You ask for a right only when you are giving others their due rights. The world is full of people with different beliefs, castes, and creeds. But humanity has no religion, nor it is based on colour or ethnicity, rather it represents all human beings as equal beings. Humanity teaches us to live peacefully and let others live peacefully as kith and kin. Although the caste system is developed by the human mind which introduces upper, middle, lower caste, the minority in every society is given a lower caste category. With lower category comes fewer rights and opportunities in a society, we call them a minority. Hence, the minority represents those people who are having a smaller number of people and different religious beliefs than the majority. While the majority represents a particular religion and people having a large population and more rights. The best society can be developed if there is special care for minorities as the majority does, and harmony among the people of different beliefs is the way forward.
A recent tragedy took place in Pakistan’s district Rahim Yar Khan’s small-town Bhong Sharif, there an extremist mob rushed towards a temple and vandalized it hurriedly. While investigating the grievous incident, which bought down the positive image of Pakistan, the reason came out to be unreasonable and tolerable. From the horse’s mouth, a child allegedly urinated in a local seminary, and it gave the mob a right to torment the religious scriptures and destroy the temple. Such incidents are a common blame game in Pakistan, and several temples have been attacked in Pakistan like Masjids in India. The religious hatred groups are just portraying their wrong ideologies for the sake of their wrong beliefs.
According to the PBS’s census 2017, the Hindu population in Pakistan accounts for nearly a 4.4million, approximately 2.14% of the total population. Although the population of minority Hindus is less than the majority of Muslims, they are deprived of their rights without being reported.
Pakistan came into existence with the idea of promoting peace and harmony among the people, and the father of the nation said, “You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of State”, at Presidential Address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan 11 August 1947. But, in Pakistan, the minority is deprived of their rights and freedom of worship. In Pakistan, the government should focus on providing a safe and healthy environment to the minorities, and such mobs further are encouraged if the government will not take strict action against such brutalities.
On the contrary, forced conversion are on the rise, as in the past, many cases related to the forcibly converted and marriages were reported. And the authorities were and always failed to investigate and held the culprits accountable. Minorities are also human beings and they do have the same hopes and sentiments as we have. Humanity gives us a lesson to respect everyone by showing tolerance and harmony for others religious beliefs. According to the US media reports, annually 1000 or more that of girls belonging to the Hindu, Sikh, and Christian communities are subjected to rape, and forced to be converted to Islam.
Pakistan is a haven for the Muslims, but not for the minorities? Yes, because extremism has not religion as terrorism, and Pakistan has been through the same quagmire of religious hatred. We do raise our voice for Muslims around the globe whenever we come through a piece of news citing, ‘no rights for Muslims’ and it hurts our sentiments as we feel for them. But unfortunately, when the minority in our country is not being treated well then it does not affect our sentiments because they do not belong to our religion? The government should strictly punish such culprits and make an example for upcoming minds not to destroy the religious places and avoid defaming minorities based on myths and extremist minds. Being a Muslim, it is my responsibility to raise an eyebrow at such brutalities and every Muslim should object to such cases. As narrated by the Holy Prophet Muhammad P.B.U.H, “Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, or curtails their rights, or burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment.” He added: “Who hurts a non-Muslim minority is like hurting me”. (Abu Dawud)
