{"id":2694,"date":"2020-08-04T21:43:38","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T16:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ziaurrehman.media\/?p=2694"},"modified":"2020-08-04T21:43:38","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T16:43:38","slug":"poor-and-desperate-pakistani-hindus-accept-islam-to-get-by","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/04\/poor-and-desperate-pakistani-hindus-accept-islam-to-get-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Maria Abi-Habib and Zia Ur-Rehman<\/p>\n<div>\n<header class=\"css-1oqewnb euiyums2\">\n<div class=\"css-18e8msd\">\n<p><time class=\"css-129k401 e16638kd0\" datetime=\"2020-08-04T14:22:47-04:00\">Aug. 4, 2020<\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-thenewyorktimes\"><iframe title=\"Poor and Desperate, Pakistani Hindus Accept Islam to Get By\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/svc\/oembed\/html\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2020%2F08%2F04%2Fworld%2Fasia%2Fpakistan-hindu-conversion.html\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" style=\"border:none;max-width:500px;min-width:300px;min-height:550px;display:block;width:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men and boys were then circumcised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Dozens of Hindu families converted in June in the Badin district of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Video clips of the ceremony went viral across the country, delighting hard-line Muslims and weighing on Pakistan\u2019s dwindling Hindu minority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">The mass ceremony was the latest in what is a growing number of such conversions to Pakistan\u2019s majority Muslim faith in recent years \u2014 although precise data is scarce. Some of these conversions are voluntary, some not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">News outlets in India, Pakistan\u2019s majority-Hindu neighbor and archrival, were quick to denounce the conversions as forced. But what is happening is more subtle. Desperation, religious and political leaders on both sides of the debate say, has often been the driving force behind their change of religion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Treated as second-class citizens, the Hindus of Pakistan are often systemically discriminated against in every walk of life \u2014 housing, jobs, access to government welfare. While minorities have long been drawn to convert in order to join the majority and escape discrimination and sectarian violence, Hindu community leaders say that the recent uptick in conversions has also been motivated by newfound economic pressures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat we are seeking is social status, nothing else,\u201d said Muhammad Aslam Sheikh, whose name was Sawan Bheel until June, when he converted in Badin with his family. The ceremony in Badin was notable for its size, involving just over 100 people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cThese conversions,\u201d he added, \u201care becoming very common in poor Hindu communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Proselytizing Muslim clerics and charity groups add to the faith\u2019s allure, offering incentives of jobs or land to impoverished minority members only if they convert.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">With Pakistan\u2019s economy\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/06\/15\/world\/asia\/pakistan-coronavirus-hospitals.html\">on the brink of collapse in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic<\/a>, the pressures on the country\u2019s minorities, often its poorest people, have increased. The economy will contract by 1.3 percent in the 2020 fiscal year because of the pandemic, the World Bank predicts. And up to 18 million of Pakistan\u2019s 74 million jobs may be lost.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Mr. Sheikh and his family hope to find financial support from wealthy Muslims or from Islamic charities that have cropped up in recent years, which focus on drawing more people to Islam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cThere is nothing wrong with that,\u201d Mr. Sheikh said. \u201cEveryone helps the people of their faith.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">As Mr. Sheikh sees it, there is nothing left for Pakistan\u2019s more affluent Hindus to give to help the people of their own faith. That is because there are so few Hindus left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">At independence in 1947,\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/theprint.in\/opinion\/modi-critics-decry-india-mistreating-minorities-but-cant-whitewash-pak-islamisation\/355536\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hindus composed 20.5 percent of the population<\/a>\u00a0of the areas that now form Pakistan. In the following decades, the percentage shrank rapidly, and by 1998 \u2014 the last government census to classify people by religion \u2014 Hindus were just 1.6 percent of Pakistan\u2019s population. Most estimates say it has further dwindled in the past two decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Once a melting pot of religions, Sindh Province, where the conversion ceremony took place, has seen minority members flee to other countries in droves in recent decades. Many face harsh discrimination, as well as the specter of violence \u2014 and the risk of being accused of blasphemy, a capital crime \u2014 if they speak out against it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe dehumanization of minorities coupled with these very scary times we are living in \u2014 a weak economy and now the pandemic \u2014 we may see a raft of people converting to Islam to stave off violence or hunger or just to live to see another day,\u201d said Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani lawmaker who is now a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute, a research group in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Ms. Ispahani recalled the devastating floods of 2010 in Sindh Province, which left thousands homeless and with little to eat. Hindus were not allowed to sit with Muslims at soup kitchens, she said. And when government aid was handed out, Hindus received less of it than their Muslim peers did, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cWill they be converting with their hearts and souls?\u201d Ms. Ispahani said. \u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">The further economic devastation caused by the pandemic may spur more sectarian violence, and that may intensify the pressure on minorities to convert, Ms. Ispahani and others worry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Murtaza Wahab, an adviser to the chief minister of Sindh, was among several government officials who said they could not address Ms. Ispahani\u2019s accusation that Hindus received less aid after the floods, as it happened before they took office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Hindu community is an important part of our society and we believe that people from all faiths should live together without issue,\u201d Mr. Wahab said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/26\/world\/asia\/pakistani-hindus-say-womans-conversion-to-islam-was-coerced.html\">Forced conversions<\/a>\u00a0of Hindu girls and women to Islam through kidnapping and coerced marriages occur throughout Pakistan. But Hindu rights groups are also troubled by the seemingly voluntary conversions, saying they take place under such economic duress that they are tantamount to a forced conversion anyway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cOverall, religious minorities do not feel safe in Pakistan,\u201d said Lal Chand Mahli, a Pakistani Hindu lawmaker with the ruling party, who is a member of a parliamentary committee to protect minorities from forced conversions. \u201cBut poor Hindus are the most vulnerable among them. They are extremely poor and illiterate, and Muslim mosques, charities and traders exploit them easily and lure them to convert to Islam. A lot of money is involved in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Clerics like Muhammad Naeem were at the forefront of an effort to convert more Hindus. (Mr. Naeem, who was 62, died of cardiac arrest two weeks after he was interviewed in June).<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Mr. Naeem said he had overseen more than 450 conversions over the past two years at Jamia Binoria, his seminary in Karachi. Most of the converts were low-caste Hindus from Sindh Province, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cWe have not been forcing them to convert,\u201d Mr. Naeem said. \u201cIn fact, people come to us because they want to escape discrimination attached with their caste and change their socioeconomic status.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Demand was so great, he added, that his seminary had set up a separate department to guide the new converts and provide counsel in legal or financial matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">On a recent afternoon, the call to prayer echoed through a cluster of newly erected tents in Matli, a barren patch of Sindh. A group of Karachi\u2019s wealthy Muslim merchants bought the land last year for dozens of families who had converted from Hinduism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">At a new mosque adjacent to the tents, Muhammad Ali \u2014 who was known by his Hindu name, Rajesh, before converting last year alongside 205 others \u2014 performed ablutions before praying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Last year, his entire family had decided to convert to Islam when Mr. Naeem, the cleric, offered to free them from the bonded labor in which they were trapped, living and working as indentured servants because of unpaid debt. Mr. Ali is originally from the Bheel caste, one of the lowest in Hinduism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cWe have found a sense of equality and brotherhood in Islam, and therefore we converted to it,\u201d Mr. Ali said.<\/p>\n<p>Lower-caste Pakistani Hindus are often the victims of bonded labor. It was outlawed in 1992, but the practice is still prevalent. The Global Slavery Index\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.globalslaveryindex.org\/2018\/data\/maps\/#prevalence\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimates that just over three million Pakistanis<\/a>\u00a0live in debt servitude.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Landlords trap poor Hindus into such bondage by providing loans that they know can never be repaid. They and their families are then forced to work off the debt. The women are often sexually abused, rights groups say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Mr. Naeem\u2019s seminary had rescued several Hindus \u2014 including Mr. Ali and his family \u2014 from bonded labor by paying off their debts in exchange for their conversions to Islam.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">When Mr. Ali and his family converted, Mr. Naeem and a group of rich Muslim traders had given them a piece of land and helped them find work, considering it an Islamic responsibility to help them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cThose who make efforts to spread the message and bring the non-Muslims into the fold of Islam will be blessed in the hereafter,\u201d Mr. Naeem said.<\/p>\n<p>End<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Maria Abi-Habib and Zia Ur-Rehman Aug. 4, 2020 &nbsp; The Hindus performed the prayer rituals awkwardly in supplication to their new, single god, as they prepared to leave their many deities behind them. Their lips stumbled over Arabic phrases that, once recited, would seal their conversion to Islam. The last words uttered, the men [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1361,1362,27],"tags":[321,449,953],"class_list":["post-2694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-conflict-militancy","category-human-rights","category-new-york-times","tag-consensual-conversion-of-hindus","tag-forced-conversions-to-islam","tag-pakistani-hindus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zia-ur-rehman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}