Minorities under threat
Afghanistan’s non-Muslims reduced to 3,000 Hindus and Sikhs
J.K. SHARMA, a large Sikh in a black turban, works out of a small room lined with jars and herbs in the ruined and dusty Shor Bazaar in Kabul. In a warravaged country where miracles are in short supply, Sharma makes a living as a magician, providing advice and talismans to Afghans for a fee.
Shor Bazaar, once a famed centre for musicians and a home for businesses run by Afghan Hindus, is now the haunt of self-proclaimed magicians who are mostly Afghan Sikhs. Fortunetelling is one of the few occupations left for the Sikhs, who are on the verge of disappearing from Afghanistan, along with the Hindus.
Community leaders of these two religious minorities estimate that 35 years ago around 100,000 of them lived in Afghanistan. After three decades of fleeing from conflict to countries like India, Canada and Germany, only 3,000 are left. The majority of the 300 families remaining are Sikhs.
Sharma had also left with his family to seek asylum in India, but he returned to Afghanistan after failing to make a living in their new home. Every month, he remits a big part of his earnings to his family in India.
Most of the Hindus and Sikhs who remain in Afghanistan are weary of religious discrimination and absence of economic opportunities, and they are hoping to leave their country as anxieties grow about their prospects after American troops withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. In September, for instance, President Hamid Karzai had to issue a legislative decree to reserve a single seat for Sikh and Hindu Afghan nationals in the lower house of parliament after lawmakers refused to do so.
Among those trying to get out of Afghanistan is Ram Prakash, who owns the oldest photography shop in Kabul established in 1955. With most of his family already in India, the elderly Prakash is waiting for a good offer to sell his business, but none has come so far. “There is no point being emotional about it. Our shop is a famous institution and that also makes us targets,” he said.
Under the Taleban regime from 1996 to 2001, Hindus had to identify themselves by yellow markings on their forehead or wearing a red cloth. One man said he was forced to convert to Islam by the Taleban and marry a Muslim woman because he was seen speaking to her in a shop.
In recent years, some Afghan Hindus and Sikhs have made their way back home, at least temporarily because of financial pressures. Most of those who returned to find work left their families behind.
But a few like Balram Dhameja, the caretaker of a Hindu temple in Kabul, came back with their daughters and wives. Dhameja returned to Afghanistan with his family after 14 years because he couldn’t make a living in India.
Refugees say that India is slow to grant them citizenship, and without it, they have a difficult time finding work. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, as of January 2013, there were 10,046 Afghan refugees and 958 Afghan asylum seekers living in India.
Fearing harassment, the majority of Hindu and Sikh families don’t send their children to schools in Afghanistan, especially the girls. They have for a long time demanded exclusive schools to be set up for their children.
Anarkali Kaur Honaryar, the only Sikh female in the Afghan parliament, explained that such primary schools are running in Kabul and Jalalabad for the past two years but that it wasn’t possible to set up exclusive schools in provinces where only two or three families are staying.
Even now when the country had more schools, Honaryar said Hindus and Sikhs did not take education seriously. Instead, they had their girls married off by the age of 14, often driven by fear for their security, and sent their young boys to work.
The 36-year-old politician, who grew up in Khost province, said her own family, who had studied in Afghanistan before and after the Taleban, was an example that education could be pursued despite obstacles.
Despite the bleak prospects that face Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan, a handful of these minorities have endured three decades of conflict to stay in their home country, having forged relationships with Muslims that eclipsed religious persecution.
One Sikh family lives quietly in a fortress-like home with high mud walls on the outskirts of Kabul. Guarding it is a Muslim family headed by Haji Faizal Rehman, who has served as chief custodian of their property and 24 hectares of farmlands for 17 years.
The Muslim family is left in charge when the Sikh family moves to India during the Afghan winter months. A large man with a bushy beard, Rehman has warded off bribes and intimidation by local mafia groups attempting to take over the land.
“We have a special bond of trust between us. I would never work for anyone else,” he said. Betwa Sharma is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi