howell, principal of the Caleb Theological Institute, argues that the argument has shifted from a procedural question to a deeper question of religious freedom and social cohesion.
“The current battle is not just about law,” Howell told Morningstar News. “It’s also about the meaning of conscience, pluralism, Christian love and witnesses. The courts and bills cannot determine procedures, but they cannot tell us what freedom of belief means, the number of voices that democracy should hold, or why the church feeds hunger without connecting strings.
There is a broader pattern of what is happening in Uttarakhand, as this revision reflects some of the greater national changes that have made Christian practices increasingly unstable. The hostile attitude of the Narendra Modi government’s Hindu nationalist agenda has encouraged attacks on Christians across India since 2014, religious rights advocates say.
“As more and more state governments come up with laws that can hinder Christian practice, it is becoming clear that our country’s political environment is opposed to Christians,” Michael said. Furthermore, the number of cases of violence against Christians who jumped from over 100 years old in 2014 to over 800 in 2024 makes it increasingly clear that it is dangerous for Christians to practice their faith in India. ”
For many Christians facing this reality, faith remains a response to an uncertain future.
“No matter what happens to our community and our church, here in Uttarakhand or anywhere in India, everything is in God’s hands,” Singh said.
Christian support organization Open Door ranks 11th in India on the 2025 global watch list where Christians face the toughest persecution. India was ranked 31st in 2013, but has steadily declined to the rankings since Modi took power as prime minister.
