What happened to Hindus & Sikhs in Pak?

For the minorities in Pakistan, last 75 years have been a period of relentless fight for sheer existence and self-respect. It’s a sad tale full of betrayals, broken promises, pathos and decimation of a pristine culture.

On February 7 last, it was a heart-wrenching scene at the Wagah border: 190 miserable looking Hindus, including children and women, precariously balancing their meagre possessions on their heads, were pleading desperately with the Pakistan immigration authorities to let them cross into India.

The visibility anguished Hindus had trudged all the way from interior Sindh, travelling close to 1,000 km, to the international border, with valid visas for religious pilgrimage. It was a pathetic sight.

However, the Pakistan immigration authorities were unmoved. They saw the pilgrimage argument as a ruse on the part of this hapless rabble to escape Pakistan. The authorities, firm in their resolve, refused to clear their passage and forced them back. "After going to India, these people live in huts and do hard work but defame Pakistan, saying that they are not safe here," a Pakistani official told the media.

In all likelihood, the apprehensions of Pakistani authorities mayn't be misplaced. And they're right also about the difficulties the Pakistani Hindus would face in the land of their refuge.

There's surely no red carpet waiting for the poor Pakistani Hindu refugees in India. There are problems galore for them, in terms of finding jobs, lack of educational facilities for children and absence of civic facilities - potable water and electricity - whichever part of India they may reach and manage to settle. And still they are determined to migrate to an alien land and willingly take all risks. Why?

The answer is not far to seek. These hapless men and women are coming to India, not in search of a fortune, but for an opportunity to live with dignity and security - something that has been denied to them in the land of their origin because of their faith.

The sordid episode, largely ignored by Indian and global media, reveals a great deal on how the Islamic nation, once a part of India, treats its non-Muslim citizens. It also partly explains the sharp drop in the share of Hindu-Sikh population - from over 15 percent at the time of Partition, to less than 2 percent now.

The last seven decades for Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, and other non-Muslim minorities, in Pakistan has been a period of relentless fight for sheer existence and preserving their self-respect. It's a sad tale, full of betrayals, broken promises, pathos and decimation of a pristine culture, in the land of its very birth.

Prior to the departure of the British, there were repeated declarations by Congress that it would never agree to the Partition of the country on communal basis. Gandhiji told Maulana Azad on March 3, 1947, before he met Lord Mountbatten, "If the Congress wishes to accept Partition, it would be over my dead body."

Hindus largely believed Gandhiji, and most of them stayed put wherever they were, even in overwhelmingly Muslim areas, which the Muslim League had declared to be a part of the proposed Islamic nation. While the bell was tolling for Hindus and Sikhs, they largely remained oblivious to the lurking catastrophe.

On August 14, 1947, Pakistan was born, leaving a trail of blood and unprecedented mayhem. Notwithstanding umpteen assurances that India wouldn't be partitioned, Pakistan became a reality. Yet again, there were promises to the Hindus, who had opted to remain in Pakistan, that they would be safe in the new Islamic nation.

In his presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah had said, "...You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State."

Jinnah's assurance, however, proved to be of little practical value, because it was inconsistent with the divisive hate-soaked mindset, responsible for the creation of Pakistan. Non-Muslim citizens of Pakistan continued to be targeted by the State and non-State actors. Following parleys between New Delhi and Karachi, the prime ministers of the two countries met and signed what's known as the Nehru-Liaquat pact.

The treaty was signed in New Delhi by Prime Ministers Jawahar Lal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan on April 8, 1950. The treaty was the outcome of six days of talks that sought to guarantee the rights of minorities in both the countries.

"The governments of India and Pakistan solemnly agree that each shall ensure, to the minorities throughout its territory, complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion, a full sense of security in respect of life, culture, property and personal honour, freedom of movement within each country and freedom of occupation, speech and worship, subject to law and morality. Members of the minorities shall have equal opportunity with members of the majority community to participate in the public life of their country, to hold political or other office, and to serve in their country's civil and armed forces. Both governments declare these rights to be fundamental and undertake to enforce them effectively."

While the treaty has been observed in letter and spirit by India, it was forgotten in Pakistan, in no time. In its latest report 'A Breach of Faith: religious freedom in the country', the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has said that forced conversion, particularly of Hindu girls in Sindh province, and desecration of places of worship of religious minorities as well as marginalisation of Ahmadiyya community remained "worryingly consistent" between July 2021 and June 2022.

In 2021 alone, the report said, "at least 60 cases of forced conversion - most of them from Sindh, which hosts nearly 90 percent of Pakistan's Hindus - were reported in the local media of which 70 per cent were girls under the age of 18."

The report further observed: "Successive governments have failed to stop kidnapping and forced conversion of Hindu girls, and their subsequent marriages to Muslim men - in most cases, to their abductors - mainly due to pressure from Islamic groups. Such incidents are frequently reported from Tharparkar, Umerkot and Ghotki districts of Sindh, where Hindus comprise over 50 percent of the population."

The report has also flagged the large number of blasphemy cases - 585 in 2021 alone - registered against religious minorities. Referring to murders by mobs and fanatics over blasphemy allegations, the report called for steps to ensure that the blasphemy laws were not "weaponised by people to settle personal vendettas".

The HRCP noted that attempts to enforce a standardized national curriculum had created an exclusionary narrative that had sidelined the minorities. In fact, that's the crux of the problem.

The Single National Curriculum (SNC) was launched in grades 1 to 5 in August 2021. Journalists have noted the seemingly pointless degree of religious content in secular subjects such as English, science, social studies, maths and Urdu. The bulk of the content panders, subtly or otherwise, to the majoritarian hardliner narrative.

This sad scenario becomes doubly poignant, given the fact that in the not too remote past, most Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent would have had common forefathers. Almost all the Muslims in the subcontinent are progenies of ex-Hindus who converted to Islam a few generations back, some willingly, but most under duress. Change of faith by a section at some point in history has resulted in numerous internecine wars!

It took almost a thousand years for Islam to obliterate all pre-Islamic influences such as Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism from Afghanistan. Pakistan wants to do the same in less than a hundred years.

(Mr. Balbir Punj is a Former Member of Parliament and a Columnist. He can be reached at: [email protected])

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.