Maharashtra’s legislature has passed the Dharma Swatantrya Adhiniyam 2026—the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act—making the State the 13th in India to legislate on religious conversion. The BJP-led Mahayuti government pushed the Bill through despite strong objections from civil society groups and parts of the opposition. No public data on forced conversions was placed before the legislature.
What the Bill says
The law lays down a stringent procedural framework for conversion. A person wishing to convert must give 60 days’ notice to a designated district authority and obtain permission before the conversion takes place. After converting, the individual must register the change with the authority within 25 days; failure to do so will render the conversion null and void. If a blood relative of the person converting files a complaint alleging unlawful conversion, the police will be required to register an FIR and begin an investigation.
The Bill also declares null and void any marriage conducted through inducement, coercion, or deceit. Any child born of such a marriage will follow the religion practised by the mother before the relationship. The child retains succession rights to the property of both parents, and the mother retains custody unless a court orders otherwise.
The punishments are steep. Violations attract imprisonment of up to 10 years and a fine of up to Rs.7 lakh. All offences are cognisable and non-bailable. Where the person converted is a minor, a woman, a person of unsound mind, or a member of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, the punishment goes up to seven years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs.5 lakh.
The Bill also addresses what it terms mass conversion. Institutions found guilty face a ban, cancellation of registration, and withdrawal of government grants. Their office-bearers may face imprisonment of up to seven years and a fine of up to Rs.5 lakh.
A divided opposition
When the Bill came up for discussion in the Assembly, the Maha Vikas Aghadi—the principal ppposition alliance—split along its own fault lines. Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction backed the Bill, saying it opposed forced conversion in any form. The Congress, NCP (Sharad Pawar), and the Samajwadi Party opposed it. The same pattern held in the Legislative Council.
Congress legislator Aslam Shaikh questioned why new legislation was needed at all, arguing that provisions against forced conversion already existed in the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Sachin Ahir asked whether the law would apply uniformly across communities, or target specific groups. Senior Congress leader Hussain Dalwai called it undue interference in personal matters.
Civil society groups moved even before the Bill was tabled. Twenty-three organisations held a joint press conference in Mumbai to oppose the draft. Lara Jessani, a senior lawyer, called it a violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Activist Teesta Setalvad described it as a weapon to further polarise communities. Social activist Ulka Mahajan said the Bill turned the State into a surveillance apparatus.
The politics behind the law
BJP leaders and organisations within the RSS Parivar welcomed the Bill. Cabinet minister Nitesh Rane, who holds the ports portfolio, said it would protect Hindu women from forced conversion and was consistent with Supreme Court guidelines and constitutional provisions.
The Bill’s origins can be traced to September 2022, when Sakal Hindu Samaj—an unregistered body comprising right-wing Hindu organisations including the Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal, and Hindu Jan Jagruti Samiti—began holding rallies across Maharashtra over alleged conversions. BJP leaders and the Eknath Shinde faction of Shiv Sena attended several of these marches. At rallies in Solapur and Ahilyanagar districts, Rane made statements that critics described as inflammatory against the minority community.
In March 2023, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, then Women and Child Development Minister, claimed on the floor of the Assembly that there were over one lakh cases of “love jihad” in Maharashtra. The “love jihad” theory—which alleges that Muslim men systematically enter romantic relationships with Hindu women to coerce their conversion—has been widely contested by civil liberties groups and researchers, who describe it as a communally motivated narrative propagated by RSS-affiliated organisations to polarise communities. The theory has found no corroboration in court records or government data. The Union government itself, in a 2021 reply to Parliament, stated that “love jihad” has no definition under existing laws.
The gap between the rhetoric and the official record was stark. In December 2022—three months before Lodha’s statement—the Maharashtra government had set up a panel, with Lodha as its head, to monitor interfaith marriages in the State. Not a single complaint of forced interfaith marriage was filed with that panel. Lodha’s earlier claim to the Assembly that the panel had already received 152 complaints was directly contradicted by data: when Samajwadi Party MLA Rais Shaikh sought information through the State Women and Development Ministry, he was told the panel had received zero cases. The women and child development commissioner confirmed this.
After the Mahayuti alliance returned to power with a substantial majority in the November 2024 Assembly election, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis cleared a proposal in February 2025 to constitute a committee to study anti-conversion laws in other States. A seven-member panel headed by the Director General of Police was formed, and drafting began.
A Bill that arrives as courts weigh in
The Bill was passed at a legally awkward moment. On February 2, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Union government and 12 States—Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana, and Rajasthan—on a petition filed by the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) challenging the constitutional validity of their respective anti-conversion laws. A bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi directed the Centre and the States to file counter-affidavits within four weeks, and ordered the matter placed before a three-judge bench.
Senior advocate Meenakshi Arora, appearing for the NCCI, told the court that these laws were structured in a way that rewarded vigilante action. She submitted that even where there was no genuine case, someone could file a complaint and trigger an arrest, because the law created incentives for complainants. She urged the court to stay the laws’ operation.
Maharashtra is not among the States named in that petition. But its Bill carries provisions—particularly the relative-triggered FIR mechanism—that civil liberties advocates say raise the same concerns about misuse as the laws already under judicial scrutiny. The Bill now awaits the Governor’s assent before it can come into force.
The article has been updated to reflect the latest developments.
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