About three months ago, 11 Bheel refugees from Pakistan committed mass suicide due to domestic infighting in Dhechu, Jodhpur. We at Nimittekam, dispatched our Jodhpur district coordinator Shri Bhag Chand Bheel to the Dhechu village when we heard about the incident. From there, Bheel reported that the whole incident was an unfortunate culmination of internal discord in the family.
The state police too could not find any criminal angle in this suicide. The only man of the family who was left alive, Keva Ram Bheel, gave a statement to the police on record, that this tragedy happened due to family infighting and had nothing to do with government apathy.
While everything point to the fact that the unfortunate incident was a result of a family dispute, the narrative inside India and overseas was deeply concerning. Media in India went out of the way to make it look like either a mass murder or a mass suicide due to official apathy towards Hindu refugees from Pakistan. In fact, even a criminal angle was suggested by the Indian media.
A so-called activist, whom I choose not to name, sitting in Jodhpur gave interviews to various media outlets to get his few moments of fame and merrily blamed the administration for these deaths. The Pakistani media lapped up these lies and turned it into propaganda, alleging that Pakistani Hindu refugees are not safe in India.
The Pakistani Hindu council made a lot of hue and cry about it and even did a demonstration outside Indian High Commission .
Thus, a stray incident was converted into a tool to malign the exemplary work by the Government of India and send a message to the Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan that it was no use looking at the Indian state or Indian people for a safer and better future in India.
And then, the Coronavirus pandemic was upon us.
Due to Covid, there has been no movement of Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan to India because the embassies and the borders have been shut down since March 2020.
Because of these two reasons, more than 2000 Hindu families have converted to Islam in Sindh and Punjab province of Pakistan .
Hindus who had been standing for the faith of their ancestors against the worst kind of atrocities by Islamists were forced to yield and lead to the ultimate surrender of their faith.
Of course, Covid is a factor none can predict and control and the loss of Hindu families to abject hunger and poverty is something we will have to live with.
But why on earth should we succumb to lies peddled by the media and Islamists to malign the CAA and the hard work of organisations like Nimittekam in extricating Hindus and Sikhs out of the hell hole of Pakistan?
People like me and my dear friend Jai Ahuja, who heads Nimittekam now, went hoarse explaining that the death of 11 Hindu refugees was a suicide, but no one listened. Even news portals sympathetic to Hindu causes yielded to the propaganda. The net result was despondency in one crore Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan and a bad name for the Indian government. Both could only lead to more conversions of Hindus to Islam.
Working for the last ten years with the Indian union and state governments, I can vouch that the only approach to Pakistani Hindu issues has been one of extreme compassion and concern. Even the much-maligned Indian bureaucracy has been very helpful and went out of the way to accommodate the issues of these unfortunate Hindus of Pakistan.
Just when the dust around Dhechu suicides was settling, we get another news heading from a newspaper and the whole Leftist ecosystem goes radioactive.
This time it is about 243 Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan going back to their native nation. The article maliciously links this returning of Pakistani citizens to non implementation of the CAA.
Before this news is used by the Pakistan media to peddle a white lie amongst Hindus and Sikhs of Pakistan, we must counter this false news point by point.
Firstly, these Hindus are not officially refugees in India but have overstayed in India due to the shutdown of travel after Covid epidemic. Hence, they are Pakistani citizens who were here on visit Visa or religious visa and they have to go back.
Second, the process to grant a refugee status for a Hindu or Sikh from Pakistan is clearly laid out by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for decades now. Briefly, it requires an Indian citizen to sponsor a Pakistani Hindu, the application is then vetted by the security agencies of India and then the visa is granted by the Indian embassy in Islamabad. None of these people mentioned in this article belongs to this category.
Third, every Pakistani citizen is a security risk for India. We can never be sure when a Jihadi will masquerade as a Hindu and enter India to wreak havoc on our society. Not only such a possibility means a terror attack, but a very bad name to one crore Hindus trapped in Pakistan and the whole issue will be maligned beyond redemption. If the officials of MHA want to send back these Pakistanis, they must have their solid reasons.
Fourth, there are myopic and self-absorbed people in Jodhpur who are milking this issue of Pakistani Hindus to further their Leftist, anarchist agenda and have deep connections with media houses whom these media people keep popping up from time to time.
Fifth, CAA has no role in this situation because CAA is only applicable to refugees who entered India prior to 31st December 2014, and CAA applies only an only to legal refugees.
The consequence of all this noise around the Pakistani Hindu issue will be more panic and persecution of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan leading to more conversions. It is high time we realise that when the very same Leftists who were egging on the Shaheen Bagh protests are now shedding crocodile tears for Hindus of Pakistan, it can only mean one thing: To malign Narendra Modi government and create fissures within Hindu community.
Have we ever seen these Media reporters write about the horrors that Hindus and Sikhs face in Pakistan every day? Do we ever have op-eds on three Hindu/Sikh girls being picked up from their homes and forcibly converted every day? Do we ever hear these newspapers writing on the exemplary work being done to rehabilitate these forgotten Hindus of Pakistan in India? Do we ever hear of the NGOs and Ashrams like Sadhani Darbar Of Raipur who is housing thousands of these refugees with them? Do we hear these newspapers telling us that six city councils of the USA have passed resolutions against the CAA?
No. Because the Left trumpets have a singular agenda of maligning Narendra Modi and Hinduism. For that, they will even manufacture a victim out of Hindus of Pakistan whom they were resisting in Shaheen Baghs and various editorials till yesterday. The very same group that was denouncing CAA as discriminatory is going to town with the appeal that CAA rules haven’t yet been drafted!
So one the one hand they cry foul when CAA is passed and on the other hand they cry when CAA drafting is delayed.
While the delay is certainly unfortunate, but charting it to the lack of intent of the Modi government would either be agenda-driven or ignorant. There are certain eventualities which were unpredicted and unprecedented. The COVID pandemic, for example. While the demand is always for the immediate execution of an important law like the CAA, impugning motives to the delay is erroneous.
Goebbels uttered a simple truth once – A lie told one hundred times becomes the truth.
Modern-day Leftists and media persons have taken Goebbels to a new level. Lies can not only be told a hundred times to make it true but can also be turned on its head to suit our narrative and confuse the opponent.
