Kalash: Beauty and Plight

Intox­i­cat­ing is the place,
In the shad­ows of Hin­dukush
Where gods wor­ship the human worth;
And define dig­ni­ty of their land
The Kalash called. The Kalash called
To show the col­ors of love,
Even in death, they cel­e­brate life.
Yes, they are the Kalash
 
But the dog­ma is exploit­ing their fee­ble­ness,
 Con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing their puri­ty;
Dis­tin­guish­ing the light they spark;
 
Change, they had been forced to adopt
While still cling­ing on the hope for sur­vival
And for the world to hear their plea.

In the Hin­dukush region of Chi­tral, in the north­ern part of Pak­istan, are the majes­tic val­leys of Kalash – a dis­tant dream world whose beau­ty is the stuff of leg­ends.

The Kalash region com­pris­es of three exot­ic val­leys; Bamb­o­rait, Birir and Ran­bor. They have a pop­u­la­tion of about 12,000 inhab­i­tants, out of which about three thou­sand are strug­gling to pre­serve their iden­ti­ty and reli­gion. Liv­ing in tough con­di­tions through ancient his­to­ries, they have chore­o­graphed their lives to blend well with the cru­el harsh­ness of the Hin­dukush. They have sur­vived by cut­ting wood, tam­ing cat­tle and till­ing the land. They are a rus­tic folk that make their life vibrant with col­ors man­i­fest­ed in their dress­es, music and house­holds. Orna­ments with heavy beads and elab­o­rate needle­work form part of their dai­ly attire. The folk­lore they nar­rate of fairies that vis­it their run­ning streams at night to emp­ty the bowls of milk left for them give a mys­te­ri­ous touch to their liv­ing expe­ri­ences. The place resounds with haunt­ing beau­ty; hyp­no­tiz­ing for the soul and intrigu­ing for a curi­ous mind.

What I saw there was an expe­ri­ence of love, a thrilling sen­sa­tion of being alive, an appre­ci­a­tion of life and all its gifts. With each turn of the wheels cross­ing the dan­ger­ous nar­row bends of the sin­gle unpaved road, I was struck in won­drous antic­i­pa­tion of what was in store for me. Luke Rehmat, a young Kalash man who is also run­ning an NGO called Kalash Peo­ple Devel­op­ment Net­work, was our host when we vis­it­ed the val­ley. Despite the long jour­ney we took by road, every moment spent there was worth it.

As we drove towards our ‘Hap­py Rest House’ in Bumb­o­rait, the nat­ur­al beau­ty of the sur­round­ing area was in sharp con­trast to the vehi­cles and tourists that could be seen every­where.

“But this year we have very few tourists vis­it­ing the val­leys” explained Luke, “secu­ri­ty has been very tight because of threats  from the Tal­iban from neigh­bor­ing Afghanistan”.  His words brought to mind our own jour­ney from Mar­dan, where we had been stopped count­less times by Rangers, Local Police and the Army.  Per­haps the secu­ri­ty was jus­ti­fied; there have been inside reports cir­cu­lat­ing about abduc­tions of for­eign work­ers that alleged­ly took place some­where in Upper Dir.

As I stepped into the guest house, I became aware of a sud­den chill in my large room.  Per­haps it was because the dai­ly per­ils and threats to peo­ple here came to mind. They have to strug­gle for their sur­vival, not just against mil­i­tan­cy but also against inter­nal threats from the ortho­doxy.

They are con­stant­ly harassed to con­vert to Islam in order to enter the main­stream and avail eco­nom­ic and civic ben­e­fits that can­not be con­sid­ered a priv­i­lege for all. The rate of con­ver­sion can­not just be blamed on the eco­nom­ic con­di­tion, but also on forced con­ver­sions that took place in Gen­er­al Zia ul Haq’s  dark regime in the 80’s which cat­alyzed the process of alien­ation and dejec­tion of many indige­nous groups in the coun­try.

Even today, the peo­ple of Kalash face var­ied prob­lems, such as with the issuance of Nation­al ID Cards that don’t enlist their reli­gion, which leaves them with no option to offi­cial­ly mark the right reli­gion. They take it as a vio­la­tion of their fun­da­men­tal rights that their reli­gion is not even rec­og­nized.  It has also been report­ed that women are asked to cov­er their heads instead of wear­ing the tra­di­tion­al head dress which is dis­tinc­tive of their iden­ti­ty.

The sense of gloom I felt in the guest­house was soon for­got­ten in the mer­ry­mak­ing of the evening under the bright yel­low stars, which was fur­ther enriched by melo­di­ous singing by our gen­er­ous host and keep­er of the guest­house, as he played his instru­ment in remem­brance of his old love.

Next morn­ing was the day of the Joshi fes­ti­val.  I woke to the faint sound of drums com­ing from a near­by vil­lage. We walked to the place where the fes­ti­val dances were being per­formed to wel­come the spring under the holy altars of their gods.  The singing and danc­ing had a mag­net­ism that drew us in to par­tic­i­pate as well. “We also have a fes­ti­val dur­ing funer­als… it’s like a thank you to the depart­ed soul for all the won­der­ful things it left us with”, explains Syed Khan, a vol­un­teer at Luke’s KPDN. The Kalash do not mourn the dead but rather cel­e­brate the life of their dear depart­ed. Their rit­u­als, how­ev­er, have been heav­i­ly demo­nized by the ortho­doxy.

There is a school in Kalash set up by a Greek NGO that is work­ing towards preser­va­tion of the Kalash cul­ture. There is just one mid­dle lev­el gov­ern­ment school serv­ing in the area but most­ly Kalash par­ents don’t pre­fer to send their chil­dren there because of the homog­e­nized gov­ern­ment syl­labus that they can­not relate to. The Greek school instead helps them car­ry on with their stud­ies while main­tain­ing their cul­tur­al dis­tinc­tive­ness. But the mat­ter is wors­en­ing at the hands of the mil­i­tants. Recent­ly major devel­op­ment work by for­eign NGOs has halt­ed or slowed down because of the abduc­tion of a for­eign char­i­ty work­er and the mur­der of a gov­ern­ment offi­cial.

“Kalash will become non-exis­tent if noth­ing is done about it”, Luke Rehmat, chair­man of KPDN informed us. A bid has cur­rent­ly been sent to UNESCO to con­sid­er it a her­itage site so that con­crete steps may be tak­en for its preser­va­tion. It is time we in Pak­istan embraced the diver­si­ty of the peo­ple who live with­in our bor­ders and pro­vide them with the rights, dig­ni­ty and secu­ri­ty they deserve. This is vital not only for our respect as a coun­try through­out the world, but for our progress as a nation as well.

The expe­ri­ences I had in the Kalash val­ley have left a deep impact on my out­look towards life.  I am sure Kalash will remain with me wher­ev­er I go. Amidst the bright faces and wel­com­ing smiles, I wish I had the courage to promise to come back.

—Writ­ten by Zee­ba T. Hash­mi

(Pub­lished in The Laal­tain — Issue 7)