Karate Girls of the Hazara Community

 

Oppression has always been a part of our society. As much as we would like to brush off this topic under the carpets, there has always been a community that has been oppressed, that too, for most of our history, with impunity. 

But sometimes, a story of hope blooms out of the gloom of oppression. A story that no one would have expected to persevere in the darkest of the hours, where dreams are constantly shattered and wings of freedom are perpetually clipped, but it is this rarity that makes such events even more special.

 
Such a lotus is blooming among the Hazara community of Pakistan. It is a story of courage, strength and of innocent hope, hope that things might finally change for the Hazara community.

 
The Perpetual Persecution

Hazaras, or Hazaria, are a community speaking the Hazaragi dialect of Persian, and predominantly settled in the hilly region of Central Afghanistan. One more factor which sets them apart is that they belong to the Shia sect of Islam, in a predominantly Sunni region.

 
They were forced out of Afghanistan in the 1990s when the Afghan Taliban started its campaign to ethnically cleanse Afghanistan of all kinds of minority, of which the Hazaras were a big part. In Pakistan, the Hazaras are looked at with an eye of suspicion, they are looked down upon, and their different culture, language and rituals are not respected.

 
They are one of the many communities in Pakistan facing the travesty of a flawed system with inherent biases and prejudices. They are mainly settled in the regions around Quetta City, where the unfortunate news of persecution of the people belonging to the Hazara community is nothing unusual or out of the norm. 

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a terrorist organisation based in the hinterlands of Pakistan, is widely accepted to be the main culprit behind the gory violence perpetrated on the Hazara community. The problems the Hazaras are currently facing is a toxic concoction of various ideologies, terrorist organisations, callous institutions and a vicious cycle of discrimination and violence.

The Current Condition of the Hazara Community

The conditions of the Hazara community is anything but deplorable. They have been oppressed to a limit where they don’t see any hope but just despair and gloom. Families and dreams are shattered almost every other day. 

The extremists of the region spare no one, men are killed, women are raped and groped and kids are abducted and assaulted. The administration is cold to the core and does not even try to help these people. 

The police and the administration have formed a nexus, which adds to the burden of these people. There is a lack of representation, with literally no one trying to promote their voice either in the national or the international arena. 

Fighting Back: One Punch a Time

It is in this context that the Hazara women are preparing to fight back, in all the literal sense. The women of these communities were the constant victim of sexual harassment and assault. There was rarely any day when the newspaper went without any news related to a Hazara women been assaulted.

There is no place where they are safe, be it a school or hospital, playground or the market. Neither the administration intervenes nor the police tries to help them. It was in this scenario that the Hazara women finally decided to take the matters into their own hands.

In contrast to what used to happen earlier, as the sun-lit day used to proceed to the darkness of the night, and all the women used to retreat into the safety of their homes, now the women are coming out to learn Karate. 

They come out in flocks, to visit the closest training centres, to learn the tactics and strategies of the game, which is now presenting a new hope to them. Most of the members of Karate clubs, near Quetta, are Hazara women, It is their brilliant conviction to fight back which is now finally being paid off.

The Larger Picture

Even though the women of the Hazara community are fighting back, with all their strength and devotion, it is not enough. What Pakistan, and in the larger picture the whole world needs, is to reform, reform to finally accept the ones who are different from the most, as a respected part of our society.

The story of the Karate-Girls of the Hazara Community is indeed an encouraging one, but it can not be, and should never be allowed to be, a cover-up for the vultures of persecution that roam tirelessly over the community. 

This story is of persistence, of a small lamp fighting against thunder, but many can not fight. We should not wait for downtrodden communities to show courage and start their fight. What is needed, is collective actions to proactively make our world a better place to live in.

Written by - Piyush Pandey
Edited by - Adrija Saha