On coercion of non-Muslim women

When history is contested or contentious, for the sake of harmony, one makes a choice about whether to call attention to it or not.

But people get hurt when violent history repeats itself. Potential victims in the present day are more vulnerable because people kept silent about what happened in the past. If caste oppression is happening today, it must be stopped, and for this, caste oppression of the past must be recalled. Indians must never forget communal riots including the 2002 Gujarat riots or the 1984 Delhi riots if we want to prevent their re-occurence and stall the impunity with which they occured.

This news item(among others) about abductions of non-Muslim women in Pakistan merits recall of some India-Pakistan history.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/02-May-2014/forced-conversions-in-the-land-of-the-pure

[The recent report issued by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan (MSP)]] reported that as many as 1,000 girls, aged 12 to 25, 70 percent of them Hindu and 30 percent Christian, are abducted yearly, forcefully converted to Islam by their captors, married off to men who usually rape them and, simultaneously, force them into prostitution and human trafficking. More so, the people behind these inhumane and barbaric practices have not been brought to book by our government. Our founder, Muhammmad Ali Jinnah, promised the minorities their due rights. Our constitution too promises them protection but, despite this, they have been living under siege.

Such incidents do not happen in India that I have ever heard or read of, including before independence. I have little knowledge of what specifically Islamic scriptures say about the treatment of non-Muslim women, but vast millions of Muslims uphold decency everywhere every day by honoring those scriptural injunctions only in the breach.

Yet, as quoted above, non-Muslim women in Pakistan who do not subscribe to these injunctions,  have suffered from their imposition today and yesterday and last month and will suffer for these injunctions  tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.

I post this small exhumation of history for their sakes.

The first instance is related to riots in Kohat  in 1924.

The publication of a poem defamatory to Islam in a pamphlet of Krishna bhajans was the immediate cause of Hindu-Muslim tensions. An apology from Kohat's Hindu community leaders and their burning of all the pamphlets(with Krishna pictured on the covers) did not mend matters. The release of the publisher on bail precipitated riots. Many were killed and looted, and a number of Hindus and Sikhs converted to Islam. After the riots, the entire Hindu and Sikh population numbering about 3500 among 15000 Muslims migrated out of  Kohat. Temple desecrations took place in Kohat and other places in India.

Mahatma Gandhi made himself part of a fact-finding team to enquire into the riot. He concluded that the Hindu-Muslim tension predated the publication of the offending pamphlet. However, another member of the fact-finding team, Maulana Shaukat Ali, did not agree on this or on other matters related to the riot which Gandhi found salient. 

So what was one longstanding cause of Hindu-Muslim tension that Gandhi found?

Gandhiji questioned two, one must say, honest, Kohat residents willing to be questioned about the riots.

101. EXAMINATION OF KAMAL JAILANE ON KOHAT RIOT (excerpts)

Q. Do you live near Kohat?
A. I live quite close by.
Q. Are you a zamindar?
A. I am a zamindar. I own several villages in. . . . Besides these our ancestors were given shares in lands in almost all the villages (here).

Q. What do you think is the cause of the disturbance between the Hindus and Mussalmans?

A. I think it was due to several causes that existed already. The pamphlet affair proved to be the last drop. It occasioned the outbreak, but the hearts of the parties had been poisoned already.

Q. Will you please briefly explain yourself on this point?

A. For the last few years the Hindus have been [per]secuting such persons as became converts to Islam, by starting law-suits against them, thus giving vent to their resentment.

Q. Since when ?

A. The practice commenced some four or five years ago and some recent instances are: (1) a photographer's wife in Kohat, a Hindu woman in Tal, and a Hindu in Bhago, who were converted to Islam. (2) Then there was a case of a Hindu embracing Islam, or becoming a Sheikh and marrying a Mussalman woman, his subsequent reconversion to Hinduism, and institution of a law-suit in connection with the woman. (3) The filing of a suit by the Mussalmans in connection with a Mussalman girl, their failure to obtain the desired sentence against the accused, the whole thing being followed by (a campaign of) litigation (against each other). (4) The securing by the Mussalmans of more than their due share of representation in social and political life and the starting of some Hindu organizations by some Hindu young men, etc. (are some other causes.)

Q. Is this (the last thing) also four or five years old?
A. It happened within the last four or five years.

Examination of Ahmad Gul, Rawalpindi, February 6, 1925 (excerpts)

Q: Pir Saheb said that more than four years earlier the Hindus did not care for those Hindus who were converted to Islam, and it was since then that they were resorting to courts. What is your opinion in the matter?

A. In this respect I differ from him. It happened only in the cases of converted women and not of men. ..

Q. Are you of the same opinion that every year 100 or 150 conversions take place?

A. I do not agree with the number. To my mind the number is 40 in a year on the average and in this people from outside are also included.

Q Are you of the same opinion as Pir Saheb regarding conversion of women?

A. If no pressure has been used in the case of a woman. If she accepts Islam under

pressure, the Muslims are forced to let her go to her Hindu husband.

Q. If the court decides in favour of the Hindu husband, would the Muslims still not return the woman?

A. No, the Muslims would not agree to it and will consider her connection with her Hindu husband illegitimate.

Q. Can the Muslims conceal the woman or adopt some other method about it?

A. It will be the duty of the Muslims not to let the woman go to her Hindu husband, as her bond with her Hindu husband is broken as soon as she accepts Islam.

Gandhiji spoke on this issue a few days later.

118. SPEECH AT SATYAGRAHA ASHRAM, SABARMATI
February 10, 1925

I am in the predicament of  a man who having come to know that there is a serpent under his mattress shakes the mattress vigorously, sweeps the room and washes the floor with water. I have come to know what I did not know earlier about the situation in Kohat. I talk to you about it because it is a matter concerning religion. We all have to take this as a warning.

It does not mean that we have to do something special and novel; but we have to prepare ourselves mentally and emotionally. We have to become purer.

At this stage Gandhiji referred to the number of conversions in Kohat and said:

That number may possibly be considered as small elsewhere. In an area were Muslims barely number 15,000,this is terrible. The Hindus there woke up and the Muslims could not tolerate the awakening; those looking for a chance to wreak vengeance found it in the form of that booklet.

If that was the only reason, the man concerned could have been arrested, he could have been crushed, and perhaps all those connected with the booklet could have been crushed. But here the whole community was persecuted. Its cause must be deep-seated. I found that cause quite by chance. The Muslims said many things frankly about proselytization. But that activity has hurt me very much.

http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL030.PDF

Ultimately, Gandhi and Shaukat Ali could not agree on at least two things. Shaukat Ali did not consider that Hindu-Muslim tension predated the pamphlet incident, and that important causes for the tension were that,  Hindus approached courts to recover  women who had been forcibly converted; and  that, Muslims refused to accept court rulings to return the women. Secondly, Maulana Shaukat Ali disowned the validity of forced conversions to Islam but did not accept that there had been forcible conversions during the Kohat rioting.

An opportunity for a prominent Muslim leader to disown any Muslim ill-treatment of non-Muslim women was lost.

Another instance of history bears recall. The news item above says

 "Our founder, Muhammmad Ali Jinnah, promised the minorities their due rights. Our constitution too promises them protection but, despite this, they have been living under siege."

However, in late 1946- early 1947, it was M.A.Jinnah's Muslim League which was laying seige on these minorities. The Muslim League launched an agitation in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) demanding the return of a Sikh woman who had been widowed, abducted, converted and married off to a Muslim husband by rioters. She was later recovered by Dr. Khan Sahib's provincial government and returned to her Sikh relatives on her own request, at which point the Muslim League demanded her return to the Muslims.

The Khan Sahib ministry of Khudai Khidmatgars in NWFP was arguably the most fearless and pure-hearted provincial government in all of India in the matter of defending minorities' rights, yet even Dr Khan Sahib's personal bravery and stead fasted-ness could not quell the violence that accompanied the Muslim League's agitation.

Parshotam Mehra writes in The North-West Frontier Drama, 1945-1947 :

"A case that was to gain considerable notoriety was the forcible conversion to Islam of a pregnant Sikh girl who was also coerced into marrying one of the gang members reponsible for the murder of her husband. As a result, the Sikh evacuees threatened not to return to their homes, a move that was bound to slow down any reversion to normal conditions.... To silence the critics, she was produced before the district magistrate where she swore she wanted to rejoin her faith. To squash wild rumors that this was false and that she was being coerced, the premier had invited Abdul Qaiyum and other League leaders to hear her testimony. Even though persuaded of the truth, they refused to yield the political high ground they now occupied. Khan Sahib, they charged, was not behaving as a true Muslim. Having allowed his own daughter to marry a non-Muslim (her husband, Jaswant Singh, who was a pilot in the Royal Indian Air Force, was actually an Indian Christian, not a Hindu, as the League charged) he was now privy to a Muslim girl reverting to her Sikh faith!"

The NWFP governor Olaf Caroe wrote to Viceroy Wavell

PESHAWAR, 22 February 1947

We had a bad day yesterday and are in for a difficult period. After the Mardan election the League began to think out methods of direct action, partly  stimulated by Punjab events and partly yielding to the cry of Islam in danger over the Sikh girl married to a Moslem in Hazara after her Sikh husband had been murdered in the Hazara disturbances. She was brought into Peshawar, and Dr. Khan Sahib put her up in his own house, unwisely as I think, and as I told him.

She was kept there for several days and gave a perfectly fair statement at the end of it in presence of her new Moslem husband and her Sikh relations that she wished to return to Sikhism. She was thereupon sent back to Hazara, where to save her life she has had to be placed in protective custody in jail.

The League are trying to make what capital they can out of this affair on the lines of the Islam Bibi case of ten years ago, which originally set the Faqir of Ipi going. They arranged a large protest meeting in Peshawar, and took the opportunity of attacking what they call the black laws in Hazara and the methods adopted in handling the Hazara border tribes, and they have been busy in Mardan also.

In Peshawar we decided to keep them out of the Cantonment, and we had adequate police forces available, but the meeting developed into a procession of at least 5000 which broke the cordons and came right up the road in front of my house into the Premier's garden, again breaking the cordon and besieging his house on all sides.  I am sorry to say that the police refused to obey orders to open fire. Tear gas was used, but without effect. The police did not actually mutiny or anything of that kind, but though they went through the motions of loading they just quietly disobeyed orders to fire. The mob in Khan Sahib's garden was dangerous; it broke all his windows and threw stones into the rooms, but did not succeed in storming the house. The old man was brave as a lion, and went out on top of the porch to tell the crowd what he thought of them. He refused to give away any points, and eventually the Deputy Commissioner was able to get the crowd to move on to the jail.

In the circumstances Dr. Khan Sahib was lucky to get away with his life."

Jawaharlal Nehru as minister in charge of Frontier affairs wrote on the matter to Viceroy Wavell:

13 March 1947

Dear Lord Wavell,

As you know, events in the Punjab and in the Frontier Province have been distressing us very greatly. Conditions there do not seem to be improving. Last night I had a telephone conversation with Sardar Baldev Singh who was in Lahore and the account he gave me of what was happening round about Rawalpindi was terrible. Evidently press and other reports do not give all the facts.

In the Frontier Province the agitation led by the Muslim League has now definitely taken a communal turn. The demands of the Muslim League there have been, and are, refund of the fines levied on and realised from the Nandihar tribes in the Hazara area and the return of a Sikh woman who was forcibly converted and I believe raped. These demands are very extraordinary. You know the circumstances in which action was taken against the Nandihar tribes and a relatively moderate fine was imposed on them. This fine was agreed to and has in fact been paid. No further operations were undertaken. To ask for the return of this fine is to put an end to the whole administration of the tribal areas. Also, to ask for the return of the Sikh woman is fantastic and immoral. She was forcibly taken away and she does not want to return. She has been mishandled and ill-treated. The question to consider should be what punishment to inflict on those who treated her in this way. Instead of this a demand is put forward by the Muslim League and supported by agitation for her return to her original captors. No government can agree to such demands, whatever the consequences.

Governor Caroe wrote to Viceroy Wavell on the same day:

"North-West Frontier Province situation. After their victory in Mardan election in the middle of February local League started on direct action against Ministry, partly stimulated by events in the Punjab but making their cause of action the measures take to control Hazara situation. Particular point was made of case of Sikh woman who after murder of her husband was married to Mohammedan and after staying some days in Premier's house had made free statement before both parties that she wished to return to Sikh relations and had therefore been released under law(action taken by authorities in this case was lawful and just).

On February 21st large and dangerous procession formed in Peshawar city, marching into cantonment, overpowering police, and surrounding Premier's house of which windows were broken but fortunately no loss of life occurred.  Meanwhile League leaders instituted picketing of courts and public buildings and had been defying bans Section 144 in Mardan and elsewhere. As a result of this and of demonstrations in Peshawar League leaders, including most of the M.L.As., were arrested with the result that with budget session starting on March 10th main body of Opposition was in jail. Arrests were however made for bailable offences or under security sections and those arrested could have obtained freedom by giving security or bail. On my advice Ministry, though reluctant, have refrained from arrest of Manki Mullah.

2. While strongly supporting Ministry in action taken to  maintain law and control dangerous demonstrations, I urged them to open negotiations with the League leaders on basis of statement of February 20th before Assembly met. This they refused to do and League demonstration was staged at Assembly Hall on March 10th. It was necessary to support police with troops. Mob made ugly rushes and troops had to open controlled fire. Seven rounds fired, 15 casualties sustained of which two have subsequently died. This clash has on the whole steadied situation but immediate result was that 17 cases of stabbing Hindus took place on the same afternoon in Peshawar City. In consultation with military I decided to occupy city forthwith and impose curfew. Portion of British battalion in Peshawar with other troops was utilised for this purpose and had reassuring effect all around. Communal incidents have now spread to villages east and south of Peshawar where there have been some murders and some forcible conversions of Sikhs.."

Mehra writes

"By 25 April[1947], when the army brought the situation to some semblence of normalcy, the toll had risen to 118 killed. While almost the entire Hindu-Sikh population living in rural areas, approximating 16,000 and many more in the towns, had move into refugee camps or spilled over into neighbouring Punjab. By mid-May, an estimated 60 percent of the minority community in Peshawar, Mardan and Kohat had left the province; the percentages in Hazara and D I Khan being much higher..."

Mehra also writes

[On June 5 1947] Jinnah in his broadcast from All-India Radio.. asked the Provincial Muslim League 'to withdraw the movement of peaceful Civil Disobedience' which they 'had perforce to resort to' and expressed his 'appreciation' of the sufferings and sacrifices made 'by all classes' of Muslims and 'particularly the great part the women of the Frontier' played in the 'fight for civil liberties'. ... [In response to Jinnah's broadcast] Khan Sahib... called into question the Quaid's 'conception of civil liberties.' The Muslim League movement which Jinnah had eulogized had started 'very definitely on a communal basis' and was responsible for 'brutal murders on a large scale', continuing violence and occasionally arson.

In my view, the Muslim League used agitation around the return of the Sikh woman as a prop for advancing the cause of Pakistan. The 'liberal' Muslim League not only did not disown the forcible conversion of a non-Muslim woman, it upheld it in the name of religion!

Another opportunity was lost to disown Muslim ill-treatment of non-Muslim women; in fact, Muslim League validated it by public agitation.

In my personal opinion, in 1947 and in 1971,  Pakistan's international borders were determined in large part by such un-enlightened attitudes towards non-Muslim women. It might even be similar 'scripture-dictated' Muslim treatment of Muslim women in times of war which will determine the success or failure of Pakistani state-sponsored coercion in Afghanistan.

In spite of decent Muslims honoring their scriptures only in the breach in such matters(as I mentioned before), the question of how non-Muslim women should be treated in 'Islamic' societies is still an open one. Wider Muslim society is unable to prevent scriptural justifications for abductions, conversions and coercion of non-Muslim women by opportunists, whether proselytizers, bandits or politicians.

I strongly feel that any scriptural injunctions in Islam which relate to non-Muslim women being legitimate pickings must be explicitly and categorically rejected at all levels of Muslim society (religious authorities, politicians, school textbooks) for the sake of morality, modernity and pluralism.