THE morning that police arrived at 32-year-old Sushma’s home, her children thought that their mother was being taken away for questioning and would return by evening. Instead, she spent weeks in custody, accused under an anti-conversion law, after neighbours alleged that a small prayer meeting that she hosted was an attempt at unlawful religious conversion.
During that time, the family’s income collapsed, the children stopped attending school out of fear and shame, and relatives avoided visiting. “Before any court decided anything, our lives were already changed,” a family member said. Sushma, a Christian, later recalled from prison: “I kept thinking about my children crying at night. I had never even been inside a police station before.”
Such accounts are increasingly reported across parts of India, where stringent anti-conversion laws have led to arrests and prosecutions of Christians, often based on complaints that, human-rights groups say, are unverified or exaggerated. Lawyers, activists, and church leaders warn that, beyond legal arguments, the humanitarian consequences are immediate: disrupted households, social ostracism, and long legal battles that strain already fragile finances.
In Uttar Pradesh, in which one of the country’s most stringent statutes regulating religious conversion is enforced, recent convictions have intensified concern among minority communities. In a widely discussed case in the state, a Christian couple were sentenced to five years for alleged conversion activity, a verdict that, legal analysts say, reflects the expanding application of such laws.
The legislation criminalises conversions obtained through force, fraud, or inducement, but critics argue that its wording is too broad and allows police action based largely on suspicion or third-party complaints.
For women, the impact is often particularly harsh. Several families said that female relatives detained under these laws faced stigma that persisted even after their release on bail. One woman from central India said that her neighbours stopped speaking to her after her arrest, forcing her to leave her job as a domestic worker. Another described how her children were taunted at school and this led her to keep them temporarily at home. “We are fighting a case,” she said, “but we are also fighting people’s assumptions.”
Child-welfare advocates say that such experiences can have lasting psychological effects. Sudden separation from parents, exposure to police action, and community hostility can heighten anxiety and insecurity, especially among younger children. In some cases documented by support groups, minors were left in the care of distant relatives while both parents attended court hearings or were detained, and this disrupted education and daily routines.
Civil-liberties lawyers contend that many complaints originate from local activists or vigilante groups rather than individuals alleging direct coercion. Once a case is registered, they say, the accused must navigate a slow judicial process that can last months or years.
A Christian pastor whose congregation has scaled back prayer gatherings said: “We now pray quietly and avoid inviting new people. Faith should not feel like a risk, but today many believers are afraid even to meet.”
Supporters of anti-conversion laws, however, argue that they are necessary safeguards to protect vulnerable communities from exploitation, and insist that authorities act only when credible allegations exist.
The Indian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, including the right to practise and propagate faith, while permitting states to regulate conversions to prevent coercion. Legal scholars say that the tension between those principles has created a patchwork of state-level laws given widely varying interpretation, which leaves uncertainty about what constitutes unlawful conversion in practice.
