USCIRF, Hypocrisy of the Hindutva Brigade and The Bigger Picture

I have received strong reactions to by blog in which I claimed I would rather be a Hindu minority in Pakistan than be a Muslim minority in India. While an overwhelming majority of attacks were against me personally at least one person tried to refute my claims. It is appreciable. Here is my response to the points raised as a rebuttal to by blog.

Quoting USCIRF 

As a response to my article people have used USCIRF’s assessment that Pakistan is a little worse than India in protecting religious freedoms of minorities. USCIRF is a US based organisation which monitors religious freedoms around the world and helps their Govt in making policy. USCIRF was banned from entering India in 2009 after it opposed the visa for Narendra Modi the now Prime Minister of India.  This was done by Congress. Why would Congress do that? Well it had it own concerns about USCIRF reviving the ghost of 1984 anti Sikh pogrom  (another minority) and the systemic failure to bring the perpetrators to justice.

USCIRF continued to urge the US Government to maintain visa ban on Narendra Modi. In 2013 USCIRF said:

“There is significant evidence linking him to the violence and the terrible events that took place in Gujarat and for this reason, a visa would not be appropriate.”

Katrina Lantos Swett, chairwoman of the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)

The man who USCIRF linked with one of the worst anti Muslim pogrom in the history of India goes on to become to Prime Minister of India. This is exactly the point I had made in my blog. This is unlikely to happen in Pakistan. The extremists in Pakistan have repeatedly failed to garner support in the democratic elections.USCIRF does not have access to India so they cannot possibly give an honest assessment about India even if they had an intent. It is intellectually dishonest for the right wing to quote USCIRF, an organisation that they have constantly opposed and called its members Christian fundamentalists. According to the Hindutva fundamentalists when it comes to India, USCIRF is a biased organisation run by Christian fundamentalists but when it comes to Pakistan it is the most reliable source of information.

In my original post I did not quote from any foreign agency. I made specific points in which Indian does worse than Pakistan in protecting the rights of Muslims than Pakistan does in protecting the rights of its Hindu population. I could have posted many such observations from foreign agencies as I did below. I chose not to do that in my original blog because my assertions were not based on what they say.

India has entirely escaped any kind of international scrutiny of whats been called India’s “hidden apartheid”.
– European Centre for Law & Justice”Religious minorities in India, particularly Christians and Muslims, suffer religious persecution daily”
– European Centre for Law & Justice

 

 According to the latest report published by PEW research center India did worse than Pakistan on social hostilities involving religion. For most people in India it is unimaginable to compare the plight of Indian minorities with the plight of minorities in Pakistan yet if you look at various international reports over several years you will see that India and Pakistan always appear among the worst countries for minority rights.

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Bad Vs Worse

Of course Pakistan is no heaven for its Hindu population nor is India hell for its Muslim population. There are some harrowing individual stories of persecution faced by minorities in Pakistan just like there are harrowing stories of persecution faced by individuals in India. For e.g. there are cases where Muslims in India have to pretend to be Hindus to land a job in India. Does this mean that this is faced by all or most Muslims in India? No. My blog was about the bigger picture.

I can quote hundreds of individual heart wrenching stories about the families of Indian Muslims:

• who lost their loved ones in massacres
• who were forced to see their loved one being raped by a mob.
• who were jailed for years using fabricated terrorism charges.
• who face job discrimination.
• who face housing discrimination.
• who are beaten by police and made to accept cow as their mother.
• who are not allowed to join intelligence agencies because India does not trust Muslims.
• who are arrested by police and beaten by Hindutva thugs on accusations of blasphemy.
• who are not allowed to run Urdu schools in the most populous state of India. 
• who will lose right to reservation if he is Dalit and has chosen to leave Hinduism.

I did not  quote these stories in my original blog because it was about the bigger picture. And here is the bigger picture:

• Have Hindus faced repeated Gujarat, Nellie, Mumbai like pogroms in Pakistan? No.
• Are anti Hindu forces reaping rewards from the Pakistanis in form of electoral gains? No.
• Is Hindu Personal Law under threat in Pakistan? No.
• Are Pakistani Hindus being forced change their dietary habits? No.
• Are Pakistani Hindus constantly under pressure from politicians and media? No.

For those who say Hindus cant resister their marriage in Pakistan here is the whole case. Pakistani Hindus are opposing the divorce clause saying that “We have no concept of divorce in our religion” delaying the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act.

There are still major concerns about what Hindus are facing in Pakistan. The percentage of poor Hindu girls being abducted is more than their representation in population. Some are forcibly converted. There was threat to the Hindu festival of Holi and some Pakistanis formed and human chain to protect them from extremists. Pakistan is obviously no heaven for Hindus but if given a choice only between the two options I would rather be a Hindu in Pakistan than be a Muslim in India. And preferably I would not choose to be a minority in either India or Pakistan.