Majoritarian Momentum

An American scholar has written a book in which he tries to explain China’s recent rise. Dan Wang's thesis is that China is a society of engineers and its government is the rule of engineers

- Aakar Patel

In all these areas, what the state has intended to achieve, it has delivered. This is an interesting theme and we will keep returning to it in this column. Today I wanted to ask ourselves the same question: What has the Indian state intended to achieve and has it been successful in doing this?

On the side of the economy, jobs and, especially, foreign policy, the answer is now clear and on both sides of the argument the debate is only about who is to blame. That does not concern us here today. Let us look at an area where the Indian state has succeeded in the choices it has made.

This month was passed the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2025. It is aimed at two things: criminalising interfaith marriage between Hindus and Muslims and preventing people, particularly the marginalised communities from becoming Christians.

Like with other laws of this type, the Rajasthan law punishes conversions but not all of them. It says: ‘If any person reconverts to original religion ie. ancestral religion, the same shall not be deemed to be a conversion’ and explains ancestral religion as ‘the religion in which forefathers/ancestors of the person had faith, belief or was practiced’.