An organization engaged in spreading awareness about Chri-stian contribution to the Indian society has urged the Karnataka governor not to sign a bill against religious conversions.
“It is nothing but a dictatorial bill,” says a letter the Reverend Ferdinand Kittle Foundation wrote to the state Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot September 17, a day after the Karnataka Legislative Council, the upper house of the state legislature, passed the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, (anti-conversion bill).
The bill that now awaits the governor’s signature to become a law “is undemocratic” and against the “spirit of secularism of India,” asserts the Bengaluru-based organization and pleaded the governor to consider points such as the bill’s harmful and detrimental impact on the Indian secular society.
“The Indian Constitution has given the right to practice and propagate one’s religion. And every Indian citizen has the right to choose his/her own religion,” asserted the letter signed by or-ganization president Anthony Vikram, vice president Solomon Raj and general secretary Dalith Francis.
They warn that bringing such a “draconian law” has created fear as it takes away people’s right to change religion “freely without fear of atrocities by self-proclaimed moral policing group.”