Arunachal Pradesh-Keeping Out Trouble-Makers

of the Arunachal Freedom of Indigenous Faith Bill, 1978, adopted recently by the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly, appear unexceptionable. Forcible conversion or conversion induced by fraudulent means is indeed most reprehensible and there cannot be anything; objectionable about a measure which seeks to provide for the punishment of those who indulge in such conversions. After the Supreme Court ruling (January 17, 1977) which upheld the constitutional validity of the Madhya Pradesh Dharma Swatantrata Adhiniyam, 1968 and the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act, 1967, the legal validity of the Arunachal measure too cannot be questioned. It might even be that the Arunachal administration has a point when it argues that fraudulent means have been used to entice relatively unsophisticated tribals away from their indigenous faiths.