Date: 27/12/2014
I am a Pakistani Hindu
December 25, 2014
By Agniveer
http://agniveer.com/i-am-a-pakistani-hindu/
I don’t know what is my bigger crime. That I am born in Pakistan. Or I happen to be Hindu.
Since beginning of civilization, my ancestors had been nurturing this western part of India with their blood and sweat. When British overpowered us, they sacrificed their lives with slogan of Jai Hind to realize our dream of independence.But then suddenly things changed.
Some intellectuals held round table conferences in posh locations of Delhi and decided that from 14 August, 1947 onwards, I would not be considered an Indian anymore. They concluded that existing map of India does not look artistic. So they tore apart the timeless legacy of India and carved a green line of partition to create the Islamic State of Pakistan.
Now history, geography, traditions, sacrifices, patriotism – nothing mattered anymore. As a Hindu Kafir, I turned overnight into “worst of creatures” in my own motherland.
I was given the option to immediately move out of my ancestral land and become a refugee in streets of an unknown city in India. So elites decided that 15 million people should move to improve the aesthetics of Indian map and also create a world record for largest mass migration in human history.
It is not easy to leave everything – emotions with land of forefathers, livelihood, future of children and women – and jump into an uncertain destiny of miseries. Yet, many of my friends chose this as a safer option. They dared to catch the train to India where being a Hindu or a Muslim did not matter.
They were butchered in the route. Women – from elderly grandmothers to newborn babies – were raped with slogan of Allah-o-Akbar. Many decided to kill their own mothers, sisters, wives and daughters just to safeguard them from sexual perverts. The number of women thus raped, killed, kidnapped or mutilated ran not in hundreds and thousands but several lakhs.
I decided to stay back and trust Jinnah – the founder of Pakistan – who also guaranteed that we would not be subject to religious discrimination. Mahatma Gandhi also trusted him.
Now when I look back, I am not sure which would have been a wiser decision for me.
To stay back and continue to serve my land as my ancestors did since time immemorial. Or accept the cruel reality that tea-parties of few elite politicians can change destiny of oldest civilization of world in entirety, and hence move away from my home.
In both cases, my fate would have been still the same – rape, abduction, slaughter, hatred – all in name of Allah – the Merciful.
Those who decided to move to India created two harrowing world records:
– They faced the greatest massacre in the history of mankind, running into several lakhs.
– They faced the greatest number of rapes, abductions and mutilation of women, also running into several lakhs.
Those of us who decided to stay back to avoid this barbarism and serve the land of their ancestors also created two equally horrifying world records
– We faced the greatest ethnic cleansing ever in history of humanity. From more than 22% of Pakistan population in 1951, we are now reduced to less than 1% in Pakistan and 4% in Bangladesh today.
– We are facing the greatest state-encouraged crime against women. Rape and abduction is as common as traffic violations.
Yes, I am ashamed to admit, but it is a painful truth that vast number of Hindu families are forced to make prostitutes out of their women. The goons of majority religion can abduct our women anytime. And when they find someone else or are bored, they would throw them back in streets. There is nothing that government or police would do.
Either we convert to Islam, or die or our women get in flesh trade.
Many of us are whipped for minor mistakes and chained in imprisonment for days like slaves. We are not allowed to drink water from wells of Muslims.
The entire education system is based on hatred against us. Hindus are termed as Kafirs (worst sinners), filthy idol worshippers, Laadin, enemies of Islam, Allah, Prophet and Pakistan. Every Pakistani kid is nurtured in this hatred against us.
Our temples are desecrated and broken any time. We have hardly any temples left today except a few heritage sites. We hear that destruction of Babri structure became such a big global news. In Pakistan, hundreds of temples were destroyed immediately after the incident. And thousands have been destroyed since 1947.
If we raise any protest, blasphemy laws get applied. Someone would claim that we insulted the revered Prophet. Now we would be arrested and asked to prove conclusively that we are not guilty. If we cannot (which is obvious case), we must either die or apologize and accept Islam.
So we have no voice, no choice.
I ask my fellow Indian brothers and sisters. What should we do? Where should we go? We did not demand for partition of our mother. Then why were we left to be butchered and defiled by savages?
We love India. We have lived and died for India since humanity evolved. We demand your love, care and protection. Please save us from animals.
When terrorists killed innocent children in Peshawar, I saw you mourning as if they were your own children. May this never happen to anyone.
But we face such Peshawars every day. Are we also not your innocent loved ones? We are also hungry for your affection.
#IndiaWithPakistan is trending after Peshawar. How much sacrifice will we have to give before #IndiaWithHindus also becomes a trend?
We are being killed and raped. We are on verge of extinction. Please help us.
You build sanctuaries to protect endangered animals. Please consider us as animals, if not humans, and help us get out of this terror-land. For safeguarding the dignity of our mothers, sisters and daughters, we are ready to serve you like animals as well.
We humbly appeal to our Indian brothers and sisters to:
– Provide us Indian citizenship
– Provide us asylum
Please pave path for all Hindus, Sikhs, Christians in Pakistan and Bangladesh to come and settle in India. We are your own family. We will not import terror. Instead we will work hard and contribute to the nation. We are used to extreme hard work for generations. We will repay your love, care and affection with our labor and loyalty.
Yours is the land of religious equality. Both Muslims and Hindus hug each other and say “Jai Hind”. We would also like to shout this slogan with you.
You follow Krishna who saved Draupadi on one call of hers. Your sisters in Pakistan and Bangladesh also call upon you.
We have nowhere to go. Please help us. Please save us.
– Sanjeev Agniveer
All willing to help Pakistani Hindus can make donations to Jan Swabhiman Welfare Society through http://janswabhiman.org/donate/ .
Note:
1. “Hindu” in context of this autobiographical essay refers to all minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists.
2. This autobiographical appeal applies equally to Pakistan and Bangladesh
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/Attacks-on-Hindu-temples-in-Pakistan-a-worrying-trend/articleshow/45317888.cms
Attacks on Hindu temples in Pakistan a worrying trend
IANS | Nov 29, 2014, 04.01 PM IST199
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Attacks on Hindu temples in Pakistan a worrying trend
With a population of around seven million, Hindus form the largest religious minority group in Pakistan, which, at 195 million, is the second largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia.
ISLAMABAD: In the latest incident of its kind, a Hindu temple was attacked by fanatics in Pakistan, the temple was torched, the stone idol of Lord Hanuman blackened with soot, and some religious books burnt.
This attack Nov 21 on the Hindu temple in the Tando Mohammad Khan area in Sindh - and reported in the Dawn newspaper - is however, not a one-off incident in a country where such attacks are increasingly turning out to be the rule, rather than an exception.
With a population of around seven million, Hindus form the largest religious minority group in Pakistan, which, at 195 million, is the second largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia.
In a similar attack March 28 this year, a small Hindu temple was torched near Fateh Chowk in Hyderabad, Sindh, triggering widespread protests by the Hindu community.
Only a couple of weeks before that, a dharamshala, or a pilgrims' rest-house, was set ablaze and some statues of Hindu deities in an adjacent temple in Larkana were damaged to protest the alleged desecration of the Islamic holy text Quran.
The arson attacks on Hindu places of worship are seen as attempts to fan flames of communal violence.
In Karachi, the Rama Peer temple has been the subject of property disputes involving commercial builders, BBC reported in December 2012. It is one of the many Hindu temples in the city that have in the recent years been the subject of such property disputes.
All these incidents have been reported in the media, in the highly regarded Dawn newspaper, as well as by BBC and others.
Even the Jinnah Institute, a think tank, has chronicled these incidents.
The arson attacks on Hindu temples and other incidents of religious intolerance have made the Hindu community in Pakistan nervous, according to media here.
With kidnappings and forced conversions of teenage Hindu girls, abduction of Hindu traders for ransom, and desecration of temples, many Hindus have been forced to migrate to India and elsewhere, Dawn reported in September this year.
"As a last resort, we have decided to migrate to India," a Dawn report in November quoted a Hindu man in Sindh as saying.
"We are completely insecure here. We are looted, but our voice is not heard by the people in the saddle, our temples are attacked in broad daylight, but no one takes action, our girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted only to hear more empty promises of justice," he said.
"Nothing happened in the last 65 years and we don't expect any improvement in future. Things will only become worse," he added.
"Minorities are still as vulnerable as they were one-and-a half years ago and to add to their misery, the land mafia is actively engaged in illegally occupying the religious places of the minorities, and kidnappings of Hindu girls are still happening," said Chela Ram Kewlani of the Pakistan Hindu Council.
The Hindus are the most vulnerable in Pakistani society, wrote vice president of the Pakistan Hindu Seva Chander Kolhi in an article titled "Forced conversions -- a peril for Hindus" in the Daily Times Friday.
"They are unable to educate their children and it is also difficult for them to have their children treated in government hospitals. In some localities, where girl children from the Hindu community are sent to school, they are abducted, raped or are forcefully converted at a minor age," Kolhi stated.
The Pakistan Hindu Council had proposed the establishment of an active committee at the federal level under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to prevent atrocities against the minorities.
While the Pakistani statute books still carry laws from the colonial period that prescribe punishment for the desecration of religious places and articles, their enforcement has come to depend on how far a community is willing to go to make those laws work, a BBC report noted in December 2012.
The Pakistan Hindu Council said, after the Nov 21 attack on the Hindu temple in Tando Mohammad Khan, that around 1,400 Hindu religious sites across the country were in dire need of protection by the government.
Following this attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif approved the setting up of a national commission on minorities to promote religious tolerance and harmony in the country, in accordance with the June 19 Supreme Court judgment on rights of minority communities.
While one hopes that the attacks on Hindu temples and other instances of intolerance against the Hindu minorities in Pakistan cease, only time will tell how far those hopes would be fulfilled.
However, till that happens, the Hindus in Pakistan continue to live a life on the edge.
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