mass hindu wedding challenges poverty and persecution in pakistan
Published on: January 12, 2024.
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Mass Wedding in Pakistan Defies Financial Hardship
Under a chequered marquee adorned with chandeliers, a joyous mass wedding was held in the Muslim-majority country of Pakistan, where 122 Hindu couples unable to afford their own weddings were united in matrimony.
In Karachi, the bustling southern megacity, the joint nuptials took place on January 7 and served as a vibrant celebration in the face of poverty and discrimination.
“I am getting married here because my parents are poor. They cannot afford the wedding expenses,” shared Kalpana Devi, a 25-year-old bride dressed in traditional red attire.
Despite financial constraints and the shared celebration with numerous other couples, Kalpana remained spirited and expressed her wish for everyone to experience such a ceremony.
Weddings are known to be an expensive affair in Pakistan, where the bride’s male relatives are often obligated to provide a dowry to the groom’s family. This financial burden often results in delays in women getting married.
For the brother of bride Neha Parmar, 25-year-old Sateesh Parmar, the mass wedding provided a viable option. He stated, “This is a good opportunity for me as my financial state is very weak. I was not able to raise funds for the wedding.”
Pakistan is recovering from a financial crisis, and human rights organizations have long cautioned against the prevalent socioeconomic discrimination faced by marginalized Hindus within the country.
According to last year’s census, the Pakistan Hindu Council, organizers of the ceremony, reported that there are eight million Hindus living among the nation’s 240 million people.
Rights groups have also highlighted instances of forced conversion to Islam through marriage among Hindu women in Pakistan.
The United Nations experts, in January last year, drew attention to the rise in cases where girls as young as 13 were being kidnapped, trafficked to unfamiliar locations, married to men twice their age, and forced to convert to Islam.
Hindu activist Shiva Kacchi shared that he spoke with over 170 families in 2022 who reported that their daughters were forcibly converted. However, the police have asserted that these girls eloped with financially affluent Muslim men as a means to escape poverty.
“Young girls have many desires, and our parents cannot afford to fulfill them,” explained Hindu activist Sundarta Rathor, who played a key role in organizing the mass wedding. “The combination of economic challenges and limited education makes them susceptible to external pressures.”
