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Friday March 29, 2024

Living in fear

By Kamila Hyat
November 24, 2018

There are pockets of our population across Pakistan who never gain the privilege of living a full life with opportunities open to them or hope for their future. Almost all ethnic and religious minorities suffer from this phenomenon. Even seven decades after the creation of Pakistan, we have been unable to offer them an environment in which they can feel safe or reach their full potential as human beings.

Most of us know about the plight of Pakistan’s religious minorities. It would be difficult not to be aware of this with Aasia Bibi’s case hitting the headlines once more. Christians generally remain socially and economically deprived and, like many other communities, also live in a constant state of fear. Attacks on their houses, bombings, and the constant threat of a blasphemy charge are factors that contribute to this fear.

Over the last two decades or so, more and more Christians have decided to give their children names that could pass off as Muslim ones. The idea is to hide their identity. Even in elite schools, Christian children have faced discrimination, abuse and bullying, not only from their peers but also from their teachers. The same is true for Hindus, with groups that have lived peacefully with Muslims for generations in Sindh now coming under intense pressure.

The fate of the Kalash people, a group especially despised by religious extremists because of their pagan beliefs, has been written about countless times. Today, only around 6,000 Kalash people inhabit the valleys of Chitral. The figure once stood 20,000 or more. They are targets from groups within Pakistan, such as preachers who visit the small, peaceful settlements each year, and from those in Afghanistan, where hostile attacks are sometimes carried out. As a consequence, foreigners living among the Kalash and attempting to protect their heritage have largely been driven out of the region. It is uncertain how long efforts to preserve their culture, such as the setting up of a museum of Kalash heritage, can last.

However, there are also some lesser known discriminatory acts against the citizens of Pakistan who do not belong to the right ethnic or religious group. The 900,000 or so Hazaras who live in Pakistan, most of them in Quetta, have essentially been trapped within their own homes. Areas such as Hazara Town in the provincial capital of Balochistan, are heavily barricaded to prevent outsiders from entering and, perhaps, launching the kind of attacks that have killed over 1,000 Hazaras since 2001. Other members of the community have died while attempting to flee the country through illegal human smuggling vessels.

Members of the Hazara community accept that fear is part of their lives. They can never escape the shadow that looms large. Some have spoken out bravely. There have been protests and attempts by young Hazaras to draw attention to the plight of a highly-educated and articulate community that excels in many areas of life, including the education sector, sports, and other spheres.

As they are pushed away from powerful posts that they should gain on merit, the Hazaras – who are easily identifiable on the basis of their physical features and targeted because of their beliefs and ethnicity – are less able to protect themselves.

Ironically, a large number of Hazaras first arrived in Pakistan during the 1800s from Afghanistan to escape discrimination in the country. They have run into an equally difficult situation in the homeland that they sought refuge in. Elements of racism against the Hazara community have been reported in Quetta, even though the community has always been an important segment of this diverse city that was once known brought people of all races and ethnicities together. The Quetta of the past has disappeared, with the Taliban using groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to decimate them.

Religion is, therefore, not the only factor driving persecution. The Sheedis – descendents of East Africans who came to Pakistan during the time of Muhammad bin Qasim and then continued to arrive as merchants, sailors and slaves – have still not been integrated into society. Their African descent becomes quite apparent and they are often relegated to perform menial jobs as domestic workers and labourers. They continue living a unique, isolated existence and even celebrate festivals that the rest of us know little about.

The Sheedi Mela, a festival that is held annually at Sindh’s Manghopir Lake despite being stopped for seven years till 2017 due to threats from extremists, bears extraordinary myths, some of which are rooted in African folklore. The Sheedis traditionally believe that the spirit of sufis is embedded in the giant crocodiles that live within Manghopir Lake. The festival draws enormous anthropological interest, even though it has lost much of its vigour due to the constant security threats.

Sheedis also retain other rituals of their own. Based in Sindh – especially in Karachi’s Lyari neighbourhood – and in the Makran area of Balochistan, they have produced enormous talent in various fields, such as running and boxing. While a few words of Swahili – the language that the Sheedis believe was their native tongue – are still retained and older members of the community are more fluent in Swahili, most of the younger generation speak either Sindhi or Balochi. The ostracism that they face on the basis of their skin colour is hardly surprising in Pakistan, a country where fair skin is revered. But it is sad that there has been little integration and minimal understanding of a culture that we should be protecting and embracing as part of a jigsaw piece that forms a diverse hole.

There are many other groups that fall within the same category. There is little data on the number of Kihal people in Pakistan. The Kihals are basically a riverine-based group that depend on River Indus for their livelihood and claim that lands lying alongside the river belong to them. The forced development of these areas has essentially taken away land from them and also damaged their means of livelihood, which is based on fishing.

The Kihals are also fiercely discriminated against because, like the Sheedis, they call themselves Muslims. Orthodox Muslims argue that they cannot be classified as Muslims because they eat the forbidden meat of turtles and reptiles. Kihal children are often kept out of schools and, as with similar subgroups, little effort has been made to draw them into the mainstream and examine their claims to land legally and offer them a place within a country that should be shared by all its citizens.

The fact, of course, is that it is not shared. Pakistan has essentially been seized by the majority and other groups have been pushed away on the basis of their beliefs, race and religion. There have been some attempts to bring back better times when all groups celebrated festivals such as Eid, Diwali or Christmas together. But it is difficult to see this happening in a nation where fear sets in quickly, such as when mobs went on a rampage in following Aasia Bibi’s acquittal, and where incidents of blatant and illegal discrimination have haunted every minority group in the country, leaving many in doubt about their future.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com