Religious, Social and Political Institutions
The Indus river is a holy river to many Hindus, and the Pakistan government periodically allows small groups of Hindus from Pakistan and India to make pilgrimage, though most Hindus are forced to do this along the banks of the river that flows through a small part of Indian-controlled Kashmir.
The communal violence of the 1940s and the subsequent persecutions have resulted in the destruction of thousands of Hindu temples in Pakistan, although the Hindu community and the Pakistani government have preserved and protected many prominent ones. The Hindu Gymkhana in Karachi has tried to promote social development for Hindus in the city. One of the few temples remaining in Karachi today is the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Karachi.
Hindus are allotted separate electorates to vote by, but their political importance is virtually nil. The Pakistan Hindu Panchayat and the Pakistani Hindu Welfare Association are the primary civic organizations that represent and organise Hindu communities on social, economic, religious and political issues in most of the country, with the exception of the Shiv Temple Society Hazara, which especially represents community interests in the Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in addition to being the special guardians of the Shiva temple, at Chitti Gatti village, near Mansehra. There are minority commissions and for a while, a Ministry of Minority Affairs in the Government of Pakistan looked after specific issues concerning Pakistani religious minorities.
Read more about this topic: Hinduism In Pakistan
Famous quotes containing the words social, political and/or institutions:
“Anarchism is the only philosophy which brings man the consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void, since they can be fulfilled only through man’s subordination.... The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that, is, the individual—pure and strong.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“If all political power be derived only from Adam, and be to descend only to his successive heirs, by the ordinance of God and divine institution, this is a right antecedent and paramount to all government; and therefore the positive laws of men cannot determine that, which is itself the foundation of all law and government, and is to receive its rule only from the law of God and nature.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Men may die, but the fabric of our free institutions remains unshaken.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)