A word for minorities

Prime Minister Imran Khan has set a good precedent for speaking out on World Minorities Day, which fell on Monday, about the rights of people regardless of belief. He emphasized in particular that no one should be forced to marry against their will or be converted through coercion. To stress his point he gave example of the State of Madina and said the Holy Prophet (pbuh) did not allow forcible conversion. He asked why this is happening when all the scriptures of Islam prevent it, and urged that greater academic research be carried out to fully understand the functioning of an Islamic state and the rights it gives its people including those who are non-Muslim.

The prime minister’s words are important in our current situation. For some decades Pakistan has been facing growing criticism over the manner in which it treats its religious minorities. The country has been placed on the watchdog list of the 2018 US State Department Report on International Religious Freedoms because of the continued discrimination against minority Muslim sects and those who follow other faiths. Imran spoke of the Kartarpur corridor and the provisions being made for Sikhs to visit their holy place on the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. We must remember that last year a Sikh human rights activist was shot dead in Peshawar. During Ramazan this year, Sikhs were prevented from offering Iftari meals along roadsides, as they had done for decades, on the grounds of security fears.

The issue of forced conversions came up again earlier this year with the alleged abduction and conversion of two teenage Hindu sisters in Sindh. Despite the passage of the Hindu Marriages Act in Sindh, nothing has changed, and forced conversions continue. Christians also complain of forced conversions of girls each year and of other kinds of discrimination. Recently, an advertisement placed by a state organ mentioned the availability of jobs for sweepers, but specified these were only open to Christians. The clause was later removed after protests. There have been multiple attacks on holy places especially those belonging to Hindus, the largest non-Muslim minority in Pakistan, and we hope that when the prime minister says these must be stopped he is ready to follow up his words with action. It was only two days back that a Christian PML-N MPA in the Punjab Assembly accused a senior official of the Punjab Assembly secretariat of using derogatory language against him. Tolerance has to be created, as it has existed in Muslim societies in the past and still exists in many today. The prime minister and his cabinet as well as his provincial governments must lead the way towards this ideal.