Less than a fortnight ago, two young motorcyclists rode up to the little church in New Delhi where I worship. They asked the caretaker bluntly whether we were indulging in conversion. When he said no, they did not leave. They threatened him that if we converted anyone, they would bulldoze our church.

How did the two boys find the courage to make such a threat? Cowardice is often loud. Rage is often bravado without substance. These young men were lumpen elements — India has no shortage of them. But we were not, and we will never be, cowed. We practise our religion openly. We hang our cross, we ring our bells, and we live by a creed that has room for the stranger. Threats cannot change that.

If those fellows had taken a moment to look around, they would have found that our church shares a common wall with a Nirankari prayer hall. The two buildings are literally conjoined; you cannot demolish one without touching the other. We are like Siamese children — joined, awkwardly perhaps, but inseparable.

When the Nirankaris recently had their premises whitewashed, they asked our vicar which biblical verses might be suitable for the common wall and had them painted at their expense. Verses about neighbourliness. Verses that, if you compress the teaching of Jesus into three simple injunctions, would certainly include these lines:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart… And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'" (Matthew 22:37–39). "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34).

The Bible does not say love only your Christian neighbour, not Hindu or Muslim. Of course, there are many ways to interpret the sacred text, yet these short commands are remarkably plain. In practice, on that whitewashed wall opposite our church, the Nirankaris lived them. Their paint is a small, stubborn testimony against the loudness of intimidation.

If threats of bulldozers embody an ugly, political bravado, the quieter, humbler acts I have witnessed over the years speak more eloquently of India's real strength — its habit of neighbourliness beyond labels.

A day before I wrote this column, I read in the papers of a Hindu elderly non-Keralite woman in Kerala attended to by a Catholic institution. She had terminal cancer. None of her relatives or co-religionists came forward. On her deathbed, she asked to be cremated according to Hindu rites. The nuns were unsure how to proceed; they feared causing offence or guilt. Who stepped in? The ward member — a Muslim — did what a Hindu priest advised him to do for the salvation of her soul. The last rites were performed; human dignity was preserved.

I once led the cremation of a senior journalist because there were no priests and the family seemed indifferent. At the moment of lighting the pyre, someone suggested uttering a Hindu mantra; no one present knew one. I recited the Gayatri — perhaps a purist would flinch at my choice of words for that hour — but the act was born of compassion, not liturgical exactitude.

These are not isolated anecdotes. I have written before about a Muslim woman who cared for an elderly, forlorn Brahmin lady for years, even changing her own cooking so as not to distress the old woman's sensibilities. I have narrated the story of a Muslim who, every year, performed shraddha for the sister of VP Menon, the man who engineered the political integration of over 500 princely states into the republic we call India, that is, Bharat. Her photograph remained in the house even when the property changed hands; the caretaker vowed to preserve it as long as he lived.

When I recounted this story at a gathering attended by senior BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani and O. Rajagopal, people were stunned — not because the story was exotic but because it exposed the ordinary decency that ties we Indians together.

Religion, at its best, demands two loyalties: to God and to the common order of life. The Scriptures are not silent about the latter. "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." St. Paul in Romans presses this further: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities." These are not instructions for timidity; they are the moral grammar of coexistence.

That lesson was put to the test some years ago when a group of Christian leaders, including bishops, visited a Chief Minister — a man of yogic repute — as a courtesy call. They wanted no favours, only to extend good, prayerful wishes. When one of them spoke of the pressing need for communal harmony, the CM interrupted: "We Hindus do not need such advice, as we believe in vasudhaiva kutumbakam — the world is one family. You can give such advice to the Muslims and your own people. I have no problem if you run schools and hospitals, but if you convert any of us, I will have your legs broken."

The bishops were taken aback. They left with sorrow and a sense that a simple courtesy had become an occasion of menace.

India is a country where nearly 80–85 percent of the people are Hindus. Yet, the propaganda churned out daily is that Hindus are being converted en masse, that their religion is in danger, and that minorities — particularly Christians and Muslims — are orchestrating this change. If this were true, Hindu leaders should ask themselves why their followers are supposedly deserting their faith. Instead of introspection, scapegoating has become the norm.

This propaganda is not new. It goes back to the time of Jawaharlal Nehru. In the 1950s, Durga Prasad Mishra, the Chief Minister of undivided Madhya Pradesh and a man deeply influenced by Hindutva thought, introduced the first "Freedom of Religion" law, ironically, to curb freedom of conscience. Called the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, it made conversion illegal unless sanctioned by the state. Nehru, despite being the Prime Minister, could not stop him. Mishra's son, Brajesh Mishra, later rose to prominence as Prime Minister AB Vajpayee's National Security Advisor — an illustration of how deeply entrenched these ideas have become.

Not long after, Orissa followed suit, passing a similar law. Six decades have gone by since these laws came into force. And what is the result? Not a single person has ever been convicted of forcibly converting anyone to Christianity.

The reason is simple. Conversion is not a matter of compulsion but of conviction. No one can be forced to believe. Christianity in particular is not a religion of worldly reward. It is a religion of sacrifice, modelled on Jesus, who embraced suffering and death for the sake of humanity. To follow Him is to be prepared to carry one's cross.

Those who allege that poor villagers are enticed with material benefits forget an inconvenient truth: every practising Christian is expected to give away a tenth of their income as a tithe to the church. Christianity is not a free ride; it is a costly discipleship.

Still, as the BJP has grown in strength, both at the Centre and in the states, the noose has tightened. Today, 12 states have laws regulating or banning conversion. Almost every year, these laws are amended to increase punishment or make the procedures more cumbersome.

Recently, two Catholic nuns and a tribal boy were arrested while accompanying two young women to a training program. The women were practising Christians. Yet the nuns were charged not only with conversion but also with trafficking — a far more serious offence. Why trafficking? Because the government knows that the conversion allegation will collapse in court, but a trafficking charge can keep the accused behind bars for years before the case is decided. The law, meant to uphold justice, is instead twisted into an instrument of harassment.

The most draconian of these laws is in Uttar Pradesh. In 2024, the state government amended the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act to make it one of the harshest statutes in independent India. The amendment prescribes a minimum sentence of 20 years' imprisonment, which may even extend to life imprisonment, for conversion through marriage deemed unlawful. This provision alone reveals the true target of the law: interfaith marriages.

Even more chilling is the bail provision. Bail under this law is tied to the same standard used in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). In practice, this makes bail almost impossible, ensuring that anyone accused will languish in jail for years while their trial crawls through the system.

The law also allows third parties to file complaints. This means that neighbours, vigilante groups, or even random individuals can accuse a couple or a congregation of unlawful conversion. In effect, the state has outsourced its policing to mobs. Interfaith couples face harassment; pastors are dragged from prayer meetings; ordinary Christians are targeted simply for worshipping.

Courts have begun to push back. In 2021, the Gujarat High Court stayed provisions of the state's law, holding that they intruded into the sacred realm of marriage and personal choice, thereby violating Article 21 of the Constitution. Similarly, the Madhya Pradesh High Court stayed requirements that adults declare their intent to convert before a magistrate, calling it prima facie unconstitutional. Both states have appealed to the Supreme Court, where they are pending for adjudication.

The litigation has since spread, with challenges pending from Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. In 2020, a Bench led by then CJI DY Chandrachud issued a notice. Later, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind sought to consolidate all the petitions before the Supreme Court.

At the heart of these petitions is the argument that these laws violate Articles 21 and 25, which guarantee the right to life, liberty, freedom of conscience, and religion. They place unconstitutional burdens on individuals, expose them to harassment, and embolden vigilante violence.

The petitioners have rightly drawn on landmark judgments such as the one which upheld privacy as a fundamental right, and the Shafin Jahan v. Ashokan KM Case in Kerala, which affirmed that adults have the right to marry a partner of their choice. The so-called "love jihad" laws turn these judgments on their head, effectively deputising mobs to police love and belief.

At the last hearing on September 16, the Supreme Court asked all states to file responses within four weeks, appointed nodal counsels to streamline pleadings, and signalled that it would soon consider staying the operation of these laws. For pastors, evangelists, and ordinary believers who are imprisoned under these draconian provisions, this offers a glimmer of hope.

The story of India has never been one of uniformity. It is a story of multiplicity, of many faiths, languages, and traditions sharing space. The lived reality — of Nirankaris painting Bible verses, of Muslims performing Hindu rites, of Christians caring for the abandoned — is far richer than the imagined threats of demagogues.

Anti-conversion laws, harsh as they are, cannot erase the constitutional promise of freedom of conscience. Nor can they extinguish the lived truth of neighbourliness that ordinary Indians practise every day. The courts, by taking up these petitions seriously, have rekindled hope. The Constitution is not a dead document; it is a living covenant. Its spirit cannot be bulldozed, just as a church cannot be demolished without touching the temple it stands beside.

And so, in the face of propaganda, harassment, and unjust laws, we continue — practising, believing, and serving. For in the end, faith is not about coercion; it is about conviction. And conviction, unlike propaganda, cannot be destroyed. Bulldozers can tear down walls and crush stone, but they cannot touch faith — for faith does not stand on foundations of brick and mortar, it lives in the human heart.