But more fundamentally, the act also does not understand either the nature of faith or that of religious quest. It does not grant that a Hindu like me could find the image of Christ on his wondrous cross deeply moving. It does not grant that the hunger of my soul may remain insatiated in my ancestral faith and mode of worship. It does not recognise that Christ’s Sermon could contain for a Hindu such as me, the essence of religious life. It also precludes what philosopher Ramchandra Gandhi described as the ‘availability of religious ideas.’ The act fails to grant me the possibility, both philosophical and experiential, that I could grasp the beauty and the truth of a religion that I was not born in. The nature of religious quest is anchored in this possibility, without which an authentic searching is not possible.

It could be argued that a true religious quest, like that of Gandhi’s, makes the need for conversion unnecessary — that I could be simultaneously a Hindu, a Jain, a Christian and a Muslim. But that argument does not hold in this case, because if one were to accept that mode of being religious, an enactment like the one brought by the BJP government in Gujarat would be completely unnecessary. It would have no religious ground.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act is in its essence a communal legislation. It is communal not because it views all religions except Hinduism with suspicion, which it does. It is communal because it does not understand the true nature of faith, belief and a deep religious quest. It is suspicious of faith itself.

... contd.