Discrimination against 'scheduled caste' Hindus continues

ISLAMABAD Discriminatory attitude of the general public as well as Hindus upper caste towards 'schedule caste Hindus is allegedly practised in different parts of the country as issues of separate eating pots in hotels; denial of culling at barbers shops and restricted permission of worship at Hindu temples are major contributory malpractices.
Among the 640 Hindu families including Bheel, Manghwal, Balmeeki, Aaria around, 527 families complained that they had to use separate pots in hotels in their vicinities and around 328 families said that they even could not visit the temple for worship, according to a survey conducted by 'Scheduled Caste Rights Movement (SCRM) Pakistan.
The survey was conducted in different parts of the country - Lahore, Rawalpindi, Rahimyar Khan, Bahawalnager, Multan, Norowal and Bahawalpur - where scheduled caste Hindus are living in large numbers. The Survey was conducted among the members of the upper caste including Thakar and others who simply do not allow the lower caste Hindus to visit and worship in the Hindu temples, said Chairman of Scheduled Caste Movement Ramesh Jaipal, while talking to TheNation.
Senator Khatu Mal Jeewan, however, said that the discriminatory trend was fast decreasing. Though still it is somewhere in the rural areas yet the discrimination has very much decreased in the urban areas, he said.
It is relevant to note here that the term scheduled castes emerged in political and constitutional history of Pakistan on November 12, 1957, when the Ministry of Law issued a presidential ordinance to declare certain non-Muslim castes as scheduled castes. While the Survey conducted by SCRM showed that children of scheduled caste Hindus 'living in different vicinities are facing discrimination as out of 640 surveyed families 395 families complained of discriminatory attitude while children of around 124 are not going to school due to different reasons including poverty, less trend of education.
Among 640 surveyed families, 440 families complained that they had no right of culling from barbers shop in their cities while 200 families said that they had no problem of culling in their vicinities.
As many as 589 families voiced against receiving any benefit from government schemes, while 51 families spoke in favour of the government schemes while 511 families went on to say that they did not receive any form from Bait-ul-Mal while the remaining said that they received it. When asked about the attitude of police towards them, as many as 494 families said that they were afraid of police while the rest rejected discrimination. The study revealed that out of 640 families around 461 families said that they had been approached for enrolment in the voters list while the remaining went against it.
The Survey showed that 35 percent of the problem was solved by the government, 32 per cent from NGOs while 30 per cent were of the view that no one solved their problems since they belonged to schedule caste. As many as 481 families said that they felt hurdles in getting health, water and other facilities while 159 disagreed.
As per the study among 3,649 persons from 640 families, some 1,326 carried National Identity Cards (NIC) and 1536 were under 18. The Survey was conducted both in male and female as 1,877 male and 1,772 females were surveyed. It would not be out of place to mention here that accordingly, 41 castes were added to this schedule. The ordinance was called the Scheduled Castes (Declaration) Ordinance, 1957. It was declared that these scheduled castes would be given some special status in population welfare matters, e.g. allocation of reserved quota for them was assured.
According to the 1998 Pakistan Census, Hindus constitute about 1.6 percent of the total population of Pakistan (3.4 million) while the Schedule Castes makes up a further 0.25pc of national population. However, according to current unofficial figures, more than 3 million Hindus live in Pakistan, of which about 2.5 million are from the scheduled caste. According to 1998 population census, more than 75,000 scheduled caste Hindus live in Rahim Yar Khan and the population is expected to be 0.2 million at present.