On the occasion of Eid, former Pakistani cricketer, Danish Kaneria put a post on his Twitter account, with the caption “Jai Shree Ram” while the photo that went along with it was “Eid Mubarak”. This tweet was celebrated by Indian Hindu nationalist on Twitter with comments like “Sabse bada bhakt Pakistan me hai (Biggest devotee (Hindutva) is in Pakistan)” and “proud of you”.

Quoting this tweet, a Sindhi Pakistani girl, apologised to all Muslims and said, “On Behalf of #PakistaniHindus, particularly #Hindus of #Sindh, I my sincere apologies to all the Muslims celebrating #Eidh, this fraud and corrupt snake is not a Hindu, he is only desperately appeasing #Hindutva terrorists in #India so that they offer him some job. #EidhMubarak”

The girl, Veemal Sindhu is a content creator with over 9,000 followers and as per her bio, a human rights activist, living in Canada,

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The post Pakistani Hindu girl apologises for cricketer’s “Jai Shree Ram” post on Eid appeared first on SabrangIndia.

“Mein toot gaya hun (I am broken),” says Ajeet Kumar Nagdev, 41, speaking on phone in Urdu from Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh. His wife Rekha Kumari, 38, died on April 22, a day before the last Attari-Wagah border opening. “What can I do? The children break me, but I have to get up and keep going,” he says.

Struggling to look after them, fearful of what will happen if one of them gets sick or if something happens to him, Nagdev feels trapped. He worries about their schooling. They miss their mother. Stuck in their small, rented apartment with no regular meals, they have lost weight, says Nagdev, adding that he himself has dropped 20 kg. Their relatives in India are also migrants living in nuclear families. The pandemic had already impacted Nagdev’s livelihood. With Rekha’s death, he can’t leave the children and go out to work.

The Pakistan High Commission in Delhi is helping out financially, but Nagdev is not looking for handouts. He just wants to go back to his joint family home in Usta Mohammad, where five of his brothers also live with their families, so his children can be looked after.

The recent attack on a Hindu temple in Rahimyar Khan, Pakistan, has not curbed Nagdev’s desire to return. “There is museebat (trouble) everywhere,” he says. “We have friends and support in Pakistan. Allah, Bhagwan, will help us,” says Nagdev.

When Nagdev and Rehka left Usta Mohammad in 2010 with their two young sons, they thought they would have a better life in India. Daughter Lovina was born in India, September 2012. Some years later, Rekha’s health began to deteriorate, and they started planning to go back. Then the pandemic struck and borders were closed. When Rekha died, the family was stranded because Lovina’s name was endorsed on her mother’s Pakistani passport. (With wife dead, Pak man’s crossover with daughter in limbo, Shishir Arya, The Times of India, May 9, 2021).

A month later, Nagdev and Lovina undertook the nearly 12-hour train journey to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi for the passport. Even in a pandemic the consulate cannot process online applications – the .pk domain doesn’t work in India (Waiting for a Passport: A Pakistani Hindu Family in India Hopes to Return Home, The Wire, 24 May 2021).

The mission covered their travel expenses, exempted urgent passport fees, and issued Lovina’s passport the same day. But with the border closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the family remains stranded in India. 

There are over 600 or so Pakistanis in India waiting to go back, according to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, but their return depends on the National Command and Control Centre, Pakistan. The next border-crossing date has yet to be announced.

The Pakistan consulate in Delhi has “already taken up with Islamabad for allowing the cross over in emergency cases,” and are asking “if an exemption could be granted in his case, particularly”.

When approached, Pakistani member of parliament Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani said he would do what he could. His friend Senator Mushahid Hussain is also sympathetic and said he will help.

“The Governments of both Pakistan and India must cooperate to help alleviate the humanitarian crisis facing stranded Pakistanis in India, particularly those belonging to the Hindu community,” says Mushahid Hussain. “Bureaucratic red tape and petty political point scoring mustn’t be allowed to come in the way of the noble endeavour to reunite families on either side of the border, more so, during the pandemic, when families need to be together to comfort each other,” he adds.

No one holds out much hope that the NCOC will grant an exemption.

Moved by Nagdev’s plight, IT professional Samir Gupta in Delhi is trying to raise money for the family’s air fare.

“Humanity should take precedence over all politics and bureaucracy. People in both countries should get together and do whatever it takes to get him back – we’ll get him to fly back even if it has to be via a third country,” says Gupta, who has been associated with peace initiatives like Aman Ki Asha for a decade or so.

This is not about religion or patriotism. In this case it’s just a bereaved family wanting to go home where they will have the emotional support they need.

*Beena Sarwar blogs at Journeys to Democracy. She is Editor Aman Ki Asha and curator South Asia Peace Action Network

Content courtesy — Sapan News

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The post Undaunted by temple attack, Pakistani Hindu stuck in India, wants to go home appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In yet another attack on the sentiments of the Hindu minority community in Pakistan, a century old Hindu temple was vandalised in Rawalpindi. According to news reports, the temple was under renovation when a group of unidentified people attacked it. According to a complaint registered by the local police, the media reported that the incident occurred at Purana Qila area of Rawalpindi city on Saturday March 27. It was reported that a group of over a dozen people stormed the temple at about 7:30 P.M. The vandals damaged the main door, the staircase, and another door in the upper storey of the temple, stated the police complaint.

The Dawn newspaper reported that the security officer of the Evacuee Trust Property Board, Northern Zone, Syed Raza Abbas Zaidi, was the one who lodged an FIR at Banni police station of Rawalpindi. He stated that the construction and renovation work on the temple had been going on for the last one month. The EPTB is a statutory board that manages religious properties and shrines of Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India after the Partition.     

According to the report, the security officer said, “There were some encroachments in front of the temple which were removed on March 24.” However, it added that religious ceremonies and rituals had “not been started in the temple nor were there any idols or any other worship item” in the temple when it was attacked. His complaint  sought legal action against the people who had caused damage to the temple, stated the media report.

These encroachments were reportedly flourishing under a land “mafia” that, according to Dawn, “had occupied the surroundings of the temple over a long time by making shops and kiosks.” The local  district administration assisted by the police had recently removed all encroachments. Soon after the temple was cleared of encroachments, renovation work was started. Meanwhile, a report in the Tribune also quoted the administrator of the temple, Om Prakash, who said that Rawalpindi police personnel reached the spot as soon as they were alerted and the situation was brought under control. 

Prakash told the media that police had been deployed at his house as well as at the temple for security. However, Holi celebrations were not held at the temple this year reported, The Express Tribune, adding that according to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in Pakistan. And attacks on minorities are common in Pakistan. 

In January, the Supreme court of Pakistan had said that the attack on the Hindu temple, that was vandalised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in December 2020, had caused ‘international embarrassment’ to the country. It had directed that the authorities must recover the money required for the restoration from those who attacked the temple. The Pakistan SC had also directed the Evacuee Property Trust Board to submit details of all functional and ‘nonfunctional’ temples and gurudwaras across Pakistan.

The attack on the temple at Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Karak district last Wednesday by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party (Fazal-ur-Rehman group) had drawn condemnation from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government of India, as well as rights activists and Hindu community leaders, from India and elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, in another unrelated incident involving a Hindu temple, a complaint was filed by two members of the Hindu community in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which sought action against the security staff of an ancient Shiva temple who had allegedly stopped worshippers from performing religious rituals. According to a report in The Outlook, a complaint was filed by Sham Lal and Sajin Lal against the security staff of the temple in Gandhian area in Mansehra district of the province. They complained that “stopping worshippers from performing religious rituals in a mandir (temple) is against the law of the land”. Media reports stated that Senator Gurdeep Singh of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, member of provisional assembly Ravi Kumar and SHO of Baffa Police Station have also been made party in the complaint. The complainant sought the intervention of Deputy Inspector General of Police, Hazara division to resolve the issue and let worshippers carry out religious rituals in the temple.

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MHA denies permission to 600 Sikh pilgrims planning to visit Pakistan

Temple attack, an international embarrassment to country: Pak SC 

Should India applaud Pak’s move to rebuild one Hindu temple demolished by mobs?

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The Supreme court of Pakistan has ruled that the reconstruction of the century-old Hindu temple, that was vandalised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week, be done soon. The court said that the authorities must recover the money required for the restoration from those who attacked the temple. It observed that this the attack on a Hindu place of worship had caused ‘international embarrassment’ to the country.

The Pakistan Supreme Court’s order was passed on Tuesday, and has made it to international news, as it is now being read as one of the strongest pro-minority statements in the Islamic country. Pakistan’s apex court had asked the local authorities to appear before it on January 5. 

According to a news report in The Telegraph, the Pakistan SC went a step further and also directed the Evacuee Property Trust Board (EPTB) to submit details of all functional and ‘nonfunctional’ temples and gurudwaras across Pakistan. The EPTB is a statutory board that manages religious properties and shrines of Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India following the Partition, recalled the report.

Shoaib Suddle, the head of a commission on minorities’ rights, is reported to have told the court that the provincial EPTB “did not protect the shrine”. Inspector-general of police Sanaullah Abbasi told the court that 109 people had been arrested. So far, and added that 92 police officers, including the superintendent of police and the deputy superintendent of police, had been suspended. However, Chief Justice Ahmed said that “suspension was not enough”, stated the news report. 

On Tuesday, the bench headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed ordered the EPTB to start the reconstruction, reported TT. The Pakistan SC has also directed the EPTB to “clear encroachments from temples across the country and take action against officials involved in the encroachments”.

The attack on the temple at Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Karak district last Wednesday by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party (Fazal-ur-Rehman group) had drawn condemnation from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Government of India, as well as rights activists and Hindu community leaders, from India and elsewhere. 

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The post Temple attack, an international embarrassment to country: Pak SC  appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A woman in Guwahati walks past a graffiti opposing the Citizenship Amendment Bill on December 9, 2019 Image Courtesy: PTI

While three Hindu lawmakers in Pakistan have denounced the Modi regime’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act, stating clearly that the Indian government should not “drag” the Hindu minorities across the border into the controversy for its political advantage, the Christian community seemed also clear about their position on CAB/CAA.

Speaking to the Indian media, Lal Chand Malhi, member of national assembly from Pakistan’s serving party Tehreek-e-Insaf, said: “It is unfortunate to see how blatantly India’s home minister

Amit Shah is projecting CAB/CAA as the only lifeline for minorities in Pakistan,  Bangladesh and Afghanistan We are a proud minority in Pakistan contributing to every other community to make our country better in terms of everything.”

Malhi is one of the minority leaders in Pakistan who have been vocal against evils like forced conversions. To a query on recent cases of atrocities on Hindus in Pakistan, he said: “Every country has a set of problems. Muslims in India, for instance, have been facing human rights issues in Kashmir and other places. Similarly, some fringe elements in Pakistan have issues with Hindus. In the age of communication, nothing can be hidden from the public view. The human rights violations by any country cannot be kept hidden whether it is happening in Pakistan, India or the US.”

Sachanand Lakhwani, member of the provincial assembly of Sindh, also said that CAB/CAA is no longer India’s internal matter. “Since they (Indian government) have involved the minorities of three countries, they have involved three sovereign republics. The least I can say is that by dragging Pakistan’s Hindus into the issue, India has interfered in our internal matters,” he said.

Lakhwani, who passed out from Ajmer’s Mayo College, questioned Shah’s claim that Hindu population has declined drastically in Pakistan over the years. “The claim being made is that the Hindu population of Pakistan has declined from 20 odd per cent in the 1950 census to 2 per cent at present. The fact is that of the 20 per cent, as many as 17.5 per cent had lived in former east Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and only 2.5 per cent lived in west Pakistan (present day Pakistan). The population percentage of Hindus is still around the same,” he said.

Reacting as sharply on these developments in India, a third lawmaker, Kesoo Mal Kheeal Das, MNA (MP) from Jamshroo in Sind, termed the Bill as distasteful and a wrong precedent for minority groups in every country. “Hindus living in Pakistan trace their genealogy to the oldest civilisation of Mohenjo-daro. This land is a part of our collective history and has been ours for the last 5,000 years. No Hindu would like to leave Pakistan as the situation here is improving,” said Das, who is the MNA from PML-N.

Meanwhile, Peter Jacob, a prominent member of Christian community and a vocal voice for minority rights in Pakistan criticized CAB, calling it a deliberate religious discrimination.“This bill is such a detrimental act that there will be psychological repercussions, there will be political repercussions and of course the relationships between the two countries will be affected”, he said.

“To say the least, I am devastated by the actions that the government of India has taken. It will not only have affects in India but also in Pakistan because it is the biggest disservice to the Hindu community in Pakistan. They would like to be seen as a patriotic Pakistanis. But this act of India will somehow create a friction on the basis of religion. Whereas, it is detrimental to the policies, harmony and social cohesion in India in the outset”, he added.

Punjab’s Provincial Minister for Minority Rights Ejaz Alam Augustine had also criticised CAB/CAA and called the amendment, India’s agenda detrimental against Muslim minorities.

 “India is trying to show that it wants to give rights to minorities, but the fact is that it is committing serious human rights violations against 80 lac Kashmiris. India’s real face stands exposed in front of the world today”, said Augustine.

“It is also a fact that the highest number of churches burnt and priests killed in the world has been in India. And even after doing all these brutalities, if India thinks that by introducing this amendment bill, its minorities are going to be happy, then I would say that India is badly mistaken”, he added.

Pakistan has internationally raised serious concerns over the controversial bill, stating that it is a dangerous expose of the ideology behind Narendra Modi’s supreme Hindutvamind-set.

Prime Minister Imran Khan said “India is working towards making a Muslim majority state into minority in Jammu and Kashmir (JK) by bringing in Hindu people and settling them in the valley”.

The post Pakistan’s Minorities, Hindus, Sikhs & Christians react to India’s CAA/CAB appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It was recently reported that an autopsy report confirmed that a Pakistani Hindu medical student who was found dead in her hostel room in Larkana in September this year, was raped before being murdered. The student was found hanging from a ceiling fan and her brother had insisted that she was murdered as she was neither depressed and there were no signs that she would kill herself. After massive province wide protests, the Sindh government was compelled to order a judicial inquiry and this finding that she was raped is a crucial finding of the on-going inquiry which is supervised by the Larkana District and Sessions Judgeon the directives of the Sindh High Court.

Hindus in Pakistan, the ignored minority

The less discussed topic is of Hindus in Pakistan. The media has for some reason shied away from highlighting crimes against Hindus in Pakistan who are a small minority, and reportedly, nearly 82 per cent of them are lower castefarm labourers. Although such crimes are reported, they do not come to the fore and catch people’s attention.While the exact number has not been ascertained by either the Pakistan government or any other independent study, it is estimated that Hindus comprise of 2% (around 3 million people) of Pakistan’s population. However, in 2019 the All Pakistan Hindu Panchayat (APHP) launched a campaign to collect data to ascertain the number of Hindus in Pakistan whereby it asked Panchayats to gather such data and send it to APHP. Reportedly, Hindus are mainly concentrated in Sindh province where they form nearly 8% of the population.There were also reports that some Hindu families in Pakistan were hiding their identities due to safety concerns and changed their names to “non-hindu” names.

It was reported in 2015 that as per the Indian government, more than 1,400 Pakistanis were given Indian citizenship since 2011 and majority of them were Hindus. The fateful event of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992 led to Pakistani Hindus seeking refuge in India fearing threat tot heir lives.  That event, perhaps for the first time after Partition, triggered extreme and massive anti-India and anti-Hindu sentiments in Pakistan. Enraged Muslim fundamentalists demolished a large number of Hindu and other non-Hindu shrines and relics. One example is that of a historical Jain Mandir near the famous Anarkali Bazar of Lahore’s old city.

“Hindus in Pakistan particularly felt vulnerable after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. We felt very insecure as there was a spate of attacks on our religious places,” says Sardari Lal, one of the many people who moved to India  with his family, after the Babri Masjid demolition. Pakistani Hindus have often complained of destruction of their religious places, forced conversions and abduction of girls for forced betrothal to Muslim men.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani is a high-profile leader of the Hindus of Pakistan and is a member of the National Assembly on a seat reserved for the minorities. He claims that Hindus were being subjected to forced conversion in Sindh where Hindus were the second largest minority and also claimed that Because of the state’s neglect, annually 5,000 Hindus are forced to migrate to India.

Reports of forced conversions

There are also reports of rampant conversions similar to the “love jihad” phenomenon in India. However, in Pakistan it seems that the fears are valid. AnOutlookmagazine report of 2006, had reported of many cases of forced conversions of not only Hindu girls but also young boys. In this report, the Human rights Commission of Pakistan had told the reporter that between January 2000 and December 2005 there were 50 reported cases of conversion of Hindu girls to Islam and as per their investigations, most cases were of abduction and forced conversion.

India has also officially raised concerns against such forced conversions and has asked Pakistan government to take stringent and immediate action to tackle this menace. Early this year, Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan had ordered a probe into reports of abduction, forced conversion and underage marriages in Pakistan after two such cases were reported then.

According to Aurat Foundation, around 1,000 women and young girls from religious minorities in Pakistan are forced to convert to the religion of the majority and marry their kidnappers every year. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan believes that more than 20 Hindu girls are kidnapped every month. In October, the Pakistan People’s Party rejected a proposed bill in Sindh Assembly against forced conversions, clearly indicating that Pakistan’s right wing does not deem their minorities problems as social issues at all and has no intention to correct the social evil.

A prima facie look at news reports on crimes against Hindus in Pakistan indicate that one of the major concerns of the Hindu minority in Pakistan is abductions and forced conversions of Hindu girls, sometimes even minor girls and boys. While the Pakistan government has failed to take decisive measures against this social evil, the decreasing population of Hindus in Pakistan, continue to live in country where they are regarded as “napak” or impure and reluctantly exercise their freedom of religion.One can draw parallels between this and similar rhetoric back home where Muslims (who are a more sizeable minority compared to Hindus in Pakistan) are, in recent times, being targeted sometimesbeing lynched under the guise of cow vigilantism and or by having a mandate of refusing to give citizenship to immigrant Muslims under Citizenship Amendment Bill.

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The post The lives of Pakistani Hindus, a shrinking minority appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In the letter, Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Patron-in-chief of Pakistan Hindu Council, says, “I am deeply shocked by the news reports in which you tried to link terrorism with Islam, and the purpose of writing this letter is to record my protest in this regard.” He further says, “It is worth to note that all religions, either Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism or any other, forbid killing of innocent people, and urge strict punishment against culprits.”

Vankwanii reminds Trump of the great responsibility that comes with great power that his position brings saying, “Being the country head of only Super Power, heavy responsibilities lie on your shoulders to resolve conflicts for the sake of world peace.”

“It is therefore my sincere request to kindly take your words back and play your neutral role to resolve all worldly conflicts peacefully without any bias or prejudice.  Otherwise I am afraid that your statement would actually empower some extremist elements to carry on their agenda of hatred and violence against innocent people in the name of religion,” Dr Ramesh Vankwani concluded.

The entire letter may be read here:

The post Pakistani Hindu group condemns Trump’s statement linking terrorism to Islam appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Mahesh Kumar Malani                                   Image: TOI

Sindh, Pakistan: With colourful headgear announcing their identity, three members of the Hindu community in Pakistan were elected for the general seats, one in the National assembly and two in the Sindh Provincial Assembly, in the recently concluded and controversial Pakistan general elections. It is the first time in the country’s history that this has ever happened. What was more surprising is that they won in Muslim majority areas.
 
Mahesh Kumar Malani won a National Assembly seat from Tharparkar (NA-222) while Hari Ram Kishwari Lal and Jamshoro’s Giyanoo Mal alias Giyan Chand Essrani were elected from the provincial assembly seats PS-147 and PS-81, respectively, The Daily Times reported. All three were backed by PPP (Pakistan People’s Party) a left wing, socialist-progressive political party led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of Benazir Bhutto, former PM of Pakistan.
 
Mahesh Malani, the Pakistani Hindu Rajasthani Pushkarna Brahmin politician, who has been elected to the National Assembly, had entered the Sindh Assembly in the 2013 elections on a general seat and was the first non-Muslim to do so. “He had served as the chairperson of the Sindh Assembly’s Standing Committee on Food, apart from being members of various standing committees during the last government’s tenure,” reported Hindustan Times.
 
The decision to allow Non-Muslims to contest polls was brought in only 16 years ago. In 2002, the then president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf made amendments in the Constitution which gave non-Muslims the right to vote and contest on general seats of parliament and provincial assemblies.
 
The Hindu population makes up 49 per cent of the total population of Thar desert. “Kirshwari Lal, who is considered a close friend of former president and PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, won his seat from Mirpurkhas district, which has total population of around 15 lakh out of which 23 per cent are Hindus. Essrani belongs to Thano Bola Khan of Sindh’s Kohistan region in Jamshoro district, which has a substantial Hindu population,” the Daily Times news reported.
 
“Malani perceived his historic triumph not as a glimmer in the darkness of religious extremism that shrouds Pakistan, but as a shining symbol of his country’s ethos. “I want to tell the international media that my victory shows that there is inter-faith harmony and humanity in Pakistan,” Malani said in a report by Scroll.
 
Hindus form the largest minority community in Pakistan and are mostly concentrated in the Sindh province.
 
Ahead of the general elections, it was reported that the non-Muslims voters grew by 30 per cent in the last five years. “The number of non-Muslim voters in Pakistan has climbed to 3.63 million in 2018 with the Hindus at 1.77 million maintaining their majority among the religious minority electorate, according to a new voters’ list prepared by authorities ahead of the general elections,” reported Firstpost.
 
“Ten seats are reserved for minorities in the National Assembly, which are allotted to parties on the basis of the number of seats they have in the parliament. Women and non-Muslims in Pakistan get two opportunities to become a lawmaker: first by contesting elections on 272 general seats from anywhere and after being nominated from a party having representation in the National Assembly. In March this year, PPP’s Krishna Kumari from Tharparkar became the first Hindu woman to be elected to the Senate. She was elected to a reserved seat for women from Sindh,” reported HT.
 
Cricketer turned politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) bagged 123 seats and its ally Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid got seven.
 
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) agreed to form a ‘solid’ alliance in the Parliament and the Provincial Assemblies to become a legitimate Opposition to Khan’s PTI.
 
Many political outfits and organisation based in Pakistan alleged that the military rigged the elections and made Imran Khan’s political outfit Pakistan Pakistan-Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) the winner using questionable means.

Read Also: https://sabrangindia.in/article/defining-election-pakistan
https://sabrangindia.in/article/pakistan-all-prime-ministers-women
https://sabrangindia.in/article/why-are-muslim-leaders-and-clerics-so-afraid-feminism-and-critical-west

The post Historic win for three Hindu candidates in Pakistan elections appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The nativity scene, organised and prepared by Christians in Peshawar just before Christmas. A.Khan, Author provided

I met Naz, in her 40s, and a nursing teacher with a Masters degree in Public Health, at the All Saints Church in the heart of Peshawar’s old city. She sounded optimistic despite the last days of 2016 bringing more turmoil in Pakistan for Christians.

Christmas messages were received with death threats and a Christian man was arrested on December 30 for allegedly desecrating the Koran. He currently faces the death penalty.

I could feel this tense atmosphere as I approached the All Saints Church on Christmas Day. The 19th-century building of Islamic Saracenic style reflecting in the brilliantly sunny day outside.

The dome of Indo-Saracenic style All Saints Church, Peshawar. A.Khan, Author provided

As I entered the the church’s hall, the faithful were taking seats in anticipation of the Christmas mass. I had to come in through heavy security. The street where the church stands was blocked at both ends by sand barriers and guarded by security personal. On 22 September 2013, a twin suicide bomb attack during a Sunday mass at the church killed 127 people.

I asked Naz how the Christmas of her childhood differed from now. She recounted memories of her childhood and her sister’s: the letter to Santa, her mother and father who used to make their life loving and rich, and the moral values of love and peace Christmas used to bring. Naz lost her mother in the 2013 bombing.

A little later, as I sat in the church, I met Shafi Maseeh, 75, who also lost his son in the same terror attack. He had little to say. Shafi is the real prototype of a Christian in Pakistan. A janitor by trade, he had no good memories to share of anything.

Most Christians I talked to felt a loss of identity, isolation and a deep sense of alienation. There was no nostalgia for the past, nor any enthusiasm for the present.

Pakistan is roughly 1.6% Christian. A.Khan, Author provided

In the All Saints Church, I was not alone at the Christmas ceremony. The local media had come too. Father Patrick Naeem was happy to see them and thanked the government, the media and the chief of the Pakistani army, while also asking journalists to respect the parishioners as they took photos of the ceremony.

One reporter asked me what I was doing there. When I told her I was going to do a story on Christmas and would like to interview her too she angrily replied, “I am not a Christian, do I look like one?” I was shocked for a moment. “There is nothing wrong with being a Christian,” I said.

Another reporter warned me as I was leaving the place: “Be careful, liberals are on the hitlist.” I just kept quiet.
 

Pakistan’s Christian minority

There is no definitive figure, but Christians make up roughly 1.6% of the population of Pakistan, as many as Hindus, according to the latest official statistics.

Christians mostly converted from Hinduism to escape the caste-dominated Indian society before the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. But changing religion didn’t help: the roots of discrimination based on caste run deep in both Indian and Pakistani society.

The Christmas ceremony is an event on its own as media gathered to film. A. Khan

The plight of Christians has persisted for decades, but there has also been a rise of hatred against Christians since the late 1980s, when the dictator Zia ul Haq introduced Pakistan’s blasphemy law, particularly used to persecute Christians.

A double oppression

Pakistani society is still marred by racism and questions of caste, even among Muslims, despite the Qur’an setting out radical equality for all.

Across South Asia, Muslims remain divided up by various hierarchical systems. This long trail of caste-related injustice goes back to the beginnings of subcontinental societies and seems impervious to the intrusion of other sources of identity such as the nation state or religion.

So the Christian community reels under a double oppression of racism, based on the low castes many Christians come from, and religious intolerance towards their belief system.

But even among minorities, Christians are particularly singled out, for a number of reasons. They are visible: they live mostly in urban areas and are often employed in low-wage jobs. They are also the poorest of the community.

In December 2015, the Capital Development Authority of Islamabad submitted a report suggesting that the Christian “ugly slums” of the capital be destroyed to keep the city clean. The CDA, in this unprecedentedly stupid move (“their Trump Moment” as the English daily Dawn put it), argued that the campaign of destruction would preserve Islamabad’s aesthetics and maintain its Muslim-majority demographic balance.

The proposal was rightly contested by political parties, activists, and NGOs and thwarted by the Supreme Court, but it was a worrying sign of just how poorly Christians are thought of by the Pakistani elite.

The street outside All Saints Church. Poor Christians live in this quarter of the city A.Khan, Author provided

Adding insult to injury, Christians in Pakistan are also seen as representatives of the US and other Western powers who are often held to be responsible for the plight of Muslims around the globe.
 

Christianity in politics

The plight of Christians is linked to the political foundation of Pakistan and the much criticised Two Nation Theory which became the basis of Partition in 1947. Partition aimed to create a state for Hindus (India) and one for Muslims (Pakistan).

Christians are historically considered to have positively contributed to Pakistani statehood, thus helping the development of the Pakistani society, but today they, along with other non-Muslims, are forbidden from holding high office.
The Christian vote in Pakistan is around 1.3 million, second to the Hindu vote, which is around 1.5 million. While the Hindu vote is mostly concentrated in the Sindh and Punjab regions, Christian voters are more scattered. Since the minority vote is restricted to a few electorates, political parties are not generally interested in serving them, though there is a lot of lip service to minority issues.

Minority representatives protest the problem of segregation from mainstream politics. There is no doubt that the electoral system adds to the problems of already frustrated minority communities in Pakistan. Minorities don’t have the right to place their own candidates in elections. They can vote for any Muslim candidate in their constituency from within the general seats, and they also have the right to vote for a minority candidate, but they don’t have the right to choose these. They are instead given minority seats for which tickets are allotted by mainstream political parties.
 

Fractured communities

While talking to various Christians, I observed very little sense of community. All identity revolves around the personal and in Pakistan, that is steeped into the psychology of status.

Christians in Pakistan are faced with both victim-blaming from without and the self-loathing it generates within the individual.

Continuous repression as a community within social and political life in Pakistan has led some to blame themselves for their problems. Self-incrimination, a shallow sense of belonging to the mainstream and the loss of the social self were often apparent in my conversations for this article.

“Our people are not serious about their studies; they don’t save money,” a priest who works as a waiter at my university’s student accommodation told me. “I do save, though I am usually in debt, while keeping my needs to the minimum.” When I asked if it is because of the loss of hope that some Christians struggle in school and work, he replied, “No, I have made it from a janitor to a waiter. My boys are going to school. Isn’t it an environment conducive to success?”

An old man prays at the All Saints Church, December 25. A.Khan, Author provided
 

Living with contradiction

Christians are often the recipient of local charities. “Yes, we like them, because they grew up with us,” a high-level political activist in Peshawar told me. “They clean our homes and we give them our used clothes, and also food. They are good people. We also offer them gifts on Christmas. We just did this year, too.” The activist was also a trader in the market in front of the All Saints Church.

Christians often feel the same way. “The political parties don’t care for us,” the priest at Peshawar University said. “Some politicians do, though. They offer us gifts on Christmas. I also got my package. They change the carpets of our church every now and then. This is good.”
In the present environment of hopelessness and fear, the only option left for Christians is to learn to live with Pakistan’s deep contradictions – discrimination from the state, but charity from politicians.

Centuries of continuous repression have left many without any sense of identity within their home country. Many Christians here just want to breathe – being able to truly live is a distant dream.

Altaf Khan is Professor, University of Peshawar

Courtesy: The Conversation

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