Low-caste Hindus face strict discrimination

The data coming from four districts in Sindh and Punjab revealed that 77 per cent respondents are denied barber services and 90 per cent have been served food and tea in separate crockery at hotels and restaurants which they have to wash by themselves.

Sixty-nine per cent of those surveyed said that their upper caste Hindu and Muslim neighbours either do not invite them to their social gatherings like weddings, or if invited they were being served food separately. This attitude was relatively more prevalent in Rahim Yar Khan (87 per cent) then in Tharparkar (60 per cent). In schools, scheduled caste students are obliged to sit on back seats, leaving front seats for students from non-scheduled castes. Though they are not asked to do so on regular basis, the practice is in place for so long that it had become a custom.

Scheduled caste population, according to official statistics, is only 332,343. Ordinary scheduled castes as well as their political representatives, which consider that the discrimination starts from their exclusion in headcount, challenge these figures.   

They said that their numbers had been deliberately shown less and their low number was also a main reason of their backwardness as they were not considered a major group in numbers thus they were not provided adequate share in development budget.

According to the last census held in 1998, the total population of Hindus in Pakistan was 2,443,514 of which 2,111,171 are Hindu Jatis (upper castes) and 332, 343 are scheduled castes Hindus (lower castes).

Scheduled caste population is overwhelmingly living in rural areas as 90 per cent or 3,07,509 live in villages and only 24,834 are living in urban areas. Majority of Pakistani rural population are agriculture workers with no rights and facilities.