Authoring (in)Authenticity, Regulating Religious Tolerance

Abstract

This article explores the politicization of `conversion' discourses in contemporary India, focusing on the rising popularity of anti-conversion legislation at the individual state level. While `Freedom of Religion' bills contend to represent the power of the Hindu nationalist cause, these pieces of legislation reflect both the political mobility of Hindutva as a symbolic discourse and the practical limits of its enforcement value within Indian law. This resurgence, however, highlights the enduring nature of questions regarding the quality of `conversion' as a `right' of individuals and communities, as well as reigniting the ongoing battle over the line between `conversion' and `propagation'. Ultimately, I argue that, while the politics of conversion continue to represent a decisive point of reference in debates over the quality and substance of religious freedom as a discernible right of Indian democracy and citizenship, the widespread negative consequences of this legislation's enforcement remain to be seen. Moreover, the role of gender in these debates cannot be ignored; indeed, the politics of gender play a decisive role in the manner in which the anti-conversion debates have unfolded. Consequently, the gulf between the unsecular nature of the legislation in theory and its questionable impact in practice indicates that the project of Indian secularism is negotiating religious intolerance rather than succumbing fully to the politics of Hindutva.