Should the Hindus from Pakistan be given asylum by the government of India?
Statecraft BY HAPPYMON JACOB
The Indian media has been feverishly advocating that Pakistani Hindus should be given political asylum in India. However, the Indian political class, barring the Hindu right wing BJP of course, has remained diplomatic over the issue, carefully avoiding from taking any stand on the issue. There is a snowballing sympathy wave for the Pakistani minorities who are crossing over into India due to the ill treatment that they have been facing in their own homeland.
I have been closely looking at these developments in order to formulate my own position on the issue, and yet my own position is clearly a complex one with many shades of moral dilemma. First of all, there is absolutely no doubt that the minorities – Hindus, Christians etc. – face discrimination in Pakistan. Quite apart from the fact that Islamic extremists in Pakistan persecute the minorities, Pakistani minorities are also legally discriminated against. For instance, non-Muslims are not allowed to become either the President or Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Much as I am deeply saddened at their plight, I would, from a policy point of view, argue that India should desist from the temptation to announce asylum or citizenship to Pakistani Hindus crossing over into India. The government of India should play down the issue in order to avoid the potential diplomatic complications. And that is precisely what New Delhi seems to be doing now. New Delhi should extend the visas of those who have already arrived in the country, if so requested. Indian authorities should perhaps take up the issue with Pakistan during confidential bilateral parlays. In the meantime, the Indian media should exercise restraint and the BJP should just shut up.
Is India a Hindu nation?No it is not; it is a secular country and the Indian constitution is abundantly clear on that. India is not the homeland of Hindus but of Indians, however much the Sangh Parivar might try and interpret it differently. If so, why should the persecution of Hindus in Pakistan bother the Indian state anymore than the persecution of anyone in Pakistan or Sri Lanka or Nepal or China, for that matter? Making a hue and cry over the manner in which Hindus are treated in Pakistan and keeping mum when the same treatment is meted out to other minorities, like christens, there is not befitting a secular state.
The question of implications
It is true that India has a tradition of accepting refugees from different countries of south Asia into the country and so giving asylum to the persecuted Pakistani Hindus is the right thing to do from a purely humanitarian point of view. That said, we should not forget the unintended consequences of such an act of charity. If New Delhi does indeed make public offers of asylum to Pakistani Hindus, it will most certainly lead to unnecessary politicization of the issue by Pakistan. Pakistan is likely to make similar statements of concern and worry vis-à-vis Indian Muslims some of who are undoubtedly persecuted in various parts of India. Moreover, if India offers political asylum to some Hindus from Pakistan, who have managed to cross over, it is likely that the remaining members of the Hindu community in Pakistan will be further isolated and condemned by Pakistani religious bigots. In other words, India’s humanitarian gesture could potentially end up creating more difficulties for Hindus in Pakistan and, indeed, also for Muslims in India.
Moreover, Indian offer of asylum will surely have negative implications for India-Pakistan bilateral relations. The recent strides in Indo-Pak relations are both positive and hold great promise for a grand reconciliation between the two sides. Very importantly, there is a clear willingness on both sides to deemphasize their differences and to focus on issues that are agreed upon by both the sides. The ‘politics of asylum’ can damage these bilateral gains.
The moral question
Allow me to be a little more provocative. Do we have a moral right to sit in judgment of the manner in which minorities are treated in Pakistan? Far from it, I would say. If Pakistan is guilty of persecuting its minorities, India’srecord is not far better. While the Constitution of India does not discriminate anyone on the basis of religion, there is no denying the fact that minorities, especially Muslims, are discriminated against in many parts of the country. In some cities, they even find it difficult to find accommodation just because they are from a minority community. Has the Indian media, now morally outraged and going hammer and tongs against Pakistan, forgotten what Narendra Modi’s government did to Muslims in Gujarat? Have they forgotten the fact that he has been elected back to office despite what the Muslims had to go through in Gujarat? I wonder how the mainstream Indian media, catering primarily to the Indian middle class’ delusions of grandeur, would react if Islamabad were to declare that they would give political asylum to the Muslims who are/were persecuted in Gujarat and other places in India! They would call it a conspiracy, just as Pakistan’s interior minister who thinks that it is an Indian conspiracy to give 250 visas to Pakistani Hindus.
Many ‘realist’ analysts in India have argued in the past few weeks that India should ‘actively’ look after the welfare of the 4.5 or so million Hindus in Pakistan as doing so would be ‘strategically advantageous’ to India in the longer run. Pakistan has done it for a very long time vis-à-vis India and I fail to see how, in the final analysis, it has become strategically advantageous to Pakistan.
(Source: Greater Kashmir, 19 AUGUST 2012. URL: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2012/Aug/19/politics-of-asylum-4.asp )
