Minorities in limbo

In monetary terms, it would cost little to alleviate plight of these people, gift them a little land & lot of dignity

Minorities of every type are destined for a difficult life in the Pakistan of today. They are routinely denied their civil and human rights, discriminated against at every level and sometimes even murdered for their beliefs. This is a state deeply intolerant of ‘the other’. There are at least half a million Hindus in Punjab. They are almost universally poor and come from the scheduled castes, such as the Bheels, Kolhis and Menghwadhs, and they are mostly homeless. They live in makeshift mud houses on land they do not own and face eviction. Time and again, these poor people have demanded that the provincial government grant them basic residential land rights, and as long ago as the tenure of the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, certificates were distributed making ill-defined ‘grants’. This exercise was repeated under the Musharraf government. The ‘certificates’ were essentially worthless. Similarly worthless are those certificates recently distributed among MPAs and MNAs of the PML-N as they have no legal value and the land they supposedly allot is not recorded by the Board of Revenue.

The Hindu community, as a whole, has faced kidnappings for ransom and forced conversions of women and young girls in the past. The burden of homelessness and all its associated insecurities add to their miseries. It is possible that there is a glimmer of light on the horizon, but only for those who have been living on the same place for 25 years. They may be granted small plots, but with the prices of land increasing all the time, property developers are evicting the poor Hindus without let or hindrance.

The political promises that get made for the resolution of the plight of these people are rarely, if ever, redeemed, and the buck gets passed to successive administrations, which continue to contrive to do nothing. In monetary terms, it would cost little to alleviate the plight of these poor people, gift them a little land and a lot of dignity. Eminently doable. Possible? Unlikely.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2014.

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