Islamic Republic of Pakistan : News, Discussions & Updates
- Thread starter Butter Chicken
- Start date
You are same salwar wearing mard e momeen who called Lord Ram as half naked blue man on Abdul's Kotha.
I can prefix and suffix many adjectives for your faith, sorry, imported faith, that will make you sheet in your mom's salwar but I won't.
My 10,000 years old faith isn't answerable to your copy/paste Judaism and your imported god.
That's the reason why Pakistanis became nepalis, Americans, Russians, Chinese, Arabs and Sri lankans etc on Twitter. It's just because Pakistanis don't have a history, relationship with land.
This time we will break Pakistan into 4 parts and you keep doing abhi-none-done, Tea is fantastic.
I suspect world War 3 is coming and it's going to be free for all, disputed or demarcated boundaries won't matter.
No Arsalan.. there is a huge difference to the ways India and Pakistan have publicly reacted. India will never have weekly demonstrations.. and observe black day.. or have a song and dance performance to condemn Pakistan's move to include JK and erstwhile Junagadh in its political map.. Apart from the statement already made.. I don't think there will be much in the form of official reaction..
But, Pakistan leaving out eastern parts of Ladakh undemarcated, for the chinese to gobble up as much territory in ladakh or even kashmir in the future [ even Nepal's new political map has solid borders], will strengthen the hawks in the Indian security establishment, and convince them that Pakistan has lost whatever little free will and soverignty it had to China, and thus will be treated with the disdain reserved for such nations.
You know a long time ago I happened to see an interview of MK Rasgotra a veteran diplomat much revered by the foreign policy establishment out here.
This was around 2006-7 & the topic was the Indo US Civilian N partnership .The discussion veered towards the US trying to use India as it's cat's paw in it's dealings with China in lieu of the N agreement proposed with Rasgotra vehemently opposing it & constantly reminding India of the virtues of non alignment & the dangers of getting caught in big power games.
My late dad was looking at a prospectus of a plantation which promised guaranteed returns of upto 10 times, 25 years after the full investments were made with not a cent arriving before it. He sighed & remarked this is how the Indian foreign policy establishment thinks.
Our immediate threat is from China & Pakistan. More so now than ever. I don't think anyone in the foreign policy establishment has any illusions of how western powers think & consider India's human rights record. As of today most of the criticism from these governments are muted. The only loud voices one hears is from the LeLi establishment in academia, media, NGO's & the loony left wing in legislative bodies.
Yet in the early 90's , the GoI repeatedly faced such issues from the US, UK, Canada, Germany, etc when the Kashmir insurgency was in full flow & the Punjab insurgency was dying down with heavy casualties. To add to this was the RJB movement & it's aftermath. Ironically, China & India partnered to face down western interests & pressure groups in various fora like the Kyoto Protocol, the WTO, etc. Alas! That partnership has broken down.
Moving on with the UCC, NRC, etc being an article of faith with this government, things will get heated up. Add to that the evangelical groups running riot in NE , South & Central India merrily changing the religious demographics out there & that's another front we'd have to face down apart from the illegal Bangladeshi migrants out here .
There are no easy ways out for India. Unfortunately, That's the pathway to great power status. It's lonely and filled with struggles & sacrifices. Always has been so. I just hope the powers that be in Delhi are aware of it & don't indulge in self delusion.
you think about your own feelings,about your own country.this disputed territory is important for other party as well. you can't make unilateral decisions. i remember that day.i remember amit shah words. it was like preparing to start a war against pakistan. basically india challenged pakistan to start military action but we responded with no action. it was a right decision. we aren't going to start a war on indian provocations.we do it whenever we want. you don't care about pakistani people.you don't care about our feelings.bjp made pakistan enemy number 1.do you remember qatal ki raat tweet? it was clear to us that there is no solution except pushing india either from our side or two front.remember amit shah also discussed aksai chin in parliament. every country can be your friend if you give them respect.
india wanted to humiliate pakistan and they did abrogation but china isn't pakistan. both parties discussed common solution and now game is on. do you think china will go back and left everything in april position? india was about to attack pakistan but pakistan managed to hold on.now you have this situation and you now blame china but it's your own mistakes.china is not pakistan and china will never come under any pressure from usa. pakistan don't want to fight india.now look at you.gilgit simply vanished and now big trouble for india on lac.
my point is simple. other countries or indian neighbors can also take action. you can't provoke two countries at the same time and send your entire army in kashmir.this is just one year after abrogation and look at your position now. you betrayus on kashmir.from bilateral to unilateral.we have no option now. you ruined your relations with us just because of west.
It's waste of time talking to this brainwashed pakistani. Now apparently modi election promises are done to please west. And china is some how rescue pakistan.
India is doing what is in Indian interest. China cannot build roads in POK and expect business as usual .
Your only shamless act always beg others to rescue you. It was usa now it's china. It will never be pakistan. That's your future always under the shadows of others. Unlike usa china has different plans. You future generations will be slaves in Chinese colony. Enjoy the freedom while it lasts
Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By
The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men and boys were then circumcised.
Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority.
The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan’s majority Muslim faith in recent years — although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.
News outlets in India, Pakistan’s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.
“What we are seeking is social status, nothing else,” said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.
“These conversions,” he added, “are becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.”
Proselytizing Muslim clerics and charity groups add to the faith’s allure, offering incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minority members only if they convert.
With Pakistan’s economy on the brink of collapse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the pressures on the country’s minorities, often its poorest people, have increased. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. And up to 18 million of Pakistan’s 74 million jobs may be lost.
Mr. Sheikh and his family hope to find financial support from wealthy Muslims or from Islamic charities that have cropped up in recent years, which focus on drawing more people to Islam.
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Mr. Sheikh said. “Everyone helps the people of their faith.”
As Mr. Sheikh sees it, there is nothing left for Pakistan’s more affluent Hindus to give to help the people of their own faith. That is because there are so few Hindus left.
Image
Hindus at Shri Krishna Temple in Mithi, Pakistan, in 2018.Credit...Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At independence in 1947, Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 — the last government census to classify people by religion — Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population. Most estimates say it has further dwindled in the past two decades.
Once a melting pot of religions, Sindh Province, where the conversion ceremony took place, has seen minority members flee to other countries in droves in recent decades. Many face harsh discrimination, as well as the specter of violence — and the risk of being accused of blasphemy, a capital crime — if they speak out against it.
“The dehumanization of minorities coupled with these very scary times we are living in — a weak economy and now the pandemic — we may see a raft of people converting to Islam to stave off violence or hunger or just to live to see another day,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani lawmaker who is now a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a research group in Washington.
Ms. Ispahani recalled the devastating floods of 2010 in Sindh Province, which left thousands homeless and with little to eat. Hindus were not allowed to sit with Muslims at soup kitchens, she said. And when government aid was handed out, Hindus received less of it than their Muslim peers did, she said.
“Will they be converting with their hearts and souls?” Ms. Ispahani said. “I don’t think so.”
The further economic devastation caused by the pandemic may spur more sectarian violence, and that may intensify the pressure on minorities to convert, Ms. Ispahani and others worry.
Murtaza Wahab, an adviser to the chief minister of Sindh, was among several government officials who said they could not address Ms. Ispahani’s accusation that Hindus received less aid after the floods, as it happened before they took office.
“The Hindu community is an important part of our society and we believe that people from all faiths should live together without issue,” Mr. Wahab said.
Forced conversions of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages occur throughout Pakistan. But Hindu rights groups are also troubled by the seemingly voluntary conversions, saying they take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.
“Overall, religious minorities do not feel safe in Pakistan,” said Lal Chand Mahli, a Pakistani Hindu lawmaker with the ruling party, who is a member of a parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversions. “But poor Hindus are the most vulnerable among them. They are extremely poor and illiterate, and Muslim mosques, charities and traders exploit them easily and lure them to convert to Islam. A lot of money is involved in it.”
Clerics like Muhammad Naeem were at the forefront of an effort to convert more Hindus. (Mr. Naeem, who was 62, died of cardiac arrest two weeks after he was interviewed in June).
Mr. Naeem said he had overseen more than 450 conversions over the past two years at Jamia Binoria, his seminary in Karachi. Most of the converts were low-caste Hindus from Sindh Province, he said.
“We have not been forcing them to convert,” Mr. Naeem said. “In fact, people come to us because they want to escape discrimination attached with their caste and change their socioeconomic status.”
Demand was so great, he added, that his seminary had set up a separate department to guide the new converts and provide counsel in legal or financial matters.
www.nytimes.com
The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men and boys were then circumcised.
Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority.
The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan’s majority Muslim faith in recent years — although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.
News outlets in India, Pakistan’s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.
“What we are seeking is social status, nothing else,” said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.
“These conversions,” he added, “are becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.”
Proselytizing Muslim clerics and charity groups add to the faith’s allure, offering incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minority members only if they convert.
With Pakistan’s economy on the brink of collapse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the pressures on the country’s minorities, often its poorest people, have increased. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. And up to 18 million of Pakistan’s 74 million jobs may be lost.
Mr. Sheikh and his family hope to find financial support from wealthy Muslims or from Islamic charities that have cropped up in recent years, which focus on drawing more people to Islam.
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Mr. Sheikh said. “Everyone helps the people of their faith.”
As Mr. Sheikh sees it, there is nothing left for Pakistan’s more affluent Hindus to give to help the people of their own faith. That is because there are so few Hindus left.
Image
Hindus at Shri Krishna Temple in Mithi, Pakistan, in 2018.Credit...Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At independence in 1947, Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 — the last government census to classify people by religion — Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population. Most estimates say it has further dwindled in the past two decades.
Once a melting pot of religions, Sindh Province, where the conversion ceremony took place, has seen minority members flee to other countries in droves in recent decades. Many face harsh discrimination, as well as the specter of violence — and the risk of being accused of blasphemy, a capital crime — if they speak out against it.
“The dehumanization of minorities coupled with these very scary times we are living in — a weak economy and now the pandemic — we may see a raft of people converting to Islam to stave off violence or hunger or just to live to see another day,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani lawmaker who is now a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a research group in Washington.
Ms. Ispahani recalled the devastating floods of 2010 in Sindh Province, which left thousands homeless and with little to eat. Hindus were not allowed to sit with Muslims at soup kitchens, she said. And when government aid was handed out, Hindus received less of it than their Muslim peers did, she said.
“Will they be converting with their hearts and souls?” Ms. Ispahani said. “I don’t think so.”
The further economic devastation caused by the pandemic may spur more sectarian violence, and that may intensify the pressure on minorities to convert, Ms. Ispahani and others worry.
Murtaza Wahab, an adviser to the chief minister of Sindh, was among several government officials who said they could not address Ms. Ispahani’s accusation that Hindus received less aid after the floods, as it happened before they took office.
“The Hindu community is an important part of our society and we believe that people from all faiths should live together without issue,” Mr. Wahab said.
Forced conversions of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages occur throughout Pakistan. But Hindu rights groups are also troubled by the seemingly voluntary conversions, saying they take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.
“Overall, religious minorities do not feel safe in Pakistan,” said Lal Chand Mahli, a Pakistani Hindu lawmaker with the ruling party, who is a member of a parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversions. “But poor Hindus are the most vulnerable among them. They are extremely poor and illiterate, and Muslim mosques, charities and traders exploit them easily and lure them to convert to Islam. A lot of money is involved in it.”
Clerics like Muhammad Naeem were at the forefront of an effort to convert more Hindus. (Mr. Naeem, who was 62, died of cardiac arrest two weeks after he was interviewed in June).
Mr. Naeem said he had overseen more than 450 conversions over the past two years at Jamia Binoria, his seminary in Karachi. Most of the converts were low-caste Hindus from Sindh Province, he said.
“We have not been forcing them to convert,” Mr. Naeem said. “In fact, people come to us because they want to escape discrimination attached with their caste and change their socioeconomic status.”
Demand was so great, he added, that his seminary had set up a separate department to guide the new converts and provide counsel in legal or financial matters.
Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By (Published 2020)
Drawn by jobs or land offered by Muslim groups, some Hindus, facing discrimination and a virus-ravaged economy, are essentially converting to survive.
Riyaasat e Podeena will ‘allow’ idol-worshiping Hindus and followers of wrong prophet Christians to live freely, as long as they accept that Ola is superior to Über. Otherwise it “Al-Jihad fil Islam”.Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By
The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men and boys were then circumcised.
Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority.
The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan’s majority Muslim faith in recent years — although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.
News outlets in India, Pakistan’s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.
“What we are seeking is social status, nothing else,” said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.
“These conversions,” he added, “are becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.”
Proselytizing Muslim clerics and charity groups add to the faith’s allure, offering incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minority members only if they convert.
With Pakistan’s economy on the brink of collapse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the pressures on the country’s minorities, often its poorest people, have increased. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. And up to 18 million of Pakistan’s 74 million jobs may be lost.
Mr. Sheikh and his family hope to find financial support from wealthy Muslims or from Islamic charities that have cropped up in recent years, which focus on drawing more people to Islam.
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Mr. Sheikh said. “Everyone helps the people of their faith.”
As Mr. Sheikh sees it, there is nothing left for Pakistan’s more affluent Hindus to give to help the people of their own faith. That is because there are so few Hindus left.
Image
Hindus at Shri Krishna Temple in Mithi, Pakistan, in 2018.Credit...Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At independence in 1947, Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 — the last government census to classify people by religion — Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population. Most estimates say it has further dwindled in the past two decades.
Once a melting pot of religions, Sindh Province, where the conversion ceremony took place, has seen minority members flee to other countries in droves in recent decades. Many face harsh discrimination, as well as the specter of violence — and the risk of being accused of blasphemy, a capital crime — if they speak out against it.
“The dehumanization of minorities coupled with these very scary times we are living in — a weak economy and now the pandemic — we may see a raft of people converting to Islam to stave off violence or hunger or just to live to see another day,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani lawmaker who is now a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a research group in Washington.
Ms. Ispahani recalled the devastating floods of 2010 in Sindh Province, which left thousands homeless and with little to eat. Hindus were not allowed to sit with Muslims at soup kitchens, she said. And when government aid was handed out, Hindus received less of it than their Muslim peers did, she said.
“Will they be converting with their hearts and souls?” Ms. Ispahani said. “I don’t think so.”
The further economic devastation caused by the pandemic may spur more sectarian violence, and that may intensify the pressure on minorities to convert, Ms. Ispahani and others worry.
Murtaza Wahab, an adviser to the chief minister of Sindh, was among several government officials who said they could not address Ms. Ispahani’s accusation that Hindus received less aid after the floods, as it happened before they took office.
“The Hindu community is an important part of our society and we believe that people from all faiths should live together without issue,” Mr. Wahab said.
Forced conversions of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages occur throughout Pakistan. But Hindu rights groups are also troubled by the seemingly voluntary conversions, saying they take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.
“Overall, religious minorities do not feel safe in Pakistan,” said Lal Chand Mahli, a Pakistani Hindu lawmaker with the ruling party, who is a member of a parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversions. “But poor Hindus are the most vulnerable among them. They are extremely poor and illiterate, and Muslim mosques, charities and traders exploit them easily and lure them to convert to Islam. A lot of money is involved in it.”
Clerics like Muhammad Naeem were at the forefront of an effort to convert more Hindus. (Mr. Naeem, who was 62, died of cardiac arrest two weeks after he was interviewed in June).
Mr. Naeem said he had overseen more than 450 conversions over the past two years at Jamia Binoria, his seminary in Karachi. Most of the converts were low-caste Hindus from Sindh Province, he said.
“We have not been forcing them to convert,” Mr. Naeem said. “In fact, people come to us because they want to escape discrimination attached with their caste and change their socioeconomic status.”
Demand was so great, he added, that his seminary had set up a separate department to guide the new converts and provide counsel in legal or financial matters.
Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By (Published 2020)
Drawn by jobs or land offered by Muslim groups, some Hindus, facing discrimination and a virus-ravaged economy, are essentially converting to survive.
Well, the blueprint for this is more than a millenium old. The best part is in just 2 generations the indoctrination would be so compete that they'd be extolling the virtues of Islam over kufr and what's more would be willing foot soldiers in converting their erstwhile brethren to the true religion using much the same tactics & if need be move across the border with a bomb strapped across their body or detonate one within their borders too.Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By
The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men and boys were then circumcised.
Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan’s dwindling Hindu minority.
The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan’s majority Muslim faith in recent years — although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.
News outlets in India, Pakistan’s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.
Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life — housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.
“What we are seeking is social status, nothing else,” said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.
“These conversions,” he added, “are becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.”
Proselytizing Muslim clerics and charity groups add to the faith’s allure, offering incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minority members only if they convert.
With Pakistan’s economy on the brink of collapse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the pressures on the country’s minorities, often its poorest people, have increased. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. And up to 18 million of Pakistan’s 74 million jobs may be lost.
Mr. Sheikh and his family hope to find financial support from wealthy Muslims or from Islamic charities that have cropped up in recent years, which focus on drawing more people to Islam.
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Mr. Sheikh said. “Everyone helps the people of their faith.”
As Mr. Sheikh sees it, there is nothing left for Pakistan’s more affluent Hindus to give to help the people of their own faith. That is because there are so few Hindus left.
Image
Hindus at Shri Krishna Temple in Mithi, Pakistan, in 2018.Credit...Rizwan Tabassum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At independence in 1947, Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 — the last government census to classify people by religion — Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan’s population. Most estimates say it has further dwindled in the past two decades.
Once a melting pot of religions, Sindh Province, where the conversion ceremony took place, has seen minority members flee to other countries in droves in recent decades. Many face harsh discrimination, as well as the specter of violence — and the risk of being accused of blasphemy, a capital crime — if they speak out against it.
“The dehumanization of minorities coupled with these very scary times we are living in — a weak economy and now the pandemic — we may see a raft of people converting to Islam to stave off violence or hunger or just to live to see another day,” said Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani lawmaker who is now a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a research group in Washington.
Ms. Ispahani recalled the devastating floods of 2010 in Sindh Province, which left thousands homeless and with little to eat. Hindus were not allowed to sit with Muslims at soup kitchens, she said. And when government aid was handed out, Hindus received less of it than their Muslim peers did, she said.
“Will they be converting with their hearts and souls?” Ms. Ispahani said. “I don’t think so.”
The further economic devastation caused by the pandemic may spur more sectarian violence, and that may intensify the pressure on minorities to convert, Ms. Ispahani and others worry.
Murtaza Wahab, an adviser to the chief minister of Sindh, was among several government officials who said they could not address Ms. Ispahani’s accusation that Hindus received less aid after the floods, as it happened before they took office.
“The Hindu community is an important part of our society and we believe that people from all faiths should live together without issue,” Mr. Wahab said.
Forced conversions of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages occur throughout Pakistan. But Hindu rights groups are also troubled by the seemingly voluntary conversions, saying they take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.
“Overall, religious minorities do not feel safe in Pakistan,” said Lal Chand Mahli, a Pakistani Hindu lawmaker with the ruling party, who is a member of a parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversions. “But poor Hindus are the most vulnerable among them. They are extremely poor and illiterate, and Muslim mosques, charities and traders exploit them easily and lure them to convert to Islam. A lot of money is involved in it.”
Clerics like Muhammad Naeem were at the forefront of an effort to convert more Hindus. (Mr. Naeem, who was 62, died of cardiac arrest two weeks after he was interviewed in June).
Mr. Naeem said he had overseen more than 450 conversions over the past two years at Jamia Binoria, his seminary in Karachi. Most of the converts were low-caste Hindus from Sindh Province, he said.
“We have not been forcing them to convert,” Mr. Naeem said. “In fact, people come to us because they want to escape discrimination attached with their caste and change their socioeconomic status.”
Demand was so great, he added, that his seminary had set up a separate department to guide the new converts and provide counsel in legal or financial matters.
Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By (Published 2020)
Drawn by jobs or land offered by Muslim groups, some Hindus, facing discrimination and a virus-ravaged economy, are essentially converting to survive.
How else would they disprove the charges of not being munafiqs but true followers of Islam & in doing so be more Muslims than the Arabs.
Familiar story, eh @safriz ; @Arsalan123
‘If he was Kohli everyone would be talking but as it’s Babar, no one is’
Watching Babar play some breathtaking drives against the likes of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Jofra Archer and Chris Woakes, Hussain, who is currently regarded as one of the best commentators going around, went on to say that people don’t talk about Babar much as he is not India captain Virat...
Here I agree with Naseer Hossain. He is the only classy batsman in current pak team. He never play loose shots like One eye peas. Shoaib Malik comes close but he doesn’t have the class Babur has.
Today's news is that the salwars have had "civilian" casualties in Indian firing.
Wait for it , in a couple of days , ispr announces the death of salwar soldiers in pak occupied baluchistan or khyber area.
Wait for it , in a couple of days , ispr announces the death of salwar soldiers in pak occupied baluchistan or khyber area.
You are pissed off because whole year passed since abrogation of articles and bifurcation of state but nothing happened. After initial hoopla about detention camps, genocides, even fairy tales of torture voices beamed through loudspeakers to terrorize Kashmiris published in every rag across the world, your Al-Taquia fell on its face and it burns your heart seeing Kashmir calm and moving on. You have basically lost Kashmir valley, all your assets through which you called shots, and thereby whole investment in terms of money and human lives since Pakistan came into existence. Yeah, that's right, even though you didn't control the land, you used to control the people, politics and atmosphere in valley.
All gone in 1 year.
Corona pandemic has given a face saving exit to NYT, WP, BBC, Al-Jajeera etc from humiliation of what they were paddling just a year back, trying to show a Bosnia is happening in Kashmir. They damaged their lungs more than corona ever could in screaming Kashmir.
But this man outsmarted you all and reduced you into changing maps, highway names, dancing on songs and standing for half an hour every Friday. And you hate this fact and you hate him.
And on cue , not even 1 day and this good news-
FC soldier martyred, 2 critically injured in separate incidents of violence from Afghan soil: FO
Foreign Office condemns "unprovoked aggressive action" by Afghan forces and "evident support" provided to terrorists.
www.dawn.com
The Pakistani salwars killed on the LOC with India are never acknowledged and the next day ispr releases news of some soldier killed in the Afghan border or in occupied baluchistan.
Dont get confused by army or para military, no ine is verifying their claims.
If everything is fine than why your government has tried to repair ties with pakistan? I know you will rubbish it as well but it's true. Looks like India again wants good relations with Pak but now we don't want. Go and discuss gilgit again in parliament. Finally India realized that it can't make everyone it's enemy. If you go to war against china,you need assurance from Pakistan. I know why suddenly India wants to repair ties.enough for us. We don't want any talk now.