Nehru-Liaquat Agreement.

Nehru-Liaquat Agreement.

THE Nehru-Liaquat agreement on 8th April 1950 made an important provision about minorities in Pakistan and Hindustan. Article ‘A’ of the Agreement stated as under:-

The Government of India and Pakistan solemnly agree that each shall ensure to the minorities throughout its territory complete equality of citizenship, irrespective of religion, a full sense of security in respect of live, culture, property and personal honour, freedom of movement within each country and freedom of occupation, speech and worship, subject to law and morality. Members of the minority shall have equal opportunity with members of majority community to participate in the public life of the country. Both Governments declare there 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 has pointed out that similar provision exists in the Objectives Resolution adopted by
The constituent Assembly of Pakistan.

No one can pretend that in India there are no regrettable communal incidents since the Agreement was signed. What can be claimed is that, in spite of 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 purposes of secular democracy. The policy has been acclaimed by many independent
Authorities including several Islamic states.

In Pakistan on the other hand, the treatment of minorities leaves them as only second-class citizens, serving as targets for periodic, officially stimulated 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 Government of India and the state Governments concerned have had to lodge protests with 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 remittances and their immovable properties are requisitioned or acquired by force. They are also subjected to a systematic and discriminatory denial of Pass Port and Visa facilities.



[Hindu Desam will continue]