Pakistan’s miniscule 2 million Hindu population is concentrated largely in Sindh and southern Punjab. The vast majority of the country’s Hindus belong to various Dalit castes, including Bheels, Jogis, Meghwals, Odhs, Kolhis and Bagdis. Most Pakistani Dalits work as landless labourers and artisans, with only a small minority being literate and in government service. In addition to the Dalits are the numerically much smaller although considerably more influential upper caste Hindus, some of whom are rich merchants in Karachi and landlords in southern Sindh.
Pakistani Hindu politics is dominated by the upper caste Hindus. Most Hindus elected to the provincial and national assemblies have been from the upper castes. According to Sadhumal Surendar Valasai, president of the Karachi-based Pakistan Scheduled Castes Federation, the Dalits in Pakistan continue to be subjected to considerable discrimination by upper caste Hindus. In an online petition launched recently to mobilize public opinion about the plight of the Pakistani Dalits, Valasai notes that unlike India there have been no large-scale massacres of Dalits in Pakistan. Yet, he writes, the Dalits are treated by the upper caste Hindus in Sindh no differently from their fellow Dalits in India.
‘In Pakistan’, he claims, ‘the common Dalits know nothing about Hinduism except Manu’s words that they are born to serve the caste people to improve their status in their next life’. ‘They are a lot of confused people who don’t know why they are Hindus and why they are still attached to "vulture-culture" Hinduism’, he adds.
Valasai’s online petition provides chilling details of the oppression of the Dalits by caste Hindus in league with local Muslim landlords and politicians. He claims that in the district of Thar Parkar in Sindh, where some 35 per cent of the population belongs to various Dalit castes, ‘Incidents of atrocities and caste-based discrimination against Dalits are increasing day by day […] because of growing awareness and assertiveness of the Dalits’.
He cites the instance of a young Dalit political activist named Gianchand who contested the elections against an upper caste Hindu candidate for a provincial assembly seat in October 2002. This enraged the uppercastes, who exercise considerable influence in the local administration. In revenge, they arranged for several hundred Dalit government employees to be transferred to far-flung areas under different pretexts. Cases were initiated against Dalit political activists. The Dalits were even forbidden to graze their livestock on government lands Many Dalit political workers were beaten up and harassed in order to prevent them from voting for Dalit candidates.
In Thar Parkar, which has the highest concentration of Dalits in Pakistan, violence against Dalits, primarily by upper caste Hindus, is normally treated as a very minor and marginal issue’, says Valasai. upper caste Hindu, mainly Rajput, landlords wield considerable influence among local bureaucrats and judges. As a result, many crimes against Dalits go unregistered. Valasai cites numerous such instances to stress his claim.
In Babrario village, a Dalit boy, Sadhu Meghwar, was done to death and thrown into a village well by upper caste Hindus. The relatives of the boy were threatened and forced to keep away from the case, which was dubbed as a suicide by the police and hushed up. In a village in the Diplo tehsil, a boy who defended his sister from being raped on gun point by a politically influential caste Hindu was severely tortured. In the village of Kaloi, a Dalit teacher, Nanak, who helped the Jama’at-i-Islami’s relief distribution efforts in the wake of the recent heavy rains was beaten up and severely injured by local caste Hindus.
Valasai admits that these sporadic incidents might ‘look small when compared to the atrocities being committed against Dalits in India’. But, he adds, in a society whose overwhelming majority are followers of Islam, a religion that preaches human equality, ‘such incidents based on caste prejudice’ are particularly galling. He claims that ‘common Muslims have symapthy’ for the Dalits, but notes that no Muslim organizations are working among them, not even Islamic missionary organizations. He sees the plight of the Pakistani Dalits as a direct result of caste Hindu chauvinism, claiming that Dalits face caste oppression ‘in places where there are caste Hindus or their shadows’.
‘The roots of all the discrimination against dalits in Pakistan emanate from Hindu caste system’, he argues. Many Muslims whose ancestors had converted to Islam at some point in time continue to discriminate against the Dalits. They may have changed their names through conversion, he says, but not their minds.
Not surprisingly, the Scheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan has not been overly enthusiastic about the growing thaw in relations between India and Pakistan. In a recently issued statement, the Federation expressed its concern about the opening of the Khokhrapar-Munabao border between Pakistan and India in the Sindh-Rajasthan sector. It claimed that the Pakistani Dalits, many of whom live in this region, are ‘disturbed’ about reports that the border crossing might soon be reopened, fearing that this might ‘import in this region a fresh […] Brahminical Social Order and inhuman caste system from India’.
The statement detailed the cruel oppression of their fellow Dalits in India by caste Hindus, noting, for instance, that Dalit students are segregated in schools and that Dalits are forbidden to fetch water from common wells and ponds in neighbouring Gujarat and Rajasthan. Stressing that ‘such caste discrimination had no place in Pakistan’, the statement claimed that the discrimination practised by caste Hindus against Dalits in Pakistan might gain a ‘fresh impetus’ with the opening of the border with India. The Federation asserted that while the Pakistani Dalits were not against friendly relations between India and Pakistan, they would oppose any move that could lead to a further entrenching of caste discrimination against them by uppercaste Hindus as a result of cultural influences emanting from India with a more open border.
Meanwhile, the Scheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan is now actively engaged in mobilising public opinion within Pakistan and aborad to highlight the plight of the Pakistani Dalits. In its online petition, it asserts that ‘Dalits under Muslim rule should be more dignified and prosperous, enjoying equal rights as human beings in Pakistan as compared to Brahmin-ruled India’. However, it laments, the Pakistani government has so far little to help ameliorate the pathetic conditions of the country’s Dalits. The petition lays out a list of demands that it makes on the government of Pakistan:
i. Including “Treatment of Dalits” as a barometer to judge SAARC members’ commitment to human rights.
ii. Allocation of separate seats in the Pakistani parliament and provincial assemblies for Scheduled Castes in accordance with their population to ensure that their voice is heard. (It asks for four seats in the National Assembly, four in the Sindh Assembly, two in the Punjab Assembly and one each in the NWFP and Balochistan Assemblies exclusively for Scheduled Castes).
