Among the Non-Believers: The lives of Sikhs and Christians in Pakistan
LAHORE/NANKANA SAHIB ~ If his turban were tied differently and not like a Sikh’s, I would never have guessed Amir’s religion. With his long flowing beard, he could pass off as a Pashtun from either Pakistan or Afghanistan, or even a well-built Hazara, at least for someone like me. Not just because of his outfit—a flowing salwar kameez—but because of the way he speaks. Even his name is misleading. Amir is a popular name among Pashtuns and means ‘sovereign’ in Arabic, a language once alien even to the Pashto-speaking regions of modern-day Pakistan that border—and are not too clearly demarcated from—Afghanistan. But that was a long time ago, and there was no Pakistan then. We do not have a language to link us either. Amir speaks only Pashto. Even though he works at the Nankana Sahib Gurdwara—among the most revered by Sikhs because Guru Nanak was born here—he does not understand either Punjabi or Gurmukhi, the script in which the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book and ‘living Guru’, is written.
Pashto, says Amir, is his mother tongue. He says this through an interpreter who translates his words into Punjabi for me. Amir has not bothered learning Punjabi since he has always harboured hopes of returning to his home in Kurram Agency in FATA (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Northwest Pakistan marked out by a disputed Durand line). He is 65 years old, and frankly, it seems to me that he has decided not to pick up another language even if he cannot go back; that he will get a chance seems unlikely under the current circumstances.
As an ageing Sikh with a Pashto-speaking Sikh mother, his family and immediate ancestors must have lived in Kurram for a long time before their departure. He does not know how long. He had never bothered asking anyone, he says. However, it is believed that Sikhs settled in those regions in the early 19th century, at the time that Maharaja Ranjit Singh established his Sikh Empire with Lahore as headquarters—the famous Lahore Durbar. The possible story of his lineage had not occurred to him. Kurram was home and that’s all. The Sikhs there were distinct from the Pashtuns around them, but co-existence was a way of life. Amir’s family had moved to Hangu (a region carved out of Kurram Agency closer to Punjab but still in FATA) in the past and then to Peshawar about ten years ago. Today, Peshawar is out of bounds for them, he says. It is not as if there are no Sikhs there anymore, it is just that most departed once the Taliban tightened its grip, some sooner than others. Those who stayed on have had to pay a heavy price—kidnappings, extortion and even killings.
Amir says he ran a store of daily household items in Doaba village, but had to leave with his family after the “Taliban’s grip tightened”. He uses this phrase again, jerking both hands together to suggest suffocation. I ask the interpreter to ask him if it was like a ‘noose’. Once my question is posed, Amir and his other Pashto-speaking compan-ion Hukam Singh crack a joke. Perhaps they are making fun of the question; or perhaps they are happy to have escaped the noose. Either way, the answer is lost in translation.
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Since 9/11, nearly 200 families of Hangu and Kurram have moved to Nankana Sahib. Hukam Singh, closer to Amir in age but comparatively better built, moved here three years ago. His village was further away from Kurram agency, closer to the porous border. “The Taliban had started asking non-Muslims for jaziya (tax). It was first Rs 3,000 for a shop, which we would pay, but their demands increased,” Hukam Singh says. The options that the Taliban offered the area’s Sikhs were grim—conversion to Islam or paying large sums of money collectively as a group. As more and more Sikhs left, it was impossible for the few who remained to fulfil the demands.
The interpreter, Kalyan Singh, is Sikh too. By his voice and manner, he comes across as the sort I am used to meeting in Delhi. That is because Kalyan was born in Nankana district and grew up here among Punjabi speakers. He is now a Punjabi teacher.. Read more:
