Forced Marriages in South Asia: Myth or Reality?

[Riaz Haq]

There are frequent accusations of forced marriages in India and Pakistan which are regularly reported in the mass media. These reports elicit a strong emotional response from the society at large. Many such cases end up in violence with families taking the law in their own hands. A few of these cases end up in courts with the judges deciding the fate of such marriages. Let's examine the reality of "forced marriages" in South Asia.

Interfaith Marriages:

Charges of forced marriages are usually leveled mostly against interfaith or inter-caste marriages, particularly when such unions occur without the agreement of the parents on one or both sides.

Accusations of forced marriages are rare for same-faith and same-caste marriages arranged by the parents on both sides, even when these marriages take place without the consent of the bride and the groom.

Kerala Couple Hadiya and Shafin Separated by Indian Supreme Court

Court Case in India:

A recent Kerala case involved a Muslim man Shafin Jahan and a Hindu woman Akhila Ashokan. The two met as fellow students studying medicine in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and fell in love, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.

Akhila Ashokan, who prefers to be known as Hadiya, converted to Islam from Hinduism after meeting Shafin, and they married in December 2016. Upon hearing of the union, her "livid father went to the Kerala high court demanding that Hadiya be returned to his custody", according to The Guardian.  Contrary to Hadiya's express wish to stay in her marriage to Shafin,  the court nullified the wedding and forcibly sent her back to her parents' home in Kottayam. When Shafin challenged it in the Indian Supreme Court, the nation's top court upheld the lower court's decision.

Court Case in Pakistan:

An interfaith marriage between Pakistani Hindu woman Anoshi and a Muslim man Bilawal Ali Bhutto was challenged in Islamabad High Court by the bride's father Anand Lal. Lal's lawyer contended that Anoshi had been kidnapped by Bilawal  who forcibly converted her to Islam and married her, according to the Daily Times newspaper.

Anoshi told the court that she converted to Islam by choice. She took the Muslim name Maria and insisted that no one forced her to change her religion. The court directed 40-minute meeting of Anoshi with her parents and her family took place in the office of the Justice Shaukat Siddiqui where he maintained that her decisions to convert to Islam and marry Bilawal was done of her own free will. The court then allowed Anoshi to go with Bilawal and ordered police protection for the couple.

Earlier in 2012, similar charges of forced marriages were dismissed when Faryal (Rinkle Kumari), Hafsa Bibi (Dr Lata) and Haleema Bibi (Asha Kumari) told Pakistan Supreme Court that they wanted to live with their husbands who they said they chose to marry of their free will.

Summary:

Young men and women in India and Pakistan who dare to defy traditions and go against the wishes of their parents to marry outside their faith, tribe or caste face the ire of their near and dear ones. The most common accusations leveled in such cases are those of "kidnapping" and "forced marriage". Such accusations then become fodder of the mainstream media where they are repeated ad infinitum without verification. Some of these cases end up in courts where the outcome depends on the judges own prejudices without regard to the right to freely choose marriage partners. The Indian Supreme Court's recent judgement forcing the separation of Hadiya and Shafin amply illustrates the injustice in such cases.

Here's a video of Pakistani Hindu activist and lawyer Kalpana Devi talking about how willing conversions of Hindu girls to Islam are often labeled as "forced conversions". She says there is media hype and distortions of facts relating to such conversions. It is important to understand the Hindu community’s patriarchal structures. It is not unusual for Hindu families to attempt to avoid social stigma by characterizing all conversions and marriages of their daughters as "forced".

https://vimeo.com/287053032


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[Riaz Haq]

http://www.epw.in/journal/2017/34/editorials/loveless-patriarchy.html

Loveless Patriarchy

The patriarchal complex of state, society and family converge to deny Hadiya both agency and dignity.

The judiciary’s increasing incline towards Hindu right-wing populism has worrying consequences for feminist judicial activism. A reminder of this is the Supreme Court ruling in the case of a young adult woman, Hadiya from Kerala, who was illegally confined in her natal home after her consensual marriage to an adult male, Shafin Jahan, was declared invalid by the Kerala High Court. The Supreme Court has most unexpectedly involved the National Investigation Agency to investigate whether Hadiya’s marriage of choice may actually be a symptom of a larger conspiracy by the terror outfit Islamic State to recruit youth into its ranks through the intimate weapon of mass conversion, better known as Love Jihad. This has disappointed activists who considered the judiciary as the last standing pillar upholding constitutional values and protecting women’s freedoms.

Hadiya was born a Hindu with the name Akhila Ashokan. She got attracted to Islam in the course of her interactions with Muslim peers when studying for a degree in physiotherapy. She decided to convert to Islam against the will of her parents and lived independently under her new identity as Hadiya. The courts rejected two habeas corpus petitions by her father and endorsed her right to take life-altering decisions. However, this changed when Hadiya got married to Jahan. The Kerala High Court annulled her marriage and granted custody to her parents.

By whipping up conspiratorial fervour, the courts, Hadiya’s parents and right-wing sociopolitical organisations have visibly nullified her fundamental right to life and freedom of association. Repeated statements made by the courts and her parents have infantilised her and rejected her ability to take her own decisions, especially those which violate the writ of her parents over her. Meant to protect women’s freedoms, the courts have not just failed to do so but unwittingly conferred a punishment on Hadiya through confinement under parental custody. She has been barred from contacting her husband and has had to give up her professional practice.

Previous cases of so-called Love Jihad were premised on familiar notions of love being a state of ecstasy, naiveté and audacity. However, Hadiya’s case is not. She was not in love, she had registered herself on a Muslim matrimonial website post conversion, where she met Jahan, a young professional working in Saudi Arabia, and decided to marry him. This is what baffles many. Why would a woman in her right mind go against the grain of societal norms and take such risks? The answer may be a damning one; that women seeking mobility are increasingly realising the lovelessness of Indian families/society, rejecting these and making life choices starkly different and radical from that approved by the latter. While such transgressions have been around for as long as society has existed, globalisation is providing accelerated opportunities for the same. Thus, it may be seen that the new sites for these contestations are small towns and cities in Kerala, West Bengal, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh where the anti-Love Jihad armies and anti-Romeo squads thrive.

Naysayers would suggest that the Supreme Court has only asked for an investigative report and not upheld the annulment. However, the investigation is in no way contingent on Hadiya’s confinement and hence, the Court’s move has been widely rejected as complicit in denying her both agency and dignity. It may also be that Jahan is indeed sympathetic to or an outright supporter of the Islamic State just as he may be perfectly patriarchal in his sensibilities too. However, within the many patriarchies women are surrounded by, they are constantly choosing and negotiating power at all times. Denying her the opportunity to make those choices or diluting the power of her choices is a visibly new low that the Indian state has reached with Hadiya’s case. How did this come about?

Feminists and the legal fraternity are particularly rattled. In the past few years, the higher courts have been hailed for setting brave precedents in punishing a range of social and physical/sexual violence against women. The judiciary has been repeatedly touted as the conscience keeper of the nation, especially on the rights of the most marginalised. A whole new phenomenon of judicial acti­vism flourished, vesting faith and confidence in the independence of the judiciary. However, the Hadiya case may just be a fallout of excessive feminist dependence on the judiciary. The judiciary’s invocation of parens patriae jurisdiction (that the state is the parent of the nation) to conduct background checks on Hadiya’s partner of choice to decide the fate of her marriage is but an
extension of the good faith invested by activists and scholars in the courts to secure women’s rights and futures. Judicial activism cannot take the place of grass-roots struggles, mass mobilisation and initiating critical dialogue with communities to effect changes from within. All these efforts must go hand-in-hand to ensure greater security, not surveillance, of women.

[Riaz Haq]

Why do so many Indians travel abroad for medical treatment? Why did Sonia Gandhi go overseas for treatment in March 2017? 

Why do Indians import almost all of their surgical instruments from Pakistan? Why do Indians depend heavily on Chinese imports for almost everything? Why don't they do it all themselves?


Or for that matter, why do nations trade? Why does't each nation make everything and provide all services within the country? Surely, a nation as large as India with over a billion strong consumer market should be able to do that? 

Why does US depend so heavily on Chinese imports? Even for critical parts of their advanced fighter jets and other defense equipment? Surely, a nation as advanced as US should do it all themselves.

[Riaz Haq]

'#ForcedConversions' of #Hindu women to #Islam in #Pakistan: "it is crucial to engage with Hindu community’s patriarchal structures...behind some cases of forced conversion we actually find a family’s attempt to avoid social stigma" http://theconversation.com/forced-conversions-of-hindu-women-to-islam-in-pakistan-another-perspective-102726?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=twitterbutton … via @FR_Conversation  

The Conversation from z. on Vimeo.

The Conversation from z. on Vimeo.

[Riaz Haq]

Kiran Kumari: “I left for the love of Islam. Shabbir was simply the route to my new religion". Allegations of #ForcedConversion of #Hindu girls to #Islam in #Sindh predate #Pakistan's independence. https://scroll.in/article/917952/love-pressure-or-economics-the-man...

Mitho is unapologetic when asked why he helps eloping women convert. He said it is his duty to provide protection to anyone who wishes to accept Islam. “We take in the eloping couples because it is our duty to provide them with security,” he said.

By his own assertion, Mitho maintains regular contact with many of the women who have converted recently, supposedly to ensure their safety and security. But Hindu community leaders explain that the concept of honour killing or declaring their women as karis is foreign to the community; they insist that no convert has ever been harmed by her family following her marriage.

Mitho also adds that his first reaction, after a woman arrives at his house for conversion, is to call her parents and inform them that their daughter is safe with him. “We then wait a few hours to see if they are interested in taking her back,” he told the Herald. “More often than not, they show no interest because they are angry at her for wishing to convert to Islam and they don’t take action until after she has been converted and married.”

In Kiran’s case, Hindu community leaders insist that she was abducted. “On the eve of Eid, she went to the fields with her mother to bring back fodder for their livestock. Four Muslim boys started teasing the girl as the two women were returning home. When Kiran told them off, they became angry and took her away on a motorcycle” – this is how Ramesh Jaipal, a leader of the Hindu community in Rahimyar Khan, narrated the case. He told the Herald how hundreds of Hindus peacefully protested outside the house of Kiran’s alleged abductors a day after she was taken away – only to face further abuse. Many of the protesters were badly beaten by local Muslims for gathering in a Muslim area, he says.

While Kiran denies all this and insists that she left her home of her own volition, she was confused about how to explain the reasons behind her conversion. “Did you leave home because you loved Islam, or because you loved the boy?” she was asked. “I left for the love of Islam. Shabbir was simply the route to my new religion,” she replied, but could explain what it is about Islam that inspired her to convert, or how well she knew the religion prior to her conversion. Soon her answers begin to contradict each other – the question of how she landed at Mitho’s house, especially, became blurred in the thicket of her changing statements.

To divert attention from her, Mitho’s men rushed in her husband. But it seemed that Ahmed was not as confident as his wife. When asked a question, his eyes darted to the back of the room towards where Mitho was standing, for reassurance and confirmation. After much confusion, Kiran whispered something in his ear and he began to talk about where he comes from.

A diffident Ahmed, understandably, failed to reduce the confusion in the room. At first, he said he doesn’t love Kiran; then, minutes later, after she surreptitiously elbowed him, he began to talk about how he wrote love letters to her for two years. Neither of the two have these letters anymore. In this case, the mixing of love with religion is not as seamless as Mitho and his men would like it to appear.

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan court rules teenage Hindu girls converted to Islam voluntarily

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-hindu/pakistan-court-ru...

Two Pakistani Hindu sisters whose parents said they were kidnapped and forced to change their religion to marry Muslims had converted voluntarily, a court ruled on Thursday, in a case that has attracted attention in Hindu-majority India.

The court had ordered the government to take custody of the sisters, both teenagers, in late March after accusations spread on social media that they had been forced to convert to Islam.

Another video showed the sisters saying they had married two Muslim men and converted to Islam of their own free will.


The court said the two were adult enough to make their own decisions and that they were not forced to convert.

Police say the teenagers left their home in Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh on March 20 to be married in Punjab province, where the law does not bar marriages of those younger than 18, unlike Sindh.

The police detained ten people in the case and registered a formal case of kidnapping and robbery on complaints from the girls’ parents.


The incident prompted a rare public intervention by a top Indian official in its neighbor’s domestic affairs, when Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter she had asked India’s ambassador in Pakistan for a report.

Pakistan was “totally behind the girls”, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said on social media in response to Swaraj’s message, but asked India to look after its own minority Muslims.

[Riaz Haq]

The recent report on commission on forced conversions by Senator Anwer Kakar which comprises of minorities as well had given a report that in majority of the alleged conversion cases the girls were of legal marriageable age and they had married of their own free will. When the parents could not find a legal recourse they fed the media and certain NGOs that the girl was minor and abducted.
https://www.timesnownews.com/international/article/conversion-of-hi...

He (Kakar) said the committee found out that most or all of the cases of forced conversions had some degree of willingness on the girl's part.

"What we observed is that the majority of the girls and boys had secretly decided to elope and marry. But that was because the families of the two would not accept them as life partners," he said.

Lal Chand Malhi said that the state should take the responsibility of providing shelter and security to such couples who willingly run away, change their religions willingly and get married.

"Those who run away from their homes should be provided state protection for some time so that the girl may finalise her decision," he said.

[Riaz Haq]

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – For more than a week now, a section of the minority Sikh community in Indian-administered Kashmir has been protesting against what they call the “forced conversion” of two women who married Muslim men – a claim denied by police officials and the men’s families who say the unions are interfaith marriages.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/interfaith-marriages-trigge...

Manmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old Sikh woman, and her 29-year-old partner Shahid Nazir Bhat, both residents of the Muslim-majority region’s main city of Srinagar, fled their homes on June 21, according to their families and the police.


Police officials told Al Jazeera the couple turned themselves in on June 24 and have been detained in different police stations in Srinagar.

Two days later, Manmeet gave her statement to a judge in a Srinagar court, denying her family’s allegation that Bhat kidnapped her.

Officials said the two married in an Islamic ceremony held in secret after Manmeet converted and changed her name to Zoya.


As she was giving her statement before the judge, scores of Sikh community members, along with Manmeet’s parents, gathered outside the court premises, demanding that she be handed over to the family.

That evening, Manmeet was handed over to her parents by the police, while Bhat remains in custody.

The next day, June 27, hundreds of Sikhs gathered in Srinagar, alleging that two women from the community had been “forcefully converted” to Islam, triggering tensions in a region where Sikhs and Muslims have been living in harmony for centuries.

Making up about 2 percent of the population in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Sikhs are a significant minority who did not leave the restive region despite decades of armed rebellion against the Indian rule.

Most Sikhs live in villages in Kashmir’s volatile south and north, where the conflict is most intense.


‘In love for 15 years’
The other Sikh woman at the centre of the ongoing storm is 29-year-old Danmeet Kour, who has been in love with her high school classmate, a 30-year-old Muslim named Muzaffar Shaban for 15 years now.



In a telephone interview with Al Jazeera, Danmeet said she married Shaban in June 2014.

“I had converted to Islam in 2012, two years before I married my boyfriend. It was the wish of both of us, no one forced me. It was my decision because the Indian constitution grants me this right to choose my partner,” she told Al Jazeera.

Danmeet, who has a master’s degree in political science, said she left home on June 6 to live with Shaban, telling her family not to look for her as she was now going to live with her husband.

But her family went to the police and the couple was traced within two hours, she said. Shaban was arrested on kidnapping charges and Danmeet handed over to her parents.


Danmeet said her family took her to Punjab, the Sikh-majority state in India’s west, where she alleged that “multiple groups met her and tried to influence her decision and forced her to give a statement against her husband”.


“I received death threats. But I told those folks in Punjab, my family and everyone else that I will only record my statement before a judge in the court,” Danmeet told Al Jazeera.

For nearly a month now, Shaban has been in a jail in Srinagar.

After her return from Punjab, Danmeet was presented to a local court on June 26 where she gave a statement saying her family had falsely charged her husband with kidnapping and she should be provided police protection.

“I just want to live with my in-laws and did not want to go back to my parents,” she told the court.

[Riaz Haq]

In #Pakistan, #Muslim men marrying #Hindu girls are often accused of kidnapping, forced conversion/marriage. Now in #Kashmir, a #Sikh woman says she married for love but her parents call It coercion. #BJP #Hindutva want to totally outlaw all such marriages https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/world/india-interfaith-marriage....

SRINAGAR, Kashmir — Manmeet Kour Bali had to defend her marriage in court.

A Sikh by birth, Ms. Bali converted to Islam to marry a Muslim man. Her parents objected to a marriage outside their community and filed a police complaint against her new husband.

In court last month, she testified that she had married for love, not because she was coerced, according to a copy of her statement reviewed by The New York Times. Days later, she ended up in India’s capital of New Delhi, married to a Sikh man.

Religious diversity has defined India for centuries, recognized and protected in the country’s Constitution. But interfaith unions remain rare, taboo and increasingly illegal.

A spate of new laws across India, in states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., are seeking to banish such unions altogether.

While the rules apply broadly, right-wing supporters in the party portray such laws as necessary to curb “love jihad,” the idea that Muslim men marry women of other faiths to spread Islam. Critics contend that such laws fan anti-Muslim sentiment under a government promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda.

Last year, lawmakers in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh passed legislation that makes religious conversion by marriage an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison. So far, 162 people there have been arrested under the new law, although few have been convicted.

“The government is taking a decision that we will take tough measures to curb love jihad,” Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk and the top elected official of Uttar Pradesh, said shortly before that state’s Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance was passed.

Four other states ruled by the B.J.P. have either passed or introduced similar legislation.

In Kashmir, where Ms. Bali and Mr. Bhat lived, members of the Sikh community have disputed the legitimacy of the marriage, calling it “love jihad.” They are pushing for similar anti-conversion rules.

While proponents of such laws say they are meant to protect vulnerable women from predatory men, experts say they strip women of their agency.

“It is a fundamental right that women can marry by their own choice,” said Renu Mishra, a lawyer and women’s rights activist in Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital.

“Generally the government and the police officials have the same mind-set of patriarchy,” she added. “Actually, they are not implementing the law, they are only implementing their mind-set.”

Across the country, vigilante groups have created a vast network of local informers, who tip off the police to planned interfaith marriages.

One of the largest is Bajrang Dal, or the Brigade of Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god. The group has filed dozens of police complaints against Muslim suitors or grooms, according to Rakesh Verma, a member in Lucknow.

“The root cause of this disease is the same everywhere,” Mr. Verma said. “They want to lure Hindu women and then change their religion.”

[Riaz Haq]

Video of 'domestic feud' in #Pakistan misleadingly shared as '#Hindu woman's abduction'. In response to the misleading posts, Atta Mohammad, the officer in charge of the case in #Sindh province, told AFP the video shows Hindus involved in a "domestic feud" https://news.yahoo.com/video-domestic-feud-pakistan-misleadingly-06...

A video that shows a woman dragged by several men towards a car has been viewed tens of thousands of times in social media posts that claim she is a Hindu who was made to convert to Islam for a forced marriage in Muslim-majority Pakistan. But the video has been shared in a misleading context; it has previously circulated in reports about a woman being assaulted in public after attempting to divorce her husband. Local police told AFP everyone involved in the "domestic feud" was Hindu.

Hindi-language text overlaid on the video reads: "Pakistan: Kidnappers dragged a Hindu woman inside a car in broad daylight to rape her, force her into marriage and convert her [to Islam]."

Local media in both India and Pakistan have previously reported on cases of Hindu women in Pakistan being abducted and forced to convert to Islam for forced marriages.

The cases were reported by Indian media organisation The Wire here; Indian channel NDTV here; and Pakistani news outlet Dawn here in 2021.

The video circulated online after Manjinder Singh Sirsa -- a member of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party -- shared the footage alongside a similar claim on Twitter on December 21, 2021.

The video was also shared with a similar claim on Facebook here and here; and on Twitter here and here.

Screenshots of the video were also shared in this Malayalam-language Facebook post.

But the video had been shared in a misleading context.

In response to the misleading posts, Atta Mohammad, the officer in charge of the case in Sindh province, told AFP the video shows Hindus involved in a "domestic feud".

"The family members fought with each other; one suspect is under custody and four others have been granted bail by the court," he said.

[Riaz Haq]

Lies, Insistence and Disregard for Evidence: The Journey of 'Love Jihad' Laws

https://thewire.in/communalism/lies-insistence-and-disregard-for-ev...


When arguments in Shafin Jahan v. Asokan concluded on March 8, 2018, the Supreme Court passed a short order setting aside the annulment of Shafin’s marriage with Hadiya, and directed that she was at liberty to pursue her life and future endeavours as she pleased. Once again, however, the court clarified that investigations by the NIA may continue.

Finally, by a resounding judgment dated April 9, 2018, the court set aside Justice K. Surendra Mohan’s judgment, upholding the absolute right of a major to choose her life partner as well as her faith, and to change her faith if she so desired. CJI Dipak Misra, speaking for himself and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and now CJI, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in his concurring opinion, minced no words in holding that faith and marriage were personal choices protected by the right to privacy, and that no third party, whether parent or otherwise, could interfere with these choices.

Both CJI Misra and Justice Chandrachud reiterated that the NIA was free to continue with the investigations set in motion by the Supreme Court in August 2017, though it could not interfere with the marriage of Hadiya and Shafin Jahan.

This last direction is significant, as it helped nail the monstrous lie of ‘love jihad,’ which almost destroyed the lives of two young adults.