By
Sankar Ray
Twenty-seven
year-old Sonia Riasat is the lone Christian employee in any government office
along with a dozen sanitation workers in municipalities in the whole of Azad
Jammu and Kashmir, which in India is known as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. She
has a postgraduate degree in English literature and has been working there
since 2009. But a substantive status or confirmation of permanent appointment
remains a distant dream. She has to be “busy receiving and transferring
telephone calls to prime minister and other officials working there” at a dank
and dark telephone exchange room of the Prime Minister’s House in Muzaffarabad.
“Some
people who started their careers with me were confirmed within six months of
their appointment. I have filed many applications to higher authorities,
including the prime minister. He was very helpful and granted a relaxation in
the rules, which bar my confirmation as a non-state subject,” she laments
stating that many colleagues who joined after her had been promoted all these
years. “But for reasons known only to the authorities, I am unable to get
confirmation as a permanent employee,” she added.
Although
for decades Christians in AJK had to cope with odd jobs with daily or
piece-rated wages in government departments, especially municipalities, thus
making it difficult to keep from a wolf at the door. Sparingly few of them
could educate their children to help them secure better jobs in public and
private sectors. Saqib Javed Raja, a civil rights activist from Mirpur, says
that many Christian families living in Bhimber before Partition in 1947 had
property rights, but the majority of Christians are deprived of such rights.
Until
2005, there was no graveyard for Christians in Muzaffarabad. It was only when a
family carrying the body of its daughter who succumbed to a road accident that
killed seven was going to Sialkot that the government allocated some land for a
Christian cemetery in Makri village, near Muzaffarabad. Of late, some land was
allotted for Catholic and Protestant churches too.
Azadi
is severely restricted to Ahmadiyya and Bahai community Muslims. They were
declared as non-Muslim minorities through a constitutional amendment by the AJL
government and the discriminatory amendment — the 12th Amendment in Interim
Constitution of Azad Jammu and Kashmir — was passed unanimously in February
2018. Fanatic anathema of Sunni Islam against other sects of Muslims in
Pakistan was evident when Islamabad denounced Pakistani Nobel laureate
physicist Abdus Salam (born at Jhang Maghiāna, East Punjab) whose name is
linked to the subatomic ‘God particle’. A non-hero at home, the only Nobel
laureate in science in the Indian subcontinent in post-colonial era remained
censored for three decades in school textbooks where his name too was stricken
from. Two prime ministers – let alone the military dictators – kept him
ignored. Appeal from a section of scientists at home, backed by non-resident
Pakistani scientists created a wake-up call for the rulers for ending the
‘humanimalistic seclusionism’. Salam, who spent his life at the International
Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, rechristened as the Abdus Salam
International Centre for Theoretical Physics, was posthumously honoured, But it
was less than symbolic as ostracisation of Ahmadiyyas remains unaltered.
Lahore-based
The Friday Times carried an expose, authored by Jalaluddin Mughal, on denial of
rights to Ahmadiyas, Bahais and Christians in AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan. In
Gilgit-Baltistan, sectarian violence is endemic. UK-based Kashmiri scholar
Amina Mir accuses AJK government of suppression of ‘information about the
number of followers of any particular religion. One can easily see how a
particular sect has dominated the policymaking process,” snapping fingers at
the dominant Sunni Muslims.
Reports
of population census (2017) pertaining to AJK and GB are yet to be made public.
“The state has also not yet devised a policy to determine education and job
quotas as well as representation of religious minorities in civic and
legislative bodies. Although majority of the population in AJK is Muslim, a
considerable number of Christians, Ahmadis and Bahais also live in the region.
They are mostly found in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Mirpur and Bhimber areas”, the
TFT article states.
“AJK’s
culture is rich and there is great diversity in terms of religion and
ethnicity. It is unfortunate that neither our society nor our governments have
ever acknowledged this,” emphasises Dr Rukhsana Khan, assistant professor at
the University of AJK and a cultural heritage expert. She cites socio-religious
celebrations like Nowruz, Eid and Urs of various saints by most ethnic and
religious groups.
There
are 40,000-45,000 people non-Muslims in the region, according to notional data.
Ahmadis are the largest religious minority group, followed by Christians and
Bahais. “Just before one enters Muzaffarabad from Chatter, a rusty board
painted in blue and white points to a Bahai graveyard somewhere up the hill.
After traveling a couple of kilometers on a steep but metaled road lead to
Charrakpura village, there is a triangular concrete compound with metallic gate
that is always open”, wrote Mughal. The cemetery was purchased in 1996 – the
only Bahai graveyard in the region. (IPA
Service)
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