The wife of the late music composer Wajid Khan, clinical hypnotherapist Kamalrukh Khan, has shared a long note that reveals how her in-laws harassed her for not converting to Islam. Kamalrukh says her two children, a 16-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son, are denied inheritance because they refused to convert their religion.
Kamalrukh shared the note on Instagram on Saturday and also received support from Kangana Ranaut. She spoke about the anti-conversion bill and how it connects to the problem because of what she and her children have had to face.
Kamalrukh said that she and Wajid were “college sweethearts” who were married under the Special Marriages Act. She is a Parsi and he is a Muslim, and the act allowed them to marry while practicing their own religions. But she began to receive pressure from her family to convert and when she refused, it caused a major rift in her relationship with him and even ‘affected her ability’ to be a father to her children.
Wajid died in May this year after a cardiac arrest. He had also tested positive for coronavirus. Wajid was part of the musical composing duo, Sajid-Wajid, with his brother Sajid Khan. Kamalrukh said she and her children missed him, but she wished she had spent more time with them and without religious prejudice.
Here is his full note:
The topic of conversion comes up. Once again. This time with enthusiasm at the government level.
My name is Kamalrukh Khan, wife of the late music director Wajid Khan. My husband and I had a courtship that lasted over 10 years before we finally got married.
I am a Parsi and he was a Muslim. We were what you would call “college sweethearts.” Finally, when we get married, we get married for love under the Special Marriages Act (a law that upholds the right to practice one’s religion after marriage). And that is why this current debate around the anti-conversion bill is so interesting to me. I want to share my ordeal and my experience in an inter-caste marriage: that in this age, a woman can face such prejudice, suffering and discrimination in the name of religion is a complete shame … and a revelation.
My simple Parsi upbringing was very democratic in its value system. Independence of thought was encouraged and healthy discussions were the norm. Education was promoted at all levels. However, after marriage, this very independence, education, and democratic value system was the biggest problem for my husband’s family. An educated, thoughtful, independent woman with an opinion was simply not acceptable. And resisting the pressures of conversion was sacrilege. I have always respected, participated in and celebrated all religions. But my resistance to converting to Islam drastically widened the divide between my husband and I, making it toxic enough to destroy our relationship as husband and wife, and his ability to be a present father to our children. My dignity and respect for myself did not allow me to lean back for him and his family by converting to Islam.
Conversion was not a value system that I personally believed in. Nor was he the example of a deeply ingrained rotten patriarchy that I wanted to establish for my beautifully evolved children – my 16-year-old daughter Arshi and my 9-year-old son Hrehaan.
I struggled with this terrible mindset tooth and nail throughout my marriage. The result: being marginalized from my husband’s family, scare tactics to convert me included taking me to court to ask for a divorce. I was devastated, I felt betrayed and emotionally drained, but my children and I endured.
Wajid was a super talented musician and songwriter who dedicated his life to making melodies. My children and I miss him very much and wish he had spent more time with us as a family, devoid of religious prejudices, as he did while creating his melodies. We never became a family because of the religious fanaticism of him and his family. Today, after his untimely death, the harassment of his family continues.
I am fighting for the rights and inheritance of my children who have been usurped by them. All of this because of his hatred of me for not converting to Islam. Hate so ingrained that not even the death of a loved one could move.
I really want this law against conversion to be nationalized, reducing the struggle of women like me who fight against the toxicity of religion in inter-caste marriages. We are foul-mouthed and labeled manipulative and greedy for standing our ground. The real enemy in this cycle of conversion starts from the beginning: the campaign of hatred against “other religions”. To declare in the public space that one’s religion is “the only true religion” and that one’s own god / prophet is “the only true god / prophet” is disgusting. Religion should be a reason to celebrate differences, not the separation of families.
This debate on the anti-conversion bill should also delve into the patriarchal mindset: for the most part, it is always women who are forced to convert by force. The conversion campaign must be recognized for what it is: spreading hatred against different religious ideologies, separating wives from husbands and children from parents.
All religions are the path to the divine. Live and let live should be the only religion wWe all practice.
Also read: Arjun Kapoor publishes a photo with a cheeky text about a woman, Malaika Arora asks who he is talking about
Actress Kangana Ranaut also took to Twitter to share her thoughts on Kamalrukh’s post. “She is the widow of my friends, a Parsi woman who is being harassed by her family for her conversion. I want to ask the minority @PMOIndia who are not sympathetic looking for drama, beheadings, riots and conversions, how are we protecting them? Parsis’s surprisingly declining numbers reveal India’s own character as a mother, the child who does the most dramas unfairly receives more attention and advantages. And the one who is dignified, sensitive, more loving and deserving ends up being the babysitter of the one who continues to have seizures … we have to do an introspection, “he wrote.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
.
