The country observed Minorities Days recently, the purpose of which was to highlight the role being rendered by the minority community in the nation’s building. The day’s programme also focused on the issues being faced by minorities across the country and called for early solutions of the same.

There is no denying that our Christian, Hindu and other minority communities have been rendering commendable services in all walks of life. However, the state of affairs pertaining to religious minorities is far from satisfaction, reason being the support of extremist’s thoughts by a section of the society mislead by some clerics who promote and propagate extremists’ thoughts which is a matter of concern.

Our Constitution guarantees full rights to minorities but the ground reality is there is space for greater improvement as it has been noticed that our minorities complain of discrimination against them from time to time.

As a matter of fact, tolerance is still absent from our behavior and this is at the core of issues confronted by the religious minorities.

That’s why intellectual and enlightened section of the society call for the implementation of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s most advocated principles of tolerance and religious freedom in the society.

They refer to the historic speech of Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on August 11, 1947 before the Constituent Assembly, in which the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah said in clear-cut words  about the rights of minorities in Pakistan.

Credit goes to former PPP Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti (late), who initiated the holding of this day in Pakistan since 2009.

In fact, PPP is the mainstream political party which has worked hard for the rights of minorities. The Quiad’s vision of the state where the citizens will have religious freedom in the country  is known to all Pakistanis but despite this fact, we continue to hit lows and make wrong headlines on issues pertaining to rights of minorities. There are various issues confronted by the minority communities due to which a sense of fear and insecurity exist among them.

The Christian, Sikh and Hindu communities have been making tremendous contributions in various fields of life and it is high time to make them feel secure.

In Pakistan, minorities feel insecure, and this is the result of discriminatory policies of the state and society towards them.  There are various examples of bias and injustice that are committed against the members of minorities almost on a daily basis across the country. Successive governments do not seem to care about the challenges the minorities have been facing for many years. They do not have equal rights, are often subjected to injustice, and come under attack on the pretext of mere allegations.

According the research conducted by Peoples Commission for Minorities' Rights and the Centre for Social Justice, over 150  cases of  forced conversions have occurred from 2013 to 2019. And the most unfortunate thing is that majority of the girls kidnapped and married off after conversion  are minor girls of approximately 12 years age.

Forced conversion of girls belonging to minorities has become a common practice in some districts of interior Sindh and some parts of Punjab.

Force conversion of Hindu teen girls, mostly under-16, is years long issue and the Sindh Government twice made attempts to make laws to prevent the ordeals of these teens but due to the intervention of religious parties , the government could prove fruitful. For the first time , it was in 2016 when The Sindh government attempted to outlaw forced conversion. The then Sindh Assembly had also unanimously passed the Protection of Minorities Bill on this issue, but the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) and religious parities like the Jamaat-e-Islami and others did not agree with the SA and severely objected to an age limit for conversions.

Though the assembly passed the bill, but  the then-Governor did not give his  approval to this bill  due to the objections raised by the religious leaders and parties.  The SA again deliberate on this law and after removing some of the reservations of the religious leaders revised the law and introduced after three i.e., in 2019, but the hue and cry from the religious parties continued and it could not be made a law. In this way, the PPP efforts to outlaw the forced conversion could not succeed.

However, this saga shows that PPP is making sincere efforts for protection of religious minorities. There is no denying the fact that Pakistan Peoples Party is not only party of the masses but also a true representative of all sections of the society. It pays equal attention to the issues of the minorities. And one hopes that PPP would continue to render its services for minorities to bring them into mainstream society and end the prevailing sense of deprivation among them.

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 13 2022

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