The Sindh Story: A Sindhi-language film highlighting the abduction and forced conversion of Hindu girls in Pakistan, releasing in January 2025 | Stills from ‘The Sindh Story’
Mumbai: Every month, there are reports of Hindu girls and women who are kidnapped, converted to Islam, and married off to Muslim men in Pakistan’s Sindh province. The issue is the subject of a Sindhi-language feature film ‘The Sindh Story’ produced in Mumbai. The film is scheduled to be released in theaters in the city in January 2025.
The 100-minute film, which has also been dubbed in Hindi, features the story of an Indian social activist who reaches Pakistan after managing to get a visa. As she uncovers the story of the abducted women, she becomes a victim herself. The film was shot in Mumbai and some scenes were surreptitiously shot in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
In September, newspapers reported the kidnapping of two girls; in November a 10-year-old girl was abducted, converted to Islam, and married to her kidnapper, according to newspaper reports.
A submission to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights by the World Sindhi Congress estimated that between 12,000 to 13,000 girls and women have been kidnapped, converted to Islam, and forced to marry their abductors in recent years.
The submission listed cases reported between 2017 and 2022. Though Pakistan is a signatory to the international Convention of the Rights of the Child and has laws preventing marriage of under-age children and also acts guaranteeing religious freedom, the rules are rarely applied. Delays in getting a visa thwart families who want to escape to India, Sindhis living in Pakistan have said. Christian women and girls face a similar threat in Pakistan’s Punjab.
Sceptics doubt the figures given by the World Sindhi Congress. Kishore Peshori, former principal of M M K College, said, “My forefathers who lived in Sindh before partition do not remember anything like this in those days. There are media reports but I do not have any firsthand reports of these crimes.”
The release of a Sindhi-language feature film is a rare occasion. It is estimated that only 50-60 films in the language have been released since independence. For comparison, an average of over 200 films are produced annually in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam.
Anand Manwani, the film’s producer, says that films in Sindhi rarely make money. “At best, you can recover a tenth of the cost. Theatres are reluctant to screen Sindhi films because the audience is limited and scattered. Screenings are restricted to the morning slots and prime time is unavailable,” said Manwani, a businessman who added that he makes the films as part of the effort to keep their language alive in India, far away from its homeland in Pakistan. “Sindhi-language schools are closing down. Young people speak Hindi or the local language of the state. Our language is facing an existential threat,” he added.
According to Peshori, OTT is a better platform than theatres for Sindhi films because of its wider reach. Rakshita Manglani, an artist who hosts open mic events in the language to engage young people in the language, said that younger members of the community should get involved in filmmaking. “Short films, for instance, can promote the language among the young generation,” said Manglani.
