31 October 2002 could have been like any other day in the legislative assembly of Tamil Nadu. Twenty members, including the leader of opposition M Karunanidhi, were absent. A new bill was introduced in the assembly and it led to a vigorous debate. The Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leaders opposed it. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who had introduced the bill, defended it. When the bill was passed after an hour-long fierce debate, there were 140 members in favour and 73 in opposition.

The bill was the anti-conversion bill. It was not a blanket legal ban on conversions, nor was it aimed at any specific religion. It simply sought to prevent conversions that were effected by force or fraud.

The chief minister had chided the Congress for opposing the bill by quoting none other than Mahatma Gandhi. The grand old man had declared that if he had the power to legislate, he would ban all conversions, Jayalalithaa pointed out.

In the evening of that same day, a meeting of Hindu organisations was held at a beach in Chennai in which the pontiff of Kanchi, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, defended the government’s decision.

Essentially, there were other calculations involved in introducing this bill too. Soon there would be elections for Parliament. After the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, some friction had begun to develop in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-DMK relations. Just like the BJP-All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) alliance had done well in the parliamentary elections in 1998, subsequently, in 1999 the BJP-DMK alliance had done well in Tamil Nadu. So this should have given the AIADMK leader the confidence that the Hindu vote bank had at last substantially arisen in Tamil Nadu.

In the BJP itself, Advani seemed to be in an ascendancy, and Jayalalithaa always thought she was more in tune with Advani's wavelength than with Vajpayee’s. So it was now time to mend fences with the BJP. And what could have been a better way of doing it than announcing an anti-conversion law?

Apart from such political considerations, Jayalalithaa herself had overtly sided with the Hindutva cause earlier. In her characteristic way, she had quipped about the Ram Janmabhumi Temple, “If not here, where else? In Pakistan?” Even years after she parted ways with the BJP, she welcomed the Allahabad High Court judgement acknowledging the existence of the Ram temple and handing over the contentious land to the Hindus.

Even on the subject of a uniform civil code, she had made an unambiguous declaration in 2003: "A Uniform Civil Code is very necessary for the country. The AIADMK would certainly support a legislation in Parliament in this regard." So, there was definitely an element of personal conviction apart from the political considerations.

There is also a historical legacy for the AIADMK with respect to anti-conversion law. Soon after the Mandaikadu Hindu-Christian riots in 1982, the then M G Ramachandran (MGR) government appointed a commission under Justice Venugopal. Though Justice Venugopal was said to be a Dravidian movement sympathiser, he was shocked by the extent of hate literature and missionary propaganda in the district. There were even efforts to change the name 'Kanyakumari' to 'Kanni Mary' (Virgin Mary).

In 1986, the MGR government had agreed to the commission’s recommendation that an anti-conversion law similar to the one existing in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh be enacted in Tamil Nadu. So, in a way, the Jayalalithaa government only fulfilled a long-made commitment of her mentor’s. But she had underestimated the power of the Church and the evangelical organisations and overestimated the strength of the political Hindu forces in Tamil Nadu.