Confronting Bigotry: Will India And Pakistan Ever Look Past Religious Identities?

Two Sikh shopkeepers were recently shot dead in Peshawar in broad daylight by religious fanatics. At the same time, a top court in India had to quell petitioners from dissecting the Taj Mahal. These instances, a few of many, coupled with growing dissent over minorities in the region highlights an alarming trend of discrimination and intolerance in the subcontinent — a place that had always been home to countless ethnicities, languages and cultures.

Historically, both India and Pakistan were created for achieving freedom from the white man. That was a joint objective shared by the people of the then united India. The brown individual in Asia was never just a Hindu, or a Muslim, or Sikh. Rather, it represented the collectively colonized peoples who desired better governance for themselves. 

However, what was meant to be a drive for freedom eventually morphed into antagonism and violence on religious grounds. Both countries, despite appealing to their respective majorities as decided by the ruling parties, claimed to be safe havens for all religions and ethnicities. That claim was set ablaze during the atrocities surrounding partition, and has been desecrated further since then. For as fundamentalism grows, and as religion is further adopted as the primary identity of state, the minority in every shape and form, is going to suffer.

With regards to national security, religion plays a major role in shaping policies that will appease the majority, enough to ensure order and to establish a certain political identity. Examples can be seen in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and extremists in nearly all mainstream political parties in Pakistan. Politicians on either side of the border have been using religion to divide the population and incite a notion of ‘us versus them’ – ‘them’ being the minority as proclaimed by the groups labelling them so. In sociology, this is indicative of in-group bias, in which minorities, as delegated by the majority, are disadvantaged on nearly every social plane. 

One does not need to squint in order to see it. Who can forget the incident where, not too long ago, a Sri Lankan man was falsely accused of blasphemy and murdered in cold blood? Or the Hijab ban where females are being policed on what they can and cannot wear? From smearing hate slogans on the statue of Raja Ranjit Singh to vandalising churches and livestock farmers, the radical Muslims and Hindus of the subcontinent are making it clear that the minority is not welcome within their borders.

Extremist agents have been working at grass-root levels in both countries in order to encourage violence against minorities. There are numerous stories about forced conversions and kidnappings, torture and vandalism – most notoriously in Kashmir – that touts the notion of free living. Even the media is under strict control to regurgitate the state narrative. Those who refuse to do so conveniently disappear. 

The state of affairs in Pakistan when it comes to freedom of speech are not too different. Socio-political issues related to Balochistan and forced conversions in some parts of rural Punjab and Sindh are rarely covered.

Both countries, now including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and even Bangladesh with the unforgettable Rohingya massacres, can present themselves as live examples of the state’s failure to protect marginalised groups. Whenever a state exhibits strong support of one group over the other, there is going to be conflict. Despite the fact that the people of this region share a common history – a heritage that no one can call a fairy tale – it was a tale nevertheless. This heritage was filled with strife and struggles peppered with traditions, religions and customs. 

The state of affairs in Pakistan when it comes to freedom of speech are not too different. Socio-political issues related to Balochistan and forced conversions in some parts of rural Punjab and Sindh are rarely covered.

And this brings me back to my original point: the brown individual was never just one religion, or culture. “The fissures in the Indian soil are infinite” proclaims EM Forster in ‘a Passage to India’, though they have always been that way. The subcontinent has suffered countless wars and conquests, with different cultures and schools of thoughts intersecting one another. One could wonder then; how dialogue, harmony, and development can flourish between these age-old cracks. 

The answer, ironically, can be found in the same paragraph from the book: ‘respect’. Before we were categorized and sifted into different terms, we were – are – a brown people. As put forth by Alex Vonn Tunzelmann, when “the British started to define ‘communities’ based on religious identity and attach political representation to them, many Indians stopped accepting the diversity of their own thoughts and began to ask themselves in which of the boxes they belonged.” 

This alludes to the idea that we, as a diverse community, had the capability to look past our religious identities in favour of maintaining peace. Survivors of the Great Partition and those who remember the times from before then, our age-old Marasi and custodians of clan histories, often recount how different groups would find harmony through co-existence. Having different religions in the same neighbourhood was never a crime; the Gyanvapi mosque, which is now emerging as a flashpoint for inter-religious violence, once stood as a testament for communal harmony. 

That means the notion itself still has room to germinate. If it was possible way back then, perhaps it could still be possible now, past political and geographical lines. Before more people are killed or displaced, forcibly converted or their very existence labelled as a sin.  In light of current events I must indeed ask; if not now, when?