Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: Pakistan Defence
Date: November 29, 2011
URL: http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/143671-hindus-pakistan-nowhere-people.html
Pakistan doesn't send just terrorists like
Ajmal Kasab. They send Hindus too -- forcing them to flee if they want to
save their honour and their lives.
The common Hindu is a mute spectator to the
changing times and the Abbotabad, Haqqani and ISI phenomenon.
He cannot comment on the political situation
of his country. He cannot vote as freely as a common Muslim Pakistani. He
is constitutionally directed to vote only for the Hindu candidates in their
designated constituencies.
A country that might have taken birth in
1947, but the land belonged to his ancestors for centuries. He is as much
the owner of the land of the 'pure' as any other religionist. But while the
'other' religionist is free to vote and shout for his rights and participate
in the mainstream activities, he for just being a Hindu is asked to live in
a cocoon.
Hindu women do not display the bindi or mangalsutra
out of fear. Most of the Hindu temples (except a few I saw in Karachi) have
posters and calendars in place of stone images of gods and goddesses. Their
kids have to learn, compulsorily Islamiyat in schools.
Even in areas like Sindh and Hyderabad, where
Hindu concentration is comparatively larger, no school is allowed for minorities
to teach their children their religious books and cultural values. They have
to do it silently in their homes.
Hindu priests too wear half skullcaps to
look like everybody else around. Identity shouldn't be disclosed, is the first
step to survive.
One evening my friend and renowned human
rights activist Rajesh Gogna took me to meet some of the Pakistanis who had
to leave the land of their ancestors in search of dignity and freedom.
They were in tents and their kids were playing
in the dirt. But their faces looked glowing with confidence and assured safety.
They were smiling.
Freedom makes even the refugee souls happy.
They are all from Sindh Hyderabad, Pakistan
-- 28 families, 151 persons, including women, kids and the old men
Arjun Das, their more vocal leader says,
"We tried for seven years to get visas from the Indian embassy. Every
year we returned with denials. It had become an annual ritual for us to travel
to Islamabad, as India has no consulate in Karachi. We would wait for hours
and days outside the Indian High Commission for our turn to come. And then
they would say -- visa nahin milega (you won't get a visa)."
"This year, fortunately we got the visa
and silently came out of Sindh, Hyderabad. We too the train to Lahore and
then to the Attari border by bus. We had visa permission to visit Delhi and
Hardwar, so reached here in the ashram of our Guru Baba Ghunni Das Maharaj."
Lacchmi is in her early seventies. She was
playing with her grandson and said, when I asked why she chose to come to
India, she said: "We have had a life full of misery and ghulami. I didn't
want that for my grandchildren. They must get a chance to live as Hindus and
study. It's nothing but Islamiyat teachings in schools and the entire atmosphere
pushed our kids either to convert to Islam or live a rotten life worse than
animals."
I met Jeevan, a 14-year-old boy. He says,
"I was stopped from wearing a hanuman locket by my teachers in school.
They taught Islamiyat and teased me for having a tuft. They would always use
sarcastic words to belittle me before my friends, for no reason."
Abusing and cracking jokes on Hindus is a
common practice. Even in their movies and plays, often Hindus are shown as
lecherous, ready to do any dirty thing for money, and as spineless banias.
Sobha Ram, 65, says, "If you have money,
you may survive by giving donations to Islamic organisations. But what do
we have? Our honour is always at stake. We can't go to the higher authorities.
We don't have any resources. We work in the farms of Muslim landlords and
make a small living. But our daughters and sisters are always victims of the
lust of landlords. They are forcibly converted, nikahs are solemnised without
our consent and then there is nothing but darkness for us."
"Even in death they humiliate us,"
says Sobha Ram, "often they don't allow us to cremate our dead. Our cremation
grounds are encroached upon and they tell us to bury our dead as the cremations
leave a 'bad odour' that they dislike."
So far Gogna's Human Rights Defence India
organisation has helped these hapless refugees from Pakistan.
Some other organisations are also chipping
in.
They too are trying to make a living by selling
mobile phone covers and small toys in the Old Delhi area.
They want citizenship, a place to live and start a new life.
Do we have time and a political will to hear
their woes and help? Certainly there are well meaning Pakistanis, columnists
and human rights activists in Islamabad and Karachi, who feel for them, write
for their rights and take up their cause in Islamabad, braving the Talibnanised
atmosphere.
Hats off to their efforts.
But they can just write and have such incidents
mentioned. The help at ground level demands state government's intervention
and a political will in Islamabad.
