Dr Mandeep Singh Azad
Few days back moving around in Gafar market,New Delhi for my mobile phone repair, I came across a handsome sikh with full grown beard and well tied turban talking to me in Hindi. But I noticed him talking in some other language with his fellow shop mate .When I asked him from which part of country he belongs ,he smiled and said “Baba I belong to Afganisthan”. I was shocked to see that Afghani sikh with full sikh attire wearing kirpan and kada in hand. Talking to him I came to know that he is here from last two years and is running a business of 2nd hand phone sale. He told me that because of troubled conditions in Afghanistan they had to run from there to save their lives though they had a very good business in the country. He told me that Sikhs and Hindus from Afghan respect their ritual and religions much better than Indian Sikhs and Hindus. Inspite of all harsh situation and life threatening incidences they never left their religion. He further told me that Sikhs had been living in Afghanistan for over 500 years with a majority of them descendants of Afghan population who were inspired by the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev who had visited Afghanistan in the 15th century while Hindus had been living in Afghanistan much before that. There used to be more than five dozen historical Gurdwaras in Afghanistan. Now there is installation of Guru Granth Sahib only in a couple of Sikh worship places.
A large number of Sikh and Hindu refugees from Afghanistan want to stay back in India, as the security situation in their country is not stable. Many of them, the young especially, have learnt stitching and operating computers to be self-reliant. These Sikhs are Afghan nationals who normally speak native Pashto but also speak Dari, Hindi or Punjabi. Although predominantly a Muslim country, Afghanistan has long been home to non-Muslim minorities such as Sikhs and Hindus, who played significant role in the socio-economic and cultural life of the country. Yet even during the best of times in Afghanistan, a section of the majority population refused to accept members of their communities as fellow “Afghans,” instead looking down upon them and treating them as second-class citizens. Numbering over 50,000 in the early 1990s, the numbers of Afghans Sikhs and Hindus have dwindled significantly over the years and merely a handful remain in Afghanistan today under trying conditions.
A complete generation of Afghans has witnessed only conflict for the past 30 years, thanks to various forms of violence: from actual war to the ferocity of minefields and the destruction of livelihoods, which pushed a third of Afghanistan’s population to exile. A combination of structural failures and the rise of Islamic fundamentalist ideology in post-Soviet Afghanistan led to a virtual civil war and ethnic cleansing. The political turmoil impacted the lives of every Afghan adversely, but the position of the religious minorities was particularly vulnerable. Afghan Sikhs and Hindus encountered widespread persecution, struggled with prejudice, and faced uphill battles to preserve their culture and religious tradition. The systematic targeting and the illegal grabbing of their businesses and property added to the trauma of civil war and resulted in their en masse exodus in the early ’90s. Based on their ethnic and religious similarities to a segment of the Indian population, these communities found incentives to seek asylum in India.
Due to lack of data, it is difficult to estimate the exact number of Afghans living in India. According to a study carried out in the late 1990s, there were approximately 60,000 Afghans living in India, of which merely 16,000 possessed united nation high commission for refugees (UNHCR) certificates. According to the UNHCR New Delhi Factsheet 2016, India currently hosts 13,381 refugees and asylum seekers from Afghanistan, mostly settled in and around the capital. Khalsa Diwan Welfare Society, an organization run by the Afghan Sikhs and Hindus in India, however, assesses the current size of these communities to be over 15,000; that is after the bulk of them migrated to Western countries over the past decade.
As a first step to granting Indian nationality to some 200,000 refugees from neighboring countries, the BJP-led government has given citizenship to around 4,300 Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan and Afghanistan in one year, according to sources. During the entire tenure of the previous government, the figure stood at 1,023. The refugees have been given citizenship on the initiative of Home Minister Rajnath Singh following BJP’s declared policy that India is a “natural home for persecuted Hindus” who will be welcome to seek refuge.
There are around 200,000 Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan currently living in India. Since the Modi government assumed charge in May 2014, nearly 19,000 refugees have been given long-term visas in Madhya Pradesh. Around 11,000 long-term visas were given in Rajasthan and another 4,000 in Gujarat. There are about 400 settlements for refugees from Pakistan in cities like Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner and Jaipur. Hindu refugees from Bangladesh mostly live in West Bengal and northeastern states. Sikh refugees mostly live in Punjab, Delhi and Chandigarh.
By tradition, Sikhs cremate their dead, an act considered sacrilege in Islam. Cremation has become a major issue among Sikh Afghans, as traditional cremation grounds have been appropriated by Muslims, particularly in the Qalacha area of Kabul, which Sikhs and Hindus had used for over a century. In 2003 Sikhs complained to the Afghan Government regarding the loss of cremation grounds, which had forced them to send a woman’s body to Pakistan to be cremated, following which the Minister of Religious affairs investigated the issue. Though the grounds were reported as returned to Sikh control in 2006, in 2007 local muslims allegedly beat Sikhs attempting to cremate a community leader, and the funeral proceeded only with police protection. As of 2010, cremation in Kabul is still reported as being disapproved of by locals.
Sikhs in Afghanistan continue to face problems, with the issue of the Sikh custom of cremation figuring prominently. City development also threatens to destroy the Gurudwara Karte Parwan and adjoining shrine to Guru Nanak.In September 2013, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a legislative decree, reserving a seat in the National Assembly of Afghanistan for the Hindu and Sikh minority.
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