“Yesterday
I was a sweeper, today my children are sweepers and tomorrow their children
will be sweepers. This is the way it is on our side of the world,” laments
Masih.
Michael's family of six depends on the meager wages of his sanitary
worker job at the Lahore Waste Management Company to sustain themselves.
“I
take whatever job I can to provide for my family. Most people in my family and
community work as sweepers. We are lucky if we get hired as cooks and drivers
for well-to-do families because sometimes they provide free living quarters to
their staff,” says Riaz.
There is little economic relief provided
to Christian minorities in Pakistan, they are kept poor. With few opportunities
to provide quality education to their children, they are ensnared in a vicious
circle of poverty.
A
marginalized community
The
Islamic Republic of Pakistan is built up of a diverse society with several
ethnic and religious minorities. The largest religious minority in Pakistan is
that of Christians, who make up about 1.9% of the overwhelmingly Muslim
population of 180 million. (Statpak, 1998)
According to Emeritus Bishop of Lahore, Alexander John Malik, there are
approximately 400, 000 Christians in Lahore.
“I
believe around 80% of sanitary workers in Punjab are Christians. The government
only deems Christians suitable for this job,” he says.
While
the official figures are not available from the Pakistani ministry of National
Harmony and Minority Affairs, it is believed that a considerable number of the
three-million Christian population in Pakistan is either employed in the public
sector (mainly municipal government, sanitation work) or work for the private
sanitation sector (homes, offices, or waste companies). Christian sweepers take
their place in the lower strata of society, their voices unheard and their
stories unreported.
Media portrayal
As
well as living in extreme poverty, Michael and his family face religious and caste
discrimination from people all around. However, despite being called derogatory
terms such as ‘Churas’ (low caste) and ‘Bhungys’ (sweepers) on an every day
basis, they still believe that their community is tolerant and
accepting of them. Accustomed to daily prejudice, they don’t know any better.
Even local media has also been known to use these terms
for Christians out of ignorance and conditioned stereotypes. For e.g. a
left-wing national newspaper was quoted to print statements like “the victim
was a sweeper (Christian)”. (Immigration Board of Canada Refugees, 2013)
Local media and International media usually show the only
recognizable stereotype of the Christian minority, which is of the subjugated,
poor sweeper. The news clips show barefooted, ragged-clothed men and women
living in slums and pushing trash-filled wheelbarrows.
The caste system, Hinduism and Pakistan
In
mainstream discourse, disparaging terms like ‘Chura’ and ‘Bhangy’ are
inextricably tied to hundreds of years of caste prejudices that have carried on
from the Hindu caste system. More than a century later,
“Chura” remains a term of contempt that signifies Christians as low-caste
citizens.
Bishop Malik, who has been heading the Christian
community in Lahore for over 40 years, believes the income inequality gap
between Christians and Muslims was created as back as pre-Partition days.
“Sweeping jobs back then were mostly allotted
to lower Hindu castes, who were called the untouchables. This ostracized
community converted to Christianity under British rule in hopes of improving
their lives. When Pakistan was born, these caste differences were still
practiced. After the partition, even more Christians became sweepers. They had
previously been farmers before the partition and their lands were taken away
during that time. Landless and penniless, they travelled to cities in great
numbers to take up menial jobs to survive,” he says.
When the Indian subcontinent was divided in 1947
and Pakistan was established in the name of Islam, there was a ‘confused
merging’ of Hindu caste-based impurity ceremonials and of Islamic rituals of
cleanliness. This caste-based and corrupted version of Islam was manifested in
the way Muslims treated the Christian sweepers, who had formerly been Hindu
‘untouchables’ that converted to Christianity in the late 19th
century. After Pakistan became an Islamic republic, Muslims have continued to
treat this unfortunate community as ‘untouchables’. (Salim, 2013)
Social Outcasts
As well as living in extreme poverty, Michael Masih
and thousands of Christians face religious bigotry from people around them.
“We are treated as a lower caste, as if we
are dirty because our work is unclean. But what other choices do we have? This
is the only option in the end, other than begging. We aren’t even allowed to
eat from the same plates as Muslims and are told to buy the plates and glasses
when we go somewhere to eat,” he says.
Poor Christian women also work in the similar field
of domestic work in private Muslim homes. It is the easiest type of work to
find for marginalized Christian women who suffer two-fold, as Pakistan is
largely a patriarchal society.
Naseem Akhtar, 46, has worked as a cook for a
Muslim family for over 20 years. Though she is satisfied by the kind treatment
of her employers, she believes the government has not provided socio-economic
relief to her marginalized community.
“The Christian community largely suffers from
a lack of quality education and has to resort to menial jobs. The women either
work as cooks or cleaners in the few private homes that allow them to touch the
food the inhabitants eat. At least poor Muslims have the Zakat fund for relief,
but poor Christians have to rely on each other or our local churches for help.
We are not treated equally and have no representatives in the government,” she
says.
The government’s performance
The
case of Christian sweepers highlights some issues of concern for the community.
Many of them feel that they don’t have enough choices of professions in the
community but avoid taking their complaints to local Christian community
representatives. They don’t trust their own Christian lawmakers, let alone
other politicians.
The
State has done little to raise their shattered confidence. Indeed, many sate
advertisements for sweepers even specify that sweeper candidates ‘must be
non-Muslims’ or ‘must be Christians’. (Immigration
and Refugee Board of Canada, 2013)
Even more recently, a senior politician made a statement on television
just a few weeks ago, stating “only non-Muslims will be recruited for sanitary
jobs”, drawing more attention to the kind of neglect this community is facing.
Parvez Khattak’s statement has hurt the sentiments of many Christians in the
community who feel that religious and racial discrimination is already at an
all-time high in Pakistan.
Statements like these lead many Christians to
believe the government wants to ‘control them by keeping them in this
condition’, according to Bishop Malik.
Ayra Inderyas, Secretary of the Women Desk of the
Diocese of Lahore says that the scale of support coming from the Christian
leadership is ‘very meager’.
“Poor Commitment and Nefarious vested interests of people
sitting at the helm of affairs have plagued many Christian run institutes and
hope to return these institutions back to their level where real commitment and
honest will were practiced is very less.”
However, some improvements are being made in the
National Senate for minorities. Since Pakistan’s 1973 constitution, only 10
seats were allocated for minorities, four being given to Christians.
After a lengthy campaign by the Christian community
who cited a considerable increase in the minority population since 1973, the
Federal Cabinet has finally approved of increasing the number of seats for
minorities in Pakistan from 10 to 14 this year. (Nasir, 2012)
Media’s view of Christian leadership
For the first time since its birth 66 years ago,
Pakistan successfully underwent a landmark general election that marked the
first transfer of power between two elected civilian governments this month.
But the marginalized minorities in the country are far from celebrating. Many
sectarian attacks by radical Islamic militants have relentlessly targeted
minorities, leaving many Christians insecure and terrified in their own homes.
John Asher is an editor for the newspaper Pakistan
Today and has been working in the media sector in Pakistan for almost 10 years.
He believes the problem is more political than religious.
“We don’t really have any true
representatives of our community because the parties only select people who
they can control. If you look at the violent attacks on Christians, misuse of
the blasphemy law being inflicted on them, the few employment and education
opportunities given to them, you will understand just how much our Christian
leadership is doing for us,” he says.
Christians cannot directly elect Christian
lawmakers. Like everyone else, they vote for different political parties, which
in turn choose their own Christian candidates. (Lavallee, 2013)
“This process is not ‘election’, its
‘selection’. We don’t want the candidates selected by the government. They only
follow the government’s agenda, which has never given much consideration to
minority groups,” says Asher.
Privatizing the Sanitation sector
There is even more cause for concern for these
marginalized people. Recently, the Punjab government has been privatizing waste
management in some parts of Lahore, endangering many sweeper jobs for
Christians.
The privatized firms are downgrading the work
status of sweepers to temporary workers who are being hired on a
non-contractual basis for low wages. The efforts to save municipal costs will
affect these poor people even more by taking away vital fringe benefits.
(Aslam, 2011)
Wages
in the private sector sanitation are half the salaries of public sector
sweepers. Sweepers are hired as temporary employees who are re-hired every
third month, repeating this process for decades until they are too old to work.
“Basically, in all these years they get no days off, no weekends, no
holidays or any sick leave,” explains Aslam Pervaiz Sahotra, a human rights activist who chairs the Human Liberation
Commission of Pakistan.
“One very important reason of my struggle to get these
workers a permanent employee status is so that they are entitled to social
security and treatment in hospitals for government employees. The sweepers are not given
any equipment to safeguard their hygiene and are forced to collect garbage in
filthy conditions, developing many respiratory and skin diseases,” he says.
Sweeper jobs going to Muslims
The government of Punjab has recently inducted 3,
000 unemployed Muslims in public sanitary worker jobs which has enraged this
marginalized community. (Insaf Network, 2013)
Left with the one identity they have and means of
income, many Christian sweepers see sweeping as their birthright. This move has
understandably left many Christian sweepers insecure and frustrated.
“I’m fighting for our rights as we speak. The
Christian sweepers are already working without previous essential benefits that
included a subsidized education for their children, a marriage grant and most
importantly, a pension upon retirement. Now even their jobs are being taken
away,” says Sahotra.
Media and Social Media
Local and international media do their part in
drawing attention to the issues and problems of the Christian sweepers in
Pakistan. Western media is actively engaged in projecting even minor incidents
of human rights violation and sufferings of minorities in Pakistan.
Although in local media, minority related stories
are usually covered more in depth by left-wing newspapers and channels. Recent
cases in which a couple of Christian sweepers were murdered were largely
reported in left-wing leaning English newspapers. (LeClaire, 2011)
“There is a gap between print media and
minorities. Print media do not know much about their festivals so we give them
very low coverage. I would say that our media does play a responsible role when
it covers a local or regional crisis related to minorities,” says Ali Rizvi, a
journalist working for Duniya News in Islamabad.
Rizvi believes the local media only covers the
Christian community when ‘significant’ events such as arson attacks or murders
take place.
“The media mostly covers big stories if
they’re related to minorities. The on-going plight of marginalized Christian
sweepers is mostly covered by International media websites and blogs.
Unfortunately their community is a forgotten one in Pakistan.”
However, Social media such as Facebook and Twitter
have not circulated the plight of Christian sweepers specifically, but do
spread stories of prejudice and violence against the Christian minority in
general. There was a lot of online activity and campaigning seen in March when
more than 100 Christian homes were burnt in Lahore over a blasphemy case formed
over a drunkard quarrel between a Muslim and a Christian.
The leadership’s angle
Kamran Michael is the first Christian senator
elected in Pakistan. But his community does not have many high expectations of
him judging by his past performance in Punjab.
“I have it on good authority that
intelligence reached our Christian leadership of the arson attacks to these
homes a couple of days before the attack took place. But they did very little
to help the situation,” reveals John Asher. “Nothing has been done for
education or employment of sweepers. Look at the state they are in today and tell
me if any improvements were made to their plight in the last 5 years that the
Punjab government has been in power in.”
According to Senator Michael, he has made a ‘great
deal’ of improvements ‘where legislation’ is concerned. The rest is up to the government
and ‘out of his hands’.
“The biggest thing I’ve done for the
Christian minority is to apply for 5% increase in the public sector jobs for
our Christian children that is being implemented as we speak. We are
encouraging the children from our community to give civil service exams and are
trying to get a scholarship fund going for these children. Now that we are
making a federal government, I plan to appeal to the government to send these
children abroad to continue their higher education. The son of a sweeper no
longer needs to be a sweeper.”
Justice for minorities: Pipedream or possibility?
These are ambitious promises, but the Christian
community has reported little or no change to their miserable living
conditions.
It is up to the government to integrate Pakistan’s
Christian minorities into mainstream society and to enable them to enter
professions of their choice. Ironically, it is just as important to preserve
the livelihoods of Christian sweepers while these changes are being
implemented. Sweeper unions need more coverage by local and regional media so
that more attention can be drawn to the disadvantages of the privatization of
the private sector in Pakistan. The media should also play a fundamental role
in running public service messages that wipe out the usage of offensive terms
like ‘chura’ from public dialect. Proper respect needs to be given to the
community that takes upon itself to keep our streets clean.
