Toothless resolutions

Parliament’s unanimous resolution to safeguard the rights of non-Muslims is a move that should be appreciated, yet at the same time taken with a pinch of salt. The resolution passed on August 11, National Minorities Day marks Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s first speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, where he promised freedom of belief and religion to all. However, today we live in a country where not only are non-Muslims not free to go to their temples and churches, they are not free to even live in the land of the pure. Year after year, non-Muslims are forced to migrate from the country and not necessarily to greener pastures, but for mere survival, leaving their homes and jobs behind to start again in any country willing to accept them. We live in a country where temples are burned and churches targeted, while the number of persecuted ‘minorities’ keeps increasing. What, then, should parliament do? What good is such a resolution when there are elements within many of the parliamentary parties that do not consider non-Muslims to be equal citizens of the state?

In Punjab, the ruling PML-N’s home turf, non-Muslims do not even have the right to directly vote for their representatives at the provincial and national levels, under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance amended this year. How can the government promise to protect non-Muslims when the most basic right of representation is taken away from them? Will unanimous resolutions bring justice to the victims of Joseph Colony or Gojra or to the children of Shama and Shehzad, whose parents were burnt alive and reduced to strands of hair and bones? Will such resolutions free those who spend their entire lives in jails on false blasphemy charges or prevent forced conversions of Hindus in Sindh? Yes, parliament must recognise and realise that we must create a Pakistan where everyone is free and protected, but it cannot, at the same time, silently watch as people are burnt alive. Mere words heal no wounds.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th,  2015.

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