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OPINION

Jaziya on Pakistani Sikhs
CHANDRAHASAN A

With Pakistan marching to embrace the Taliban, aided by open connivance of the State, it is hardly surprising that the Sikhs in the tribal areas of the country have been asked to pay ‘Jaziya’, the so-called tax for their protection, or face forfeiture of their property and other serious consequences. Realism demands that the Pakistani authorities cannot be expected to do anything about this illegal act, because the civilian government is too scared of the people who enforced it.

Islamabad has a long history of ill-treating minorities. The consolidation of fundamentalist forces in the country should rule out the possibility of any improvement in the minority situation. It is deplorable that the fresh cases of violation of the rights of minorities in Pakistan have failed to register on the international radar, especially in Washington which has shown a shocking liking for all the dubious games Pakistan plays. The American indifference is all the more strange because an annual document that is officially released by the US government has once again listed Pakistan as a country where religious intolerance of extreme form is rampant. The land of the pure is accused of neglecting not only other religious minorities but also the Muslim sects like the Ahmadiyas.

A fact that is generally overlooked is that after August 1947—the partition of India—there has been perhaps a six-fold decline in the percentage of minorities’ population in what is today’s Pakistan. Contrast this with almost doubling of the minority population in India in the same period. The figures may be disputed, but the fact remains that Pakistan has a shameful record in protecting its minorities and, more shamefully, does not seem to bother about it. Obviously, Pakistan has an unwritten assurance that none of its many egregious acts will stop the flow of dollars—and arms--from the US.

The news of the arbitrary imposition of ‘Jaziya’ on the Sikhs in the tribal areas did not break out of the blue. For several months now, from the time of the march of the Taliban into the country, the Hindu and Sikh minorities in Pakistan have been living under constant fear of confiscation of their property and threat to their lives. The civilian government has apparently shown no interest in addressing their concerns; maybe because it is itself fighting a battle of survival! But the previous military regime in Pakistan was no better. It took over the management of the Sikh Gurudwaras in Pakistan from them. The protests from Indian Sikhs naturally did not matter. Pakistan’s Evacuee Trust Property Board took over an 18th century Gurudwara in Lahore and allowed the invaders to replace the Sikh symbols on it by Islamic slogans. Protests by local Sikhs, handful though they are in numbers, made no impression on the authorities.

Pakistan has extended hospitality to a number of Sikh terrorist groups and their leaders. Even such ‘guests’ are not trusted to take over the control of the Gurdwaras in Pakistan. It could be because officially Pakistanis deny that they live in their country. The Sikhs are, however, lucky that so far the Pakistanis have not allowed intruders to take over the holy Nankana Saheb Gurdwara, the birthplace of Guru Nanak.

Some weeks ago, a group of Hindus was forced out of the frontier areas of Pakistan by the extremists. The 14 members in the two or three families were lucky that they could escape to India and find solace with some assurances that they need not go back to the dreaded land. The stories they narrated before the media in Amritsar, their temporary home, presented a horrible picture about the plight of the minorities in Pakistan. The authorities there do not seem to know that they have a duty to protect the minorities and their rights.

It is, perhaps, not the fault of the authorities in Pakistan where hatred for the minorities is fed into the DNA of all citizens at the time of their birth. It is an unfortunate fact that this hatred is reciprocated in large measure in India too, but with one vital difference.

In Pakistan, hatred is state-sponsored from the day the country was carved out of British India in 1947. In India, the reverse hatred is the product of certain political ideologies, though it has become more visible after the neighbour exported terror to India about two decades ago. But let it be said that an average Indian is sill very much at home with minorities and interacts with them on a daily basis even when some of them may have what may be called communal leanings.

The average Pakistani, on the other hand, has no problem demonising the minorities because he has probably never interacted with them or come in physical contact with them in his life. The Pakistani sees the minorities as an extension of the hated ‘infidels’ portrayed as unworthy creatures, day in and day out by the state media, the pulpit, the text books and the ‘experts’ on talk shows.

Some of these Pakistani ‘experts’ are seen in their country as ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’. That these are values that are in acute short supply in that country is a different matter; what will be interesting to know is how do these ‘experts’ establish their ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’ credentials when they have no record of fighting for the protection of the minorities or working for a better future for them.

No strong voice is heard in Pakistan whenever the minorities are harassed or ill-treated, or murdered. The civil society in Pakistan has been silent on minority affairs, unlike India. Politicians do not think taking up minority affairs is right for them. If there is a minority member represented in the government he or she will be too scared to speak up openly on minority problems for fear of inviting the wrath of the majority community. The overwhelming majority of minorities in Pakistan live as virtual serfs. They have no voice and their upward movement on the economic or social scale is barely visible. Forcible conversions, on the other hand, are routine, especially of women.

India seems to be bothered too much about diplomatic niceties to take up actively the matter of Pakistan making it a habit to ill-treat the minorities. This is in contract with the Pakistani practice of commenting on communal clashes in India. Pakistan thinks—wrongly—that what happens to minorities in India is a matter of concern to it by virtue of the fact that it was created as a haven for the Muslim minority in the Indian sub-continent.

The two-nation theory, the basis for the creation of Pakistan, was buried way back in 1971 when the majority of Muslims living in that country decided to carve out a separate nation, Bangladesh. Pakistan may refuse to acknowledge that unpleasant fact, but it should not be allowed to remain callous to the welfare of its microscopic minority.



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