Controversy In Chhattisgarh After Tribal Woman Converted For Marriage Under Government Scheme

A controversy has erupted in Chhattisgarh after a Hindu woman was married to a Muslim man in a conversion-nikah ceremony organised by the state government earlier this month.

The event was a mass-wedding ceremony organised by the state’s Women and Child Welfare department under the Chief Minister Kanya Vivah scheme, which offers assistance for wedding of women from poor families. 

Under the scheme, the women get a gift of Rs 25,000 from the government after the wedding.

While local activists have criticised the event, calling it a ‘love jihad’ and ‘Islamic conversion’ programme, the state government has maintained silence so far. 

What’s particularly contentious is that the woman’s parents have given complaint to the police that they were kept in the dark about the wedding of their daughter, and the said wedding should be declared null and void and their daughter be returned to them.

Woman’s Parents Give Written Complaint To Police

Swarajya could not contact the couple, but managed to talk to the woman’s parents and an activist who is associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who is helping them. 

The family lives in Barbaspur village of Ramanujnagar tehsil in Surajpur district of Chhattisgarh and belongs to Gond jaati, which falls under Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the state.

Chhattisgarh is currently being governed by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel from the Congress party, while BJP is in opposition. 

The woman’s father, Devnarayan Uikey, told this correspondent over the phone on 29 March that all his pleas made to the police regarding his daughter’s conversion and nikah have fallen on deaf ears.

“My daughter has been brainwashed into marrying a Muslim man through a fraudulent ceremony,” he said. 

More than two weeks have passed since his complaint, but his daughter has not returned to him, he said.

The mass-wedding ceremony was organised at Kot village of Surajpur district on 13 March. A total of 85 couples were selected.

Swarajya accessed the list of the 85 couples, which mentions Basanti and Haroon on 28^th number. Basanti’s age is mentioned as 20 while Haroon’s as 22. All other couples on the list are Hindus.

Pictures from the event show that an Islamic cleric was brought for Basanti and Haroon’s wedding for the conversion-nikah ceremony. All other couples had jaimala and phera ceremonies as per Hindu rituals presided over by a pujari.

Devnarayan says that neither he knew about the event beforehand nor he attended it. He says he learnt about his daughter’s marriage only after she went to Haroon’s village and locals informed him about it.

Four days after the wedding, the father gave a complaint to Surajpur Superintendent of Police (SP) with the help of some educated villagers. 

Swarajya has accessed the complaint letter, which says that Devnarayan is a poor man from ST category who follows Hindu religion, and has three daughters and a son.

His daughter Basanti was brainwashed into marrying Haroon under Islamic rituals, which has hurt the sentiments of his family and the community. The wedding is illegal and those who helped organise it should be arrested, the complaint, dated 17 march, concludes.

The complaint letter shared by Devnarayan has a stamp of the Surajpur police even though it has not been converted into a case.

Devnarayan says that his daughter converting to Islam and marrying into the Muslim community is “unacceptable” to him, and he would not consent to the union in any circumstances even if it requires him to forget that he ever had a daughter named Basanti.

BJP Member Takes Up The Case

Swarajya talked over the phone with Bhulan Singh Maravi, a BJP member from Surajpur. He shared a copy of a letter he recently gave to Narayan Chandel, who is an MLA and Leader of Opposition of BJP in Chhattisgarh, requesting him to take up the matter in the Assembly. 

The letter, also dated 17 March, says that the incident has caused great unrest among people in the Surajpur area as it seems to be a case of ‘love jihad’.

Maravi told Swarajya that the matter has not been taken up in the Assembly yet, though he is hopeful about it.

He said that as per information gathered by him, Basanti is Haroon’s second wife. “We have learnt that Haroon is already married to a woman from his community,” said Maravi.

When asked, the woman’s father, Devnarayan, said that he was sure about this fact. “Yes, Haroon already has a wife,” said Devnarayan.

Maravi said that Muslim men target Gond women for relationships and marriages with ulterior motives and not out of love. He said that the women possess ST certificate, which enables them to fight elections on panchayat seats reserved for ST women.

It is pertinent to mention here that Swarajya has covered several such cases from Uttar Pradesh, where women from Scheduled Castes (SC) have been made to fight panchayat elections on reserved seats despite their conversion to Islam, which is a mandatory condition for nikah as per Muslim personal laws. 

Read about this case where a Hindu woman from an SC caste, after her conversion-nikah, availed of Haj subsidy given by the government, which is granted only to Muslims, but successfully fought a zila panchayat election. 

Maravi told Swarajya that it is the demand of activists that Haroon and Basant should get married under the Special Marriage Act, which requires them to inform district administration about the wedding and does not involve conversion of the Hindu partner.

As per a ground visit by Organiser magazine, the woman’s native village has around 200 families comprising various Hindu jaatis and one Muslim family.

Basanti’s parents told the publication that after the controversy over his daughter’s wedding, the local Anganwadi members took his thumb impression on a blank paper, which they plan to turn into a statement of confession that the wedding has their approval. 

It is the local Anganwadi committees that are tasked with preparing the list of couples to be married under the scheme.

The Organiser report quotes Devnarayan as saying that his Gond community has boycotted him after the incident. The report also quotes Babulal Agarwal, district head of BJP, as asking whether the 13 March event was a “kanya vivah or kanya nikah?“.

Already, A Spate of Protests Against Love Jihad

The case comes at a time when several states such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka and Uttarakhand have either tabled or passed the bills penalising forced conversion through marriages, commonly called ‘love jihad’ laws.

That the said wedding was organised by the government, has added to the anger among the Hindu community in the Chhattisgarh area.

As we write this, Maharashtra has witnessed more than a dozen street rallies by Hindus demanding a love against ‘love jihad’.

Love Jihad is a name given to the pattern of crimes where Hindu girls are lured into relationships by men from the Muslim community for sexual exploitation or conversion to Islam through nikah. 

This pattern was given the name ‘love jihad’ by Christian organisations in Kerala more than a decade ago. Since then, it has been used by Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and tribal groups, besides Hindus, to protest against similar entrapment and conversion of their daughters.

Hundreds of Hindu women have filed cases against Muslim men for hiding their Muslim identity and marital status to form relationships with them for their conversion.

Several cases of this pattern have been reported from Chhattisgarh in recent times, especially those where women were killed in such relationships.

In October, a woman named Lakshmin, who married one Mohammed Riyazuddin as per Islamic rituals after her conversion six years ago, was killed by him and his family in Sheohar district. The reason for the killing was not revealed by the police.

In December, a tribal woman from Korba district named Neelkusum Panna was stabbed by a screwdriver 51 times by one Mohammed Shahbaz, who she was in a relationship with.

In November, residents of Jashpur district in Chhattisgarh staged a protest against ‘love jihad’ after a Hindu woman who had gone missing was found to have converted to Islam for marriage.