A Good Speech of Ambedakar about Indian Constitution

Dr.B.R.Ambedkar's speech in Parliment

Global casteism, a reality


On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (April 14 ), ARVIND SIVARAMAKRISHNAN reflects on caste and international discussions on the issue.

If major civilisations make contributions to world history, then the Indian civilisation's contributions include caste, caste discrimination, caste segregation, and caste-motivated brutality; the anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's birth, April 14, provides an occasion to look at some of the ways governments respond to caste discrimination.

It appears too, that wherever substantial numbers of people of Indian descent settle, caste discrimination appears. Even the British House of Lords was sufficiently exercised about caste discrimination in the United Kingdom to debate it for specific proscription when the new Equality Bill, now the Equality Act 2010, recently came before them. Although this time the House of Lords did not include caste specifically, the government's earlier statement that the Equality and Human Rights Commission had been asked to research the issue drew the peers' rebuke that the Commission in fact said they had not been asked to do the relevant research; the government were also accused of consulting only with upper-caste groups of British Hindus.

My former tutor, a distinguished British professor of philosophy, would not have been surprised by the government's reluctance to include caste in its anti-discrimination laws. I recall his saying, “The British and the Indian ruling classes understood one another perfectly.” His father had been in the Indian Army between the wars, and he himself only rarely revealed how much he knew about India.

Another British friend told me once of an involvement he had had with a girl at his college. Well into the relationship she suddenly told him she would never marry him, as he was of a low caste. They had parents from the same region of India, they spoke the same South Asian language, and they were both young Britons. But she drew the shadow line.

Many apartheids

I recall too, listening to an acquaintance in the Oriental Plaza in Johannesburg as he savaged the now-extinct apartheid régime, raising his voice for the benefit of a couple of stone-faced Afrikaner huisvrouwen who were browsing along the shelves. The young man's aunt, the shop manager, said quietly, “We have our own apartheid, with caste and religion and family.” That reminded me of an earlier conversation with a relative, in which I remarked that in some industrialised countries it could be difficult to tell people's class or occupation from their dress, manner, or speech, especially outside working hours. My relative froze, terrified that his children, destined for U.S. doctorates and gadget-filled mortgages in acceptably white-majority American suburbs, would get involved with ‘unsuitable' people during their studies abroad. That particular relative might have problems if asked whether President Obama's daughters were ‘unsuitable'.

The Government of India, for its part, tries to prevent international discussion of caste. At the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001, Indian representatives insisted that caste is not race, that India has legislated against caste discrimination, and that caste as an internal matter must not be discussed at such conferences. The conference adopted the phrase “discrimination based on work and descent.”

India's intransigence, however, continues. In response to the Strategic Management Plan prepared for 2010-11 by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), the Government of India notes the Plan's references to caste and adds that as the document was not negotiated the Indian mission in Geneva has been instructed to take the matter up with the UNHCHR. The 160-page document contains only three references to caste. One is a general comment that caste is one form of discrimination in the Asia-Pacific region, another is the inclusion of caste among UNHCHR's thematic priorities for the year, and the third is the observation that caste discrimination is endemic in Nepal.

Furthermore, at the 2009 Durban Review Conference, India rejected a comment on descent, saying it “lacked intellectual rigour” and ignored the drafting history of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The Convention's history, however, shows that when it was first drafted in 1965 India's representative both suggested the term “descent” and said the Convention would apply to scheduled castes. In 2009, India succeeded in getting the term “discrimination based on work and descent” removed from the conference outcome document, though an earlier U.N. statement that caste is covered by CERD presumably still stands.

India's position is at best incoherent. The government's periodic report to CERD for 2006 reconfirms its opposition to any equation of caste and race by saying the Indian Constitution distinguishes between the two, and that race had been included in the Constitution because of the “moral outrage of the world community against racism” after the Second World War. This outrage, however, was not shared at the highest levels of government. A former civil servant has publicly described the way the then External Affairs Minister Y. B. Chavan and an aide violated India's own sanctions against South Africa by allowing Indian trade with the apartheid state through the Bank of Bermuda in the mid-1970s.

Domestically, Indian government statements, including replies to MPs, often list the legislation prohibiting caste discrimination as though that eo ipso proves effective action. A single example serves to undermine that. The National Crime Records Bureau's records for the period 1995-2007 show that under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, the police registered 441, 424 crimes, but field-survey estimates suggest that the recorded figure is about one third of the actual figure; for Scheduled Tribes it is about one fifth.

Widespread

The proposition that caste is solely an internal matter for India is untenable. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, has said publicly that globally, caste discrimination affects 260 million people; about 170 million of them are in India. In contrast to India, Nepal, until 2007 a Hindu state by constitution, regards caste discrimination as indistinguishable from racial discrimination, and has confirmed that it will work through the U.N. to counter caste discrimination; the European Union has made a similar commitment. The pity is therefore all the greater that India is so dismissive of international cooperation and so unwilling to take the lead over what the Prime Minister himself has called a blot on humanity.

Courtesy: The Hindu

Contemporary relevance of Baba Saheb Ambedkar

"Ambedkar’s Buddhism was a Buddhism of a minority trying to liberate the entire nation. Ambedkar opposed separatism but always kept in mind the unique nature of the oppression of the Dalits."
.......................................

By Basil Fernando

(April 17, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka Guardian) Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s memory was celebrated by large numbers of admirers and followers in India and outside once again this week. Perhaps no other modern contemporary leader of India is as much remembered by such large numbers of (mostly much oppressed) people throughout India as Ambedkar is. One-time untouchables, who now called themselves Dalits, a name that was given to them by B.R. Ambedkar, remember him as an inspiration in their own struggles to regain their dignity. Perhaps no people have been put into such a degraded position in society anywhere as the untouchables of India. The millions of people who belong to these groups have fought a battle to re-emerge as people with dignity, and to that revival Ambedkar has contributed greatly.

Ambedkar’s political thought is still very relevant to not only to the politics of India but also to politics in South Asia in general. South Asian countries are today facing deep crises, unable to develop political and social institutions to guarantee stability to their societies primarily because of centuries of oppressive and social political systems that were their heritage due to the caste system. The caste system essentially was a system of domination by a small group, called Brahmins, who developed most sophisticated forms of cunning into the social control systems of their time in a way that even for centuries they could maintain their dominance. The damage that was done in the process of repression that accompanied the creation and the maintenance of the caste system have become the obstacles to the development of the intelligence the creativity and the capacity of all the people to deal with contemporary problems. Their past holds them in their bondage. The bonds are so deeply engrained into the very nervous systems that generation after generation people are reproduced with mentalities that prevent them from realizing the capacity for freedom and capacity for deeper social communion in each other in their social context. Deep divisiveness inbuilt into the South Asian culture was created by these centuries of subtle of social control. Methods of control were formulated as rules of religion and rituals to which the individual life was so deeply tied up.

The idea of the individual freedom is so alien to this cultural heritage. The intricate mechanism that entraps people emotionally and psychologically by various kinds of mythical beliefs got so engrained in the minds of all due to this past.

"Ambedkar’s political thought is still very relevant to not only to the politics of India but also to politics in South Asia in general. South Asian countries are today facing deep crises, unable to develop political and social institutions to guarantee stability to their societies primarily because of centuries of oppressive and social political systems that were their heritage due to the caste system. "
.................................

A few great leaders in India understood the depth of the internal bondage of the Indian mind created by this history. Some saw it purely as philosophical problem, like for example Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo devoted the later part of his life trying to influence the younger generation to break away from the mindset that has entered into their society, retarding all, from one generation to another. He said that the great creativity that India once was had been devastatingly destroyed at sometime point of time.

It was B.R. Ambedkar that identified the cause of the retardation of the Indian creativity, which is also the source of the retardation of the mindsets of people of other South Asian countries. He saw that purely by way of mental exercises this bondage cannot be broken. What needed to be broken were the social the social linkages which had tied up the minds of the people over centuries. To this he gave and for the understanding of this processes he devoted his time. And his way of understanding was not by reading into the text of the past but into the lives of the ordinary folk of India spread in that vast country.

In the poverty of India was the evidence that was necessary to look into in order to discover the methods by which people lives are destroyed by this terrible heritage.

Jawaharlal Nehru in the Discovery of India tries to talk about the glories of India in the past. Ambedkar on the other hand tries to demonstrate how the glory was lost and how the bondage of the Indian minds and the Indian spirit and as a result the Indian way of life was come to what it is today. It is this discovery that has the capacity and the liberating effect that not only the masses but the entire country is in need of in order to face the challenges of the modern times.

Ambedkar was well-versed on history and the political theories which have been produced in the process of struggles for democracy. He was also deeply aware of the history of minority problems in the world. He understood that if a minority problem is not properly resolved entire civilizations can be destroyed in conflicts which not only destroy the minorities but entirety of society.

Ambedkar needs to be studied much more by the younger generations who are in search of solutions to the kinds of problems that they very often which they feel that there are no solution to. The easy solutions many have sought have not worked. There is a depth that needs to be explored in order to be able to explore all the possibilities of getting over these severe problems. In the work of Ambedkar there are great insights that are yet to be explored and in that exploration the real glories of the past of the sub-continent could reemerge. Pseudo respect for Buddhism today was challenged by Ambedkar who himself became a Buddhist by trying to rediscover the actual history of Buddhism in India. The destruction of Buddhism in India was a result of the caste struggles in India and in that struggle the certainties that the Brahmins had developed to get victory and to win back their dominance were also constantly exposed by Ambedkar.

Without doubt, Baba Saheb Ambedkar is the greatest political leader in modern South Asian history, with regard to his understanding of the linkage between social controls exercised by religion and its influence in the contemporary history. While Mahatma Ghandi saw the meaning of freedom in terms of getting rid of the colonial power and passing the power to local elites, Ambedkar saw freedom of Indians from the point of view of getting rid of cultural inhabited bondage of created by the caste system. He saw centuries old practices in which social control of the masses has been done mainly by the use of language, rituals and ‘ethical codes’ reinforcing the caste domination over the masses.

Ambedkar also saw moments of liberation in Indian history. That was the way he saw Buddhism. He called Buddha his guru. He said that he didn’t learn principles of democracy from Western philosophers but from his guru, Gautama Buddha.

"My Personal Philosophy"

"Positively, my social philosophy may be said to be enshrined in three words: liberty, equality and fraternity. Let no one, however, say that I have borrowed my philosophy from the French Revolution. I have not. My philosophy has roots in religion and not in political science. I have derived them from the teachings of my master, the Buddha. In his philosophy, liberty and equality had a place: but he added that unlimited liberty destroyed equality, and absolute equality leaves no room for liberty. In his philosophy, law had a place only as a safeguard against the breaches of liberty and equality; but he did not believe that law could be a guarantee for breaches of liberty or equality. He gave the highest place to fraternity as the only real safeguard against the denial of liberty or equality or fraternity which was another name for brotherhood or humanity, which was again another name for religion.

"Law is secular, which anybody may break while fraternity or religion is sacred which everybody must respect. My philosophy has a mission. I have to do the work of conversion: for, I have to make the followers of Triguna theory to give it up and accept mine. Indians today are governed by two different ideologies. Their political ideal set out in the preamble to the Constitution affirms a life of liberty, equality and fraternity. Their social ideal embodied in their religion, denies them." Dr. B.R.Ambedkar( From All-India Radio broadcast of a speech on Oct. 3, 1954)

In this famous radio broadcast, he summarized the fundamentals of his belief in democracy as having its roots in the teaching of Buddha. He also devoted many years of his life studying Buddhism and wrote large volumes on the teachings of the Buddha. In 1936, in a speech which now remains as a political classic, entitled ‘Annihilation of Caste’, he attributed the roots of caste to be based on the ideals of religion created by Brahminism. He declared that though he himself was born to that tradition, he will not die within it. Fulfilling this promise, 20 years later he converted himself publically to Buddhism, with over 500,000 followers in a public ceremony held in Nagaland, India.

Ambedkar’s Buddhism was a Buddhism of a minority trying to liberate the entire nation. Ambedkar opposed separatism but always kept in mind the unique nature of the oppression of the Dalits. However, he understood that unless the entire nation rejects the traditions which keep its masses under oppressive social control, the minority cannot find liberation. He was fully aware of his capacity to create political chaos if he wished to do so. He consciously avoided that path, despite of the difficulties involved. He was the only Indian leader who openly opposed Mahatma Ghandi on his limited approach to deal with the problem of Dalits. However, he shared the common burden of Indian liberation from the British and even became the law minister in Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet. In fact, he was the chief draftsman of the committee which drafted the Indian constitution. He understood that the minority cannot win its right by destroying democracy. He also understood that by suppressing the minorities’ struggle, the majority are ruining themselves also. How true, even in the modern context of South Asian countries.

To the struggle for enlightenment in South Asia, Ambedkar has made a lasting contribution. And this contribution needs to be understood to further the process of trying to deal with the contemporary problems within all South Asian nations.

Ambedkar Jayanti Hijacked by Mayawati
S.R.Darapuri

Ambedkar Jayanti on 14th April has been celebrated by dalits in Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and other parts of the country at fixed venues for the last many years. But this time it has been hijacked by Mayawati in Uttar Pardesh. It was allowed to be celebrated at the places fixed by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) only and that too in the form of a political protest rally against the Central Congress Government. This undemocratic act of Mayawati has deeply hurt not only the Dalits but other sections of society also.
Let us take up the case of Lucknow; the capital of U.P. Ambedkar Jayanti has been traditionally celebrated at Hazratganj crossing where a statue of Dr. Ambedkar is installed. Ambedkarites of Lucknow used to take out processions and tableaus and reached the Hazratganj crossing to join the big rally in the evening. Different social and government employee’s associations used to put up their stalls in which water, sweets and small literature was distributed. The Jayanti has been celebrated at this point since its beginning in Lucknow. A large number of men, women and children used to throng this place in the evening till midnight. But this time this crossing presented a sad and deserted look for which Mayawati is responsible.
This time an undeclared ban was imposed on this celebration at this point by Mayawati government. It is learnt that a senior powerful minister of Mayawati government had summoned the office bearers of various Dalit organizations who used to arrange Ambedkar Jayanti at Hazratganj crossing. He told them that this time Ambedkar Jayanti will not be celebrated at this point rather it will be celebrated at Samajik Parivartin Sthal, Gomti Nagar as arranged by BSP. When some organizers objected to it they were threatened to comply with the orders. They were told that busses will be provided to them to carry their men to Gomti Nagar. In spite of these orders when some persons tried to take out a procession, they were obstructed by police and not allowed to proceed further. As such, this time Dalits had no option but to join BSP rally much against their wishes. This has greatly hurt the feelings of U.P. Ambedkarites.
It is also worth mentioning that previously Mayawati had forcibly removed the statue of Dr. Ambedkar and name plate of persons from this crossing which was got installed by Lucknow Dalits after a long struggle. In its place a different statue of Dr. Ambedkar was got installed by Mayawati and she put her own name plate there at. It was opposed by some persons but of no avail.
It is learnt that a similar action was taken in all other districts of U.P. The people were forced to join BSP protest rally rather than allowed to celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti in their own way. Administrative power was effectively used to prevent people from celebrating the Jayanti independently. It is sad that Mayawati did not allow the Dalits of U.P. to celebrate Ambedkar Jayanti in their own way rather they were forced to join the BSP protest rally. As such this time Ambedkar Jayanti has been hijacked by Mayawati which has hurt the feelings of the dalits of U.P.

Out Of Proportion
Dileep Padgaonkar, Mar 24, 2010, 12.00am IST
Political correctness has now reached such depths of degeneration in our liberal opinion that we no longer dare to call a spade a spade, let alone a bloody shovel. A recent example is the criticism of Mayawati for flaunting her diamonds and garlands of currency notes at BSP rallies. It took little or no account of her dogged belief that as a Dalit she is entitled to exercise that privilege.

This belief, her apologists argue, explains, indeed justifies, her utter indifference to what the 'elites' in the media and the rest of the political establishment think about such outrageous displays of wealth. The thought that she might have accumulated it through illegitimate means does not make them lose their sleep either. After centuries of oppression, runs their dirge, the trespasses of Dalits need to be overlooked.

Some apologists go further than that. Mayawati's most lethal weapon, they claim, is her candour. Unlike other leaders in our public life, she makes no bones about her greed for money and lust for power. She does things in broad daylight what others do only after dusk. And she says aloud what others mutter beneath their breath. She might be guilty of this or the other misdemeanour. But no one can accuse her of double-speak and double-think.

Arguments of this nature are flawed on two counts. They are patronising at best and, at worst, rooted in mawkish cynicism. To say that Mayawati's 'core constituency' isn't bothered about its leader's shenanigans is to suggest that the Dalits are bereft of a moral sense. Such a view is offensive in the extreme. The main reason why bahujan samaj leaders of the past Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Shahu Maharaj, Ramaswamy Naickerand, B R Ambedkar are revered by all sections of society today is precisely because their comportment, in private as in public, was above reproach. Even while they berated the upper castes for their deep-seated prejudices against those at the bottom of the social pecking order, they drew their strength from universally accepted notions of equality and justice.

Not once did they suggest, late alone assert, that as victims of caste oppression for several millennia, Dalits should be permitted to observe a lax moral regimen. What is good for the Brahmin must be good for the Dalit. They would have been appalled to hear that Mayawati's greed must be condoned because of her community's sense of victimhood.

Nor would they have shared Mayawati's antipathy for the 'elites'. In their own time, they were at the receiving end of Brahmins who held sway in public life, including the press. But they fought the critics armed with knowledge and reason and, above all, with a heightened sense of moral purpose. Ambedkar's critique of Gandhism was often acerbic. What lent it levity was his closely argued stand that the Mahatma chose not to attack the roots of social evils in the country: the varna system.

Our political establishment has strayed far away from this path. But the one who takes the cake for vagrancy is Mayawati. Her only service to her icon is the erection of his kitschy statues across the length and breadth of Uttar Pradesh along with those of her mentor Kanshi Ram. She has cast herself in stone as well. To claim, as her apologists do, that her Dalit flock applauds this megalomania is to have a poor opinion of their intelligence.

Moreover, to hail Mayawati for her candour is to forgive the sins of every demagogue in the land. The Thackerays, too, are candid. And so are Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia and an assortment of maulvis. All of them nurse a sense of victimhood. All see conspiracies assailing them from all sides. All indulge in venomous rhetoric. And all manage to hoodwink their 'core constituency' again and again.

Yet this 'core constituency' is not frozen in time. It yearns for security, education, jobs and speedy justice. Sooner than later it has to repudiate the demagogues who are tall on promise and short on delivery. To assume that they will tolerate the megalomania of their leaders for all times to come is to hold them in contempt. Mayawati only succeeds in strengthening the vilest upper-caste prejudices about the parvenu Dalit.

The pity of it all is that her provocative speeches and gestures take attention away from her genuine leadership qualities. The former prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, had once described her as a 'miracle of democracy'. Her grit and perseverance have enabled her to brave the heaviest of odds in our caste-ridden and male-centred polity. Time and again she has outwitted her political foes with her shrewd understanding of social forces. Few politicians in the country can match her talents for social engineering.

By embarking on a confrontationist path, she may well succeed in consolidating her support base among Dalits. At the same time, however, she is bound to alienate other sections of society. Her talents at social engineering would then come under intolerable strain. At present she is caught in a cleft-stick. She needs to revisit Ambedkar's teachings. He will have a thing or two to tell her about what it takes to prevail.
Courtesy: Times of India

Plight of Hindus in Sindh and Balochistan

Author: Khaled Ahmed
Publication: The Friday Times
Date: May 14-20, 2004

We don't know much about Hindus living in Sindh and Balochistan. Because the mainstream media remains silent and we don't get to know about their real plight. The TV channels in the private sector should focus on these forgotten communities

The Commission sent a team to the province, which observed the Hindus of Kalat, Mastung, Machh and Kolpur and discovered that the Baloch and Brahui tribes kept them to do jobs (musicians, carpenters, merchants) considered below their honour by the Muslims. The author noted that Hindus were visible in Baloch areas but were scarce in the Pakhtun areas although in 1941 most of the 54,000 Hindus of Balochistan lived in the Pakhtun areas. After 1947, the Hindus in the Pakhtun areas declined by 93 percent but only by 11 percent in the Baloch areas. Now Balochistan had 27,000 Hindus in all.

The incidents of atrocities and caste-based discrimination on Dalits are increasing day by day in Tharparkar - a district where 35 per cent people belong to different Dalit communities among a million people - because of growing awareness and assertiveness of the Dalits. Several hundred Dalit employees of low-caste communities were transferred to far-flung areas under different obnoxious pretexts. Cases were initiated against the Dalit political activists. Their rural folks were threatened and even disallowed to graze their livestock on government lands called Gauchar.

Speaking on Geo TV (25 March 2004) federal education minister Zubaida Jalal said that she had grown up reading the same (biased) textbooks and that Pakistan had not been harmed by them. She said the Hindus of Balochistan and Sindh had not suffered because of these textbooks.

There is very little information about the minorities in Pakistan, which are 5 percent of the total population and are remembered in the flag of Pakistan by the white strip. While Christians have highlighted their problems in Punjab, very little is known about the Hindus of Balochistan. Scheduled caste (Shudra) and Untouchable (Dalit) Hindus in Sindh have been hit by the double whammy of ill-treatment at the hands of the Muslim feudal lords and the upper caste Hindus. They have also been targeted at times by the intelligence agencies because they live close to the Indian border in Tharparkar and are suspected of spying for India. Bheels and Kolis, untouchables or Dalits, have been in the news for bonded labour.

In Balochistan, Hindus were 22 percent of the population in 1941; today they are only 1.6 percent, according to the 1998 census report, which may be 27,000 Hindus in all. After 1947, their exodus from the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan was considerable while they tended to stay in the Baloch areas. The exodus was the characteristic of the entire population of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan. There was a tendency among the lower caste Hindus not to migrate. The pattern of settlement today is such that Sindhi-speaking Hindus live in the Baloch areas bordering Sindh while further West near Quetta and the region called Jhalawan the Seraiki-speaking Hindus call themselves Punjabi.

Hindus in Balochistan: The latest facts about the Hindu community in Balochistan have come to light in a report by Minority Rights Commission of Pakistan titled Religious Tolerance in Balochistan: Myth and Reality (2003) by Akram Mirani. The Commission sent a team to the province, which observed the Hindus of Kalat, Mastung, Machh and Kolpur and discovered that the Baloch and Brahui tribes kept them to do jobs (musicians, carpenters, merchants) considered below their honour by the Muslims. The author noted that Hindus were visible in Baloch areas but were scarce in the Pakhtun areas although in 1941 most of the 54,000 Hindus of Balochistan lived in the Pakhtun areas. After 1947, the Hindus in the Pakhtun areas declined by 93 percent but only by 11 percent in the Baloch areas.

In Kalat there are seven Hindu temples but the Hindu streets are separate from Muslim streets. There are even two Hindu doctors in Kalat. The only Brahman in town is Maharaj Roshan Sharma in charge of the Shiv Mandar there. Hindu merchants still control the wholesale trade of the area. But in 1992, after the Babri mosque incident in India, it was the Pakhtun community who intruded and subjected the Hindus to violence. The police in Balochistan is hardly organised. It keeps no record of violence against the minorities and is barred from operating anywhere outside the province's major cities. Conditions have been bad in the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan.

Anti-Hindu violence in Balochistan: The Friday Times reported in its issue of March 23-29, 2001, as follows: 'Hundreds of Hindus have been forced to flee their homes and cross over into Sindh. Three Hindus were reported to have been killed in the town of Chaman after clashes between Hindus attempting to protect their homes and Muslim mobs in October. Temples and homes were set ablaze and property, including Hindu shops, destroyed as the growing social intolerance assumed alarming new proportions in Balochistan. In all cases, local extremist groups played a role in triggering the attacks.

'Though the precise number of families which fled was unknown, reports suggested almost half the community of 10,000 Hindus in Lasbela had been forced to leave their homes over the year. In almost all cases, the increased activism by militant religious groups imposed new strains on relations between the majority Muslim and the Hindu communities, who had lived peacefully alongside each other for many decades. The efforts to forcibly convert the Hindus, especially female school students, had a direct role to play in violence against Hindu settlements. At least five Hindu temples were vandalised over the year, with their structures damaged and the idols and other objects of worship broken. Amidst the uproar caused by the conversion issue in Lasbela, activists of religious parties launched an assault on two old Hindu temples and threw to the ground the idols placed in them.'

At the time of partition, when sectarian riots ravaged the subcontinent, the Hindu population of Balochistan remained unharmed, mainly due to two factors. First, the major portion of Balochistan native/princely Balochistan where majority of Hindus lived was under the Khan of Kalat, the chief ruler of Kalat state, Yar Mohammad Khan, who respected indigenousness of the Hindu community. He had assured them of economic and religious freedom in case they decided to continue living in Balochistan. Second, reciprocity of mutual relationship between Muslims and Hindus, and prosperity in business encouraged them to abandon the idea of migrating to India. They live in Quetta, Kalat, Sibi, Mastung, Dahdar, Duki, Dalbandin, Chaman, and Gandawa. In Gandawa, a tiny town and newly raised headquarter of Jhall-Magsi district, they have a big temple, which is claimed to be the fifth largest Hindu temple in the subcontinent. They dwell in their own little colonies, usually not away from their temples. They belong to business class, without any major interest in education and government offices. Some of them are wealthy merchants owning large jewellery and general stores, but the majority is of middle and lower middle class businessmen with their shops/stores in the bazaars of various towns.

Plight of Hindus of Sindh: Newsline(Dec 2000), pages 77-79, stated that 'the status of the 2.7 million Hindus in Pakistan, who are largely concentrated in Sindh, does not make for a very encouraging picture. Despite the fact that the Hindus in Pakistan have generally maintained a low profile, the general attitude towards them is one of suspicion. A case in point: the editor of a Sindhi newspaper demanded a car from a Hindu businessman. When he refused the former wrote an editorial in his paper declaring that the gentleman was a RAW agent who had been supplying weapons to terrorists in the country. In another incident in Hyderabad in September, Ashok Kumar, a Hindu inspector of the Income Tax Department, along with the army monitoring team went to Sadar to collect tax return forms from shop owners. Instead of complying with the authorities, one of the shop-owners alleged that the Hindu inspector had threatened to grab him by his beard if he did not give him the form. Within no time the shopkeeper managed to muster a group of his colleagues, who shuttered their shops and took out a procession demanding that the government hand them the Hindu so that they "could teach him a lesson." There followed a two-day strike in the city, as a result of which Ashok Kumar was not only suspended from his job, but also jailed after a case of 'blasphemy' was registered against him.

'Hindus in Pakistan have faced the greatest trials when there has been tension between India and Pakistan. Says an analyst, "From the first Indo-Pak war to the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, Hindus in Pakistan have been perceived as enemies and persecuted." Kidnapping, extortion, and even killing are, meanwhile, common crimes perpetrated against Hindus in Sindh today. In September this year, Dr. Kanaya Lal, a Hindu eye specialist, was kidnapped from Larkana from the heart of the town. He was released after one week following a ransom payment of 5 lakh rupees (500,000 rupees). Another Hindu, Dr, Darshan Lal, was killed in Badah town in Larkana when he offered resistance to dacoits who were attempting to kidnap him from his house. At least four Hindu have been kidnapped from Sukkur during the last two months, and remain in the custody of the dacoits who have demanded hefty amounts of ransom for their release. 'Many Hindus pay regular sums as 'bhatta' to different groups of extortionists merely in order to be aloud to live in peace. Pak Autos, an automobile outlet belonging to a local Hindu trader in Larkana, was torched a couple of months ago when he refused to cough up the sum demanded by activists of a political party. Another Hindu businessman disclosed that he had received a call at his Karachi residence a few months ago from an activist of a Sindh nationalist party who demanded the payment of a sizeable sum from him. He tracked down the number the caller had phoned from and discovered it belonged to an agency. When he contacted the authorities and gave them this information, he was not only refused help, he was told that "the activists of different groups are important to the establishment, while the Hindus are of no use," thereby implying that he should not expect any assistance. Says the businessman "Instead of concentrating on business, most Hindus in Pakistan are expending their energies in developing their PR with the authorities and entertaining various influentials to try and build up a support base for themselves."

Dalits of Sindh want justice: The Scheduled Castes Federation of Pakistan has a website http://petitiononline.com/scfp2003/petition.html which addresses a petition to the President of Pakistan asking for a redressal of the plight of the Dalits. It is a flattering website as it talks more about Islam than about Hinduism.

'In Pakistan, the Dalits face different issues. Since they are part of a tiny minority that is 5 per cent of country's total population, and also due to lack of education and literacy, they continue to stick to different forms of Hinduism whatever their half-literate Gurus impart them. Caste Hindus continue their domination only in southern part of Pakistan, especially former Mirpurkhas division, where more than one million Dalits dwell as landless peasants and labourers. The Caste Hindus, though small in numbers, dominate the minority politics through support of their convert relatives and government functionaries. The incidents of atrocities and caste-based discriminations on Dalits are increasing day by day in Tharparkar - a district where 35 per cent people belong to different Dal it communities among a million people - because of growing awareness and assertiveness of the Dalits. Several hundred Dalit employees of Dalit communities were transferred to far-flung areas under different obnoxious pretexts. Cases were initiated against the Dalit political activists. Their rural folks were threatened and even disallowed to graze their livestock on government lands called Gauchar.

'Dalits also suffer in many instances from de facto disenfranchisement. During elections 2002, those unpersuaded by typical electioneering were routinely threatened and beaten by a pro-government political party strongmen in order to compel them to vote for certain candidates. Already under the thumb of local landlords and police officials, Dalit villagers who do not comply had been victimized, beaten, and harassed. In Tharparkar, violence against Dalits is normally treated as a very minor and marginal issue, even by the law-enforcement machinery, whether be it police, the prosecution, or the medico-legal fraternity or often even the judiciary. Non-registration of crimes against Dalits is one of the main problem in Tharparkar. Political influence over the police, and caste, class, religion and gender biases are rampant. It is extremely difficult for helpless Dalits to file complaints, particularly against the powerful individuals and or perpetrators. The theft of livestock of Dalits in Tharparkar is rampant as police never registers any such case. These are very few examples as to how Dalits are dealt with if they display an act to show equality. Hundreds of the incidents of caste discrimination go unreported.'