Legality of Conversion

I remember being in Mumbai years ago and reading an editorial in the English language newspaper discussing whether or not Indian citizens should legally be allowed to change their religion. Here's a story from The Economist about that.

"But America’s religious free-for-all is very much the exception, not the rule, in human history—and increasingly rare, some would say, in the world today. In most human societies, conversion has been seen as an act whose consequences are as much social and political as spiritual; and it has been assumed that the wider community, in the form of the family, the village or the state, has every right to take an interest in the matter."

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11784873