A White Trail

“…noth­ing is more polit­i­cal in Pak­istan than reli­gion.”

While read­ing “A White Trail – A jour­ney into the heart of Pakistan’s reli­gious minori­ties” I real­ized how much reli­gion influ­ences the degree of accep­tance towards cer­tain minori­ties. As a for­eign­er, I actu­al­ly came to Pak­istan to get to know its cul­ture, its peo­ple and its val­ues bet­ter in order to gain my own insights beside the image which is drawn in the inter­na­tion­al media. Of course reli­gion plays an impor­tant role while encoun­ter­ing Pak­ista­nis and their cul­ture, but in the begin­ning I tried to main­tain a cer­tain sep­a­ra­tion. How­ev­er, stay­ing in Lahore now for around one month, I real­ized that it is not rea­son­able. In con­trast, I would sug­gest that a look at the minori­ties, their sit­u­a­tion and the way they are treat­ed reveals a lot about a soci­ety.

Haroon Khalid’s book is divid­ed into five sec­tions, each illus­trat­ing one reli­gious minor­i­ty by describ­ing their main reli­gious fes­ti­vals, their tra­di­tions and their his­to­ry, sit­u­a­tion and obsta­cles in Pak­istan. Over­all, the author is tak­ing into account Hin­dus, Chris­tians, Zoroas­tri­ans, Baha’is and Sikhs. The great­est part of the book deals with Hin­dus and Sikhs as the ‘major’ minori­ties and those who have to endure the most neg­a­tive prej­u­dices and pro­pa­gan­da in Pak­istani soci­ety.

Only three per­cent of the Pak­istani pop­u­la­tion is non-Mus­lim. This small per­cent­age under­lines that Pak­istan is most­ly a mono­lith­ic coun­try. Despite the fact that Pun­jab is not as reli­gious­ly diverse as the oth­er provinces, “A White Trail” focus­es on Pun­jab because the author is based in Lahore. That is the rea­son why Haroon Khalid empha­sizes that his book is not gen­er­al­iz­able but pro­vides an insight into the sit­u­a­tion of reli­gious minori­ties in Pak­istan.

Begin­ning with Hin­duism, Haroon Khalid points out that many prej­u­dices against Hin­dus emerged from the re-inter­pre­ta­tion of his­to­ry after the par­ti­tion of Pak­istan and India in 1947. With­in lit­er­a­ture it is for exam­ple often not men­tioned that reli­gious fol­low­ers of Hin­duism lived in the cur­rent ter­ri­to­ry of Pak­istan before the Mus­lims arrived. How­ev­er, this com­mon his­to­ry is vis­i­ble in the Pun­jabi cul­ture which includes many tra­di­tions that both Mus­lims and Hin­dus are still prac­tic­ing. These sim­i­lar­i­ties become evi­dent as well on Hin­du reli­gious fes­ti­vals – the sim­i­lar designs of Sufi shrines and Hin­du tem­ples in mat­ters of the dec­o­ra­tion are some­how obvi­ous.

Despite those com­mon­al­i­ties, Hin­dus are most­ly demo­nized in Pak­istani soci­ety, espe­cial­ly since the peri­od of Islamiza­tion under Gen­er­al Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1988). Hin­dus regard their envi­ron­ment with sus­pi­cion and are reluc­tant regard­ing reli­gious issues like the restora­tion of aban­doned Hin­du tem­ples and the pub­lic cel­e­bra­tion of reli­gious fes­ti­vals like Holi. This behav­ior is under­stand­able con­sid­er­ing the inequal­i­ty Hin­dus face which is fur­ther empha­sized by the Mus­lim adop­tion of the con­cept of untouch­a­bil­i­ty. Mus­lims have been con­sid­er­ing Hin­dus as untouch­ables, peo­ple with whom they can­not eat from the same plate or drink from the same well due to their impu­ri­ty caused by their faith. Unaware of the ori­gin of this con­cept it seems that peo­ple do not ques­tion their behav­ior so much when it comes to reli­gion.

Espe­cial­ly in the case of Hin­duism it becomes obvi­ous that the reli­gious tol­er­ance towards Hin­dus in Pak­istan is relat­ed to cur­rent polit­i­cal ties between India and Pak­istan. Fanat­ic attacks like the one on the Babri Mosque in 1992 and its con­se­quences or the Mum­bai ter­ror attacks in 2008 aggra­vate reli­gious intol­er­ance. The fol­low­ing reduc­tion of reli­gious exchange and dia­logue between both coun­tries does not help in over­com­ing prej­u­dices – in con­trast the iso­la­tion facil­i­tates rad­i­cal­ism and non-crit­i­cal think­ing.

In the sec­ond part of “A White Trail” Haroon Khalid deals with the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty in Pun­jab. Due to the fact that Chris­tians are a greater minor­i­ty in Pun­jab than Hin­dus, they also have more influ­ence on the soci­etal and polit­i­cal life in the province. On the oth­er side Chris­tians are also more exposed to extrem­ist attacks. A com­mon method to silence Chris­tians is the accu­sa­tion of blas­phe­my. The blas­phe­my laws in Pak­istan pre­scribe the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death penal­ty. Nev­er­the­less, the social descent that fol­lows a blas­phe­my accu­sa­tion is much worse. The accused is under the fear of being mur­dered by fanat­ics; his or her fam­i­ly is threat­ened, as well as their lawyers and even the judges deal­ing with the case.

Sev­er­al reli­gious and polit­i­cal lead­ers already con­demned the blas­phe­my laws. The for­mer gov­er­nor of Pun­jab, Salman Taseer, and the Fed­er­al Min­is­ter for Minori­ties, Shah­baz Bhat­ti, sup­port­ed for exam­ple Aasia Bibi who was accused of blas­phe­my state­ments. Both were assas­si­nat­ed and in the case of Salman Taseer the so called “silent major­i­ty” (p.168) of the pop­u­la­tion even expressed its sup­port for his mur­der­er. Anoth­er exam­ple is the first Pun­jab priest John Joseph who com­mit­ted sui­cide in front of a civ­il court as a form of protest after a twen­ty-six year old man was con­vict­ed of blas­phe­my although every­thing point­ed towards a prop­er­ty dis­pute between the Chris­t­ian and his Mus­lim neigh­bor.

Besides that the author describes that sev­er­al rela­tions and sim­i­lar­i­ties exist between Chris­tian­i­ty and Hin­duism like the pil­grim­age to Maryabad and Mata Dur­ga. On the one hand this is relat­ed to the fact that many low-caste Hin­dus and untouch­ables con­vert­ed after the British spread Chris­tian­i­ty in South Asia. On the oth­er hand many Hin­dus became Chris­tians after par­ti­tion due to secu­ri­ty rea­sons. There­fore, the dif­fer­ences between Hin­duism and Chris­tian­i­ty became blur­ry espe­cial­ly in some Mus­lims’ view and in the fol­low­ing they trans­ferred the prin­ci­ple of untouch­a­bil­i­ty on Chris­tians as well. How­ev­er, this prin­ci­ple is also applied on Sikhs and in gen­er­al on non-Mus­lims as it is used as one way to define the ambigu­ous iden­ti­ty of the coun­try.

After cov­er­ing two main reli­gious groups in Pak­istan the author gives a short insight into the com­mu­ni­ty of Zoroas­tri­ans. Due to their small num­ber of only thir­ty-five reli­gious fol­low­ers they almost dis­ap­pear in between the chaot­ic envi­ron­ment of Lahore. More­over, the reli­gious tra­di­tion of Zoroas­tri­ans demands that they always obeyed the gov­ern­ment of India and nowa­days Pak­istan. That is the rea­son why they do not protest and stay neu­tral although they are affect­ed by the laws restrict­ing their free­doms. Nev­er­the­less, the Par­si belief (name for South-Asian Zoroas­tri­ans) is tol­er­ant regard­ing all reli­gions, but one can only become a Par­si if the par­ents belong to the Zoroas­tri­an com­mu­ni­ty. This require­ment reduces the num­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty fur­ther and it becomes more and more dif­fi­cult to main­tain tra­di­tions and avoid dis­putes among its mem­bers.

Anoth­er small com­mu­ni­ty in Lahore con­sists of Baha’is. This young reli­gion includes a uni­fy­ing approach by stat­ing that all reli­gions were sent by God and are there­fore true. This tol­er­ance regard­ing oth­er beliefs is also under­lined by the tra­di­tion that inter­re­li­gious mar­riages are accept­ed. Besides uni­fy­ing reli­gions, Hazrat Bahaullah, one of the prophets of the Baha’is, believed in a uni­fied world with a glob­al gov­ern­ment and a glob­al lan­guage. This impres­sion of a small and peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty is strength­ened by the fact that Baha’is focus on edu­ca­tion of their youth, in spir­i­tu­al as well as in civic terms.

The Baha’i com­mu­ni­ty is seen as neu­tral giv­en that one of their orders says that Baha’is should not talk about reli­gion. That might be a rea­son why rumors state that many Ahmadiyas con­vert­ed to the Baha’i faith due to their pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion in Pak­istan. The Ahmadiyas believe in Mirza Ghu­lam Ahmad who declared him­self as the promised prophet in 1889. The com­mu­ni­ty which always faced threats sup­port­ed the cre­ation of Pak­istan because they believed that they would be able to prac­tice their reli­gion freely. How­ev­er, the Ahmadiyas were declared as non-Mus­lim by a law in 1974 and are con­stant­ly exposed to attacks.

The last sec­tion of “A White Trail” deals with the Sikh minor­i­ty. The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, empha­sized reli­gious tol­er­ance through his friend­ships with Bhai Mar­dana (a Mus­lim) and Bhai Bala (a Hin­du). For cen­turies these reli­gions exist­ed side by side and shared sev­er­al reli­gious tra­di­tions. How­ev­er, nowa­days com­mon gath­er­ings at reli­gious places are dif­fi­cult to arrange.

The par­ti­tion in 1947 affect­ed the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty in many ways. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, the bor­der of India and Pak­istan with­in the Pun­jab region result­ed in a divi­sion of holy places in both coun­tries. In the 1980s the demand for a sep­a­rate state for Sikhs called Khal­is­tan became urgent with­in India and reached its peak when the Indi­an gov­ern­ment attacked the Gold­en Tem­ple in Amrit­sar and killed Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale, the leader of the sep­a­ratist move­ment. After­wards, as an act of revenge the Indi­an Prime Min­is­ter Indi­ra Ghan­di was assas­si­nat­ed by her Sikh body­guards and riots arose in Del­hi.
“Guru Gob­ind told us that we should keep a kir­pan (sword) with us all the times for our pro­tec­tion as well as for those who are vic­tim­ized. Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale told us that we should upgrade our weapons accord­ing to the need of the times and keep a gun instead.” (p.224)

Although Pak­istan sup­port­ed the Khal­is­tan move­ment due to its ris­ing hos­til­i­ty against India after the war in 1971, the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty was not real­ly includ­ed in the Pak­istani soci­ety up to ten years ago. This is empha­sized by the fact that only six­teen out of hun­dred and twen­ty-five his­tor­i­cal Gurud­waras are in func­tion. How­ev­er, nowa­days two move­ments strength­en the aware­ness of their rights. First of all more Sikhs become edu­cat­ed to a greater extent and beside their tra­di­tion­al busi­ness­es of gro­cery shops, cloth trad­ing and hik­maat (tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine) they get involved in oth­er fields. Sec­ond­ly, the Sikhs who were liv­ing peace­ful­ly in the trib­al areas were dis­persed through the ris­ing influ­ence of the Tal­iban. Gath­er­ing in Pun­jab, they now rep­re­sent a greater com­mu­ni­ty which is uti­liz­ing this advan­tage in the form that for exam­ple reli­gious fes­ti­vals are cel­e­brat­ed more often in pub­lic again.
Over­all, “A White Trail” gives an insight in the com­plex rela­tions between the Pak­istani state and its reli­gious minori­ties, as well as in the rela­tions between its cit­i­zens. On the one hand, there are devel­op­ments which indi­cate a har­mo­niza­tion, but at the moment the intol­er­ance seems to be more dom­i­nant. This pow­er­less­ness against the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is under­lined by the author’s descrip­tions:
“The colour of the sky starts to change. The orange stream dimin­ish­es and dark blue takes over. It is almost sym­bol­ic of what is tak­ing place in Pak­istan. The dark blue sky is the “mono­lith­ic” Mus­lim cul­ture where­as the dimin­ish­ing orange light is the mul­ti-reli­gious plu­ral­is­tic soci­ety that Pak­istan was at her onset.” (p.250)

The inequal­i­ty of non-Mus­lim reli­gions becomes evi­dent due to sev­er­al descrip­tions of Haroon Khalid which seem to be sec­ondary while read­ing. How­ev­er, espe­cial­ly the banal­i­ty in which they are expressed makes me sit up and notice. For exam­ple the impres­sion that minori­ties are expect­ed to be more tol­er­ant regard­ing Islam than the oth­er way round.

“Two loud speak­ers have been placed on the top of the Samad­hi, fac­ing the direc­tion of the ground, erect­ed oppo­site the mosque and the city, per­haps as a respect to the Mus­lim reli­gion, a respect that is only expect­ed of the reli­gious minori­ties.” (p.286)

Anoth­er time the author under­lines that the Pak­istani media still illus­trates reli­gious fes­ti­vals of minori­ties as “exot­ic” (p.91) events, which do not belong to the main­stream soci­ety events and have to be men­tioned sep­a­rate­ly.

These inci­dents indi­cate that the two-nation the­o­ry is inter­pret­ed in the sense that Pak­istan is a coun­try only for Mus­lims and not a state in which non-Mus­lims can prac­tice their reli­gion with­out being per­se­cut­ed. Under these con­di­tions reli­gious tol­er­ance suf­fers and reli­gious minori­ties have to prove their loy­al­ty towards Pak­istan if they don’t want to be sus­pect­ed or per­se­cut­ed.

In gen­er­al, I hold the opin­ion that the book is well struc­tured and pro­vides a good overview at least about Hin­dus, Chris­tians and Sikhs in Pak­istan. Per­son­al­ly, I would have pre­ferred more detailed infor­ma­tion about the Par­sis and Baha’is. Espe­cial­ly, a sep­a­rate chap­ter for the Ahmadiya com­mu­ni­ty would have been inter­est­ing regard­ing the per­se­cu­tion they are fac­ing in Pak­istan.

I liked that every chap­ter focused on a reli­gious fes­ti­val which served as the ini­tial point for per­son­al sto­ries describ­ing the sit­u­a­tion of reli­gious minori­ties. Nev­er­the­less, the descrip­tions were some­times too detailed and instead it would have been inter­est­ing to get to know more about the every­day life expe­ri­ence of these reli­gious minori­ties and the prob­lems they are fac­ing. How­ev­er, on the oth­er hand I can also under­stand that the author used this styl­is­tic device in order to under­line the sim­i­lar­i­ties between var­i­ous reli­gious fes­ti­vals and to empha­size that all these reli­gious fol­low­ers have sim­i­lar sor­rows and expec­ta­tions regard­ing their reli­gion. It sim­ply makes them human. In addi­tion, authen­tic­i­ty results from the author’s descrip­tions which do not ide­al­ize Pak­istani minori­ties by hid­ing behav­iors which are con­sid­ered as non-Mus­lim like the drink­ing of some Hin­dus dur­ing Holi. All in all, the descrip­tive lan­guage Haroon Khalid used result­ed in impres­sions of reli­gious fes­ti­vals which are char­ac­ter­ized by beau­ty and joy.

In the end I got to know many new aspects of these reli­gions and I’m sure that every­body who reads this book will receive a greater under­stand­ing of the fact that reli­gious fol­low­ers are just humans with a faith in dif­fer­ent god­dess­es but their faith is actu­al­ly uni­fy­ing them. From my point of view peo­ple would rec­og­nize the sim­i­lar­i­ties between their reli­gions if they would start again and put more effort into reli­gious dia­logues and exchanges. Accord­ing to the prin­ci­ple that knowl­edge is the mean to achieve a bet­ter under­stand­ing I would advise this book as a pos­si­bil­i­ty to got to know more about Pak­istani soci­ety and its reli­gious diver­si­ty.