(CHAKRA) In the last month, there has been an uptick in social media activity among Pakistani women activists, but beyond a few social media circles the crisis of abductions and forced conversions (to Islam) of underage hindu and other non-muslim religious minority women has gone widely unreported. Reports from human rights orgs and local media estimate over 1000 non-muslim religious minority girls face kidnappings, forced conversions and rape each year. Most of these girls are Hindus with the lowest estimate confirming 250 Hindu girls being kidnapped each year. Now, context is important – Pakistan is predominantly Sunni-Muslim and is recognized as an Islamic republic while Hindu minorities make up 1% of the total population. The Hindu population is therefore estimated at 2 million, and if you digest that up to 1000 hindu girls are kidnapped each year of 2 million, that would be a higher ratio than the kidnappings and forced conversions of any other faith group in the western world put together. If one was to ompare these numbers and ratios with atrocities faced by minorities in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, it would seem like a genocide is taking place similar to what Black live matter and indigenous campaigners stats in regards to police shootings and the lack of justice thereafter.
We reached out to various media journalists and human rights activists to find out the primary reasons for this gap in reporting around hindu atrocities in regions of South Asia, primarily Pakistan and Bangladesh. Although, south Asian bureau journalists of the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC and CNN did not respond to any of our queries, other South Asian journalists from smaller publications stated that hindu lives simply don’t matter. One journalist who wanted to stay anonymous as they feared their job stated that “if the victim is not Muslim in Pakistan, no one cares. Hindus are not seen as pure and often looked at as kafurs by a large section of Pakistani society and by covering atrocities faced by them, some hardline organizations feel that Media is conspiring with Hindu organizations”. Another independent journalist we reached out to that covers human rights issues across South Asia stated that “Religious minorities that don’t fall under the 3 major Abrahamic faiths don’t get the attention of global organizations such as Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and global publications. Non-Abrahamic people such as Kalashi, Sikhs, other Indigenous groups and Hindus are often seen as non-pure and don’t generate as strong donations and media clicks, hence in a day if you are going to focus on a story, you might as well talk about a story that sells and helps your org build its reputation”.
On social media, mainly Twitter, many Pakistani hindu minorities and other minority advocates who usually are fearful to challenge Islamic Supremacists, used the hashtag #Stopforcedconversion and #Stopforcedconversions to build awareness on the recent kidnappings and forced conversions of Hindu girls in Pakistan. The hashtag blew up after a video of a father of one of the kidnapped hindu girls was being ignored by local officials and police and threatened to commit suicide outside a police station in the Sindh province of Pakistan. Following the hashtag, it is obvious that it is mainly Hindus across South Asia, both Pakistan and India using it to create awareness due to the lack of media coverage. Reaching out to 3 minority activists that shared the hashtag, we asked how the response of their campaign has been thus far. All minority activists shared the emotion of hopelessness as they were not getting any support from local officials, national media outlets and global human rights activists. When asked why this was, 1 activist who wanted to stay anonymous as they received threats of rape and beheadings from Islamist trolls on Twitter stated “It’s tough fighting for non-muslim minority rights in Pakistan cause if you highlight Muslim supremacist groups who are threatening minorities with rape and forced conversions, you get criticized for Islamophobia, and risk getting called an Indian or jewish spy and not a true-pakistani”. The 2nd woman activist we reached out to called herself an ‘atheist’ and said she gave up being a Hindu as it’s a losing battle with only 3 outcomes of rape threats, constant requests to convert to Islam and being a evil and blasphemous pagan that can even lead to jail if hardliners make enough noise”. The last activist was a Hindu father of 2 girls in Pakistan who told us “ every hindu family knows a family who had their girl kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam, every hindu family has been called a kafir multiple times growing up, and every Hindu family is afraid to have a daughter in Pakistan due to forced conversions and kidnappings by local hardline Muslim groups”.
The Stop Forced Conversions campaign really began leading upto March 2019 as there were reports of 16 kidnappings of young minority Hindu women alone, and that too in the province of Sindh. As the world debates and battles White supremacism, Islamophobia, Anti-semitism and militant Islamist terror, Hindu minorities and hate against Hindus by religious supremacists who see pagans as lesser human are drastically ignored with no aid or hope in the near future.
Last year when a young Muslim girl was kidnapped by a local in Pakistan, it made global headlines and started a wave of national media coverage for months. The campaign was under the #justiceforzainab. All we ask is one of the 1000 Hindu, and other minority girls who are estimated to be kidnapped, raped and forced to convert each year get their own national campaign to help teach society that Hindus can be Pakistani too, and in a plural society, Hindus are not evil just because they are not Muslim nor Abrahamic.
This article was written by Arya Kumari (name changed), a Pakistani Hindu (she/her) who is studying in the United States, but still carries multi-generational trauma and fear of speaking publicly for minority rights against the Islamic majority in Pakistan. #stopforcedconversions #resist #hindulivesmatter
Priya Sharma says
May 13, 2020 at 1:19 amHey, Thank you for sharing this information with us. Keep sharing.