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In the weeks leading up to the implementation of a sweeping new anti-religious conversion law in Maharashtra, India’s western state home to the country’s financial hub Mumbai, Christian congregations across the region have adopted an extraordinary precaution: asking every worshipper to sign a written declaration confirming their attendance is entirely voluntary. The forms, which bear no official legal weight but are stored for potential future legal challenges, require visitors to record their full name, sometimes add government-issued identification details, and attest that no individual or group pressured, coerced, or bribed them to enter the church. This unplanned policy emerged directly in response to the legislation, which went into effect in early September 2026.

The new law bans religious conversions obtained through force, fraud, coercion, or inducement, and imposes strict requirements even for those seeking to change their faith voluntarily: anyone planning to convert must formally notify state authorities in advance of the act. Unlawful conversions carry penalties of up to seven years imprisonment, a sentence that jumps to 10 years for repeat offenses. Maharashtra’s ruling government has framed the policy as a critical public protection measure, arguing that it shields socially and economically marginalized communities from manipulation and deceptive tactics to force them to abandon their original religion.

But critics across legal, religious, and civil society circles have raised alarm over the law’s vague wording, harsh penalties, and intrusion into what they call one of the most intimate personal decisions an individual can make. While the legislation formally applies to all religious groups, anxiety has been most acute among minority communities, particularly Christian congregations that have already faced growing harassment from right-wing Hindu nationalist groups over unproven claims of forced conversion.

Devdan Tribhuvan, a fourth-generation Christian based in Mumbai’s Vasai suburb who works with a legal aid organization supporting local Christian communities, has witnessed this uncertainty firsthand. In recent months, he says, far more people have reached out to him not to file court cases, but to ask basic questions about what religious activity is still legally permitted, sharing accounts of uninvited outsiders disrupting small prayer gatherings to interrogate attendees. Strangers have entered churches to question worshippers about their identities, their reasons for attending, and whether anyone has offered them gifts or incentives to be there. Tribhuvan notes that questioning grows more aggressive when a worshipper has a name traditionally associated with another faith, with interrogators pressing to confirm no coercion or inducement was used to bring them to the service. Most of the people who contact him do not seek legal action; they simply fear that gathering to pray could open them up to criminal accusations of orchestrating conversion.

Data collected by local media bears out these reports of rising harassment. Between April and July 2026, an investigation by The Indian Express documented five separate disruptions of Christian prayer meetings in the Mumbai region, leading to nine police cases. Seven of those cases targeted worshippers and prayer meeting organizers, while only two were filed against members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal, which often carries out these disruptions. Local police have not responded to requests for more details about the cases or any enforcement action taken against the disruptive groups.

For Mumbai, a city built over centuries by migration from across India and the world, this anxiety strikes at the city’s longstanding culture of interfaith coexistence. The city’s landscape is dotted with religious sites of multiple faiths that draw worshippers from across community lines: Catholic Mount Mary Basilica welcomes Hindu pilgrims who come to light candles, while the Muslim Haji Ali Dargah draws visitors of every religion, and major Hindu festivals draw crowds from all backgrounds across the city. The new law threatens to upend this quiet pluralism, religious leaders say.

Maharashtra is far from the first Indian state to adopt such legislation. More than a dozen Indian states, most governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have put restrictions on religious conversion in place in recent years, with several of these laws currently facing legal challenges before India’s Supreme Court. The push for these laws is rooted in longstanding claims from Hindu nationalist groups: that Christians lure poor and tribal communities away from Hinduism through offers of money, free education, or medical care, and that Muslim men court Hindu women for conversion in an alleged conspiracy labeled “love jihad.” Critics argue these baseless claims have already normalized harassment of both Christian communities and interfaith couples, and the new laws formalize this harassment by giving state police and private actors license to interfere with personal religious choices and intimate relationships.

The biggest point of legal contention is the law’s extraordinarily broad definition of prohibited “allurement,” which includes not just cash bribes, but also offers of employment, free education at a religious institution, marriage, a “better lifestyle,” and even “divine healing.” Even public praise of one religion over another can be classified as an unlawful inducement under the law’s wording. Retired Bombay High Court judge Abhay Thipsay points out that the vagueness of this definition means almost any benefit a person receives could be interpreted as an allurement to convert. “If a person receives some benefit and consciously chooses to convert for that reason, why should it be considered wrong?” Thipsay asks. He adds that if an adult is trusted to make major life decisions like choosing a spouse and voting in elections, they should equally have the right to make their own choices about religious belief.

Another controversial provision allows relatives of a person undergoing conversion to file police complaints against anyone accused of facilitating or encouraging unlawful conversion, placing the burden of proof on the accused to demonstrate the conversion was voluntary. Critics warn this creates a dangerous new tool to target interfaith couples, who already often face violent opposition from family members and right-wing groups. While Indian law formally permits interfaith marriage without requiring conversion, it mandates a 30-day public waiting period before a marriage can be registered, a window that often allows opponents to obtain details of the wedding and interfere. Lara Jesani, a lawyer who has worked to secure court protection for interfaith couples, says families have even abducted women from marriage registrar’s offices in past cases. Now, she fears the Maharashtra law will give these opponents a new way to harass couples: even if neither partner plans to convert, a hostile relative can file a police accusation claiming one partner is coercing the other to change their faith.

State officials have pushed back against these concerns, asserting that the new law does not infringe on the fundamental right to change one’s religion. When the legislation was passed, Maharashtra state minister Pankaj Bhoyar explained that the mandatory pre-notification requirement is designed solely to verify that conversions are voluntary, while enabling the state to crack down on conversions obtained through fraud, coercion, or manipulation. The Maharashtra government has not responded to repeated requests for comment from the BBC on the specific concerns raised by critics and minority communities.

For Tribhuvan and many other Christians across Maharashtra, the anxiety extends even to small, private home prayer gatherings held in areas without a local church. If 50 or 100 people gather, he says, it is common for a person from another faith to drop in to pray, and congregation members do not turn them away. “If someone else wishes to come and pray, we cannot stop them,” he says. “That is what we call the right to choose.”

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