The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Rajasthan will table a new version of its proposed anti-conversion bill in the Assembly, The Indian Express reported.

The Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill, 2025 will be tabled in the Monsoon Session of the Assembly that began on Monday.

State Law Minister Jogaram Patel said that a previous version of the bill, introduced in February, will be recalled, The Times of India reported. “The new bill has harsher punishments than the outgoing one to prevent the menace of conversion,” he said.

Under the new bill, those convicted of unlawful conversion will face a prison term of seven to 14 years. If the alleged unlawful conversion involves minors, disabled persons, women or members of the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, the punishment will range from 10 years to 20 years’ imprisonment, according to The Indian Express.

Those held guilty of mass conversions will face 20 years to life imprisonment, and a fine of at least Rs 25 lakh. In the old bill, the offence carried a punishment of 3 to 10 years, and a minimum fine of Rs 50,000.

The bill also proposes life imprisonment for repeat offences for certain crimes.

The proposed law will also specify that returning to one’s “original ancestral religion” will not be defined as religious conversion, The Indian Express reported. “If someone returns to their mool [original] religion, which we call ghar wapsi, then these provisions will not be applicable to them,” Patel said.

Hindutva organisations refer to the conversions of members of minority communities to Hinduism as “ghar wapasi”, or homecoming.

If the bill is passed, Rajasthan will become the 12th state to have an anti-conversion law. The states that currently have such laws are Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Critics have said that such laws are used to target religious minorities and inter-faith couples.

Also read: How have legal cases seeking to strike down India’s anti-conversion laws fared?

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