WUNRN
PAKISTAN - HINDU WOMEN'S CHALLENGES
FOR UPDATED MARRIAGE LAW/RIGHTS
Ammar Shahbazi - October 06, 2013
Karachi, Pakistan - In Pakistan, family law means Hindu couples can’t divorce. Asha’s* husband Shankar decided to leave her. For a Hindu girl, such a decision means nothing less than spending the rest of her life as a waste of space.
According to the Hindu family law in Pakistan, Asha is, for all practical purposes, a liability who would be living at the mercy of her father, and later brothers.
‘Ancient’ laws
Constitutional experts say the “ancient” Hindu laws being followed in Pakistan have been unchanged since pre-Partition.
Apart from issues like registration of Hindu marriages and safeguard against forced conversions, which are often stressed upon by political leaders in the media, some of the chauvinistic clauses of Hindu family laws also need to be addressed.
Based on the interpretation of conservative Hindu priests of 19th century, the laws inherently shelve the fundamental rights of woman. For instance, the Hindu faith does not have the concept of divorce. The bride is tied to the groom for “all seven lives.”
“Nowadays,” says Advocate Rochiram, one of the country’s top constitutional experts in Hindu family affairs, “couples have found a way to circumvent the prohibition. They use the term ‘separation’.”
In Hinduism, he said, the girl’s marriage is seen as a new beginning. She is considered dead in the eyes of her parents. She does not inherent any property from his father’s side as she belongs to her husband the day she leaves her parent’s home.
So, legally, Asha will have to subsist on her father and after him, her brothers’ compassion, as she is still married, technically – yet her husband has left her.
She is lucky she has no children because the Hindu legal framework does not obligate the father to support a child, if it is living with the mother.
Progressive Hindu leaders say that since the creation of Pakistan, the Hindu community has hardly managed to draw the state’s attention towards its wellbeing.
“The breach of such basic rights was never a concern for the Muslim leaders, who unthinkingly relied on conservative Hindu elders to decide for the whole community,” says Ashok Kumar, a right’s activist and the editor of a community newspaper Minority Families. He said the Hindu lawmakers in parliament did not care much about the people who they purportedly represent.
India, however, passed the Hindu Marriage Act in 1955, which, Rochiram said, is a comprehensive document “scrutinised and examined by both secular and religious angles”.
He suggested that Pakistan can use it as the basis of reform.
But the conservatives in the community believe the status quo aptly represents the true spirit of Hindu law.
“We are thankful to the government of Pakistan that they have never interfered with our religious laws,” said Ali Maharaj, a Hindu priest. “Our communal laws are settled through panchayats, which are presided over by elders who keep the various sensitive customs in perspective while making a judgment.”
“And the community likes it this way. We do not want any sort of meddling with that,” he added.
Progressive Hindu leaders liken the status of Hindu women living in both rural and urban Pakistan with that of women living in Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where ancient tribal codes dictate their fate.
“It does not have to be like this. The women in our community are still bound to the strict codes that have been in place for thousands of years,” said another Hindu human rights activist and blogger, who wished not to be named.
Hindu Marriage Bill
A marriage bill brought to parliament back in 2008 proposed certain amends regarding the issue of divorce. The bill has yet to be passed.
The bill made the provision of divorce legal by terming it “separation”, so that the couples do not have to take unfair advantage of legal lacunas to seek an end to their marriage.
But a lot needs to be done. “We are going to present the Hindu Marriage Bill in the next parliament session,” said Dr Ramesh Kumar Wakwani, an MNA of the ruling party.
The law is, however, more tailored to discourage forced conversions than deal with the issues like inheritance and child support.
“We have proposed that the girl has to be at least 18 years old and the boy 21 to get married legally.
The bill also recommends immediate legal registration of Hindu marriages, which is a perennial problem faced by couples in our community,” said Wakwani.
Rochiram also supports the bill. He believes the marriage act needs to be more women-friendly, which is possible only though a comprehensive reform.
“Societies evolve with time. A law should always be in sync with the general standards and behaviour of the society.
It’s a continuous process. So we should look into the various clauses of the law in this new light. But the religious spirit has to be kept in mind also.”
* Name changed for privacy