In the post-Zia-ul-Huq Pakistani society dominated by rebarbative Salafi-Wahhabi Islamist zealots even Sufi Muslims quake in fear of being caught as the defiler of ‘faith.’ Ahmadiyyas are declared ‘non-Muslims’, and Khoja, Ismaili Shia and other communities pray at their mosques and celebrate their holy days with the very real possibility of being blown up by a suicide bomber. What hope would non-Muslims have of leading a dignified human existence in such atmosphere? There was a Pakistani Christian nurse in my English class at a CUNY college in the Bronx, New York City, in 2005. Clouds of pain and bitterness floated over her face as she groped for an answer to my casual question after a class: ‘How are things at home?’
Jagdish had come to Karachi to earn a living as a factory worker from a hangdog Hindu community in the south of Sindh province. Fellow Hindu workers with whom he resided in Marwari Mohalla in the city were too traumatised to go out to work after the lynching incident on April 8, 2008, thereby losing their meagre income. The factory management of Nova Industries neither condoled Jagdish’s death nor made any gesture to reassure the return of the Hindu labourers.
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3:28 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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