Hema Malini and Dharmendra got married in 1980 and the union of the two movie stars created a lot of controversy. Dharmendra was already married at the time to Prakash Kaur and had four children – Sunny, Bobby, Ajeeta and Vijaya – and people were curious to know how he could have married another woman while still being married to Prakash. And so, the rumours started floating that the two had changed their religion to Islam, had a nikaah and then and gotten married in a tradition Iyengar ceremony.
As per Hema Malini’s biography ‘Hema Malini: Beyond the Dream Girl’ written by Ram Kamal Mukherjee, there was some chatter about the illegitimacy of Dharmendra and Hema’s marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act as he was already married. The book suggests that rumours about the two stars converting to Islam, changing their names to Dilawar and Ayesha Bi and performing a nikaah in 1979 were everywhere. The rumours returned in 2004 when Dharmendra was contesting for Lok Sabha elections and Congress pointed out that during the declaration of his assets, Dharmendra had only declared first wife Prakash Kaur’s properties and hadn’t mentioned Hema anywhere.
Hema addressed this controversy at the time and when she was asked why Dharmendra had not mentioned her name in the affidavit, she said, “This is extremely personal between us. And we will sort it out between ourselves. Nobody else should bother about this.” Hema was a member of the Rajya Sabha and Congress demanded that her nomination be cancelled as they accused her of giving incorrect information about her name and religion. “There is no truth in these allegations. I have nothing more to say about this,” she said.
The biography also presents Dharmendra’s side of the story where the actor defended himself and said that he had never changed his religion. As per the book, Dharmendra shared with Outlook in 2004, “This allegation is totally incorrect. I am not the kind of man who will change his religion to suit his interests.”
Dharmendra continues to be married to Prakash Kaur and Hema Malini. He shared four children with Prakash and has two daughters, Esha and Ahaana, with hema.
