Our religion is our security in Pakistan: Swat Sikhs (P-II)

[Naveed Yaseen]

by Mariana Baabar
GURDWARA SRI PANJA SAHIB (Hasanabdal): Jaswant Kaur is a middle aged mother of four, full of life and smiles as she makes tea for us and reminisces about life in village Pir Baba in Buner. But while she is glad that she took her children away from the hell like situation back home, she can’t stop fretting about her husband who stayed behind. The three days that she has been at Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib, Hasanabdal, already seem like an agonising lifetime. It’s never easy being a refugee within one’s own land.

But like many others around her, Jaswant is a brave woman. She is already a commanding presence in the sprawling kitchen of the massive Gurdwara which otherwise has the capacity to house up to ten thousand people. It’s amazing how the majority of the women here can still smile, even those like Jaswant who have had to leave their spouses behind, for one reason or another. Maybe they are smiling because unlike the Muslim displaced people of Swat, who are forced to languish on the roads of Rawalpindi and elsewhere and eking out a living in miserable circumstances, the Sikh community has suffered a much better fate, at least till now. None of us can even imagine the trauma of someone waking up happy and all settled in their home one morning, and becoming a helpless refugee the next.

“I was preparing breakfast and getting the children ready for school when a vehicle was brought and we were told to leave. Just like that. No-one had to ask why. Not a woman or child has stayed back in Pir Baba”, she tells me, narrating an upheaval in her life in a chilling matter-of-fact manner as if she had been told to get ready for a picnic. Talk of women of substance.

Jaswant and I had been chatting away like some old time pals, barely aware of the Spartan surroundings of the room belonging to the Gurdwara caretaker’s family, and it wasn’t long before the room filled up with other women and girls. And every which way I turned and saw their determined faces, I could see a story just waiting to be told to the world.

Roma Kaur, Jaswant’s daughter comes to sit near me. The young lady switches from Pushto to impeccable English as she keeps looking at her cell phone. “My father has stayed behind and we are all worried. We cannot call as the communication system has been cut off. But surprisingly I got a call from my father early this morning and he is alive”, she says with a forced smile, failing to hide the pain of a daughter who has been forced to count her father’s life in small measures of daily counts.

But Roma and other girls are also unhappy because they were in the midst of sitting for their exams, already having taken two papers when all of a sudden they had to leave. Asks Amrika Kaur, “I was sitting for my Second year exams and had to leave. We reached home in the evening because the operation had started and the mobile system had been switched off worrying our parents. What will happen now? The government has done so much for us but please, please beg them to make arrangements that we can sit for Swat board exams, wherever we are. This is a question of our future. There are some girls here who were sitting for their Improvement Exams. They are terrified that this was the only chance for them and now what will

happen?”

I look at the girls so smartly dressed, none of the Swati baggy gypsy dresses for them. “So this is how you go to school in Pir Baba? What about the Taliban burning down girls schools and asking you to stay indoors?” I ask.

“Oh! No. When the Taliban came three years ago, as far as women were concerned they did not discourage us from going to schools and colleges. But they stressed greatly on pardah and said the young ones should wear burkhas. So when we would be stepping out for school, we would borrow the burkhas from the Afghan refugees and others next door and then return it to them!”, she replies cheekily.

Jaswant Singh turns to me in Pushto, “After all, we are pathans living in a village, and purda is second nature to our customs and culture. So what if the Taliban stressed more on covering up, we women really did not mind. At least these girls were stepping out for education, which is the most important thing for our community”.

By this time Dr Suran Singh has hobbled up the wooden staircase and joined us. No mean feat either, which goes to show the difference in nimbleness of these mountainous villagers and city legs in heels, holding on for dear life to the walls to climb up.

“We have also heard about girls schools being burnt and destroyed in Swat, there is no doubt. But recently Sufi Mohammad said that his people did not do it, so which is this third force?” he asks me again.

I point out the days reports where Indian Sikhs have started demos and protested against the Taliban’s treatment to Sikhs in the Orakzai region. “We hope that these Sikhs there would stop this. They compromise our position as Pakistanis. Pakistan is Mecca for Sikhs because this is where Baba Guru Nanak was born. This soil is holy for us. In Pakistan it is our religion alone that is our protection. If these Indians are so perturbed tell them to send us trucks of blankets and essentials for our children and then we will get impressed otherwise they can save their breath”, the proud Sardar states.

Dr M Kumar had said earlier, “Believe me that the state of Pakistan treats us like a gul (flower). We are better off than the majority Pakistanis. Let me give you an example. Many wanted to get a bridge built at Pir Baba but could not, then I put in an application and pursued the matter. Finally , I got the bridge!”.

“Are you a Pukhtana (female pakhtoon) or Hindko speaking ?” I ask an adorable child of four with flowing blonde hair and light eyes with ‘her’ tresses tied up in a knot. “No he is a Pakhtoon (pakhtoon boy)”, someone replies. He is hundreds of miles away from his forested village with streams and a cool clime. His cheeks are flushed with the summer heat of Punjab’s plains, and like many others, he had already stripped to his baggy pants to jump into the cool water of the pond inside the main courtyard.

A woman passing by joins me and stops to look at the Little Displaced People (LDP) screeching with happiness as they throw water around all. “Every day has been Basaki for them since they have been here”, she says. Not very comfortable with a stranger’s touch, I somehow, do not hesitate as the women embrace me and say goodbye inviting me to their village. It is amazing how bonds are created in a matter of hours because of a common tongue.

“This too will pass”, they say. I apologize to the small crowd that it is because of Pakhtoons and Muslims that they are displaced. Replies Dr M Kumar, “But our plight has nothing to do with the pakhtoons and religion”. If only my fellow Muslims had the sense to realise the same that what is happening in Swat, Buner, Fata and all over the country has nothing to do with religion.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=175658