ISLAMABAD: A rights activist on Tuesday said discriminatory attitude adopted towards religious minorities in Pakistan was harmful for integration of society.

“Opponents of Quaid-i-Azam and Mahatma Gandhi have succeeded in suppressing minorities in both Pakistan and India,” said Sarwar Bari.

He was speaking at a seminar, “Challenges to effective representation of religious minorities in parliament”, which was organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) at a local hotel.

Mr Bari said in the first constituent assembly of Pakistan minorities had 33pc (23 members) representation which has now been reduced to only 3pc. In India, there was 49pc representation of minorities in the first constituent assembly but it now stands at 22pc.

Activist says minorities are scared because of the attitude of the majority, try to appear more patriotic

“Because of the attitude of the majority, minorities are scared in Pakistan and try to show that they are patriotic. People like J. Salik keep chanting slogans in support of Pakistan because they fear that their patriotism can be questioned anytime,” he said.

Mr Bari said in constituencies which had seven per cent minority votes political parties should allocate tickets to the non-Muslims. He said there were 30 constituencies in which minorities had seven per cent or more votes.

Member National Assembly Asiya Nasir of the JUI-F said quotas for the minorities were introduced to bring them to the mainstream.

“Representatives of minorities do not get development funds. We support dual votes for minorities but there should not be direct elections by declaring the whole country one constituency,” she said.

The head of Pakistan Institute of Parliamentary Services, Zafarullah Khan, also said minorities were suffering in the country.

“On Feb 13, 2007, MP Bhandara (MNA from the Parsi community) tabled a private member bill in the house to make Quaid-i-Azam’s speech of 11th August 1947, which stressed equal rights for minorities, a subsequent part of the Constitution but it was killed at the committee stage,” he said.

Talking about the seats of minorities in parliament, he said when former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto created the reserved seats there were regions in the country from where elected representatives reached the parliament. He said there should be more representative political system.

Peter Jacob of the Centre for Social Justice said there was no integration in the society. He also said direct elections across the country at all levels for minorities should not be held as it would create problems.

“Moreover, suggestion that political parties should only give tickets to minorities in some constituencies is against democracy. I suggest that political parties should hold intra-party elections and select minority parliamentarians through it,” he said.

Asim Sajjad of Awami Workers Party said though he favoured steps to empower minorities, sometimes minorities cannot take stand for their rights.

“During the local government elections in Islamabad, we nominated a minority representative as the chairperson of a union council in a slum having 99pc minority population. However, the opponent candidate spent Rs25 million on the elections due to which our candidate lost,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2017