Life of a Pakistani Hindu in India| Ft. Swati Goel Sharma

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Dec 14, 2022

We speak to Swati Goel Sharma who recently covered a story of the Hindu refugees of Pakistan, regarding their woes of not having access to an electricity connection in the Adarsh Nagar Slum of New Delhi, for over 5 years.

She has time and again covered the plight of their unfortunate lives. We seek to understand their aspirations, their struggles, their worldview, their perspective on the Muslim-Hindu conflict, their love or hate for their home country Pakistan, their relationship with their faith, their identity and the well-being of their children.

Swati gives us a tour of their lives and their daily existence. We feel privileged and honored that we could speak about those refugees who are Orphans of Secularism.

 

[Imran Khan]

Why are Pak-Hindus desperate to return to Pakistan​

Pakistan and Society

• Kashif Kakvi

Updated: Aug 27, 2022, 19:42 IST
In the ten years that Sagar Kukreja has lived in India, this is perhaps the first time that he wants to go back home for good. And who can blame him. For the 31-year-old, despite trying his level best in setting up a business in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, Kukreja has met with only failure in the last two years. His mobile repairing shop was only a year old when the pandemic struck, forcing him to lose his store as well as the deposit. He took loans to get by all of last year, but then the second wave hit and ate up whatever he had borrowed. Today Kukreja is fed up with living hand-to-mouth, and is desperate to return to Kashmore district in the Sindh province of Pakistan, which is his hometown. He is not the only Pakistani Hindu who is desperate to leave India right now.
According to Pakistan High Commission spokesperson Khawaja Maaz Tariq, 1,288 Pakistani Hindus have returned to the country from India between March 17, 2021 and March 25, 2020, when the national lockdown was announced. “As of March 22 this year, there are also at least 107 of them who are waiting to return,” he says, adding. “This is not really a new phenomenon, minorities have always travelled freely between the two countries. It has only come to our attention now because the borders are sealed and they are desperate to go back home.”

Why this story​

According to official sources, 1,500 Pakistani-Hindu refugees returned to Pakistan between January 2021 and July this year after failing to secure Indian citizenship and a source of income to support their families. This TOI+ story first carried on 2021 and republished in May 2022 details the desperation of Pakistani-Hindus to return to a country they had left following untold abuse and discrimination

Why are Pak-Hindus desperate to return to Pakistan | India News - Times of India

India News: According to official sources, 1,500 Pakistani-Hindu refugees returned to Pakistan between January 2021 and July this year after failing to secure Ind

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

No Indian citizenship, 1,500 Pak Hindus return in 18 months

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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With shattered dreams, 14 Pakistani Hindus return home​

Hoping to get citizenship in India and for better economic prospects, Pakistani Hindus asks government to bring them back​

11.09.2020

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By Kiran Butt
LAHORE, Pakistan
At least 14 members of Pakistan's Hindu minority community recently returned from India after six months, saying their dreams of better economic prospects in the neighboring country had been shattered.
Speaking to reporters at the Wagah border crossing, Kanhaya Lal and Nanak Ram, the heads of the families, said they went to India hoping for better economic prospects, but it was a “farce” and they suffered great hardships.
India recently passed a controversial law allowing Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Christians from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh to apply for fast-track citizenship.
Last month, a family of 11 Pakistani Hindus was found dead in a rented farmhouse in the city of Jodhpur in India’s Rajasthan state.
"I knew that family, and most of them were educated. But there are no opportunities for any outsiders in India,” Lal told Anadolu Agency.
"The fact is they were living in miserable conditions and suffered from extreme poverty and there were dangerous threats to their lives."
He said more than 28,000 Pakistan Hindus are stranded in Jodhpur waiting to return home.
Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

Related topics​

 

[-=virus=-]

Why are Pak-Hindus desperate to return to Pakistan

Yaar interview toh dekh lo before commenting

 

[K_Bin_W]

This has been ongoing for quite some time now, they eventually return home... The grass is always green on the other side.

 

[Paitoo]

Shame on Indian government for not expediting their citizenship process. They should stop chest thumping about CAA then. The truth is that this lot of Hindus is minuscule and not electorally important. So bhaad mein jaye, kya karna hai kisi ne.

Had this been a communally sensitive area or border state like Assam, inn logo ko Aadhar Card mil rahay hotay Modi Jo ki taaveer ke saath. Vaccine certificate ki tarah.

 

[Imran Khan]

Yaar interview toh dekh lo before commenting

video wala kam nhi kerty hum

India may not be the safe haven it wants to be for Pakistani Hindus​

In search of refuge.
Image: REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
By
Manavi Kapur

PublishedMay 9, 2022


India has reportedly been unable to provide a safe haven to a significant number of Hindu refugees from Pakistan.
About 800 Pakistani Hindus returned to their home country in 2021 due to the absence of any progress on their citizenship applications, The Hindu newspaper has reported. The data are based on the claims of Seemant Lok Sangathan (SLS), an advocacy group.
Several of these asylum seekers were living in the western Indian state of Rajasthan.
Following the end of the British rule in 1947, the Indian subcontinent was partitioned between the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and a constitutionally secular India that had an overwhelmingly Hindu majority.
Over the past many decades, Hindu right-wing groups have always countered accusations of persecution of Muslims in India with the alleged plight of Hindus in Pakistan. For instance, the vandalisation of Hindu temples there is often brought up as a foil to violence against mosques in India. The Hindu nationalists’ claims are particularly sharp in international forums.

India’s Citizenship Amendment Act​

This return of Pakistani Hindus in frustration is also particularly intriguing in the context of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). This controversial law, passed by parliament in 2019, was meant to specifically help such people.
The CAA, along with the launch of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), had spurred months-long nationwide protests. The Act was supposedly meant to fast-track citizenship applications of persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians, and Buddhists of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.
The non-inclusion of Muslim asylum seekers in this list was thorny. Along with the alleged biases in the implementation of NRC, it fueled concerns over the possible targeted harassment of this religious minority of India.
However, the rules under CAA have not been notified yet, leaving the law in a state of dormancy. In April, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government sought six more months to formulate the rules.
The home ministry said that over 10,000 citizenship applications—nearly 75% from Pakistan—were pending as of December 2021.
Applicants under CAA were eligible for citizenship within five years instead of 11, if they entered India before December 2014 on grounds of religious persecution. Yet, many such Pakistani Hindus have lived in India for much longer than five years, according to The Hindu.