Life in the Shadow of Invasions: The Kalashas Fight Extinction in Pakistan – Part II

Authors: John T. Pinna and Senge H. Sering

The international community, including researchers and non-profit organizations, is fighting a losing battle to preserve Kalasha’s identity and numbers.

They are discouraged by Pakistan’s weak political and economic structures, which allow for multi-front invasions. With little or no sincerity from society or law enforcement, the Kalashas are plagued by both Tablighi Jama’at (Muslim evangelists) and the Taliban. Many Kalasha would argue that local Kho Muslims, Pakistani tourists, and Tablighi Jama’at act as the state’s long arms in an attempt to rid Chitral of its Kalasha identity and transform it into another Nuristan.

Kalasha are subjected to religious intolerance, bigotry, and harassment on a daily basis, to the point where their ethnic name ‘Kalasha’ has become a derogatory term. Decades of indentured servitude in the Muslim social fabric have harmed their reputation and psyche. According to Cacopardo, Muslims’ desire to eradicate the Kalasha culture is an attempt to break ties with the heathen past. Parkes claims that five times a day, blaring loudspeakers mounted on mosques remind followers of the evils of Kalasha culture and belief, denouncing the customs as ignorant and incompatible with Allah’s will. Maggi claims that the Kalasha’s Muslim neighbors nag them to convert, and threaten them with eternal damnation in the burning hell if they refuse to accept Islam.

The Tablighi Jama’at has a strong presence in the Kalash valleys, and members frequently visit non-Muslim households. In an interview with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, activist Iqbal Shah claimed that their members bribe and convert Kalasha to the righteous path by promising divine pleasures, forgiveness of sins, purity, and spiritual growth.

Members of the Tablighi Jama’at lure converted minor boys to attend Madrassas and brainwash them into becoming powerful motivators to convert other family members. They are taught to be ashamed of their sisters because of dancing and lack of shame or character. Consistent pressure from converted males eventually results in the conversion of the entire family.

Justice Ali Nawaz Chohan, chairperson of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), describes this as conversion through subtle indoctrination, claiming that the Kalasha are denied education about their own culture and forced to study Islam and attend madrasahs.

In her 2022 article ‘How Extremists’ Hatred Forces The Kalashas To Hide Their Identities,’ Mayur DanaKalash quotes Khatija Noor as saying that Muslims would not accept school or college-going Kalasha as learned as they continue to practice their old religion.

Kalashas remain surrounded by fear and mistrust. According to Gul Kalasha, Muslims constantly question their loyalty to the country and force them to chant patriotic slogans. In Pakistan, non-Muslims are frequently accused of collaborating with India or America to undermine national interests.

When the Kalasha pass through the Muslim villages, the children throw rocks at them. Maggi writes, quoting Akram Hussain, a teacher at the Kaladasur School, that local Muslims once decapitated the carved horses on the sacred altar with axes. They also vandalized the wooden fence that surrounds the sacred grounds. In May 2017, Muslims, in their campaign against heathenism, disrupted the historic Kalasha spring festival, Chilam Joshi.

Maggie writes that disagreements over natural resources, such as forests, often escalate into violent clashes with Muslim neighbors. Citing Yasir Kalash, the manager of a local hotel, Maggi claims that Muslims occupy Kalasha lands, pastures, and forests, as well as steal their women and livestock.

According to a 2019 Dawn report, the Chitral Royal Family has encroached on Kalasha territories in Batreeg, Aneesh, Bron, Krakal, Dars, and Gurohare villages. In 2018, a Pakistani apex court awarded the royal family two-thirds of contested lands, despite the wishes of the Kalashas. Shah Meer Baloch of the Dawn Newspaper in 2019, citing local activist Imran Kabir claimed that roughly half of the Kalasha families who lived in those villages embraced Islam in their quest to retain control over ancestral lands. He also said that the Royal family sells Kalasha land to outsiders causing a shift in religious demographics.

While speaking with Justice Ali Nawaz Chohan, chairperson of NCHR, Kalasha representatives complained that the government had declared their forests as state property. Chaudhry Mohammed Shafiq, a member of NCHR, told The Diplomat that the Kalasha’s economic and cultural interests are being severely harmed by their lack of authority over ancestral land.

According to Naqvi, the sudden influx of outsiders has an adverse effect on Kalasha’s traditional resource management practices. Furthermore, excessive logging and timber smuggling have caused deforestation, soil erosion, intermittent landslides and floods, and a loss of livestock fodder.

The Kalashas prescribe a specific synergy between people and land. Their festivals demonstrate a path to spiritual harmony through deep synthesis of tradition and sustainability. In 2019, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Indigenous Cultures designated Kalash’s Suri Jagek winter solstice festival as Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH).

According to Cacopardo, losing land threatens not only economic sustainability, but also language, religion, architecture, genealogical history, and traditional lifestyle. Zubair Torwali, like Cacopardo, believes that external influences and a lack of state patronage for traditional lifestyle are contributing to Kalasha cultural genocide, and that they must retain and exercise their right to land in order to preserve the culture.

According to Imran Kabir, there will be no ancient culture to celebrate as an increasing number of Muslim immigrants from ethnicities such as the Pashtun, Kho, Gujjar, Bashgali, and Nuristanis establish enclaves within Kalash valleys, hastening economic, religious, and linguistic change.

In addition to attracting settlers and encroachers, road connectivity makes Kalash valleys accessible to tourists. Kalasha religious festivals attract tens of thousands of people every year. However, rather than benefiting locals, the tourist influx appears to have exacerbated their dissatisfaction and suffering.

According to Naqvi, Kalasha make little money from tourism because outsiders own almost all of the hotels, restaurants, shops, and transportation that tourists use. Shah Meer Baloch describes that Pakistani tourists prefer Muslim-owned and operated facilities. Furthermore, Muslim rental car drivers discourage tourists from staying at the Kalasha guesthouse and eating anything they prepare.

Gul Kalasha believes their valleys have evolved into a large theme park, with locals serving as showpieces and yet receiving little economic benefit. Furthermore, commodities become expensive for locals during the tourist season because restaurants and hotels buy the bulk of the produce, resulting in a shortage.

The Kalasha did not have the tradition of burying coffins and instead placed them on the ground in the cemetery. They would adorn female corpses with precious jewelry and place swords and other weapons alongside male bodies in the coffins.

However, Pakistani tourists are compelling the Kalasha to change their religious customs. According to Maggi, Pakistani tourists pose for photographs with sacred ancestors’ bones and desecrate gravestones. Iqbal Shah says that locals are now burying the coffins deeper in the ground to prevent tourists from desecrating and stealing ornaments, weapons, and other artifacts.

During the carnival procession, Pakistani tourists habitually insult and jeer the Kalasha women, and in most cases, their harassment extends beyond verbal abuse. Naqvi claims that ignorant and disrespectful tourists see Kalasha women as nothing more than exotic flesh. According to Maggi, rape and assault on Kalasha women have become so common that the women are resentful and distrustful of Muslim visitors.

Locals say that Pakistanis occasionally break into homes and molest women. To avoid harassment, most women prefer to perform rituals at private family gatherings. It is difficult for Pakistanis to understand that religious festivals are not the same as entertainment shows. In a 2022 interview, Shayeer stated that Muslim tourists who force their own women to wear hijab expect non-Muslim Kalasha women to dance alongside them. They regard the local girls as prostitutes and the Kalash valley as a brothel.

In Islam, dancing by a girl is associated with lewdness, depravity, and sexual invitation. Contrary to that, the Kalashas consider dance to be an essential part of religious life. According to Shayeer, Kalasha are unprejudiced and believe in equal freedoms for both genders. Unlike Muslims, the Kalasha do not believe in arranged marriages, and married Kalasha women can divorce their husbands and find new love partners without facing social stigma. Although the Kalasha value openness and equality, they may unintentionally attract sexually frustrated judgmental Muslims.

In his July 2020 article, ‘The Last Infidels of Hindukush,’ Manzoor Ali writes that Kalasha women used to wear traditional headgear known as Kupus and did not cover their bodies like Muslim women. However, to avoid gawking and molestation, an increasing number of Kalasha women are abandoning their traditional headgear and covering themselves with shawls.

In 2017, Justice Ali Nawaz Chohan, the chairperson of the NCHR, stated that Kalasha girls have no local schools. Their journey to Muslim villages for schooling increases the risk of conversions and sexual assaults. Arasto, a Kalasha activist, believes that the majority of Kalasha conversions happen among minors, particularly those attending school.

Gul Kalasha, who agrees with Arasto, claims that most Kalasha converts are minor girls aged 14 to 18. After they convert, there is no going back. They must leave behind their families, culture, and language.

Maggie states that there have been numerous reports of Chitrali Muslims forcibly converting and marrying Kalasha girls, who have faced violence and rape from their husbands. In many cases, Pakistani tourists entice girls into marriage only to abandon them after a few years. They then live out the rest of their lives in misery because their families could face Muslim reprisals for re-adopting them.

The converted Kalasha girls are forced to break off ties with their families, including parents and siblings, and are forbidden from wearing traditional clothing or engaging in traditional activities. The punishment for abandoning Islam after conversion and reverting to Kalasha traditions is death.

In October 2021, the father of 16-year-old Nasrima told Chitral Today that his neighbor’s son drove his daughter to Chitral City to convert her. Even though Nasrima was a minor, cleric Maulana Israruddin converted her without first obtaining the father’s permission.

In Chitral, Nasrima was placed in the care of a community leader who agreed to pay for Nasrima’s attendance at the Madrassa. Not just that, the council of elders refused to accept Nasrima’s father’s role in choosing her husband and delegated the task to the cleric and the new guardian.

In December 2017, the chairman of the NCHR led a fact-finding mission that warned of Kalasha extinction. The NCHR report titled “The Protection, Preservation, and Promotion of Constitutional Rights of Indigenous Kalash People,” declared land loss, unwilling conversions and coerced marriages with Muslims as primary threats to the community.

In 2016, hundreds of Muslims launched a major attack on Kalashas over the dispute of forced conversion of a minor girl, which the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan mentioned in its 2017 report, titled ‘A Call to Preserve Kalash Rights and Culture’.

On June 16, 2016, a Muslim mob attacked Rina, a 15-year-old Kalasha girl, at her home with rocks and batons. The conflict started because some Muslims assumed Rina had reverted to the Kalasha faith after seeing her dressed in traditional attire.

Rina claimed that one of her teachers coerced her into converting under the promise of a virtuous life. Rina’s cousin stated that she was constantly crying and pleading for protection because she didn’t want to convert and be separated from her family. Police took Rina to the Madrassah to reaffirm her Muslim identity. Rina’s cousin pleaded with the police officer that Rina, as a minor, should not be forced to convert, but to no avail.

Police transported Rina to Chitral city and placed in the custody of her Muslim relatives. A few days later, she was forced to marry Saifullah, a police officer who was 15 years older than her and lived in Peshawar, the provincial capital.

The marriage lasted six years before Saifullah murdered Rina. Initially, police sided with their colleague and declared her murder a suicide. However, pressure from human rights activists forced the judiciary to classify the case as murder by bullet wound. Furthermore, local media declined to report her death for fear of retaliation from Muslims.

Rina’s cousin, who attempted to save her, claims to have PTSD and is terrified of being kidnapped, tortured, and converted. In January 2023, Lok Sujag published Srosh Anwar’s article, ‘Love, Loss, and Faith in the Kalash Valleys,’ in which she quoted Rina’s relative Khaliq as saying that Kalasha men receive messages from local Muslims with death threats and kidnapping of their women. According to Khaliq, when Rina refused to leave her parents’ home, the mob threatened to burn down the entire village.

Khaliq believes that the threat of bloodshed and destruction to her community forced Rina to submit to the village council and convert. The sad reality is that non-Muslim Pakistani women are frequently coerced into signing an affidavit declaring their voluntary conversion. They do so to safeguard their families’ lives and property. Gun-toting Muslims frequently accompany such vulnerable converts to the courtrooms, where they snarl, jeer, and shout Islamic slogans as the terrified converts register their statements of consent.

Incidents like these serve as a reminder of growing intolerance and raises questions about the state’s complicity in restricting religious freedom. The state is responsible for creating a secure environment for fair trials; however, in almost all cases, law enforcement sides with the proselytizers.

While issuing an SOS call, the NCHR has urged the government to accept responsibility for preserving a centuries-old Kalasha heritage. The NCHR also asks the government to ban conversion of minors and improve policing and educational systems to ensure Kalasha justice and equal treatment.

A religious community does not have to vanish from the earth simply because proselytizers have a financial, political, and strategic advantage. If Kalasha were wild animals, their dwindling numbers would have prompted the governments to declare them critically endangered and prohibit hunting. Unfortunately, Muslims in Pakistan have unwavering authority to annihilate the Kalasha to the last soul. It is a travesty of justice to allow Kalasha to disappear and let Chitral transform into another Nuristan.

John T. Pinna is the Founder and Executive Director of Muslims for Muslims International.