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Hindus' woes "far from over"

Nirupama Subramanian

"He is an honest man. That his appointment became a matter of public demand and that the entire nation was willing to place its trust in a Hindu is a matter of great pride for us."

ISLAMABAD: As the first person of his community to occupy one of the highest offices in the country, acting Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas has made the Hindus of Pakistan walk tall, leaders of the tiny minority here said.

But community leaders are also clear that the appointment does not mean that the problems that Hindus face as a minority are now over. Justice Bhagwandas was sworn in last week as the acting Chief Justice in place of chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary who was removed earlier this month.

"He is an honest man. That his appointment became a matter of public demand and that the entire nation was willing to place its trust in a Hindu is a matter of great pride for us," said Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Sindh Provincial Assembly legislator and patron of the Pakistan Hindu Council.

Hindus, whose numbers in Pakistan are estimated at slightly over 20 lakh of its 160 million population, have had a difficult relationship with the state over the last 60 years, just as other minority communities in the country. In addition, they have had to deal with the hostility that came with Partition. The drive towards more and more Islamisation in the 1980s, and the existing climate of extremism have increased their uncertainties.

All this makes Mr. Bhagwandas's career graph, through the ranks of the legal community and the lower judiciary in Sindh and from there to the High Court and the Supreme Court, remarkable.

Surviving a 1999 legal challenge to his presence in the High Court on the ground that he was a non-Muslim, Justice Bhagwandas was sworn in to the apex court the next year, taking the oath of allegiance to Gen. Pervez Musharraf's "provisional constitutional order".

At this moment, Pakistan's Hindu community is not dwelling on that low point for the country's judiciary.

"This is the first time that a Hindu has reached such a top position in the country, and that certainly is a matter of joy for the community," said Ramesh Lal, a National Assembly member from Larkana, Sindh. But, he added, Mr. Bhagwandas is not yet the Chief Justice. Mr. Lal said one individual's rise to the top could not be expected to change the situation of the entire community unless the state and the Government took important steps to address concerns of the minorities.

Though Pakistan's Constitution guarantees equality for all citizens irrespective of their religion, minorities have found that this does not always work in practice.

Some commonly cited problems include "forced conversions" through kidnappings and forced marriages, the absence of equal opportunities in education and employment, draconian blasphemy laws that are often used to settle scores against members of the minority community, and the vulnerability of their places of worship to vandalism and encroachments.

There are no expectations that the ascent of Mr. Bhagwandas can solve any of these problems. If anything, it is expected he would be careful not to show excessive interest in issues concerning his community. Still, Mr. Vankwani said he hoped that the acting Chief Justice would assist in a small way.

"We want to request the acting Chief Justice to take up the Pakistan Hindu Council's constitutional petition against forced conversions of Hindus to Islam," Mr. Vankwani said, adding that it was lying with the court for the last seven months.

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