Religious Freedom in Nepal

April 27, 2010 Shailesh No Comments

Nepal was declared a secular state when the current interim constitution was adopted a few years ago. With the new constitution due on May 28th, religious freedom isn’t necessarily an issue that has been settled. In fact Hindu nationalists (partly inspired by their Indian counterparts) are mobilizing against declaring Nepal a secular state in the new constitution. They are bent on remaining the worlds only Hindu state!

While Nepal may be a secular state according to the current interim constitution, it still bans religious conversions. Basically one person can not convert another person to a different religion. While this is not as actively enforced as many would like it still causes tension and problems among religious groups. The track record on this is very mixed in other places and I don’t see why Nepal needs to repeat these mistakes.

We’ll see how this plays out over the coming weeks, but in the mean time I found this very thoughtful and insightful article outlining why Nepal needs to not only remain a secular state but needs to get rid of the “anti-conversion” provision entirely:

Firstly, a ban on conversions would be against the international treaties with which Nepal’s new constitution should comply. Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, has stated unequivocally that religious freedom “includes carrying out actions to persuade others to believe in a certain religion”.

Secondly, it is not clear what it would mean “to convert another person”, and this clause could be misused easily to harass religious minorities. The implication of the clause is that a religious conversion comes about by the new convert being acted upon by external forces, while new convert has little or no agency in this process. It is very difficult to define for legal purposes what then constitutes a genuine religious conversion, and legitimate, peaceful activities carried out by any religious group which might conceivably attract new converts would be put at risk of legal reprisals.

As with anti-conversion laws in force in five Indian states and proposed in Sri Lanka, the rationale for this proposal is a fear of coercion to bring about nominal changes of religion. Any genuinely coercive attempts to effect a change of religion would – or should – be utterly condemned by sensible members of any religious community. However, illegitimate acts of coercion could simply be prosecuted under existing general provisions of the law.

This leads to a third problem, that legislating specifically against religious conversions only serves to fuel prejudice and intolerance against religious minority groups. Jahangir recently spoke out strongly against the similar anti-conversion laws in India, stating that they “are being used to vilify Christians and Muslims“. Vilification all-too-often leads to violence, as many Christians or Muslims in India could testify.

You can read the entire article here.