Running away

Muslims are being divided into ill-fitting categories of moderates, fundamentalists, progressives and reactionaries.

What one thinks of Ram Singh Sodho’s departure for India pretty much depends on who he is, with regard to beliefs and faith. The Indian media has predictably painted it as an example of the threats under which minorities in Pakistan live, but the truth of the situation is far from clear. His own party colleagues in the PML-Q claim his move to India is more a question of his deteriorating health, rather than any physical danger he was facing. While another Hindu member of the PPP has rejected the move entirely as an attempt to defame Sindh. Without passing judgement on Mr Sodho’s motives, the fact remains that while Hindus find themselves particularly vulnerable in the increasingly violent and intolerant Pakistan of today, they are by no means the only ones feeling the heat. Stories of the Sikh community in Fata being targeted by the Taliban, have also made headlines across the world. Similarly, the kidnapping of the Hindu spiritual leader Lakshmi Chand Garji may have been painted as an attack on minorities but the fact remains that in today’s Balochistan one does not have to be a Hindu to be in danger.

The majority Muslims themselves are being increasingly divided and sub-divided into minorities of their own, pigeon-holed into the ill-fitting categories of moderates and fundamentalists, progressives and reactionaries. This is in addition to the sectarian dividing lines that have already been drawn: Shia and Sunni, Deobandi and Barelvi, and of course the Ahmadis who were expelled from the fold many years ago. Nor are the only divisions religious and ideological in nature. Ask a Pashtun based in Karachi how secure he feels in the city, or cast an eye at the mass departure of Punjabi ‘settlers’ from Balochistan and we see clearly that the painful process of exodus and exile is already underway within the country itself. Federal Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti may have been receiving threats since the Gojra carnage, but it was Salmaan Taseer, a Muslim, who paid with his life as he tried to take a stand and come to the rescue of a Christian women. No matter who we are, or what we believe, we are all minorities now in the sense that no one seems to be safe from the ever-rising intolerance.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2011.