Afghan Hindus & Sikhs disillusioned with electoral process
KABUL, September 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): For Hindus and Sikhs minorities together, a solitary Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) seat has been reserved in Sunday’s elections, for which an active woman is in the run.
Dwelling in this capital city, a number of Hindus and Sikhs complain they avoided standing in the polls because the government gave the minorities a raw deal – treatment that tended to lower them in status and public esteem.
Robinder Singh, gazing at candidate posters plastered on a wall from his shop in the bustling Kabul Market, asked: “Knowing full well the government has done nothing for our wellbeing over the last three years, why should we jump into the electoral race?”
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, a skeptical Singh believed nobody would heed the voice of their representatives even if they were catapulted to the Wolesi Jirga and provincial councils.
According to information provided by Anarkali, a Hindu-Sikh contender for the first post-Taliban ballot, some 3,500 members of the minority communities are currently living in Kabul, Ghazni, Nangarhar, Khost and Balkh provinces.
She explained the number of Hindus and Sikhs in the Central Asian country had been depleted by their mass exodus, triggered by decades of strife. The suave, urbane woman recalled about a hundred thousand Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan would often slam the Dr. Najibullah government for giving them short shrift.
“They didn’t file nomination papers for the elections, because no one is willing to grant them their due rights. As a result of the continued indifference shown to them, they are least interested in Afghanistan’s political and governmental affairs.”
Anarkali, who represented the two minorities at the constitutional and emergency Loya Jirgas, urged candidates to treat voters equally, regardless of religious, ethnic and linguistic considerations.
A resident of the Karta-e-Parwan neighbourhood, Narender Singh echoed the views of the urbane Hindu woman and Robinder Singh. They were not treated like Afghans, he grumbled, arguing the discrimination had left them disillusioned with the whole thing.
But Mohammad Ishaq Nasiri, a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Border and Tribal Affairs, is dismissive of the criticism from the minorities. “We have the same respect for Hindus and Sikhs as we show to other Afghans.”
He claimed, like the rest of the communities, they were invited to Afghanistan’s cultural and national festivals to promote national cohesion. “They can’t blame us for their failure to contest the vote,” remarked Nasiri, who reasoned the government would have ungrudgingly reached out to them if they had entered the race.
Nasiri pointed out the government had returned Hindus and Sikhs the lands and property wrested from them by gunmen during the civil war. Under the Afghan constitution and the electoral law, people of all faiths could contest the legislative elections – the first in 30 years.
Reported by Zubair Babakarkhel & translated by Mudassir Ali Shah
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