Why two Sikh women married to Muslims started a dispute in Kashmir | Religious Affairs

Srinagar, Kashmir operated by India – For more than a week, a small Sikh group in Kashmir-led India has been protesting against the so-called “forced conversion” of two women who married Muslim men – a case that police deny and the families of men claiming religious affiliations and marriages. variety.

Manmeet Kaur, a 19-year-old Sikh woman, and 29-year-old Shahid Nazir Bhat, both residents of the Muslim capital, Srinagar, fled their home on June 21, according to their families and police.

After the woman’s family complained, Bhat was charged with kidnapping a Sikh mother.

Police officials told Al Jazeera that the couple surrendered on June 24 and are being held at various police stations in Srinagar.

Two days later, Manmeet filed a report with a judge in a Srinagar court, challenging his family’s claim that Bhat had arrested him.

Officials said the couple married in an Islamic ceremony that was held in secret after Manmeet changed and changed his name to Zoya.

While Kaur was speaking before the judge, several Sikh members, as well as Manmeet’s parents, gathered outside the court, demanding that he be handed over to the family.

That same evening, Manmeet was handed over to his parents by police, while Bhat is still in jail.

The next day, June 27, hundreds of Asikhs gathered in Srinagar, claiming that two local women had been “forcibly converted” to Islam, sparking unrest in the region where the Asikh and the Muslims had been allied for years.

About 2 percent of the population in Kashmir is controlled by India, the Sikhs are a small minority who have not left the area despite years of rebellion in India.

Most Sikhs live in villages south and north of Kashmir, where the fighting is fierce.

‘I have been in love for 15 years’

A Sisikh woman in the middle of the storm is Danmeet Kour, 29, who fell in love with a high school student, 30-year-old Muslim Muzaffar Shaban for 15 years.

In a telephone interview with Al Jazeera, Danmeet said he married Shaban in June 2014 under the Special Marriages Act (SMA), an Indian law that allows for interfaith marriages.

“I converted to Islam in 2012, two years before I married my fiancé. It was the desire of all of us, no one forced me. This was my choice because Indian law gave me the right to choose a partner,” he told Al Jazeera.

But Danmeet, who has a master’s degree in science, did not tell his family to marry Shaban – until last month.

She also said she left home on June 6 to live with Shaban, telling her relatives not to look at her as she would be living with their husbands.

But his family went to the police and the couple showed up within two hours, he said. Shaban was arrested on child abduction and Danmeet handed over to his parents.

Say what you want, but each community frees its “own” wives if they want to get married outside of their faith. It is not about Sikhs, not Hindus, not Muslims. The walls of our common faith are very fragile and this weak load falls on women

– Ashwaq M (@ashwaqM) June 30, 2021

Danmeet said her family took her to Punjab, a Sikh state in western India, where she said “several groups met her and tried to influence her and force her to say anything about her husband”.

“I received death threats. But I told people in Punjab, my relatives and everyone else that as soon as I wrote my case in front of a judge in court, “Danmeet told Al Jazeera.

For almost a month now, Shaban has been imprisoned in Srinagar.

After returning from Punjab, Danmeet went to the local court on June 26 where he filed a petition stating that his family had falsely accused him of stealing from him and that he should be given police protection.

“I just want to be with my mother-in-law and I didn’t want to go back to my parents,” she told the court.

‘Compulsory marriages’ are local men

For more than a week now, the two religious weddings have sparked demonstrations and stories told by Sikh groups and political leaders.

Some Sikh critics accuse Muslim men of replacing Sikh women with “guns” and want a “anti-conversion” law and a multi-religious marriage ban.

Many members of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – a Sikh political party – including former Delhi lawmaker Manjinder Singh Sirsa, have arrived in the area and criticized Kashmiri Muslim men for “forcibly changing Sikh girls”.

We thank Sangat for welcoming the Sikh daughter, Manmeet Kaur of Srinagar, who had converted but had regained her freedom. He came to Delhi with us today to receive blessings & thanks Sangat for supporting his family: Manjinder S Sirsa, SAD leader pic.twitter.com/uKYoDysmFM

– ANI (@ANI) June 29, 2021

At a press conference on Monday, Sirsa, who is also a Delhi spokesman for the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) – a Sikh religious group that oversees temples – said Manmeet was a “young man” who was “strongly married to 60 men – an old man”.

On Tuesday, Sirsa announced that Manmeet had married “of his own free will” to a man from his area, named Sukhbir Singh. She shared photos depicting Manmeet, dressed in traditional attire, with “Sikh men” and other men at the Sikh temple.

But so far, Manmeet has not said whether he was married to a Msikh or not, if so, if he was forced.

Meanwhile, women’s rights activists and human rights activists in India have condemned the “forced marriage” and want to take action against those who planned it.

‘Tribal divisions’

Sikh leaders in Kashmir, India-led, have warned that extraordinary leaders such as Sirsa, who is close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), are using the race to create “divisions and public animosity”.

While Jagmohan Singh Raina, the local Sikh leader, is seeking a ban on “forced conversion”, it is also known that “foreigners want to try to harass the two groups in the region”.

“Our children who go abroad (Kashmir), also marry in other religions. But we want an anti-conversion law. It is for Muslims and Asikhs and other areas. This is needed here, we want it all,” he told Al Jazeera.

“But I also warn that some people want to discredit Kashmir by playing this and playing politics. We will not allow any differences between Muslims and Asikhs.”

A law banning interfaith marriage has already taken effect in the BJP-controlled North India state of Uttar Pradesh, in which Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath is known for his anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In November last year, the government again became the first to introduce a law banning “illegal change” by coercion, fraudulent means or marriage.

The law came into force on Muslim men in India accused of “love jihad”, an Islamic doctrine that has been spreading for more than 10 years by Hindu right-wing Hindu groups in India who accuse Muslims of inciting Hindu women to convert to Islam.

But human rights activists say that interracial marriages are legal in this country and that women should have the right to choose who they want to marry.

I am a Sikh woman who married Non Sikh.

Who are you to tell Sikh women to get married? pic.twitter.com/F5Msv2Lhsb

– Simrat Kaur ☬ (@SimmiKaurKhalsa) June 29, 2021

In February of this year, a controversy arose over the issue of same-sex marriage between women in southern India in Karnataka. The pair went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the right of the authorities to choose their wives and said it was “a time for people to learn to accept interracial marriage without oppression”.

“Weddings of different religions are as old as marriage,” said freedom activist Sanam Sutirath Wazir, a resident of Kashmir in Jammu in Al Jazeera.

“The love of jihad is nothing but the idea of ​​a minority that can interfere with a person’s life and decisions,” he said, adding that it could lead to enlightenment of right-wing extremists.

Wazir said “political interference in matters of love and marriage” has established “cultural norms for women whose organization is disrupted”.

Meanwhile, at Bhat’s home in Srinagar, his relatives are said to have married a Muslim woman in 2012 with a six-year-old daughter. They divorced after two years of marriage and Bhat has been dating Manmeet ever since.

“On June 21, he left home in the morning for a walk. Two days later, the police visited us and we found out that he was in jail, ”one of his aunts, who did not want to be named, told Al Jazeera.

“We found out he had an affair. We went to the woman’s house once and told her. But we didn’t know it was going to be serious,” said one relative. “We don’t want to say anything. Get her out of jail.”

Danmeet, who lives about 10km (6 miles) from the Bhats, says he “feels scared and wants to live in peace”.

She has one question for “all those who criticize and make false stories about her family:” Why can’t she let an older woman make a decision? “