Nice article from Friday Times.
Lahore’s hidden Hindus
Shahzad Hassan
With a father’s fierce loyalty to Pakistan and a son’s bruises corroding his patriotism, the Hindu Bhagat family tell their story of life in Lahore
The destruction of the Chowk Shah Alam Market Hindu temple in 1991
The current state of the Jain Mander Hindu temple in Lahore
“The Indian Dogra army came to Lahore in 1950 and they wanted to take us to India, but my father and I refused to go. Even if someone offers me a hundred thousand rupees I would not leave Pakistan because I consider it my country and am willing to die for it,” said Labha, the 70 year-old Hindu sweeper
Students in Pakistan are taught from the very beginning that Hindus are our natural enemies. Our history has been doctored beyond recognition to tell our people that the Hindus have never, and will never, be our friends. We are taught that they are mean, calculating and cunning, and that they sided with the British during the partition. It comes as a surprise when we discover they are not.
I have not come across many Hindus living in Pakistan and have been keen to understand how they find life in a Muslim country. When I was introduced to the Bhagat family, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to do just this, so I made my way to meet them, trying to keep at bay all the preconceptions I had been taught as a child.
Not many people know that there is a sizeable population of Hindus living in Pakistan out of choice rather than necessity. In the context of the two-nation theory, people assume that no Hindu would willingly live in Pakistan, much less feel loyalty to the nation. This was one of my assumptions that was destroyed by my encounter with a Hindu family.
The Bhagats live in servants’ quarters behind the old Tollington Market. Their home lies in the midst of a large wasteland and is almost the only house in the vicinity. The house itself is a dilapidated structure held together over the years through minor repairs. It consists of just one room in which the family lives.
When I reached their place I found they were waiting for me. I met them with a traditional Hindu greeting, saying ‘ namaste’and clasping my hands together (I had picked this up from the Indian movies I’d seen). They in turn greeted me with the Islamic greeting assalam-u-alaikum.
Labha is 70 years old and blind. He has a wife, Elizabeth, and two children, Laal (39) and Susie (15). He said the family had been living in the same quarter since the days of the British, “150 years to be exact. We never felt the need to move out,” Labha told me.
Labha worked as a sweeper in the market under the British, like his father and grandfather before him. “I started working when I was 7 and continued in the same profession till Bhagwan Krishen thought it best that I see no more,” he said, referring to an accident that rendered him blind around 20 years ago. He is now supported by Laal who lives with his wife and four children just around the block from his parents’ house. I asked Labha whether life was tough as a Hindu in Pakistan. “There are downsides to it but we have pretty much led a normal life,” he said. His only frustration is that the government of Pakistan did not appreciate his services to the market by giving him a better place to live. Instead they want him to move out of this place too, as they intend to construct a plaza in the area.
He held up a newspaper cutting handed to him by his wife and showed it to me. “See, the governor came here and promised us that he would give us a new plot of land to live on. He promised us that we would be provided a new shop to start a business and feed our children. But now the government wants us to leave the place where our ancestors lived. Tell me, where should I go? I am blind and old, and I still have to marry off my daughter,” he said with sadness in his voice.
But apart from the land dispute he had no qualms about living in Pakistan. “The Indian Dogra army came to Lahore in 1950 and they wanted to take us to India, but my father and I refused to go. Even if someone offers me a hundred thousand rupees I would not leave Pakistan because I consider it my country and am willing to die for it,” he said. I was taken aback by his bold comments, after all weren’t Hindus against the very idea of a separate Pakistan? “Yes we do think the motherland should not have been divided. But now that it has, I do not feel compelled to change my loyalties against the land where my ancestors lived in complete harmony with their surroundings,” a view that he claimed was shared by most people of his faith living in Pakistan. “We are a patriotic people, much more patriotic than most of the Muslims we know. Okay, so we don’t have the best of everything, but at least I have been able to live with dignity and respect,” he says.
He acknowledges, however, that there were hard times for the Hindus during the riots that followed the demolition of the Babri Mosque in India in 1991. Most of their temples in the city were destroyed by angry mobs, while the administration watched without responding, in scenes similar to those witnessed in Ayodhya. The statues of Hindu gods and goddesses were stolen or destroyed, and were never replaced. “Those were terrible days. Frankly I feared for my children’s lives. We were forced to hide our religious identity for months. But you really can’t blame the people for behaving the way they did. I do wish the government had done more to help us during that time,” Labha said.
All the while I had been talking to Labha, I could see Laal fidgeting, as if he wanted to say something but preferred not to out of respect for his father’s views. Labha soon left for a nap, as his fragile, old body could not bear sitting up for long. That gave me a chance to talk to his son.
“Baba is old,” he said of his father, “he has resigned himself to the kind of life we have been forced to live. He pretends that he has nothing against it but I know what life is like nowadays. Maybe it was better when Baba was young. But with tensions running high between India and Pakistan, things are going downhill again.”
Laal works as a physiotherapist’s assistant in the city. He takes house calls and visits patients regularly, but he never tells them about his faith. “They wouldn’t understand. They don’t consider us Pakistanis. Somehow they confuse being a Hindu with being Indian. As long as I don’t tell them I am a Hindu, they are nice to me, but if they happen to find out, they refuse treatment from me.”
I asked him whether his children faced any discrimination in school from the teachers or other students. “It isn’t very explicit because we have registered them under Christian names and they aren’t allowed to tell people they are Hindus. But the people in our area know and they don’t allow their children to play with ours. It is sad because during my school days I never had to hide my religious identity. I used to mix with Muslim and Christian children easily and they accepted me as one of them. Those were the good days,” he said.
He described how he was beaten up by youths in his area during the riots, a fact not known to his father. “I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to hurt his pride at being a Pakistani. It isn’t something that happens every day, but it’s upsetting to be victimised by people who have been your neighbours for such a long time,” he said with a rush of emotion. “All we want is to be left in peace and to lead our lives normally and be accepted as true citizens of the country. But it is becoming harder every day.”
Laal’s words kept ringing in my ears as I drove home that evening. We in Pakistan pride ourselves on the fact that Islam is a tolerant religion which respects the rights of minorities, yet we allow some in our societies to be treated abysmally on the basis of their faith. Hindus have borne the brunt of discrimination from a volatile few and this has given Pakistan a bad name. If Labha and Laal are patriotic and forgiving in the face of adversity and intolerance, surely we too can learn to live and let live
