Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 1: The Kashmir Policy and Strategy Group (KPSG), Chairman, Ashok Bhan today said that anti-minorities bias is inherent in the Constitution of Pakistan.
Addressing a webinar of international human rights activists, organised by KPSG, Bhan said that Pakistan’s minorities are in peril. He said the hift from ‘Jinnahist to Jihadist’ ideology in Pakistan has forced the religious and other minorities to live the lives as the most threatened and oppressed. He said anti-minority bias is inherent in Pakistan’s Constitution, with successive Governments adopting discriminatory laws against the minorities.
He said the killing of 11 coal miners belonging to the minority Hazara community in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in January 2021, once again highlighted the predicament and vulnerability of minorities to brutal cleansing in Pakistan.
Bhan said the rights struggle and demands for greater autonomy by the major ethnic groups such as Pushtuns, Balochs and Sindhis have, over the years, provoked severe government repression. At the same time, non-Muslim minorities have continued to be the victims of particularly harsh religious laws.
Manzoor Ahmad Shah, a human rights lawyer from Britain said at the time of its creating as a separate nation, Pakistan was envisioned as a progressive, democratic and tolerant society, which, while retaining a Muslim majority, would give equal rights to its non-Muslim citizens. Without calling it a secular state, its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his modernist Muslim colleagues believed that Pakistan would improve its people’s socio-economic conditions and that people of all faiths and practices would continue to live as equal citizens. But Pakistan has failed to live up to its democratic and tolerant commitments in dealing with the minorities.
Barrister Hamid Bashani, a native and a geo-political analyst said in 1970s, several elements culminated to contribute to a rise in violent attacks against minority groups in Pakistan; a scramble for power by Pakistan’s political parties led to even more instrumentalisation of religious divisions in society; the institutionalisation of discrimination of minorities into legislation by the Islamist governments who came to power and the militarization of the region, with a proliferation of arms and trained fighters turning to violence to settle conflicts.
According to the 2017 Census, Muslims make up 96.2 per cent of Pakistan’s population. Religious minorities make up only about 4 per cent of Pakistan’s total population. They are Hindus 1.6 per cent, Christians 1.59 per cent, Scheduled Castes 0.25 per cent, Ahmadis 0.22 per cent, and other minorities 0.07 per cent. Most Christians live in Punjab, while Hindus and Scheduled Castes are overwhelmingly located in Sindh. Ahmadis are evenly spread throughout the country, with some concentration in Islamabad.
Bashani said according to the HR Commission of Pakistan, around 1,000 young Hindu and Christian women are forced to change their religion each year. According to one statistic provided by a local Hindu activist, 50 Hindu girls have been forcibly converted to Islam in Sindh province alone since early 2019.
The youth leader from Kashmir Junaid Mir said Pakistan’s insecure and non-representative ruling elite, while seeking legitimacy, has used Islamic penal codes to establish discretionary punishments. He said during the Covid-19 pandemic, there were reports that rations were denied to Hindu and Christian minorities in the coastal areas of Karachi. Agencies involved in relief work said that the aid was reserved for Muslims only. Hindus are treated as second class citizens and systematically discriminated against in every sphere of life.
Mir further said blasphemy law is commonly used as a tool of harassment and persecution against non-Muslims. The state of Pakistan as a law enforcer has abused the law against minorities time and again. There is widespread support for blasphemy laws in Pakistan. Those who speak against such laws are also targeted.
In his closing remarks Chairman KPSG said there was a unanimous view of speakers that it is high time for the global community to urge Pakistan to protect the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and to protect religious minorities from all forms of violence and discrimination.
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