With just the clothes on their backs, Moora Sanafdhano, 68, and his family of nine waded through waist-deep flood waters swirling through their village of Allah Ditto Leghari, saving themselves in the nick of time. (Zofeen Ebrahim, www.international.to)

“We heard that the water rose up to nine feet,” says Sanafdhano, as the others nod in agreement. But, the lives of these mostly low-caste Hindus, considered the most marginalized group in Pakistan, are far from being out of danger.

They are being turned out of makeshift camps set up in schools, and relief material sent to them hijacked by people who know that low-caste Hindus are so abject that they would not dare retaliate.

Sanafdhano’s village is about 80 to 90 km from Badin town in Sindh province, and about 200 km from the provincial capital and port city of Karachi.

It is populated predominantly by low-caste Hindus – officially known as scheduled castes – such as Kohlis, Meghwars, Jogis and the Bheels, most of whom are sharecroppers for wealthy Muslim landlords.

The system of land tenure is so heavily weighted in favour of the landlords that these poor farmers and their families are as good as bonded labour. Sanafdhano says he owes his landlord about Pakistani rupees 50,000 (570 dollars) and is helpless in the face of a catastrophe such as the present floods.

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Pakistan has three million Hindus and 2.5 million of them are from the scheduled castes, the upper castes having fled to India after the 1947 partition when British India was carved up along religious lines.

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Officials deny that the Hindus are being discriminated against in the matter of relief. “Catastrophes see no caste, creed or religion,” says Dadlo Zuhrani, deputy district officer in Badin. “Relief activities are area specific, not community specific, and I protest against charges that we are discriminating against certain communities.”

But on the ground, for people like Sanafdhano, relief from the government and from aid agencies have passed them by. Unwritten caste rules prevent relief from reaching those who need it most.

“Those from the Hindu faith will never drink from the same well or vessel. They will also never eat from the same plate,” says Jewat Ram, a local schoolteacher. “Hindu masons may build a mosque, but never enter it, and Muslims who attend a Hindu wedding will not partake of food there. This is accepted, though the practice is slowly changing.”

But, Ram saw something in the camps which left him disturbed. “The school I teach in has been turned into a camp for the flood-affected people, but when three Hindu families from the Kohli caste sought refuge there, they were denied it.

“When the Kohli families insisted on staying, one of the men from the displaced Muslim community began contemptuously urinating in full view of the Kohli women and they had little choice but to leave,” said Ram.

“They treat dogs better than they treat us human beings,” said Ram in anger and helplessness.

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Jabbar Habibiani, a politician associated with the newly formed Awami Jamhoori Party, says there is massive corruption in the distribution of relief with political affiliation given priority over actual need.

Officials deny widespread charges of inefficiency.

FULL STORY

PAKISTAN: Flood Relief by Caste, Creed (international.to)

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