It seems the ongoing manifested discrimination against ethnic minorities has unconstitutionally become constitutional in the country as time and again, ethnic minorities’ issues of barefaced social injustices, bigotry, and tyranny are highlighted in the media, but customarily, heedless governments never ever take notice of the head-down minorities and their ever-increasing malaise. Thus the culture of dogmatism is overshadowing the societal values of equality, tolerance, and justice. A few months ago, a discriminatory advertisement in KP where, Christians, Shias, Balmeeks, and Sikhs were singled out for cleaner’s job sparked criticism in the country, and a UK parliamentarian Jim Shannon wrote a letter to the Pakistani Premier to address the concerns of minorities. In September, the Punjab government’s advertisement aroused anger in the Christian community when the Lahore Waste Management Company advertised to keep the city clean as sanitary workers were on their religious festival during 9th and 10th of September, therefore, it was implied that as sanitary workers were Christians and during their absence, city would suffer. There was an outcry on the social media against the advertisement of LWMC. Even Senator Kamran Michael had to intervene and promised to hold an inquiry, however, the Christian minority knows the outcome of the effort of the Christian parliamentarian. Recently, the Police department of the Sindh government released almost similar advertisements to recruit sanitary workers with a clear restriction that jobs were ‘for non-Muslims only’. Recently, the Police Department of the Sindh government released advertisements to recruit sanitary workers with a clear restriction that jobs were ‘for non-Muslims only’ With the blessings of media and social media at least the poor communities have their outlet of expression, perhaps they believe, one day their little cry will become a ‘roar’. Protesting against inequalities is minorities’ right but there are certain duties, and responsibilities which lie on their shoulders too. Demanding rights must continue, but parallel to this we must fulfill our duties as well. For the last seventy years, minorities in Pakistan are suffering, protesting against the social hatred, discrimination and persecution but their grievances were never ever entertained. Is it not wise to change the direction of the struggle? Even after seventy years, minorities are unable to exercise their freedom of faith and secure equal rights, therefore, this is a time to revisit their traditional modus operandi and to adopt a system of self-accountability. Ethnic minorities, especially the Christian community takes pride in producing the country’s leadership through their educational institutions. With such an amazing potential why have the minorities reached this point of social and political devastation? There is a strong countrywide network of educational institutions managed by the Christian minority where the country’s elite is being catered to its educational needs. However, for the last seventy years, these pompous institutions could not teach there, a few million offspring of poor parents who in the end destined to clean the roads and serve as sanitary workers. There are a number of internationally sponsored national minorities’ Non-Government Organisations but they have not been able to do much to save the communities. The Church leadership with its unlimited wealth could not establish a University for the children of struggling minorities. There are sections in the Christian minority who could establish vocational institutions for those who missed their out on schooling because of poverty but could be trained as carpenters, tailors, welders, motor mechanics, plumbers and electricians. Parents are responsible too, those who are working as sanitary workers must realise that to enable their children to get a good education. Keeping in view the challenges they face as sanitary workers must not push their children. There are several International Organisation concerned about the ordeal of marginalised sections of ethnic minorities and are bound to send millions of dollars every year to their local counterparts but hardly any development is noticed. It is obvious that ethnic minorities have lost their vision and people perish when they lose vision. Most of the Christian population is living in Punjab. With the Church and the Para-Church’s infrastructure, developing a few million people is feasible. Firstly, at the local level in different areas of the province, the Church and its subsidiary organisations could take a step for the development of the community. A marathon enrolment of minority children in schools will make a clear difference within years. Young adults could be encouraged to acquire vocational training. Women empowerment programmes should be started at local Church level. The potential and prospective individuals should be encouraged for higher education. Likewise, in the province of Sindh where the Hindu community is concentrated, The National Hindu Council should take practical steps towards the development of the despairing Hindu Community. This is shocking to express that among minority representatives in the National as well as the Provincial assembly of Sindh, Hindu members are the biggest in number but their community suffers the most in Sindh. Their leaders keep themselves busy in defending the corruption of their master political parties and their communities have become the least concerned population. On the whole, their silence on the issues that have put their communities in a predicament, are unable to recognise the difficulties poor minorities are facing in the country. The country’s reports on minorities are mostly dependent on the reports presented by the minority members. Woefully, their reports are unrealistic but on the basis of those reports, the national narrative on the situation of minorities in the country is presented to the outer world, which is rejected immediately. Undoubtedly, discriminatory legislations have been used against minorities which can be withstood only by counter legislations. Apparently, this all seems a dream, however, if minorities fulfill their duties by equipping their children with good education and vocational education, the social issues related to poverty and status could be addressed. Literate individuals will never engage themselves as sanitary workers and ultimately governmental institutions will have to find other way outs for meeting their needs. In many developing countries of the world, manual sanitary workmanship has been exhausted. Human resources have been replaced by superflux machines. Being patriotic citizens of the state, minorities instead of complaining must work hard to get rid of this social hatred. The time will come when these embarrassing advertisements, ‘For non-Muslims only’ will fizzle out gradually. The writer can be reached at kaleem.dean@mail.com Published in Daily Times, October 11th 2017.