Sectarian violence aimed at religious minorities and social groups
professing a version of Islam that is at variance with the
fundamentalist and puritanical Wahabi philosophy continues to remain a
hallmark of the social and spiritual landscape of contemporary Pakistan
which is often referred to as a “failed state.” The unchecked and
continuing targeting of the adherents of Shia Islam by radical religious
outfits has added a new, disturbing dimension to the rapidly
deteriorating human rights record of Pakistan. In recent years, the
Persian speaking Hazara community, conspicuous for its distinct Central
Asian features and professing Shia Islam, has become the favourite
target of surprise attacks and vicious violence engineered by the an
assortment of extremist groups including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,(LeJ), which
under the mesmeric influence of the Deobandi school of thought, is bent
upon promoting Sunni Islam as the mainstay of Pakistan’s
socio-religious life.
The Mongolian features and light skin of Hazaras, who are believed to
be the descendants of Mongolian soldiers and slave women who settled in
Central Afghanistan in 12th century, sets them apart from the rest of
the Pakistani population and thus makes them an easy target of attack.
As it is, Hazaras were forced to migrate to Pakistan from their original
homeland in Afghanistan on account of a variety of factors including
the persecution of the community by the ruling elite, famines and food
shortage as well as despise and discrimination to which it has
traditionally been subjected to by the conservative Afghan society.
Historical records show that Hazaras have been migrating to Pakistan
since the 19th century. Lacking in political clout and being numerically
small, the Hazara community in Afghanistan used to face a serious
threat to its survival as a distinct social group with its own ethnic
and cultural moorings. Clearly and apparently, its sociological and
ethnic characteristics along with its adherence to Shia school of Islam,
has made the Persian speaking Hazara community a suspect in the eyes of
the mainstream Afghan society which is preponderantly Sunni.
In his excellently documented tome, ‘War and Migration’, social
anthropologist and author Alessandro Monsutti refers to the migration of
Afghan Hazaras to the area that constitutes the present day
Balochistan province of Pakistan. Following the Second Anglo Afghan War
(1878-1880), the first wave of Hazaras came to Quetta, which is now the
provincial capital of Balochsitan, the largest state in Pakistan that
shares borders with Iran and Afghanistan, to seek employment in British
owned enterprises. At that time, there are said to have been a few
hundred Hazaras in Balochistan. The subjugation of Hazarajat province by
the Afghan Emir Abdul Rahman Khan between 1891 and 1893 also triggered a
mass exodus of the community to Balochistan.
Further, following the 1971 drought that hit Hazarajat region in
Afghanistan, several thousand Hazaras moved into Balochistan to settle
in Quetta. And between 1973 and 1978, conflict between Pakistan and
Afghanistan was another factor that propelled Hazara migration to
Balochistan, since the then Afghan President Daud Khan saw Hazaras as
“the fifth column of Pakistan in Afghanistan.”
Following the April 1978 Communist coup in this landlocked, poverty
ridden mountainous country, along with the Soviet intervention in 1979,
the migratory movement of Hazaras to Balochistan gathered momentum. What
is more, many Hazaras arrived as refugees in Balochistan in 1996 when
the Taliban warlords, a majority of whom were Sunni Pasthuns, started
persecuting the community for its religious beliefs.
In Quetta, known for its poor law and order situation, Hazaras
reside in exclusive residential colonies around Hazara Town that came up
over the last one century .Many of them have excelled as successful
businessmen and entrepreneurs and the literacy attainment of Hazaras in
Balochistan is much higher in comparison to the national literacy
level of Pakistan. The total population of Hazaras in Pakistan has been
estimated to be less than a million.
Sunni extremist groups, which consider Hazaras as being proxies of
Iran in Pakistan, have launched a hate campaign against this community .
The two deadly and devastating bomb blasts triggered off at Quetta
earlier this year had left close to 200 Shias—a majority of them
Hazaras—dead. This has turned Hazaras shell shocked with serious concern
for their future in Pakistan. And in 2012, an estimated 100 Hazaras had
to pay with their lives in various attacks engineered by religious
extremist outfits across Pakistan.
Against this backdrop, there is a sound reason to believe that
reports in a section of the Pakistani press suggesting apprehension
among Hazaras over the growing linkage between the militants of LeJ
and Baloch resurgent groups waging an armed struggle for an independent
Baloch homeland, could just be a ploy to give a bad name to the
Baloch separatist movement. For Baloch nationalists who are secular to
the core have no love lost for fundamentalist outfits that are hand in
glove with Pakistani army, the most hated institution in Balochistan. In
fact, Baloch separatists have been blaming Pakistan army and the
notorious spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) for the large
scale abduction and killings of Baloch youths.
On its part, ISI, is quite pleased with the LeJ’s anti Hazara
campaign. For this strategy suits ISI’s long term objective of turning
Balochistan into a haven of fundamentalist and radical school of Islam.
Baloch nationalist political parties are clear in their perception
that the country’s ruling elite and military establishment are adding
to the on-going turmoil and turbulence in the this mineral rich
province by encouraging the growth of extremist outfits. In this
context, Mohammed Waseem, a Professor of Political Science at the Lahore
University of Management Sciences, has expressed the view that because
LeJ may be aiding military’s undeclared operations against Baloch
insurgents, the civilian government is in two minds in so far as acting
against LeJ is concerned. Human rights bodies too have indicted the
state establishment for its alleged involvement in providing full
impunity to religious militants responsible for the killing of Hazaras
and Baloch nationalists in Balochistan.
Indeed, Pakistan army’s change in its operational strategy towards
Balochistan –from overt operations to more covert ones-- is becoming
evident to the discerning observers. As more and more Baloch nationalist
activists began to disappear, more and more religious seminaries began
surfacing across Balochistan with the sole objective of converting the
otherwise secular Baloch society into a religious extremist one. Media
reports point out that religious seminaries (Madrasas) propagating
extremist form of Islam are mushrooming rapidly in Balochistan with
funds from West Asian Muslim countries.
Till recently, sectarian outfits like Ahl-e-Sunnatwal Jammat
propounding extremist Islamic philosophy has had no influence on the
social landscape of Balochistan suffused with the spirit of secularism.
However, following the collapse of Taliban dominance in neighbouring
Afghanistan, a large number of Taliban fighters took refuge in and
around Quetta. These Taliban militants have now aligned with LeJ cadres
who are known to have close links with ISI. That the Taliban-LeJ
alliance has been given a free hand to operate in Balochistan is evident
from one of their threat letters distributed in Hazara localities in
Quetta in 2012. The letter said, “Just as our fighters have waged a
successful jihad against the Shia Hazaras in Afghanistan, our mission in
Pakistan is the abolition of this impure sect and people”.
Investigation into the dynamics of the terror campaign against Hazaras
reveal that violence and killings of Hazaras was spearheaded by the
Balochistan chapter of LeJ led by Usman Saifullah Kurd who had escaped
from a high security prison in Quetta way back in 2008.
Indeed, Quetta’s Hazara community has been pitchforked into the
frontline of Pakistan’s no holds barred war against religious
fundamentalism. Because of their adherence to Shia school of philosophy,
Hazaras are considered heretics by the extremist LeJ. And for the
community, its very survival as a unique ethnic group in the socially
turbulent Pakistan has become a big question mark. Against this
backdrop, Hazaras have made strong demands for handing over the
administration of the sprawling and violence ridden Balochistan to the
military and a blanket ban on all the extremist outfits responsible for
sectarian violence. But then the Hazara demand for military intervention
in the administration of Balochsitan appears rather strange and
contradictory as the Pakistani army is hand in glove with the notorious
ISI which has been supporting the radical Islamic groups that have been
in the forefront of violent campaign against Shias including Hazaras. As
things stand now, Hazaras seems to have become desperate enough to
espouse the need for handing over the administration of Balochistan
province to Pakistani army.
Not surprisingly then Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission has come
down heavily on the powers that be for its failure to crack down on
religious fundamentalist groups including LeJ that are behind the deadly
anti Hazara campaign. “What steps, if any, had been taken after the
deadly attack against Quetta’s Hazaras in order to bring to justice the
ruthless killers who have the audacity to claim responsibility again and
again for their ghastly actions,” asked the Human Rights panel.
Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani, belonging to the influential
Raisani tribe, who took over as the Chief Minister of Balochistan in
2008 and was dismissed in 2013 for his failure to maintain law and
order in the province as highlighted by the audacious killings of
Hazaras, has been blamed for the complicity in the carnage of Hazaras.
In a move that stirred controversy, Raisani had in 2011 stated that the
killing of 40 Shia Hazaras in his stronghold town of Mastung was not a
big deal. To add insult to the injury of the community, Raisani said
that he would arrange to send truck loads of tissue paper to the
families of Mastung incident in which Hazaras were forced off the bus
and executed by Al-Qaeda militants.
According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace in Pakistan, the
Government of Raisani was a complete failure with regard to providing
protection to the Hazara community. Hazara activist on their part point
out that Raisani was a helpless spectator who could neither stop the
killings of Hazaras nor wanted to sacrifice his Government in an effort
to protect them.
A report on the deteriorating law and order situation in Balochistan
under Raisani which was released by Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission
in August 2012 points out that ”Administration seems to bear ethnic and
sectarian biases against the Hazara Shia community. Since the Government
led by Raisani assumed the charge, not a single charge sheet has been
presented in the courts against the accused. The accused are arrested in
the morning and released in the afternoon. No government or public
official had either condemned the targeted killing of the members of the
Hazara community or come to condole the murders and offer any
compensation to the families of the victims”.
According to the London based Hazara United Forum, nearly 1000
Hazaras have been killed and more than 2000 injured and maimed in 120
recorded terrorist attacks on the community over the past decade. ”Our
graveyards are full. What is our crime? We are the most non violent and
peaceful citizens of our country and love it as much as anyone else. How
can killing us serve any geo-political objectives of any group?” asks a
spokesman of Hazara United Forum.
A section of Hazaras, unable to withstand the systematic campaign of
violence and persecution targeted at them, are leaving Pakistan with a
view to seek asylum in Australia. As pointed out by Abdul Khaliq Hazara,
Chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP), many youngsters of the
community have left the country in search of a congenial environment and
a better life. Though it is estimated that about one lakh Hazaras have
already left Pakistan, data to substantiate this figure is not
forthcoming. However, the escape route of Hazaras from Pakistan to
Australia is strewn with hazards and dangers. To begin with, Hazaras
willing to bid adieu to Pakistan leave for a South East Asian
destination from where they move to Australia in boats. Many of the
Hazaras have lost their lives while negotiating rough seas on the
rickety boats. Indeed, Hazaras seems to have become a part of the saga
of boat people. Interestingly, boat people is the term that came into
vogue in mid-1970s when Vietnamese refugees fled Communist controlled
Vietnam on boats on asylum seeking spree. But then, as observed by an
elderly Hazara, leaving Pakistan is not an easy option. Going further,
he states that even shifting bases within the country would not help the
community since it is easily recognized.
Though banned a decade back under US pressure, LeJ continues to be
alive and kicking, operating as it does under the very nose of the
security forces with a certain degree of brazenness. Hazaras are clear
that a well conceived social campaign against religious extremism
accompanied by a rigorous military operations against fundamentalist
groups could alone go a long way towards ensuring their safety in
Pakistan. But then the political elite in Islamabad and men in uniform
in Rawalpindi have very little reason to step in to protect the
politically weak Hazara community.
Political analysts are of view that the ruling dispensation in
Islamabad seems to have a soft corner for LeJ. For the widely held
perception is that on account of the historical linkage between the
Pakistan defence forces and LeJ, the civilian government in Islamabad
seems unwilling to crack down on this extremist outfit, which is in the
forefront of the violent campaign against Hazaras. Significantly, the
website hazara.net describes the on-going persecution of the community
in Pakistan as an attempt at “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing”. This
websites also highlights the fact that the terrorist outfits drawing
inspiration from the philosophy of Al Qaida and supported by Saudi petro
dollars are increasingly targeting Hazaras . Along with Hazaras, the
on-going spell of sectarian violence in Pakistan is also targeting
Ahmadiyas with a high degree of viciousness. In the eyes of hard-line
radical Islamic outfits, both Ahmadiyas and Shias are “heretics” and as
such are not qualified to be the “true soldiers of Islam.” Intolerance
and hatred for milder and accommodative forms of Islam seems to have
become the staple food of Pakistan based militant groups in sync with
Taliban, a veritable psychological progeny of the short-sighted American
foreign policy.
In the ultimate analysis, the victimization and persecution of
Hazaras in Pakistan points out to a deep rooted social malaise that
draws heavily from the radical religious teachings assiduously
propagated by the fundamentalist Islamic outfits owing allegiance to the
Wahabi school. The ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia is known to be a
major source of funding for the propagation of the rigid Wahabi
teachings in Pakistan.
On another front, the on-going sectarian violence in Pakistan also
implies the rapidly waning influence of “tolerant and humanistic”
values and “ accommodative spirit” over a growing section of the
population in Pakistan. Clearly and apparently, there is a pronounced
need to bring about a greater degree of cohesion in the
“disintegrating” social fabric of Pakistan through the message of love
and brotherhood, But then the rapid resurgence of hardliner Taliban
philosophy in recent years has contributed to the erosion of the
influence of human values and syncretic tradition in a section of
Pakistani population. As sociologists point out, strengthening the roots
of syncretic tradition and moderate social values in Pakistan could go a
long way towards healing the festering wounds of sectarian violence
eating into the vitals of that country. Right at the moment, Pakistan
seems to be torn between growing political appeal of radical Taliban
philosophy and human values inherent in its syncretic tradition. And
this confusing social milieu seems to have made life miserable for
minority social groups like Hazaras aptly described as the” abandoned
community”.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.