Thursday, Dec 20, 2001 – PTI
ASMAL WATT (Kabul), DEC. 19. “Taliban or no Taliban we have nothing
to fear in Afghanistan. Nobody can touch the temple of goddess
Durga,” says 60-year-old Uttam Chand, a pujari in the Asmal Watt
temple built a century ago by the Hindu community on the outskirts of
the capital city.
Though he calls himself a pujari, he could be mistaken for an Afghan.
He wears salwar-kameez, sports a beard and wears a Muslim “topi”.
But he proudly shows his sacred thread and the additional
identification, the “kada”, which the Taliban made all the Hindus to
wear.
Contrary to earlier reports that Hindus were being made to wear a
yellow badge, none of the Hindus said they were ever forced to sport
the piece of cloth supposed to identify them as non-Muslims.
Did they ever earn the wrath of the Taliban? Just ask another pujari,
35-year-old Ranjit Lal, who shifted to the temple from Khost to Asmal
Watt two years ago. “The Taliban were bad people as they tried to
force their ideology on us,” he said. “We are born here and consider
ourselves to be Afghans. The only objection of the Taliban was that we
were professing another religion,” he said but added “be it the
Taliban or anyone else in power in Afghanistan, we would not be
cowered into accepting another religion”.
Among those who visited the temple on Tuesday with their families were
Mr. Bhagwan Das, Mr. Radhey Shyam, and Mr. Khushhal Singh. The ladies
wore “bindis” and were dressed in salwar-kameez. “There was fear in
the air during the time of the Taliban but the fighters never
misbehaved with us even when we went out without veils,” says Mr.
Khushhal’s wife, Ms. Rampyari.
“When a Taliban soldier used to ask about our identity, we used to
show either the “kada” or the sacred thread and they never used to
ask any further question,” Mr. Khushhal said.
The Hindus, not the Sikhs, are mainly concentrated in Khost, Kandahar
and Jalalabad apart from being at Karte Parwan in Kabul. And they have
a complaint against the Sikh community in Afghanistan. “The Sikhs
accept our daughters as their daughters- in-law but do not let our
sons marry their daughters,” says Ms. Rampyari adding “we have a
real problem finding a match for our daughters. We have to tell our
relatives in India, Pakistan and other countries to find a match for
our daughters,” she said. There is another temple near Asmal Watt in
the name of Dargah-e-Sharif Piratnath. The Hindu families numbering
around 50 in the whole of Afghanistan throng these two temples at
Kabul on two festivals – Holi and Ramnavami. But the festivities are
guarded and do not spill over into the streets like in India. The
Taliban is watching, eh! – PTI