Who is willing to stand up for wanting Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan back? Pakistan was created with our founder’s beautiful thought behind it. It was a separate state for the Muslims of India so they could live according to their belief system. But does that make it alright for the Muslims to treat the non-Muslims in a discriminatory manner? Quaid-e-Azam, in his famous 11^th August speech, clearly stated:

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State. In course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

Even the national flag of Pakistan represents tolerance for other religions. The green with the white star and the moon is a symbol of Islam and the white symbolizes the non-Muslimsin the country.

But how are the non-Muslims being treated? Look at the case of Rinkle Kumari? One side of the story says this teenager was kidnapped and forcefully made to convert to Islam, and married off. This is what her family maintains and has been agitating against.

Other reports state that she converted on her own free after reading and learning about the religion and married the person she fell in love with.

But when presented in court her statements also contradicted each other. She proclaims that she had never even known the boy before marriage and was married by the people of the dargah, the local spiritual leader’s abode, and was married off by them. They are the ones who had converted her.

The thing is, then how did she fall in love with the boy if she hadn’t seen him before? The people of the Dargah are the ones who are denying the accusation of her kidnapping and forced conversion, but some pieces of the puzzle do not fit!

It is not new but has been happening for quite some time now. There is an estimated number of 300 Hindu women, mostly in Sindh which has a sizeable community that has been residing here for centuries, who have been abducted, married off to Muslim men and forced to convert to Islam by local influential persons against their will. This is not what the religion of Islam preaches. No one should be forced to convert against their free will.

Those who are claiming that the conversion is not forced, can they please explain how it is only the Hindu women who seem to be converting to Islam after falling in love with Muslim men? How come we rarely every hear of Hindu men converting to Islam?

This is also a contradictory case love marriages are condemned in rural areas so how can the same rural influential support a Hindu woman converting to Islam for the sake of marrying a Muslim man out of love? In any other case they would have killed the couple after declaring it a case of karo kari in the name of honor killing. Doesn’t it get you thinking?

Please speak up for Rinkle Kumari and listen to her cries for help. Respect the White colour in our flag. Call out for getting the Quaid’s Pakistan back. Make the promise as a nation to be tolerant and not to force religion upon others who do not wish to change their belief on their own will. After all, even the Holy Quran says Lakum deen o kum walaya din… for you your faith, for me, mine.

What is your opinion about Rinkle Kumari’s case? She has now be sent to a shelter home by the court. Should she be allowed to go with her parents or her ‘husband?’