Author: Yoginder Sikand
Publication: New Age Islam
Date: July 25, 2011
URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=5105
Not a day passes without news of bomb blasts
and targeted killings, mainly of innocent civilians, by armed Islamic groups
in some part of Pakistan or the other. Pakistan, many Pakistanis themselves
are now forced to admit, today tethers on the brink of collapse in the face
of the deadly threat that it faces from extremists in the name of Islam. The
menace has led to waves of bloody attacks by armed groups of rival Islamic
sects, each claiming the mantle of 'authentic Islam', against each other,
in which thousands have lost their lives in recent years. Among the worst
hit by the rising tide of militancy in the name of Islam are the country's
religious minorities.
Although non-Muslims formed more than a quarter
of Pakistan's population when the country, created in the name of Islam, came
into being, their numbers rapidly depleted soon after, and now they account
for only around 4 per cent of the population. Most of the country's non-Muslims,
fearful of living under Muslim hegemony, migrated to India. Those few who
remained behind, so a recent report reveals, live in terror on a daily basis,
denied many basic rights, and treated even by the state as second-class citizens
or even worse. Targets of Islamic extremists, they also suffer various forms
of discrimination at the hands of the state that defines itself as Islamic,
as well as routine degradation and even violence at the hands of Muslim fellow-citizens.
Published by the Jinnah Institute, one of the few secular and somewhat progressive
think-tanks in Pakistan, the study, titled 'A Question of Faith: A Report
on the Status of Religious Minorities in Pakistan', graphically describes
the harrowing plight of the country's religious minorities. The Jinnah Institute
is headed by the indefatigable Sherry Rehman, former Pakistani Federal Information
Minister, who was recently placed on the hit-list of Islamic extremists who
have been baying for her blood for her defence of Pakistan's hapless minorities
and for her criticism of the country's draconian anti-blasphemy laws that
have been repeatedly used to terrorise minorities and dissenters.
The situation of non-Muslims in Pakistan,
the report reads, 'has never been direr than it is today.' Recent years, it
says, have witnessed 'increased social vulnerability' of non-Muslim Pakistanis
in terms of access to education, jobs and healthcare and even mounting attacks
on their lives, properties and places of worship. The report highlights numerous
cases of violent attacks by Islamic extremists on non-Muslim citizens, resulting
in widespread loss of life and property. It accuses the Pakistani state of
'tolerance towards this persecution', labelling this as 'part of a longer-term
pattern of state complicity at all levels-judicial, executive and legislative'.
It argues that such state complicity is a direct consequence of Pakistan's
Constitution defining its citizens on the basis of whether or not they are
Muslims, with non-Muslims being legally considered, for all practical purposes,
as second-class citizens.
'[T]he development of the states as an Islamic
republic', the report states, 'has had an adverse effect on minority institutions
and communities and their social development.' It remarks that the state's
'discriminatory legal frameworks', devised in the name of Islam, are an open
abetment to Islamic extremists and even ordinary Muslim citizens to attack
non-Muslims.
The state's complicity in the targeting of
non-Muslims is exacerbated by its unwillingness and total failure to punish
hate crimes committed against religious minorities. The report accuses the
Pakistani state of continuing to 'turn a blind eye to the spread of cultures
of cruelty and vigilantism' represented by Islamic extremists, who are fired
by an irrepressible hatred of non-Muslims, and of enjoying 'a partisan relationship
with extremist actors and agents of intolerance.'
The report cites numerous cases of violent
attacks against religious and sectarian minorities across Pakistan, some directed
by Islamist groups, others by Muslim mobs, in the face of which the Pakistani
state has taken no action whatsoever to bring the culprits to justice, thus
appearing to connive with them. In May last year, it relates, two mosques
of the minority Ahmadi sect were bombed in Lahore, causing almost 90 deaths,
but yet there has been no official investigation into the attacks. Nor has
there been any redress for the families of the victims. In another gruesome
case, Christian homes were burnt down in a Punjab town and a number of Christians
charred to death by a Muslim mob, but far from the culprits being brought
to book, the hapless Christians withdrew their case against the 150 alleged
perpetrators. In a country where, as the report reveals, a former Minister
of Religious Affairs announces on television that members of the Ahmadi sect
are what he terms wajib ul-qatal, that is to say that it is obligatory on
Muslims to kill them, what else can be expected from the agencies of the state?
Accounting for just fewer than 2 per cent
of Pakistan's population, Hindus are Pakistan's largest religious minority.
More than nine-tenths of Pakistan's Hindus, the report relates, live in the
Sindh province, and most of them belong to various Dalit castes. According
to the report, some 80 per cent of Sindhi Hindus are poverty-stricken agricultural
labourers, and suffer heinous forms of both caste- and religious-discrimination.
Scores of them work in slavery-like conditions as bonded labourers, mainly
for Muslim landlords and brick-kiln owners. The report highlights several
cases of gross violation of basic human rights of Dalits, including murders
by landlords. It speaks of numerous cases of forcible conversion of Dalit
women to Islam, who are married off to Muslim men against their will. Lawyers
avoid taking up such cases, fearing a backlash from firebrand mullahs, who
regard conversion of 'infidels' as a source of immense religious benefit.
Sometimes, the police refuse to even register complaints, or the women's parents
are forced to withdraw their appeals. 'Upper' caste Hindus faces different
forms of oppression, including routine kidnappings for massive ransoms. 'In
Friday sermons at mosques in many areas of Sindh, jihad is often declared
against Hindus,' the report reveals.
The report cites cases of innocent Hindus
being attacked on false charges of traducing Islam. In one such case, an armed
Muslim mob attacked the Hindu community in Udherpur in southern Sindh, stirred
up by what was later proven to be a false charge of blaspheming Islam. While
assaulting the hapless Hindus and setting fire to their shops, the crazed
mob chanted, 'Hindus are infidel[s], death is their destiny!' According to
local Hindus, the premeditated attack aimed at forcing the Hindus to leave
Pakistan so that Muslims could grab their businesses.
'Hindus have been arrested and abused in recent
years due to their religious identity. They have also been subject to violence
by Muslim radicals,' the report reveals. It adds that Pakistani Hindus are
often viewed as 'Indian agents' and their loyalties to Pakistan questioned
even though they are the original inhabitants of Sindh. It quotes a Pakistani
Hindu as pathetically lamenting, 'It is our bad luck that our Muslim friends
don't accept us as Pakistanis or join us with this land. Our culture from
the sub-continent is the same but the Muslims associate themselves with the
Arabs.'
The report notes that Hindus routinely suffer
discrimination politically and economically. Pakistani Hindus have no political
party of their own-perhaps due to fear that this would antagonise Muslims,
so fearful are they of publicly voicing their concerns or mobilizing for their
rights in a state that defines itself as Islamic and considers Hindus to be
enemies of Islam, Muslims and Pakistan. According to the report, there has
been a rise in migration of Pakistani Hindus-mainly to India-in recent years.
This owes principally to mounting insecurity in the face of pervasive discrimination.
Voicing the anguish of many Pakistani Hindus, the report quotes a Hindu man
from Umerkot, Sindh, who relates, 'Our temples are being vandalized and women
raped. Atrocities against us are increasing day-by-day. We won't get permanent
jobs unless we convert to Islam. In Pakistan, we are subject to persecution
and have to live our daily lives in fear.'
Christians, Pakistan's second largest minority,
face similar forms of oppression. Many Christians, the report reveals, 'feel
that they are treated as second class citizens and discriminated against in
all aspects of life….Christians across Pakistan live in a state of constant
fear and insecurity.' Christians who can migrate out of the country do so,
the report adds. The report cites cases of Christians being attacked by Muslim
mobs, often instigated by mullahs, their churches being destroyed and being
forced out of their lands, which are then occupied by their attackers. It
relates instances of numerous murders of Christians in which the police have
taken no action at all against perpetrators or even abet them.
Such attacks on vulnerable minorities do not
seem to meet with much protest on the part of Muslim citizens, other than
scattered leftist groups, probably an indication of how deeply-rooted prejudices
against non-Muslims are in Pakistan. The report quotes a Christian woman whose
house was destroyed by a rampaging Muslim mob: 'Not a single [Muslim] woman
dared to condemn this brutality…Christians should just hear and bear
whatever Muslims say to them.' In detailing the case of a church destroyed
by a Muslim land-grabber, it cites another Christian, who laments, 'Muslims
are unsupportive to us in every matter. They consider us people of low rank.
We are not allowed to preach our religion. We do not have freedom of expression…[W]e
are anxious about our existence in Pakistan.'
As with Hindus and other non-Muslim communities,
Pakistan's Christians are often falsely accused by Muslims of blaspheming
Islam (the punishment for which is death or life imprisonment) simply to settle
personal scores or even to grab their properties. Dalit Christian labourers
demanding decent wages have been targeted under this draconian law. Discrimination
is faced on a day-to-day basis by Christians, even at the hands of ordinary
Muslims, the report goes on. Most Pakistani Christians being Dalit converts,
a large proportion of them engage in low-paid, highly exploitative and what
are considered menial jobs, and are victims of untouchability. Even well-educated
Christians face routine discrimination in getting employment.
The report notes with alarm that liberal Muslims
who speak out in favour of Pakistan's non-Muslims and protest against the
pervasive discrimination that they are subjected to in the name of Islam have
met with violent reaction from Islamic extremists. It cites the well-known
case of two top Pakistani leaders, Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer and Federal
Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti, being assassinated earlier this year
for their defence of non-Muslims persecuted under the blasphemy laws. It also
notes, with dismay, how some Muslim scholars who have dared to challenge the
extremists' interpretation of their religion have had to face their ire. Recently,
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, one of the country's few well-known somewhat liberal
Islamic writers, was hounded out of Pakistan into exile for denouncing the
extremists, and his close associate Farooq Khan was slain for critiquing the
extremists on Islamic grounds.
The report suggests numerous steps for the
state to undertake to address the seemingly un-escapable slide of Pakistan
into interminable religiously-inspired war that has made life for the country's
hapless non-Muslims sheer hell. These include repealing the dreaded blasphemy
law; outlawing religious hatred; taking effective action against attackers
of minorities; removing the impunity of prayer leaders in mosques for inciting
hatred on the basis of religion; regulating madrasas and mosques to prevent
their use for hatred against non-Muslims; reviving the National Minorities
Commission; blocking all funding to projects and areas where minorities are
discriminated against; instituting employment quotas for minorities; reforming
the educational curricula to promote equality and respect for diversity. And
so on.
All certainly very impressive demands-which,
one knows, will meet with deafening indifference from the Pakistani state,
which has consistently demonstrated its hostility to its non-Muslim citizens,
for that is the very logic that informs the rationale of Pakistan as a country.
The plight of Pakistan's religious minorities
should not be a cause for us Indians to gloat about, hatred of the religious
'other' being endemic in India as well. The place that non-Hindus occupy in
the Hindutva imagination mirrors closely that of non-Muslims in the project
of Islamic extremism. There seem no easy solutions at all to the minority
question, not just in Pakistan but in India and elsewhere, too, as long as
religion continues being understood as premised on the notion of 'true believers',
backed by a partisan god, being relentlessly pitted against 'unbelieving'
or 'polluted' 'others' in a war of cosmic proportions. Lamentably, that is
how god-centred religions are generally understood by most of their adherents.
As long as humans continue to imagine religion in this manner that inevitably
leads to contempt and conflict, religious minorities, it appears-and I must
be forgiven if I am unduly cynical-will have to suffer the consequences of
the tyranny of religious majorities, blessed in the name of the god of their
own imagination.
