During Partition Buddhists and Christians, have been forced out of East Pakistan

During Partition Buddhists and Christians, have been forced out of East Pakistan.

The Nehru-Liaquat Agreement on 8th April 1950 made an important provision about minorities. Article ‘A’ of the Agreement stated.The Government of India and Pakistan solemnly agree that each shall ensure to the minorities throughout in territory complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion, a full sense of security inrespect of life, culture, property and personal honour, freedom of movement within ach country and freedom of occupation, speech and worship, subject to law and mortality. Members of the minorities shall have equal opportunity with members of the majority community to participate in the public life of their country, to hold political or other office, and to serve in their country’s civil and armed forces. Both Governments declare these rights to be fundamental and undertake to enforce them effectively. The Prime Minister of India has drawn attention to the effect that these rights are guaranteed to all minorities in India by its constitution. The Prime Minister of Pakistan pointed out that similar provision exists in the objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. It is the policy of both Governments that the employment of these democratic rights to assured to all their nationals without distinction.

No one can pretend that in India there have been no regrettable communal incidents since the Agreement was signed. What can be claimed is that, in spite of the poisonous propaganda by the Muslim League prior to the partition and by Pakistan after it, the Government of India and the State Governments have tried their best to adhere to the principle and purpose of secular democracy. Many idependant authorities, including several Islamic states, have acclaimed the gradual but increasing success of this policy.
In Pakistan on the other hand, the treatment of minorities leaves them as only second-class citizens, serving as targets for periodic, officially mass attacks on their life, honour and property. Thousands of communal incidents have taken place in the two wings of Pakistan on most of which the Government of India and the state Government concerned have had to lodge protests with the Pakistan authorities, though in vain. The squeeze is put on helpless minorities to force them to flee to India and in the process to seize their property, to molest their women and subject them to forced conversion. There are hardly any minorities left in West Pakistan, and, already, nearly five million inhabitants, including Buddhists and Christians, have been forced out of East Pakistan. Discrimination is exercised against minorities in employment, business and rent remittance a s a matter of policy, and their immovable properties are requisitioned or acquired by force. They are also subject a systematic and discriminating denial in passport and visa facilities. This was the situation during the partition period.

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