The Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, has finally come into force, proving that India is being run by fundamentalists with neither conscience nor consciousness. Its implementation should not only concern Christians and Muslims, who will probably feel the immediate impact, but every Indian who still believes in the Constitution and that it places the citizens and not the State at the helm in matters of faith.

The problem with the law is not that it "can be misused"; it is fundamentally architected to be misused.

The law allows complaints based on allegations to be initiated by parents, siblings, relatives, or even any random person, thereby allowing malicious actors to harass individuals without repercussions. It also requires 60 days' prior notice to the district magistrate before a person can convert. The decision about what one believes, therefore, is no longer entirely a matter between the individual and their conscience. It becomes a matter for the State, the family, any outsider and potentially the police.

It is an extraordinary reversal of the normal logic of criminal jurisprudence. Where an allegation is made that a conversion was induced by force, fraud, coercion or allurement, the person facilitating the conversion bears the burden of establishing that it was voluntary. The accused therefore begins from a position of suspicion. The accuser makes the allegation; the accused must effectively demonstrate its falsity.

The law creates an asymmetry of risk: the person making the allegation has comparatively little to lose. An FIR, however, can cost the accused reputation, employment, money, liberty and years of legal struggle. Even if the allegation eventually collapses, the damage may already have been done. The process itself becomes the punishment.

Terms such as "allurement," "undue influence" and "misrepresentation" can become elastic instruments in the hands of an investigator or complainant. What constitutes genuine persuasion and what constitutes improper influence is not always a matter of objective fact. A scholarship, education, medical assistance or charitable service can easily be represented by a hostile complainant as an inducement.

The consequences are already visible. Even before the law came into force, some small churches in Maharashtra began asking worshippers to sign declarations that their participation in prayer meetings was voluntary, fearing that ordinary religious activity could be misconstrued as an attempt at conversion.

Article 25 does not say that Indians may believe whatever the district magistrate considers acceptable. It protects freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to constitutional limitations. The State may punish coercion and fraud. It has no mandate to become the gatekeeper of belief.

The Maharashtra government may call this a Freedom of Religion Act. But freedom becomes a curious thing when one must first notify the government, expose one's decision to relatives and risk criminal proceedings before exercising it.

That is not freedom of religion; this is no better than the Taliban; this is terrorism.