NORTH BRUNSWICK, NJ: Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP)-USA hosted an event to highlight the heart churning plight of Hindu refugees from Pakistan at the local Ramada Inn, North Brunswick, New Jersey on July 24. Over 200 Indian Americans attended this social educational event on a week day evening, to support the cause of these Hindu refugees who seeks immigration to India. During this event, a critically acclaimed documentary “The Human Boundaries” made by Indian Filmmaker Rahul Riji Nair was screened.
The film depicts the systematic violence, rampant religious discrimination, and widespread restrictions on religious freedom perpetuated by the Pakistani society, and agents of Pakistan governmental agencies on the minority Hindus leading to their large scale exodus to seek refuge in India for the past few years.
The Congress led UPA government in India has so far refused to recognize them as refugees or grant them asylum. The documentary “Human Boundaries”, details the routine persecution and discrimination faced by these refugees in Pakistan, and their emotional appeal to stay in India.
Throughout the film, several of the refugees mainly from the Pakistani province of Sindh, detailed the persistent socio-religious persecution and discrimination that they faced in Pakistan, and made emotional appeals to stay in India. They narrated tearfully, how minority Hindu girls have been abducted, raped, and converted to Islam routinely in the communalized Pakistan with the express purpose of ethno-religious cleansing by the agents of Pakistani agencies and Islamic religious institutions.
They stalk, plan, and execute the persecution of minority Hindus in Pakistan. It was a harrowing experience to watch and tears swelled when an elderly Pakistani Hindu woman living in the Dera Dhuni Baba refugee camp in the Indian capital of New Delhi, cried out, “We won’t go back. Even if you shoot us, we won’t go back”.
Earlier, the meeting started with the traditional lamp lighting ceremony followed by paying floral tributes to the elders of Jan Sangh and BJP and the rendition of Vandemataram.
Shri Jayesh Patel, OFBJP President, welcomed the guests and introduced the community leaders. He especially introduced the film maker, Rahul Riji Nair and briefly talked about the film. Shri Gavrang Vaishnav, VHP-A Vice President, in his speech demanded the government of India to grant immigration status to the Hindu refugees from Pakistan and vowed to fight for this humane cause.
Shri Virender Labroo, a Kashmiri forum leader from the Tri-State area gave several examples of the plight of Kashmiri Hindu refugees who have been in a similar situation. He revealed that the Hindu population in Islamic Bangladesh dropped from 33% to 8% and in Pakistan from 22% to 3% since India’s division in 1947. He wondered what happened to those millions of Hindus and quoted widely reported stats that those Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam by coercion and terror including using rape as an instrument. Shri Umesh Shukla, a leader of Ekal Vidyalay fervently appealed for help to these Hindu refugees.
Shri Rakshpal Sood, a senior HSS leader and a senior advisory councilor of OFBJP-USA, in his emotional speech appealed to all Indian Americans to support the cause of Pakistani Hindu refugees. He said that India has always had a unique and prominent place in the world since times immemorial.
Hinduism is a tolerant spiritual entity that encouraged idea exchanges, scholarly discussions, and intellectual creations for the benefit of humanity and India was the first nation on this earth that proclaimed “whole world is one family” (Vasudaiva Kutumbakam in Sanskrit).
Shri Sood continued that intolerant philosophies such as Islam have been creating human tragedies across the globe but it could not defeat the spirit of India and Hindus for the last 1000 years.
He warned that an estimated 30 million Bangladeshi intruders are living in India as part of their well planned demographic terrorism and cited the recent clashes in Assam between the Bodo tribes and Bangladeshi intruders in India as a preview to the much worse situations in the future.
He asked the Indian American community to watch this emerging situation very carefully and protect the nation from the evils from across the borders in particular. He concluded by saying that OFBJP-USA will support the cause of Pakistani Hindu refugees.
Filmmaker Rahul Riji Nair narrated how he made this film going from Kerala to Delhi, the difficulties he faced during the film making and how he overcame the problems. He said that the purpose of this film was to portray the traumatic daily events plaguing a population caught in a geo-political conundrum that is discriminated against purely on religious grounds.
They are left virtually without a state that is capable of protecting their basic human liberties. He hoped that the American public will better understand their suffering after seeing the documentary. He sought community support for these abandoned Hindu refugees from Pakistan.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) took the lead in announcing plans for the nationwide film tour with Nair, whose film was inspired by Hindu spiritual leader and Art of Living Founder, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The documentary is scheduled to be showcased at several community events throughout the U.S. from July 12 – August 5. It will include stops in New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Nair’s film will also be screened on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. The HAF has urged the Indian government to provide formal legal status to Pakistani Hindu refugees, who remain at risk of being deported. The Foundation also wrote directly to the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees on World Refugee Day, to address the plight of these Pakistani Hindus. Leaders from neighboring states such as Sanjay Pande (Indian filmmaker), Chandrakant Trivedi (FIA), Harish Mehta, Jagdish Patel, Kishor Joshi, Dr. Sunil Parikh, Dr. Anurita Kapur, (Lions Club), Jadav Gajera, Jitu Amin, Arvind Modini, Subhash Dosi, Sita Sharma, Sunit Shukla, Nimesh Dixit, Pravin Tamboli, Arvind Modini, Nilesh Mehta, Yalloji Rao and many others attended the event and praised the work of Rahul Nair
Jayesh Patel gave vote of thanks and said that this documentary will be screened by OFBJP-USA in all of its chapters across the nation. Shri Krishna Reddy and Shri Ramkamath talked about the organizational matters and a vibrant and spirited Q&A session was conducted followed by a sumptuous community dinner.
India Post News Service
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