M A I N   N E W S

Sikhs flee from Afghanistan
From Varinder Walia
Tribune News Service

ATTARI, Feb 8 — With the Taliban imposing a religious code, the minorities, especially Sikhs, have started fleeing from Afghanistan. Many Afghani Sikhs have come to India on the Samjhauta Express.

Daya Singh, a resident of Kandahar, who reached here on the Samjhauta Express along with his family, said women were leading a miserable life in Afghanistan. “They are forced to confine themselves to their respective houses. If at all they go outside, they have to wear a ‘burka’ (veil) to cover themselves from head to feet like Muslim women”.

Bahadur Singh, another resident of Kandahar, said that minority communities were being forced to adopt Islam by the gun-totting Taliban militia. “The Afghanistan is no longer a country worth living in”, he said.

The biggest hurdle the minority communities in Afghanistan were facing was that they could not celebrate their festivals with fervour. He said the plight of people could be judged from the fact that they could not listen to music. “We don’t consider that we are independent. We feel that we are slaves after the change of government there”.

Reeta, an Afghani Sikh woman, said that she was happy after touching the “land of our Gurus” here. Even Pakistani women were better off than Afghani women, she said.

Jagtar Singh, another Afghani Sikh, said that members of minority communities could not put-up a united fight against forceful conversions to Islam as they were few in number. He said this was his first visit to India having been born and brought up on Afghanistan. Quoting a popular Punjabi couplet, “Kabul jammian nunit muhima” (Those born in Kabul face onslaughts/wars everyday), he claimed that Afghanistan was seeing its worst time.

These Afghani Sikhs said they were lucky that some of their children had got married in India. “We will live with them for three months. We will also try to get our visa extended as we don’t want to return to Afghanistan at this moment. We will try to delay our stay with a hope that happy days would return in trouble-torn Afghanistan”.

Business in Afghanistan has been totally shattered due to the change of government. The Taliban won’t even listen to genuine problems of businessmen.

All Afghani Sikhs who reached Attari said that they would pay obeisance at various historical gurdwaras in India. “We will also endeavour to get visa for Amritsar so that we can pay obeisance at the Golden Temple”, they said.

Most of the Sikhs in Afghanistan were either semi-educated or illiterate. Most of them did not want to invest much in business as the situation was uncertain, they said.

The most burning question the Sikhs in Afghanistan are facing is how to save their distinct identity in the wake of the religious code imposed by the Taliban. “From sentiment to investment, a lot is at stake”, they said, summing up the plight of the minorities in Afghanistan.