Daily Times

Despite having numerous unsettled questions about the working model for Pakistan, the entire nation unanimously accepts that the state was formed in the name of Islam where the principles and teachings of Islam could be implemented in letter and spirit. However, with the passage of time, our people and rulers have unlearned the basic teaching of Islam, taught to us by the Holy Quran and Prophet Mohammad (pbuh): it disapproves any sort ofcoercion in the matters related to religion and respects free will.

The founding fathers of Pakistan were very clear about the matters related to religion and advocated for every citizen freedom to follow religion. However, the state created in the name of Islam-which–is home to almost 207 million people, out of which Hindus and Christians collectively comprise 3.1 percent of thepopulation-isunder the threat of forced conversions and religious extremism. In Pakistan, the majority of the Hindu population, of 6.8 million,is in the Sindh province owing to its cultural and historical affiliation with the Hindu religion.This is where a brutal practice is being carried out by the so-called propagators of the majority religion.

Recently, the US has declared Pakistan as a country of “particular concern” for having been involved in/or accepted systematic ongoing and egregious violation of religious freedom. According to the report published by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Pakistan “failed in fortifying its minorities and guaranteeing religious freedom.” The ministry of foreign affairs in Pakistan has declared this label as “arbitrary and unilateral” for selectively targeting some countries while ignoring the rest. However, the statistics quoting the number of incidences of forced conversions to Islam show a different picture altogether.

Judicial and police systems should be reformed for an immediate response to matters related to proselytisation

According to a report by the South Asia Partnership Pakistan and Aurat foundation, every year, at least one thousand Hindu girls in Pakistan are kidnapped, forcibly converted and married off to their kidnappers. Similar data has been reported by University of Birmingham’s lawyer Amarnath Motumal of the HRCP. His report informedthat no less than 20 Hindu girls are kidnappedand proselytised every month in Pakistan.

Ironically, Pakistan is a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which clearly endorses the right of every woman to enter into marriage “only with their free and full consent.”The present situation of the Hindu women in Pakistan clearly shows the ugly side of the picture. Pakistan is badly failing in achieving her commitments under these contracts and saving her minorities from forced conversions and marriages.

There are a number of factors that make the Hindu community in Sindh more prone to forced conversions than the rest of the country. These factors include their stark socio-economic conditions, strong missionary zeal for conversion, lack of access to justice, failure of the Sindh criminal law (protection of minorities) bill, and inadequate legislation on the registration of Hindu marriages.

In our inegalitarian society, there exists huge inequalitydue to which a class of society enjoys a privileged status and libertywhile others even struggle for recognition of theirbasic rights.Lack of financial empowerment makes the poverty-ridden Hindu populationparticularlyat risk to proselytisation. The conservative clergy portrays forced conversion analogous to ‘hajj-e-Akbar’, which will bring reward in akhirat (hereafter), irrespective of the methods employed to achieve the course of conversion.

Extremist clerics like Mian Mitho and Ayub Jan Sarhandiare known proselytisers in Sindh who manipulate their followers to employ every mean possible to ‘confirm their tickets to paradise’. Some minor Hindu girls choose conversion as a mean to realise their aspirations of a better life and to put an end to their miserable existence.

There are a number of steps that must be taken by government to protect the rights of minorities in Sindh in particular and Pakistan in general. The Sindh Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities) billcould not be passed as the house with 171 members was held hostage by a bunch of religious zealots; itshould be passed to make it a law across the country. This can be achieved by promoting a national level dialogue engaging clergy and general public to avoid further conversions and create inter-faith harmony insociety by tackling human rights abuses. Judicial and police systems should be reformed for an immediate response to matters related to proselytisation.

Government should also consider launchingprovincial commissions for minorities to take up forced conversion and forced marriage cases andguarantee religious minorities’ access to education, jobs and government positions through passing anti-discriminatory laws.

Every state has the responsibility of protecting its people from individuals and organisations that try to convert people by resorting to coercion or exploitation of particular vulnerability of people. The government of Pakistan hasanobligation to ascertain that forced conversions do not occur in the milieu of marriage or marriage negotiations, which can be achieved by including people in the process of national development irrespective of their religion and creed. It is high time our people learnt the lesson that it is their behaviour not religion that makes them better humans.

The writer is an Islamabad- based freelance columnist and a socio-economic analyst