Minorities Struggle in Pakistan’s Political Landscape

Saba Chaudhary

Narowal: Numerous challenges impede the representation of religious minorities in the election process in Pakistan, said Samar Naz, a 40-year-old rights activist from Narowal.

Drawing on years of advocacy, Samar emphasizes the need to address these obstacles to ensure fair and inclusive participation of minorities in the electoral system.

Naz further says the biggest problem for Christians in Narowal is that despite having a bigger Christian vote bank, the community is deprived of a Christian MPA.

There is no representation of the Christian community in Narowal, either on the national or provincial level. Due to this, the issues related to this community in the area are not taken seriously.

“There is still discrimination against religious communities in Pakistan. There are lots of concerns of minority communities in Narowal, but they are not heard because of not having our representative’’ he shared.

“We always complained about the sewerage system affecting the community in the main city, but no one listened to us,” the rights activist added.

Mukhtar Bibi, a 45-year-old, also complained about the same issues.

She also expressed concerns about the lack of jobs in the city. Most of her family members are involved in sanitary work. She said that due to low salaries, their children don’t have access to good education and health.

The limited representation of Christian and Hindu minorities in political offices and development projects also affects their ability to advocate for their rights.

According to the Constitution, Article 51 (2A), there shall be 10 reserved seats for minorities in the National Assembly and 23 seats in four provincial assemblies under Article 106. These candidates are nominated by Muslims, based on the number of seats won by major political parties. The seats are filled by proportional representation among parties with more than 5 percent of the vote.

Ramesh Singh Arora, another resident of Narowal, was selected for a reserved seat of the Punjab Assembly during 2013–2018. He was the first Sikh parliamentarian in the provincial assembly. He was selected for a second term in 2020 against one of the reserved seats for non-Muslims, which fell vacant due to the death of a member.

During his tenure, he has worked on lots of issues related to human rights, particularly minorities’ issues. He also worked on ‘’The Punjab Sikh Anand Karaj Marriage Act 2018’’.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics census 2017, there are about 75,820 Christians in Narowal district, 1,254 Hindus, 1,0855 Ahmadis, and 60 Scheduled Castes.

According to Election Commission (ECP) officials, the total votes of Ahmadis are around 5,000 in Narowal.

Similarly, according to ECP data as of June 2022, there are a total of 39,497 minority votes in Narowal district, about 29,668 in Narowal city, 5,520 in Shakargarh Tehsil, and 4,290 in ZafarWal.

President of Pak Dharmasthan Committee and former member of Narowal district council Ratan Lal said, ‘’The Hindu community in Narowal is marginalised in such a way that nobody hears their voice and problems.

”We have brought our issues in front of everyone, from the government to human rights organisations to local administration, but no action was taken’’.

There are 45 seminaries in Narowal, but there is not a single functional temple for performing rituals.

Lal says, “We are also citizens of Pakistan; we didn’t migrate from anywhere; we are only asking for our fundamental rights, but we are treated like secondary citizens. There is a big Hindu community living in Shakargarh-Narowal. Former politicians and administrations made promises to us but did nothing for us.”

“If we cannot perform our rituals alive in the temples of Narowal, at least the government should do something for our crematorium practices, so at least we could mourn and perform our last memorial services peacefully in Narowal,” asks Ratan Lal.

He says that when there is a selection, and that is from political parties, then people on reserved seats behave like they do not come from our votes, so they are not answerable to us. They cannot do anything without the permission of those who bring them, and this is the game of money.

Former chairman and mayor of Narowal district council, Ahmad Iqbal, said minority seats are not geographically distributed; this is overall province-wise representation.

If there had been an apportioned seat of this area, then definitely that seat would have been for the majority Christian population of Narowal.

He says, “I believe we should go for direct elections for minority seats. We should give them tickets by geographical distribution. Those candidates should be on poster pictures with MNAs and MPAs of those areas. They should campaign with them and be directly elected.”

Ahmad Iqbal stressed, “If we don’t go far from a nomination and list-based system and if we don’t reform the electoral method of reserved seats till then, we cannot see genuine political leadership of minorities. Because when there is no competition, the same people are repeated, and this needs to be changed. Minorities deserve the same kind of power, respect, and stature as a general-seat MPA.”

He says that over the past 10 years, minorities in Narowal have been very active, especially the Christian community, which is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the educational infrastructure of the district. “They have become a very important part of electoral calculus. They are more educated, aware, and active than anyone. In the future, aspire to be their voice in the corridors of power.”

Chairman of Minority Alliance Pakistan (MAP), Akmal Bhatti, said, “It is a fundamental right of a human being to elect their representative with their votes; selection is an injustice because nobody sees the profile of a candidate before selecting.”

“Politicians select candidates close to them; even some candidates do not have any contribution in the work for minorities on a provincial or national level, but they get selected repeatedly. This is unconstitutional sitting on seats for more than 15–20 years,” Bhatti added.

The advocate believes in elections for minorities. And he says, “The representation of minorities should be increased both in the national and provincial assemblies. The reserved seats on our names are used by someone else.”

He said, “Hardly anybody is coming on merit; they either come by recommendation or by money. This kind of system also promotes corruption.”

This is the demand of my party and minority alliance Pakistan; we want dual votes, an increase in seats, and our electoral constituencies. This is the only way real people can reach assemblies and make changes in legislation.

He said that the current candidates are representatives of political parties, and they could not do anything without the permission of their parent parties.

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