KARACHI: A committee constituted by the federal government for electoral reforms lacks representation of the religious minority communities, said rights activists and representatives of religious minority communities at a seminar on Wednesday.

Condemning acts of discrimination and violence against minority communities in recent months, they demanded legislation on forced conversion and called upon the government to set up a committee comprising members of all faiths to stop the misuse of the blasphemy law.

The seminar on minority rights was organised by South Asia Partnership Pakistan. Non-Muslims played a critical role in the making of Pakistan, but they had never been given due respect, the speakers said. No effort was ever made to acknowledge the contribution and sacrifices of the minority communities made to Pakistan’s creation.

The August 11, 1948 speech of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in which he declared all people equal citizens of Pakistan regardless of their faith, caste and creed and said that religion was not the business of the state was quoted multiple times during the seminar.

“This speech should be included in textbooks so that children knew about Mr Jinnah’s vision of the new state that was meant to be a secular state where people from all faiths lived in harmony and peace. The children should also know that Mr Jinnah belonged to a Shia community,” said Dr Jaipal Chhabria, member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

He argued that if Pakistan were to be an Islamic state, why a person from the Hindu faith had been made the country’s first law minister. “It’s on record that religious parties opposed Pakistan’s creation, but the Communist Party of India supported it. We need to know the facts and history, only then we can make progress, show tolerance and promote brotherhood,” he said.

People from the minority communities faced discrimination at every stage of their life, he said, explaining that they were denied job opportunities. The HRCP member claimed that he was refused a job in the Pakistan Air Force just because he was Hindu. “A child from the minority community cannot dream of becoming head of the state as it is against the Constitution. This is not fair. We want equality,” he insisted.

Political representation

Ravi Dawan, representing the All-Pakistan Hindu Panchayat, said the foremost challenge religious minorities were facing related to their political representation that could help solve their problems.

He said these communities needed to have representation at every district/division level so that local leadership was accessible to people.

He said: “It’s for the first time in recent history that a committee on electoral reforms has been set up. But it must have representation of non-Muslim communities also.”

Cases of discrimination, torture and violence against Hindu and Christian communities had dramatically increased in recent months and the government did little to arrest the culprits and ensure that they were punished, he said.

Speaking about forced conversions, he referred to laws in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia where family consent was required by a teenager for conversion to other faith.

He also raised questions about the so-called love marriages of Hindu girls being kidnapped from their homes. He argued why only girls were ‘converting’ to Islam if they were doing it of their ‘own free will’.

“The marriage is contracted during the time when the girl has been reported missing from home. In most cases, the girl’s family is intimidated and threatened to prevent them from raising the issue in public. Has the government ever collected data on what happens to the kidnapped girls after marriage?” he asked.

Such marriages, he said, often brought untold misery to the girls who were either later abandoned by their ‘husbands’ or forced into prostitution.

Currently, at least 10 Hindu girls were still ‘missing from homes’, he said.

Cases of kidnapping and extortion had increased, compelling many Hindus to migrate, he said, explaining that more than 300 extortion and kidnapping for ransom cases had been reported in one year. “Many people who migrated from Jacobabad and Hyderabad were not even allowed to sell their property. There is no home and city left where a Hindu trader/businessman hasn’t been kidnapped or has not received any extortion slip,” he said.

Surge in blasphemy cases

Expressing their concern over the misuse of the blasphemy law, they said only 10 cases of blasphemy had been registered in Pakistan between 1927 and 1985, but that number jumped to over 40,000 since 1985 following the ‘flawed’ amendments to the Constitution during the Zia regime.

Presenting a report on one-year performance of the Sindh Assembly on minority issues, Shehnaz Sheedi of the South Asia Partnership Pakistan said that no legislation had been enacted on minorities and their welfare from June 2013 to May 2014.

The assembly, which has 10 legislators belonging to non-Muslim communities, passed only two resolutions on minority rights and violence against minorities. Another resolution in this regard was moved but was never debated and passed, he added.

Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Mohammad Hussain Mehanti of the Jamaat-i-Islami and lawmaker Dr Lalchand Ukrani also spoke.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2014