This is very sad.
The Pakistan goernment must take action to ensure that the majority ‘Dalit’ peoples amongst the Hindu community are given adequate representation, and that the hold of the upper caste Hindus is broken.
Former ‘Untouchables’ Ask Pakistan for Electoral Quotas
Dalits or members of a Hindu group once known as “untouchables,” are demanding adequate representation in Pakistan’s electoral bodies, emphasizing that they face oppression and abuse by so-called upper caste Hindus even in the Muslim majority nation. An online petition – being endorsed by Dalit solidarity groups across the world, including prominent organizations in India – has urged the government of Pakistan to initiate measures to remove discrimination against Dalits, also referred to as the Scheduled Caste, in the south Asian country. “The Government of Pakistan should allocate separate seats in Parliament for Scheduled Castes as per their population ratio to ensure their voice is heard at the national level,” urges Sadhumal Surendar Valasai, president of the Karachi-based Scheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan.
Among hierarchical Hindus, Dalits belong to the lowest rung of the religion, traditionally discriminated against and forced to do menial work such as scavenging. Sadly, the discrimination continues in South Asia, where Dalits are still considered “untouchables” in many parts. Attacks and discrimination against Dalits – an estimated 270-million-strong community mostly in Asia – have been rampant in India. But the petition stresses that in neighboring Pakistan too, Dalits, mostly concentrated around Sindh and Punjab in the southern regions of Pakistan, face severe discrimination. “Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education,” says Valasai. A majority of Dalits – constituting 70 percent of the miniscule five percent or the 2-million Hindu population in Pakistan – are landless peasants and laborers. Upper-caste Hindus, however, dominate minority politics, says the petition addressed to the President, Prime Minister and Chief Justice of Pakistan. The petition details atrocities against Dalits, emphasizing that oppression is on the rise due to the increasing awareness of their rights, which has prompted the deprived community to raise their voices against discrimination. The petition gives the example of a young political activist who stood for elections to Parliament last year.
“This enraged caste people sitting at the helm of affairs on the key chairs of the administration. Several hundred employees of Dalit communities were transferred to far-flung areas under different and obnoxious pretexts,” it says. “Cases were initiated against Dalit political activists. Their rural folks were threatened and even disallowed to graze their livestock on government land,” the petition says. Often, Dalits are not allowed to vote. Dalit political workers are routinely threatened and beaten by members of political outfits who force them to vote for their candidates. “Already under the thumb of local landlords and police officials, Dalit villagers who do not comply had been victimized, beaten and harassed,” it says. There were several other recent cases of attacks on Dalits in Pakistan, especially in Tharparker, a district in Sindh where 35 per cent of its one-million people belong to different Dalit communities.
Upper-caste Hindus allegedly killed a Dalit boy, Sadhu Meghwar, in Babrario village in Tharparker and threw his body into a well. In another case, a boy who prevented his sister from being raped by members of an upper-caste family was tortured. “Though these incidents look small when compared to the atrocities being committed against Dalits in India, in a society whose overwhelming majority are followers of human equality, such incidents based on caste prejudice should not have been ignored,” says Valasai. “These are very few examples as to how Dalits are dealt with if they display an act to show equality. Hundreds of incidents of caste discrimination go unreported,” he says. An Indian Dalit researcher, Umakant, points out that the plight of Dalits in Pakistan is a reflection of their condition in the rest of the world. Umakant, who is with the New Delhi-based Institute of Dalit Studies, says that Dalits are still bought and sold in Pakistan. “They are literally chained and are treated worse than animals,” he says. But unfortunately, he points out, atrocities against Dalits hardly get noticed. “There is no visibility of Dalit issues in Pakistan,” he says. Dalit organizations in India, including the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, plan to raise the issue of the status of Dalits in different parts of the world at regional and international platforms. The Institute of Dalit Studies is a part of the umbrella body campaigning for Dalit rights across the world. The groups are supporting Valasai’s call to the government of Pakistan to set up a National Commission on Scheduled Castes to hear complaints of and take action against caste and racial discrimination. The petition has also urged the government to give adequate representation to Dalits in national institutions such as banks and give land to landless peasants.