PESHAWAR, April 2: Though Easter is a Christian festival, I, a Muslim, used to wait for it during my childhood because I could enjoy hot cross buns, which one of the major bakeries in town made for the occasion.
The Christian community after praying in the nearby church used to come and buy sweet buns, a specialty of the religious festival.
However, I did not know a spicy sweet bun could become a bitter and sad memory for me this Easter.
“Where are the hot cross buns” I asked as a boy at the bakery handed me over a simple bun which hardly tasted or looked like a hot cross bun.
“We stopped baking the traditional hot cross buns because people objected to the presence of the cross on it,” confided the boy keeping his tone low.
“Are you kidding,” I exclaimed. I could not believe that people claiming to follow a religion of peace and tolerance could be so intolerant that they could not spare a spicy sweet hot cross bun which I am sure is made of all Hilal ingredients.A hot cross bun is a spiced sweet bun traditionally baked and enjoyed on Easter all over the world.
Some believe sharing a hot cross bun with another is supposed to ensure friendship throughout the coming year, especially if “Half for you and half for me, between us two shall goodwill be,” is said at the time.
This small incident at the bakery is indicator of how much people have grown intolerant of others’ believes and religious practices. The fact that there are remains of so many historic temples, Buddhist sites and churches in Peshawar and surrounding districts shows that this region had remained for centuries the melting pot of the different religions and cultures.
The Catholic Church of Peshawar and Derwesh Mosque also are located side by side but the gap between the people of two religions seems to have grown wide in the last decade or so. The scars of the terrorism on the entire northwest region might go away one day but the deformity caused by such extremist social behaviour of a section of society might deprive the entire people from human development.
Religious minorities, though the word itself sounds discriminatory, have been pushed into keeping silent on even more explicit violent incidents like attacks and burning down of churches and their homes in recent years.
According to an observer, the members of the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa representing religious minorities also either feared raising voice for their people or were taken lightly when they even made an effort to express their grievances on the floor of the House. “Intolerance and narrow-mindedness has increased in society towards minorities. That is why they are silent and fear speaking up for their rights as citizens of Pakistan,” said Avenash Hari, who works at Sindh-based UMID organisation, which works for the marginalised minorities of Pakistan.
Mr Hari said although their estimated data showed that the minorities were around 25 million of the population, the 1998 Census showed that they were only 4.5 of the 180 million people of the country.
“The social attitude towards religious minorities is such that as if they are not Pakistanis,” said Mr Hari.
For Gulshan Masih, a Christian, it is a reality that his community is officially discriminated against.
Around 300 Christian families living in tribal area of Parachinar, Kurram Agency for almost a century are deprived of the right to buy property. They are even denied the right to apply for a job or admission in a professional college on the basis of domicile since they get ‘B’ category domicile.
“Minorities have no equal legal rights like any other tribesman having ‘A’ category domicile,” said Gulshan Masih, a graduate, who is lucky to find a job other than as a sanitation worker.
However, he said, most of the boys from his community despite education do not get any other better job than a janitor or sweeper.
“Am I not son of this soil,” asked Gulshan.