Author: RORY McCARTHY in Rumbur
Publication: South China Morning
Post
Date: June 11, 2001
Photographs of Kalash women, adorned
with make-up and their necks laden with bright orange and yellow necklaces,
have pride of place in Pakistani embassies across the world as symbols
of the country's rich history.
Once the Kalash, with their animist
religion perhaps a branch of the Indian Vedic belief, ruled large swathes
of northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Legend tells they descended from
Alexander the Great, who invaded in 327 BC.
For centuries the community flourished,
resisting even the onslaughts of Tamerlane, until the last century when
the Kalash were pushed up into the mountains of the Hindu Kush.
Now as Islamic fundamentalists grow
increasingly powerful in Pakistan the 3,000 Kalash, with their wooden carvings,
wine, festivals and unconventional beliefs, are a rapidly shrinking community.
"It seems that a community with
a very distinct way of life will be wiped out in time," said Kamila Hyat,
joint director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "There is so
much pressure that people cannot hold to their own schools of thought."
Muslim clerics and in some cases Christian missionaries have descended
on the three Kalash valleys, Rumbur, Bumboret and Birir, in the steep,
wooded hills near Chitral, in northern Pakistan.
Just before sunrise officials at
small mosques lead the call to prayer in an area where Muslims and converted
Kalash now outnumber the original community.
Black Islamic flags flutter above
the small hotels in the valley, discreet but powerful symbols of the arrival
of Muslims from the rest of Pakistan keen to make money from the growing
tourist trade, which brought 2,300 foreigners last year. Many young Kalash,
struggling to find work in a poor agricultural community, face little choice
but to convert to Islam in the hope of finding a job.
The Kalash women, who wear their
hair uncovered, are frequently leered at by male Pakistani tourists. The
Human Rights Commission is also concerned about forced prostitution of
Kalash women in the valleys.
"There used to be 20,000 Kalash
families," said Saifullah Jan, a Kalash leader in Rumbur valley.
"Then mullahs came here and started
to convert people. We felt it was bad but there was nothing we could do.
Now people are trying to hold on to their religion and people have started
to go to school." With the help of improved education, the Kalash are beginning
to resist. Muslims are banned from their three annual festivals and groups
have sprung up to champion the community's rights.
"We are trying to put the Kalash
people on a higher platform," said Lakshan Bibi, one of the more outspoken
Kalash women, who lives in Rumbur Valley and runs an organisation promoting
the Kalash.
She has studied at Kent University
in Britain and is one of only a handful of women to earn a commercial pilot's
licence in Pakistan.
"We should not be forced to convert.
The Creator doesn't say you should kill others because they are not following
your religion. Now people are beginning to realise education is much more
important." Still those Kalash who convert, whether through their own belief
or in search of work, are automatically excluded from the community.
"It is not possible to be a Kalash
after conversion. According to our culture, they are identified as Muslims
or Christians," Ms Bibi said. "But my feeling is that the Kalash will always
be here."
