The Afghan Conundrum

Many among Afghanistan’s dwindling Sikh minority are considering leaving for neighbouring India, after a suicide bombing in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killed at least 13 members of the community, on the 2nd of July, 2018. The victims of the attack claimed by terrorist group Islamic State included Avtar Singh Khalsa, the only Sikh candidate in parliamentary elections this October, and Rawail Singh, a prominent community activist. The Sikh community now numbers fewer than 300 families in Afghanistan, which has only two gurdwaras, or places of worship, one each in Jalalabad and Kabul, the capital. Although almost entirely a Muslim country, Afghanistan was home to as many as 250,000 Sikhs and Hindus before a devastating civil war in the 1990s. Even a decade ago, the US State Department said in a report, about 3,000 Sikhs and Hindus still lived there. Despite official political representation and freedom of worship, many face prejudice and harassment as well as violence from terrorist Islamist groups, prompting thousands to move to India. Following the Jalalabad attack, some Sikhs have sought shelter at the city’s Indian consulate. But other Sikhs, with land or businesses and no ties to India, say they do not plan to leave, as Afghanistan remains their country. India has offered to take the dead bodies, but at least nine were cremated according to Sikh rites in Jalalabad. Many of them have also expressed their agony and have said that they are only left with two options, that is, either to leave for India or to convert to Islam. On the other hand, some also feel that Afghanistan is also theirs as much as it is of the Muslims. Some have clearly conveyed the message that they will not relocate anywhere because Afghanistan is their country too. After this massacre however, Vijay Kumar, the ambassador to India in Afghanistan, has stated that the members of the Sikh community can live in India “without any limitations”, but the final call has to be taken by the community.

Movements across the fluid borders of South Asia meant that in the post colonial era, with the hardening of borders, groups were often left outside their officially defined ‘homeland’. In the minds of the people, who were reduced to minorities in the new states, these ‘shadow lines’ remained problematic and largely undefined. The question of minority rights, particularly in regions that are affected by conflict, is the larger issue that emerges out of this dilemma. The predicament that the Sikhs face in Afghanistan today is one that has parallel examples across South Asia and call for a debate on tolerance.

Srishti Maitra