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Jainism in Danger? Temple entry and the rhetoric of religion and reform in post-colonial India
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2020
Abstract
A bitter debate broke out in the Digambar Jain community in the middle of the twentieth century following the passage of the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act in 1947, which continued until well after the promulgation of the Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955. These laws included Jains in the definition of ‘Hindu’, and thus threw open the doors of Jain temples to formerly Untouchable castes. In the eyes of its Jain opponents, this was a frontal and terrible assault on the integrity and sanctity of the Jain dharma. Those who called themselves reformists, on the other hand, insisted on the closeness between Jainism and Hinduism. Temple entry laws and the public debates over caste became occasions for the Jains not only to examine their distance—or closeness—to Hinduism, but also the relationship between their community and the state, which came to be imagined as predominantly Hindu. This article, by focusing on the Jains and this forgotten episode, hopes to illuminate the civilizational categories underlying state practices and the fraught relationship between nationalism and minorities.
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Footnotes
I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of MAS for their close engagement with the article, which helped me to refine and sharpen my arguments.
References
1 The Jains are divided into two principal sects: Shvetambars (white clad) whose mendicants wear white robes, and Digambars (sky clad), whose male mendicants, insisting on the prerequisite of nudity to ascetic life, go naked.
2 I have used the term ‘Harijan’ out of deference to the title of the legislation and when referring to the debates within the Jain community that employed this term alone. Otherwise, ‘formerly Untouchable groups’ has been used. Similarly, Bombay has been preferred over Mumbai to correctly reflect the usage in the period covered here.
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9 Kenneth W. Jones, ‘Religious Identity and the Indian Census’, in Barrier (ed.), The Census in British India, p. 79.
10 The Privy Council ruled in the widow's favour in Sheo Singh Rai v. Dakho and Bhagvandas Tejmal v. Rajmal, cited in Parshotam v. Venichand, All India Reporter 1921, pp. 148–150.
11 Prem Sagar v. Ram Gopal, All India Reporter 1929, pp. 814–815.
12 The courts held that the rules of inheritance and succession laid out in these texts were obsolete and ‘relate to a condition of Jain society when the widow was considered as a more preferential heir than the son, and cannot have any binding force at the present time’. Bhikubai Chunilal Ambaidas v. Manilal Bhagchand Raychand, All India Reporter 1930, pp. 517–527.
13 Cohn, ‘Anthropological Notes on Disputes and Law in India’, pp. 620–622.
14 Gettappa v. Erramma, (1926) 51 MLJ 757.
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18 Nathuram Premi, ‘Parichay’, in Jain jagran ke agradoot, (ed.) Ayodhyaprasad Goyalia (Benaras: Bharatiya Vidyapeeth Kashi, 1952), p. 150.
19 Conversation with Mr Chakresh Jain, Mahasabha, Delhi.
20 Jain Mitra began publication in 1900. Premi, ‘Parichay’, pp. 152–153.
21 Mukhtar started as the editor of Jain Gazette (1914–18), edited Jain Hiteshi after Nathuram Premi's demise, and launched Anekant in 1929. It was published from Saharsawa in Saharanpur, western Uttar Pradesh, Mukhtar's home, before being moved to Delhi in the mid-1950s.
22 Ganesh Prasad Varni, Meri Jeevan Gatha (Varanasi: Shri Ganesh Varni Digambar Jain Sansthan, 2006; 3rd edn, originally published 1949), Vol. 1, pp. 1–3. For an account of their close relationship, see pp. 60–63.
23 John E. Cort prefers the term ‘knowledge warehouses’. See Cort, J. E., ‘The Jain Knowledge Warehouses: Traditional Libraries in India’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 115, no. 1, 1995, pp. 77–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 For a report on the pro-printing movement, see Bakliwal, Pandit Pannalal, ‘Bharatiya Jain Siddhanta Prakashini Sanstha Kashi ki Dwivarshik Report’, Jain Hiteshi, vol. 3, no. 3, 1914, pp. 1–16Google Scholar.
25 Vilas Sangave, ‘Reform Movements among Jains in Modern India’, in The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society, (eds) Michael Carrithers and Caroline Humphrey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 235.
26 Digambars reject the Shvetambar corpus of sacred books, claiming that the original canon was irretrievably lost and exists today only partially and in fragmented form in extant Digambar texts. Paul Dundas, The Jains (London and New York: Routledge, 2002; 2nd edn), p. 79.
27 Bakliwal, ‘Bharatiya Jain Siddhanta Prakashini Sanstha Kashi ki Dwivarshik Report’, p. 3.
28 Mitra Sharafi, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772–1947 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 123.
29 Mt. Jaiwanti v. Mt. Anandi Devi, AIR 1938 All 62. J. Collister noted that the plaintiffs had submitted a copy of C. R. Jain's The Jaina Law but that the court had declined to consider it.
30 According to Sangave, the campaign bore fruit, as reflected in the 1931 and 1941 censuses, although the picture of overall decline remained. Jaina Community: A Social Survey (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1959), p. 2. In fact, to this day such campaigns are resurrected before every census. See also P. Flugel, ‘Demographic Trends in Jaina Monasticism’, in Studies in Jaina History and Culture: Disputes and Dialogues, (ed.) Peter Flugel (London and New York: Routledge, 2008; reprint), p. 313.
31 Dundas, The Jains, p. 5.
32 Mukhtar, , ‘Jainiyon ka Atyachaar’, Anekant, vol. 1, nos. 8–9, 1929, pp. 433–439Google Scholar.
33 Subadhra Devi, ‘Adhunik Jain Samaj ki Samajik Paristhiti’, Anekant, vol. 1, nos. 8–9, 1929, pp. 463–470. Jain Hiteshi proposed a number of reforms, including the relaxation of caste and gotra barriers in marriage as well as the prohibition on polygamy and child marriage. ‘Jain Jansankhya ke Rhas ka prashana’, Jain Hiteshi, vol. 11, no. 3, 1914, pp. 139–142.
34 Conversation with Dr Anupam Jain, professor of mathematics at Government Degree College, Sanwar, Indore.
35 For an understanding of the way in which caste operates among the Shvetambar Jains of Gujarat, see Cort, John E., ‘Jains, Caste and Hierarchy in North Gujarat’, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.), vol. 38, nos. 1 and 2, 2004, pp. 73–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Parmeshthi Das observed that, while this split was pervasive among all castes in Gujarat, there was no ranking of high and low. In contrast, in Uttar Pradesh and central India, ‘the Dasa brothers have been needlessly imagined to be inferior, while Bisa have been considered superior’. Pandit Parmeshthi Das Jain, Dassaon ka Pujadhikar (Delhi: Lala Jauharimal Saraf, 1935), p. 4.
37 Moti Ram And Ors. v. Manday Lal on 19 July 1912; 16 Ind Cas 356.
38 Sphulid Sarvavyapi, Dassapujaadhikar Vichar (Jabalpur: Jamnabai, 1936).
39 Carrithers notes the year of his initiation as 1919, whereas Flugel records it as 1920. M. Carrithers, ‘Naked Ascetics in Southern Digambar Jainism’, Man (n.s.), vol. 24, no. 2 (June) 1989, p. 232; Flugel, ‘Demographic Trends in Jaina Monasticism’, p. 348.
40 Natubhai Shah, Jainism: The World of Conquerors (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998), Vol. I, pp. 55–56.
41 Carrithers, ‘Naked Ascetics’, pp. 230–232.
42 Varni, ‘Harijan Mandir Pravesh’, in Meri Jeevan Gatha (Varanasi: Sri Ganesh Prasad Varni Jain Granthmala, 1960), Vol. 2, pp. 115–122.
43 Ayodhyaprasad Goyalia, ‘Jain Jagran ki ek Jhalak’, Veer (Swarna jayanti visheshank), 2 January 1973, p. 3.
44 Writing about nineteenth-century Shvetambars, Cort has cautioned against erasing the distinctions between the different public spheres that were developing in Punjab, Gujarat, Calcutta, and Benaras. J. E. Cort, ‘Jain Identity and Public Sphere in Nineteenth-Century India’, in Religious Interaction in Modern India, (eds) Martin Fuchs and Vasudha Dalmia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 99–137.
45 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Post-colonial Histories (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), especially Chapter 1, pp. 3–13.
46 See Arjun Appadurai, Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
47 For precisely such a process, see C. J. Fuller, The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), especially ‘Modernity, Traditionalism, and the State’, pp. 152–167.
48 P. Chatterjee, ‘Secularism and Tolerance’, in Secularism and Its Critics, (ed.) Rajeev Bhargava (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 351–353.
49 The most significant of these was the proclamation by the maharaja of Travancore in 1936. Robin Jeffrey, ‘Travancore: Status, Class and the Growth of Radical Politics, 1860–1940’, in People, Princes and Paramount Power: Society and Politics in the Indian Princely States, (ed.) Robin Jeffrey (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 136–169. The Travancore declaration also precipitated similar declarations by the maharajas of Dholpur and Indore. See Vyogi Hari, History of the Harijan Sevak Sangh, 1932–1968 (Delhi: Harijan Sevak Sangh, 1971), pp. 82 and 156.
50 Proceedings of the Central Legislative Assembly, January–June 1938, Indian Annual Register, Vol. 1 (1938), p. 87. One may add here that Marwaris can be both Jains and Vaishnav Hindus and that there is a remarkable similarity in their social worlds, even if they adhere to different faiths. Bajoria was also very active in opposing the reforms in Hindu law. See E. Newbigin, The Hindu Family and the Emergence of Modern India: Law, Citizenship and Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 146.
51 S. Chandrashekar, Dimensions of Socio-Political Change in Mysore, 1918–40 (Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1985), pp. 99–100.
52 S. R. Venkatraman, Temple Entry Legislation Reviewed: With Acts and Bills (Madras: Bharat Devi Publications, 1946), pp. 47–48. Heggade's objections were especially interesting as the Dharmasthala temple is rather unique in that it houses both a Shiva shrine and one dedicated to the Jain hero Bahubali. While Brahman priests perform the daily prayers, the temple is traditionally managed and run by Jains, namely the Heggade family.
53 It came into effect on 1 April 1938. Ibid., p. 57.
54 Ibid., p. 56.
55 Eleanor Zelliot, ‘Congress and the Untouchables, 1917–1950’, in Congress and Indian Nationalism: The Pre-Independence Phase, (eds) Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 191.
56 Venkatraman, Temple Entry Legislation Reviewed, Appendix XII, p. L.
57 Indian Annual Register, Vol. 1 (1939), p. 281.
58 Ibid., Vol. II (1939), p. 172.
59 Ibid., p. 246.
60 Hari, History of the Harijan Sevak Sangh, p. 83.
61 Reproduced in Sumeruchand Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti: Shraman shiromani Acharya Santisagar Maharaj ka Punya Charitra (Delhi: Sri Bharatvarshiya Digambar Jain Mahasabha, n.d.), p. 288. On this, see also Banshidhar, ‘Jain Mandir aur Harijan’, in Sanskriti Varadputra Pandit Banshidhar Vyakaranacharya Abhinandnan Granth, (ed.) Darbarilal Kothiya (Varanasi: Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti, 1979), p. 31.
62 In mid-1938, the state saw a ministerial crisis, which ended in the resignation of the incumbent prime minister, Dr Narayan Bhaskar Khare. It signalled the decline of Maharashtrian Brahman dominance and the rise of the Hindi region and its politicians, drawn from a much larger and more diverse social base, including Brahmans, Rajputs, and Marwaris. See D. E. U. Baker, Changing Political Leadership in an Indian Province: The Central Provinces and Berar (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979).
63 Indralal Shastri, Jain Dharma aur Jati Bhed (Sujangarh, Rajasthan: Mishrilal Jain Shastri Nyayatirtha, n.d.).
64 Cited in Vidyarthi Narendra, Harijan Mandir Pravesh, ek Addhyan: Indralal ji Shastri ke Tract ka Yuktipoorna Uttar (Sagar: Pragatisheel Jain Yuvak Samaj, n.d.), p. 79.
65 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 282.
66 The ritual fasting to death.
67 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, pp. 284–285. All further references to Shantisagar's fast and political meetings are from Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, pp. 282–303, unless mentioned otherwise.
68 Makarand Mehta, ‘The Dalit Temple Entry Movements in Maharashtra and Gujarat, 1930–1948’, in The Other Gujarat, (ed.) Takashi Shinoda (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 2002), pp. 1–20.
69 ‘Inclusion of Jains among Hindus’, The Times of India, 20 August 1949, p. 5. Diwakar's organization appears not to have been mass-based, but in the main a forum for writing letters and sending petitions to the government on issues and concerns considered important to the Jains.
70 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 288.
71 ‘Inclusion of Jains among Hindus’, The Times of India, p. 5.
72 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 289.
73 ‘Harijan Entry Act and Jain Temples’, The Times of India, 8 August 1949, p. 9.
74 ‘Harijans to be Admitted’, The Times of India, 2 February 1954, p. 1.
75 ‘Jain temples in Gwalior Closed’, The Times of India, 11 October 1954, p. 5.
76 See Rodney W. Jones, Urban Politics in India: Area, Power, and Policy in a Penetrated System (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), pp. 50–57 and p. 87. The first two chief ministers of Madhya Bharat following the victory of the Congress in the first general elections were Jains, namely, Mishrilal Gangwal and Takhtmal Jain.
77 ‘Entry into Jain Temples: Indore Harijans’ Move’, The Times of India, 12 July 1954, p. 9.
78 ‘No Entry for Harijans’, The Times of India, 21 September 1955, p. 9.
79 ‘Jain Women Sit outside Temples’, The Times of India, 26 September 1955, p. 3.
80 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 290.
81 ‘Harijan Temple Entry Challenged’, The Times of India, 24 July 1951, p. 7.
82 Ibid.
83 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 297.
84 Bhaichand Tarachand And Ors. v. State Of Bombay And Anr, AIR 1952 Bom 233.
85 Ibid.
86 State v. Puranchand, AIR 1958 MP 352. The trial court did not record any explicit finding regarding caste Hindus accessing this temple.
87 Diwakar, Charitra Chakravarti, p. 292.
88 Prof Mahendra Kumar Nyaycharya, Jain Mandir aur Harijan (Delhi: Bharatvarshiya Digambar Jain Parishad, n.d.), p. 17.
89 This distinction is found in the writings of the medieval South Indian Digambar acharya Somadeva Suri, author of the authoritative Shravakachara, Upasakadhyayana. Shravakachara is the corpus of prescriptive literature for Jain householders.
90 Phoolchandra Shastri, Varna, Jati aur Dharma (Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpeeth, 1989; 2nd edn). See also his series ‘Shudra Mukti’, Gnanodaya, no. 4, October 1949, pp. 267–270, and Gnanodaya, no. 5, November 1949, pp. 367–373.
91 Banshidhar, ‘Jain Mandir aur Harijan’, pp. 29–32.
92 ‘Editorial’, Gnanodaya, no. 1, July 1949, p. 76. Gnanodaya regularly carried news of the pro-Act camp, reporting, for example, that pamphlets were circulated against the hartal called on the first anniversary of Acharya's fast.
93 An editorial in the magazine Jain Sandesh headlined ‘ghar ki phoot’ (a house divided) latched onto this communication as evidence of the reformist desire to send those opposed to the Act to jail. See rebuttal and original letter in Gnanodaya, no. 3, September 1949, pp. 221–222.
94 Narendra, Harijan Mandir Pravesh, p. 34.
95 Ibid., pp. 33–37.
96 Ibid., p. 18.
97 ‘Entry of Harijans into Temples’, The Times of India, 27 December 1950, p. 7, and ‘Entry of Harijans into Jain Temples’, The Times of India, 25 December 1950, p. 9.
98 Parmeshthi Das, ‘Bharatiya Digambar Jain parishad ke manch par ghatit ghatnayein jinhe aaj bhi bhool nahi saka!’, Veer (Swarna jayanti visheshank), pp. 99–100.
99 ‘Open temples to Harijans’, The Times of India, 5 April 1956, p. 5
100 V. D. Savarkar, Hindutva (Mumbai: Swatantryaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Publications Division, 1999; 7th edn), p. 28; for a discussion on the ‘essentials of Hindutva’, see pp. 64–72.
101 See P. K. Datta, ‘“Dying Hindus”: Production of Hindu Communal Common Sense in Early Twentieth Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 28, no. 25, June 1993, pp. 1305–1319.
102 See K. W. Jones, ‘The Arya Samaj in British India, 1875–1947’, in Religion in Modern India, (ed.) Robert D. Baird (New Delhi: Manohar, 1981); and also J. T. F. Jordens, Swami Dayanand Saraswati: Essays on his Life and Ideas (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1960).
103 V. D. Savarkar, ‘Jain Hindu hi hain, lekin kis arth main?’, Gnanodaya, no. 4, October 1949, pp. 290–300.
104 Pandit Sukhlal Sanghavi, ‘Ek mahatvapoorna patra: Jain Hindu samaj ka ang hai’, Gnanodaya, no. 4, October 1949, p. 302.
105 Banshidhar, ‘Bhartiya sanskriti ke sambandh mai Hindu shabd ka vyapak artha’, in Banshidhar Abhinandnan Granth, p. 33. This was of course a wholesale borrowing from Savarkar.
106 Gnanodaya, no. 5, November 1949, pp. 396–399.
107 Gnanodaya, no. 12, June 1950, p. 891.
108 Banshidhar, ‘Jain Mandir aur Harijan’, pp. 29–32.
109 Vidyarthi, ‘Harijan mandir pravesh’, pp. 20–21.
110 Gnanodaya, no. 5, November 1949, p. 397.
111 Vidyarthi, ‘Harijan mandir pravesh’, pp. 39–40.
112 Ibid., p. 18.
113 Fuller, The Renewal of the Priesthood, p. 162.
114 Varni, ‘Porwar Sabha mai vidhva vivaha ka prastav’, in Meri Jeevan Gatha, Vol. 1, pp. 261–266.
115 Werner Menski, ‘Jaina Law as an Unofficial Legal System’, in Disputes and Dialogues: Studies in Jaina History and Culture, (ed.) Peter Flugel (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 428; Cort, ‘Jain Identity and Public Sphere in Nineteenth-Century India’, p. 112.
116 For instance, the pandits endeavoured to provide a Shastric foundation to Harijan temple entry, and before that to Dasa worship rights. They also regularly published critiques of texts which they deemed to be false, authored by allegedly ignorant and self-interested bhattaraks and munis. Parmeshthi Das Jain, ‘Jain Samaj ke beesvin sadi ke pramukh andolan’, in Nathuram Premi Abhinandan Granth (Tikamgarh: Premi Abhinandan Granth Samiti, 1946), p. 586.
117 Wittrock has argued that modernity is characterized not by a conjunction of industrial and democratic revolutions, but by a set of ‘promissory notes’, which in turn shape the institutions we may deem modern. The singular feature of the modern age is the globalization of these promissory notes such that they provide the ‘general reference points’ for projects that seek their realization, as well the point of departure for those who oppose ‘emblematic modern institutions’. Wittrock warns, however, that just because those speaking for tradition express and formulate their opposition with reference to the idea of modernity does not imply an abandonment of their ‘ontological and cosmological assumptions, much less their traditional institutions’. Björn Wittrock, ‘Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition’, Daedalus, vol. 129, no. 1, ‘Multiple Modernities’, Winter, 2000, pp. 31–60.
118 Dundas, The Jains, p. 251. Following Dundas, Cort has also argued for the centrality of reform in Jain tradition: see J. E. Cort, ‘Defining Jainism: Reform in the Jain Tradition’, in Jain Doctrine and Practice: Academic Perspectives, (ed.) Joseph T. O'Connell (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, Centre for South Asian Studies, 2000), pp. 165–191.
119 It was not just Shantisagar who was exercised by the temple entry laws—for many academics and commentators too, these laws posed a question mark over the nature and practice of Indian secularism. D. E. Smith, for example, has argued that the state's reformism has resulted in a weakened internal autonomy of religions. D. E. Smith, ‘India as a Secular State’, in Secularism and Its Critics, (ed.) Bhargava, pp. 177–233.
120 According to the traditionalists, Gandhi's actions were guided by politics rather than dharma. Gandhi's ahimsa, directed as it was towards other men, rather than all sentient beings (tiny and microbial as enjoined in Jainism) was limited, if not false. Quoted in Vidyarthi, ‘Harijan mandir pravesh’, pp. 62–63.
121 Indralal Shastri cited in ibid., p. 72.
122 Manisha Sethi, ‘Minority Claims and Majoritarian Anxieties: The Jain Question’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 51, no. 49, 2016, pp. 55–63.
123 Letter dated 9 December 1947. Microfilm, Reel Number 59, K-138, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
124 Galanter, Marc, ‘Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian Judiciary’, Philosophy East and West, vol. 21, no. 4, October 1971, p. 477CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
125 A. Giddens, ‘Living in a Post-Traditional Society’, in Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order, (eds) Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), pp. 56–109, especially p. 66. According to Giddens, tradition is merely repetition, even neurosis, given to ‘formulaic versions of truth’ which are fundamentally opposed to the ‘rational enquiry’ typical of societies that have been de-traditionalized. The reformist attack on their opponents seemed to approximate precisely such a critique even as they set themselves up as the true custodians of tradition.
126 Vidyarthi, Harijan Mandir Pravesh, pp. 5 and 17.
127 For a discussion on this point, see Subramanian, Narendra, Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and Gendered Citizenship in India (California: Stanford University Press, 2014), p. 42Google Scholar.
128 Sharafi has shown how Parsi legislators resisted the attempt to include Parsis within the Hindu Religious Endowments Act, fearing that as India moved towards independence, their rights as a minority would be imperilled under a majoritarian polity. Sharafi, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia, pp. 95–96.
129 Agnes, Law and Gender Inequality, p. 25; Galanter, ‘Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian Judiciary’, p. 471.
130 Menski, ‘Jaina Law as an Unofficial Legal System’, p. 431.
131 To be sure, the magazine Gnanodaya, in the issue that carried Savarkar's article, also issued warnings to its readers about the ‘communal’ designs of the Hindu Mahasabha, which, according to the editors, only served the interests of its Brahman leaders under the rhetoric of Hindu unity. ‘Sampadakiya: Jain banaam Hindu’, Gnanodaya, no. 4, October 1949, pp. 307–311.
132 See Tanweer Fazal, ‘Scheduled Castes, Reservations and Religion: Revisiting a Juridical Debate’, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.), vol. 51, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–24.
133 In 1954, the government of Madhya Pradesh appointed the Niyogi Commission to investigate the role of foreign missionaries in the state. The Commission muddied the distinction between consent and force, and laid the framework for the way in which conversions have been viewed thereafter. In 1977, the Supreme Court, in upholding the constitutionality of the anti-conversion laws of the states of Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, ruled that the right to propagate under Article 25 could not be understood as the right to convert: Rev. Stainislaus v. State Of Madhya Pradesh & Ors 1977, 1 SCC 677. The judgment paved the way for the enactment of a string of state laws restricting conversions. Jenkins, Laura Dudley, ‘Legal Limits on Religious Conversions in India’, Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 71, no. 2, 2008, pp. 109–128Google Scholar.
134 Neerja Gopal Jayal, ‘Faith-based Citizenship: The Dangerous Path that India is Choosing’, The India Forum, published online on 1 November 2019, available at https://www.theindiaforum.in/sites/default/files/pdf/2019/11/01/faith-based-citizenship.pdf, [accessed 20 October 2020].
135 Galanter, ‘Temple-Entry and the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955’, Journal of the Indian Law Institute, vol. 6, nos. 2–3, April–September 1964, pp. 185–195.
136 Ibid., p. 194. Emphasis in original.
137 Pannalal v. Sitabai, AIR 1953 Nag 70. The court was examining whether the Hindu Women's Rights to Property Act applied to Jains. On the judicial response to these questions, see Sethi, ‘Minority Claims and Majoritarian Anxieties’.
138 State Of Rajasthan And Ors. v. Vijay Shanti Educational Trust, RLW 2003 (4) Raj 2568.
139 Bal Patil v. the Union of India, 2005 (6), SSC 690.
140 Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure (New York: Cornell University Press, 1991; 7th edn), p. 95Google Scholar. Liminality, according to Turner, is necessarily characterized by ambiguity and its fraught relationship with systems of classification.