“Participated in ground breaking ceremony of Krishna temple at Islamabad H-9 sector, organized by Hindu Panchayat Islamabad. It will be first ever temple in Islamabad since centuries. The government has provided 4 Kanals of land for construction of temple. Long live Pakistan!”
After the tweet of Lal Chand Malhi, the debate started over the construction of a Hindu temple in the capital.Hateful campaigns on social media wrangled over the religious minorities in Pakistan. Road protests juxtaposed Modi’s vile policiesagainst Indian Muslims in India and Kashmiri Muslims in Indian occupied Kashmir with the policies of Federal government of Pakistan. Society, overall,got divided into major factions, and evaluated the fortes of a ‘Good Muslim’. Resultantly, the construction of Hindu Mandir found out to be an’atypical idea’ of the federal government and no such construction should be allowed on the’Holy land of Islamabad’.
As a society, unfortunately, we have completely forgotten our history before partition. Once, we chanted the songs of equal rights, liberty, right of self-determination, freedom, independence, egalitarianism and much more but right after partition of 1947 andbecoming a majority, our behaviors broke with the past. We became hypocrites – the fake flag bearers of equal human rights, peace and tolerance when it comes to the rights of religious minorities in a Muslim majority state of Pakistan. We have absorbed the incident of Kasur where Christian couple was lynched and burnt to death years ago. We have tolerated the incidents where churches have been burned down. We have swallowed the alleged murder of Nadeem Joseph for buying a house in Muslim neighborhood in Peshawar very recently.
Constitutionally, the rights were given to all citizens of Pakistan as equal subjects.
Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan 1973 talks about the Freedom to profess religion and to manage religious institutions.
“Every citizen shall have the right to profess, practice and propagate his religion”
“Every religious denomination and every sect thereof shall have the right to establish, maintain and manage its religious institutions”.
The vision of Prime Minister is to promote inter-faith harmony in Pakistan as he has stated multiple times that Pakistan is a hub of religious tourism for Sikhs Hindus and Buddhist communities
The founding father Quaid e Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah on 11th August 1947, addressed the 1st constituent assembly and talked about minorities in the following words,
“You are free; you are to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State”.
Now coming towards the construction of Shri KrishnaMandir in Islamabad as the vision of federal government. The PTI government under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan is very much interested in building a softer image of Pakistan in the eyes of International community as a more tolerant and unprejudiced society than so-called secular India.
The multi-pronged approach, firstly, answered the Indian Supreme Court’s verdict on Babri Mosque case. The court in November, 2019 passed the judgement and ruled in favor of Hindus to construct the Hindu temple on the land. According toHindu-belief, the land of Babri mosque is the birth place of their God. They also claim that before the construction of Babri mosque, the Hindu temple was abolished by Muslim ruler in the year 1528.On the other hand, the existence of Temple before the construction of Mosque itself is a matter of controversy. Many archaeological reports affirmed that no archaeological sign support the claim of Hindus that there existed a temple earlier. So constructing a temple in Islamabad has a symbolic significance vis-à-vis India where India is marginalizing the Muslim minorities.
Moreover, the vision of Prime Minister is to promote inter-faith harmony in Pakistan as Imran Khan has stated multiple times that Pakistan is a hub of religious tourism for Sikhs Hindus and Buddhist communities. Pakistan opened the Kartarpur Corridor in November, 2019 as a symbol of interfaith harmony, peace and tolerance. Hate-mongers used social media to accuse Pakistan in reviving the Khalistan movement in India but Pakistan responded exquisitely.
Prime Minister also stated that the Hindu temple in the capital will show the world that Pakistan is a place for all religions.
Now, as a society and as a living nation, we need to understand the standing of Pakistan in the international arena in terms of human rights and minority rights. We must show the world that Pakistan is the land for all and it is the responsibility of state to ensure the environment of tolerance, peace and inter-faith harmony. Protection of fundamental rights should be ensured to all the citizens of Pakistan without any discrimination especially on the basis of religion.
The writer is a CSS Qualifier and faculty member at NOA Islamabad