AAP’s Anti-Sacrilege Law May Create More Problems For It

In a cynical act of realpolitik aimed at bolstering the Aam Aadmi Party’s image in Punjab, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has announced a stringent anti-sacrilege law. The move smacks of desperation and exposes a deficit of ideas in AAP, already reeling from a severe drubbing in the Delhi assembly polls earlier this year.

AAP arrived on the scene in Punjab with a bang, on the back of its anti-corruption stance and the purported success of its ‘Delhi model’ of governance. Neither could be translated on the ground in Punjab, which is still struggling under a debt crisis, unsustainable subsidies, unemployment, deindustrialisation and low per capita income. Disillusionment set in, and the party managed only three seats out of 13 in Punjab in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, despite a solid mandate in the 2022 assembly polls.

In addition to Punjab’s economic woes, law and order has suffered. The spectre of extremism has raised its head over the last couple of years, reflected in the Lok Sabha victories of radical leaders Amritpal Singh and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa. This calls for proactive counter-radicalisation efforts by the state government. Instead, Mann has chosen to pander to hardliners by announcing a questionable law.

The Punjab Prevention of Offences against Holy Scripture(s) Act of 2025 is not the answer to extremism. The draft law suffers from so many defects that it is unlikely to make it to the statute books. For one thing, it reduces all faiths to a specific sacred text, desecration of which invites severe penalties. Those mentioned are the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and the Sri Guru Granth Sahib.

This is a manifestly Western perspective, which ignores the fact that Eastern religions tend not to have a central text. Given the vast Hindu scriptural corpus, why cherry-pick the Bhagavad Gita, a part of the Mahabharata? The obvious question is, where does that leave the Ramayana and the Vedas? And, whether the law applies to the Zend Avesta, the Torah, the Tripitaka, the Jain Agamas and the printed texts of the dozen-odd religious sects based in Punjab?

What’s more, the law proposes life imprisonment for sacrilege and holds the parents responsible for the actions of their wards. If a child accidentally steps on the Bible or tears a page, the parents will be held accountable. By contrast, the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (section 298) makes it clear that intent to insult a religion must be proved before a charge of sacrilege is brought against the accused: “Injuring or defiling a place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons, with the intent to insult the religion of any class of persons.”

A child can scarcely be accused of harbouring a malicious intent to insult a religion because she simply does not have the wherewithal to formulate such an intent. Yet, the proposed Punjab law seeks to penalise the parents for what can, at worst, be described as an act of mischief on the part of their children. In other words, perceived bad parenting will be criminalised.

Nor is it clear what constitutes sacrilege. Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim was accused of blasphemy when he appeared in public dressed as Guru Gobind Singh. By that logic, every actor who has played Rama, Krishna or Christ is open to the same charge. The cases of ‘beadbi’ (sacrilege) which rocked Punjab in 2015 involved the tearing of pages from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib and led to the first attempt to impose a life sentence for sacrilege. These are physical acts, but does a meme or cartoon featuring a religious figure constitute sacrilege?

When AAP decided to revive the Anti-Sacrilege Bill, the possibility of introducing the death penalty was discussed. Wiser counsel prevailed, but even as it stands, the proposed law would open the door to mob violence and vigilantism, which have already cost numerous lives in Punjab. At least three people were lynched in 2021—one at the Golden Temple complex—for alleged attempts to commit sacrilege. The victim in the second incident was a mentally unstable individual, whose only crime was stealing food from a gurudwara. That these lynchings are in themselves egregious acts of sacrilege does not seem to have occurred to any politician.

It is probable that AAP expects its proposed statute to be shot down. The two previous attempts to pass an anti-sacrilege law—one by the Congress and the second by the Shiromani Akali Dal—were either returned by the centre or failed to secure presidential approval. AAP will pass the law in order to leverage it in the assembly elections, and failure to secure a nod from the President could well be framed as a conspiracy by the centre.

The response of AAP’s political rivals is less than satisfactory. The Congress has dismissed the Bill as an attempt to distract voters from the incumbent government’s failure to act on previous cases of sacrilege. The BJP, instead of opposing the Bill, has demanded that Hindu temples and idols be included in the final draft to be tabled on Thursday.

AAP has always prided itself on its commitment to the Constitution, which declares India as secular. This implies a separation of religion and state and raises the question: Why does the AAP government find it expedient to meddle in matters of faith?

Bhavdeep Kang is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.