Daily Times

The delay in taking up of the draft bill by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony for the establishment of the Minorities’ Rights Commission should be addressed immediately, as now, more than ever, is the time for Pakistan to make its minorities feel safe. Reportedly, there has been an increase in the migration of the countries’ already minuscule Hindu population to India. And in order to score propaganda points against Pakistan, the Indian government even announced in April of this year that it would make it easier for Pakistani Hindus living in India to acquire Indian citizenship. This takes even more significance in the present virulent environment between Pakistan and India, and hence the formation of the Minorities Rights Commission would send a positive signal to the international community that Pakistan is committed to improving the plight of its minorities. This would even help in inching Pakistan towards the moral high ground with which it can successfully highlight Indian atrocities in occupied-Jammu and Kashmir.

In addition to realpolitik, it is also a moral duty of the Pakistan government to protect its minorities. How a country that was established because of the fear that Muslims’ minority status in Indian would disadvantage them turned into a country in which its minorities do not feel safe is both an ironic and an extremely unfortunate commentary on the bigotry that has taken root in Pakistan. A puritanical dialectic that started from separation from Hindus turned inwards and started to increasingly consume itself. This is not to say that Pakistan was established on a puritanical basis, as the case which the founder of Pakistan Mohamed Ali Jinnah fought was a political one, which was later appropriated by certain players to advance a myopic and parochial worldview.

All of this has given the religious right a great deal of space to become the guardians of the islamic character of the Pakistani constitution. Its ability to effectively organise itself gives great deal of leverage to pressurise the government into meeting its anachronistic demands. And the religious right has never failed to show its reactionary response to any progressive measure that the state of Pakistan has taken. A recent example of this is its virulent opposition by the religious right against the bill passed by the Sindh Assembly against forced conversion. On what basis the religious right is opposing as basic a measure as protection from forced conversion is baffling.

Hence, the formation of a Minorities’ Rights Commission would be a good start to enact policies for the protection of minorities from this extremely vocal and well-organised religious right. When strong forces try to systematically disadvantage a particular group, positive discrimination becomes necessary and this is what the any future Minorities’ Rights Commission should focus on. Minorities in Pakistan need to be strengthened so that they can live their lives without fear. Their status is in fact a metric for the success of the state of Pakistan, and that metric is in dire need of improvement. Meanwhile, it is the minorities that are suffering, and Pakistan would be evading its responsibility to its citizens by remaining apathetic towards that suffering. Justice and inclusivity are the pillars on which successful states are built upon and it is time for Pakistan to strengthen those pillars. *