‘From Kaur to Khan’: the ‘problem’ of ‘forced’ conversions

by John Holmwood

This posting is partly to give a flavour of the sort of issue that will be addressed at next year’s Summer School in Birmingham. We briefly touched on the sensitive issue within and across different faith communities of conversion to other faiths and active proselytizing by some faiths, or groups within them (e.g. evangelical Christians). We also saw some of the difficult issues of marriages across religious divides in the film, The Syrian Bride, where one son returns home with a Russian bride and young child. In Birmingham, the issue of conversion and marriage across religious faith communities is currently a very hot topic among Sikhs, Hindus and Musllims. (Kaur is the Sikh name identifying females, while Khan signifies Muslim identity).

In particular, what is alleged is that Hindu and Sikh young women are being lured by Muslim young men into compromising (sexual) positions after evenings out, where they may have been ‘plied’ with alcohol or had rohypnol (the so-called ‘date rape’ drug) mixed with their drinks. They are then photographed and told they will be ‘shamed’ with their communities, unless they convert to Islam. Many cases have been reported, or at least have been claimed, and these are circulating within the Sikh and Hindu communities. In particular, it is claimed that there is a building in Birmingham, called ‘K to K’, where this all takes place. Speakers at gurdwaras and temples are encouraging local communities to be vigilant, and, of course, these allegations heighten tensions between communities.

To a very large degree, it is evident that this is something that sociologists call a ‘moral panic’, where particular kinds of ‘anxieties’ become focused upon a particular phenomenon, which then becomes amplified and distorted (especially through the role of the media). Indeed, there are few cases that can be identified, despite the large number reported (each, in turn, apparently personally ‘known’ to someone close to the person reporting it), and those cases that are identified seem to be about something entirely different, namely love matches between young men and women across religious boundaries.

Yet the different communities are convinced something is happening. The police are interested in ‘understanding’ this new phenomenon and, in so doing, reinforce the sense that something must be happening. This in turn serves to make relations between the communities tense (in October 2005 there was a riot with one death in the Lozells area of Birmingham, when African/Caribbean youth responded to a local community radio station report that a young African refugee woman had been raped by Pakistani youths at a local Pakistani beauty salon. Subsequently, no such event could be found to have taken place). Rumour can be very powerful, but difficult to counter.

In part, we can explain what is going on in the same way that we explain the existence of that significant proportion of North Americans who believe that they have been abducted by aliens. On the one hand, reporting of alien abduction serves to communicate the circumstances associated with being abducted (the descriptions of the aliens, the nature of the space ship, what happens on the ship, etc, all of which ‘recovered’ under hypnosis) and this then enters back into individual reports of abduction. People come to ‘know’ how to be a plausible alien abductee. The very similarity of the reports – itself a social construction – serves to confirm the sense that there must be something to it, or how else do so many individuals distributed across the USA have the same experiences?

So what cultural anxiety might underlie the phenomenon of alleged ‘forced conversions’? Several things seem relevant, quite apart from any historical tensions among the communities. First, all three communities in the UK, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu, have a cultural tradition of ‘arranged’ marriages, which take place in a wider cultural context of the UK where ‘love’ marriages initiated by young people are typical. Among different ethnic groups, South Asian communities have the lowest inter-ethnic marriages (compared to high ratio of intermarriage between whites and African-Caribbeans, for example). Given, the common cultural traditions among South Asian groups (as well as ethnically relatively segregated schools and residential areas) might we not expect that the pressure upon the conventions of arranged marriages might come first from relationships across different divisions within South Asian groups? Add to this that Muslim and Sikh communities present a mirror-image of each other with regard to visible markers of religious identities. In the Sikh community, religious identity is carried by males (turbans, unshaven beards, etc) while females ‘pass’ more easily in the wider community, unmarked by religious identity (indeed, female educational achievement among minority ethnic groups as in the wider population is also higher than that of males). In the Muslim community, religious identity is carried by females (head scarf, long loose garments, etc) and there is greater restriction on female participation in public life, such as employment.

In a context, where young Sikh (and Hindu) men have been demonstrating outside Muslim houses and mosques where young Sikh (and Hindu) women are believed to be ‘hidden’ (or, are ‘hiding’), is this not also a case where the politics of gender are very evident? The cultural anxiety is also manifesting itself as a gender anxiety about the freedoms of women. Is this not something, we also addressed at the Summer School concerning boundaries and the apparent need to maintain them in the face of potential threats? But in this case, we see how the boundary itself can become inflated and itself the source of threat. As the American sociologist, W.I Thomas said, if people believe things to be real, those beliefs become real in their consequences.

This is currently a very live issue in Birmingham with faith leaders being asked by their communities to take a stand, and faith leaders not knowing how to respond (except by asking if the Anglicans wouldn’t mind organising a task force!).

Note: Just googling ‘Kaur to Khan’ will give you immediate access to websites and blogs from within the Sikh community showing the nature of the angry responses to the supposed phenomenon of forced conversion.