Last week, miscreants entered the Sham Sundar Shewa Mandli temple and set alight religious sculptures and holy books, including the Bhagavad Gita and Guru Granth Sahib. Prime Minister Imran Khan
... aka
Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems...
took notice of the incident and requested the Sindh government to find and prosecute the perpetrators.
Meanwhile,
...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster...
Sindh Governor Imran Ismail issued a statement calling the attack a "conspiracy to sabotage the interfaith harmony and religious concord in the province".
While Sindh may indeed have less open bigotry than other parts of Pakistain, in recent years, the land of Sufi saints has had to grapple with the same rising extremism and religiosity that has gripped the rest of the nation.
Nearly the entire Hindu population of Pakistain lives in Sindh. One of the biggest laments remains the forced conversion of Hindu girls and women by Moslem men of influence ‐ a practice that has been reported at length on these pages and that is perpetuated by certain seminaries.
Many Hindus in rural Sindh are also poor and disenfranchised, with limited access to social mobility. There is the added discrimination towards those belonging to the scheduled castes, from both Moslems and upper caste Hindus.
Anti-Hindu language is present in textbooks and popular culture across the country. It is sad to note that blasphemy cases disproportionately target those belonging to minority religions.
Minorities have every right to feel secure in their religious identity and within their places of worship as those belonging to the majority religion.
If respect is demanded for the majority faith, this courtesy must extend to the minority religions as well. That is basic human decency.
Anything less is hypocrisy at best, and discrimination at worst. Sindh must reclaim its reputation by disempowering all those that threaten its centuries-old peace.