Kabul
28 September 2007
Angry Afghan-Sikhs marched down the streets of Kabul a week ago after
locals prevented them from cremating a community elder. Tension was resolved after
the police chief intervened but the embers have not died down completely.
Autaar Singh, one of only two representatives from the Afghan-Sikh community in
Parliament, cannot understand the opposition to cremation as per Sikh rites. He wonders
why anyone should want to dissuade them, when even the Taliban did not see it as a
sacrilege and stop the practice.
Amrik Singh, a small trader who peddles his wares near a Gurudwara in Kabul, in turn,
feels the minuscule Afghan-Sikh community is still trying to come to terms with the
downturn in relations with the majority population. Their womenfolk live in perpetual fear.
Children cannot attend school regularly. Families are beset by financial worries. He is
certain that if the situation deteriorates, the only option of the community will be to
migrate to India, the spiritual homeland of the Sikhs. What is not certain is whether they
can afford to pay for the journey.
The ambassador of India to Afghanistan, Mr Rakesh Sood, says the Government of India
is siezed of the matter but there is only so much it can do. "We cannot support migration
of people to India merely because they share a faith with us," he said in an interview to
this newspaper. "India," he hastens to add, "does not support financially in any case."
Mr Sood explains: "First of all you must understand that these are not people of Indian
origin. These are Afghan Hindus and Afghan Sikhs who've been here for centuries. So I
mean this is not going back. It's not as if it's not like you know you had Indian labour that
migrated to Mauritius maybe even two centuries ago and therefore wants to go back [but]
they've always been here. They are Afghans. So it is not a question of going back [to
India.] If they want to migrate they can migrate ... that's a different matter."
Mr Sood dismisses turf war between the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of
Overseas Indian Affairs. "We have the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs [which] looks
at problems of overseas Indians ... like Indian labour going to Gulf ... that is whole
different ballgame but here it is a question of these people who are Afghans finding their
rightful place in Afghanistan," he asserts.
The ambassador points out that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is extremely conscious
of the need to keep the Afghan-Sikh and Hindu community in his country and not allow
them to leave. "He is very sensitive to this. One reason of course is that he speaks
Hindi and has studied in India and so therefore he always holds India's multiethnicity as
something which is an important asset and a requirement in democracy," he recalls.
Mr Sood feels that the Sikh community could be offered an alternative land for cremation
in order to resolve the issue. The genesis of the dispute, according to him, can be traced
back to 60-odd years ago when a community elder, who was a Diwan in the King's rule,
received land as gift. He decided to give a part of that land for a Dharamsala (as temples
and gurudwaras are known in Afghanistan). The community never put up a boundary wall
around it although the inner complex has one. The land near the inner complex was used
for cremation.
"What has happened is there is pressure on land after 2002. That land is now being
encroached upon or occupied by Afghans ... nobody seems to have a title to it, so when
they took body for cremation recently the locals objected [saying it was] unhygienic," Mr
Sood recalls. "I do not foresee any difficulty in terms of their either getting an alternative
site or because ... I doubt ... if the Dharamsala does not have a clear title to this piece of
land which is now encroached upon or occupied, then they'll probably get an alternative
piece of land [for] cremation which they can then enclose and use it."
There were an estimated one lakh Afghan-Sikhs and Hindus till a decade or more ago but
their number has dwindled dramatically. Today their population is expected to be not
more than 2,000. Ironically, there are more Indians in Afghanistan today than Afghan-
Sikhs and Hindus. About 4,000-odd Indians are engaged in the reconstruction of the war-
torn country. There are over 9,000 Afghan refugees in India under the mandate of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). An overwhelming majority of
them are Sikhs and Hindus.
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