RESEARCH PROPOSAL 1

Introduction.

The minorities of Pakistan are the main target of racial stereotypes and their communities are

highly affected by the political activities and agendas. This research paper will try to explore

the impact of politics and laws of Pakistan on the minorities and we will analyse how

Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus and other minorities suffer in the country because of thier

identity and political interests. As much as we try to deny it, racial stereotypes still prevail in

our society as a major flaw. From our everyday life to rare events, we experience racial

stereotypes at an uncontrollable pace. Racism is not only restricted to but it is also found in

other countries on different basis. In Pakistan, we observe the practice of racism based on

religious belief that may include Shia Sunni conflicts, Ahmedi community issues, minority

issues and sectarianism.

Objectives.

The objectives of the research will be as follows.

1- Explore how the minorities are being affected by the political activities.

2- Discover the political practices towards minorities in Pakistan.

3- To put forward solutions about how the minorities can be saved from the dirty politics.

4- To safeguard the interest of the minorities.

Research Gap.

In the previous research papers, enough research has been conducted on the minorities and

their living in Pakistan but no one has ever looked at and analysed the situation from a

political aspect in Pakistan since this is considered to be a sensitive topic in the country.

Hence, our research will stand out from the rest since it will target the political impact on the

minorities.
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Literature Review.

The author – Jawad explains his experience as an Ahmedi in the Pakistani society in this

article and throws light on an incident which took place in his life and still serves as a

nightmare for him. Jawad’s father is known as Sheikh in the society and his father served as a

judge in the past too. Unfortunately, Sheikh lost his life during an attack on the Ahmedi

community leaving behind a grieving family. But it does not end here as Sheikh was

continually receiving threats from unknown people who threatened Sheikh that they would

kill the Ahmedi’s on his son’s wedding and as a result, they had to employ high security on

the wedding to avoid any disturbance. Not only that, but every member of the Ahmadi

community has to face some kind of discrimination in the society as Jawad explains how the

shopkeepers refused to sell his wife a tooth brush. This practice is quite common in our

society as people refuse to sell or buy stuff from the people belonging to the Ahmedi

community. It would be safe to say that the blasphemy law plays a major role in moulding the

mindset of people as the law is being misused to a great extent in the society. Majority of the

people are against the Ahmadi community and are raising their children in a manner that

encourages the children to hate the entire community too. Such attitude cam restricts the

diversity in country and lead to major setbacks like mass attacks and terrorism. The Ahmedi

community is an oppressed community of our society and they are threatened to a level

where they tend to hide their identity now in order to avoid any unwanted and unfortunate

events as their life in Pakistan is always at a risk. (OPIndia, 2020).

The author – Khokhar depicts the dark side of our society with us as he tells us about how the

minorities are treated in our society. Khokhar tells us about the incident which took place in

2017 when a 17-year-old Christian boy – Sheron Masih got admission in a public school

where the majority of the students were Muslims and while trying to fit in, Sheron was
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drinking water from the cooler when the other boys started beating him brutally with the

sticks and kept on beating him until the last breath left his fragile body. (Khokhar, 2018)

The author emphasizes on the fact that such behaviors from minors just give us an idea about

the tip of the ice berg as such attitudes arise from a proper pattern of behavior. When the

parents do not teach their children the ethics that advise them to treat minorities with respect,

such incidents occur and this hate will prevail in the society. Until proper awareness is raised

about such issues, the society would not learn.

Zaigham Khan in 2016 in his article Insult the Baloch stated that Balochi people are

stereotyped to the great extent and it is said that they are uncivilized people who only know

fighting and killing and it is considered that they don’t have a proper way of living and they

live in deserts. The writer has criticized the textbook which is named Sociology of Pakistan

and said that this textbook teaches us many aspects of stereotypes and has made the Baloch

community angry to the larger extent and that this is garbage that is being put in the mind of

young people. It has been used in the colleges for over two decades but no controversy has

come forward to date regarding this.

The atrocities on the minorities do not end here as another minor Christian girl Arzoo was

recently raped and later on her custody was given to her rapist who claimed that they were in

love. After an awareness campaign on social media, she has finally been shifted to a shelter

where she is kept safe and secure away from her rapist. This incident tells us about how

powerful the social media platforms can be when it comes to making justice prevail in the

society. (Khan, 2016).

Sectarianism is a major problem in countries like Pakistan as people refuse to tolerate people

belonging to different sects. Baloch explains in his article how the Shias, being a minority

suffer at the hands of the society in Pakistan. Shias are usually targeted by the other sects and
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Shias are more likely to get attacked by the racial stereotypes as they have various

associations attached to them and majority of the people assume the Shia’s to be non-

Muslims and as a result, they are brutally targeted in the society.

If we look at the culture of northern sides in Pakistan, the people are friendly but they are

extremely intolerant towards the Shia community as the author explains how she witnessed

the Pashtuns getting killed by the locals solely for being a Shia. People from all around the

world refuse to eat and hang around with the Shia community and have attached absurd

storied to their identity. An example of such association is that where people assume that

Shia’s use the saliva of horse in their food which is fake and moreover, many people make

Shias a target of blasphemy by making various false claims. (Alvi, 2019).

Methodology.

In order to conduct the research in a proper way and a suitable manner, it is essential to

design a structured methodology to make sure that the data is collected and interpreted

properly. The study can be made smooth and manageable when given a path by

Methodology. Methodology can include various features and way like the questionnaires,

focus groups, experiments and surveys, etc.

The study being conducted by us looks at the impact of politics on minorities in Pakistan but

in order to measure that impact, we must design a sound and suitable methodology that would

help us in acquiring the desired data.

While conducting the research, we have to be careful about following the SOPs of

coronavirus in order to avoid any perceived physical risks.

Data collection.
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The data for the research being conducted by us will be obtained in the form of a

questionnaire that will be designed using Google forms.

The link of that form will then be sent to various people who will serve as our respondents.

The respondents of the questionnaires will provide us with the required data and we will

collect data from the following:

 Genders – both male and female.

 Students and young adults.

 Age group – 13 to 45 years old.

 Pakistanis.

 Mostly from Lahore school of Economics.

The data will be collected according to the convenience of the customers and the respondents

will be approached in the following ways.

 Emails.

 Direct messages.

The link will be shared on social media so that the viewers can fill in the questionnaire.

Sampling.

Sample size and technique plays an important role in the gathering of data when conducting a

research. We went through many research papers and articles in order to pen down the

literature review and after considering the previous articles, it was observed that the sample

size used by most of the researchers was 200 and hence, the sample size of this study is set to

200 responses that will be received by the respondents.

Sampling technique.
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The sampling technique used by the study will be Random sampling because everyone is a

consumer of something and all goods are packaged in one way or the other. Hence, the link to

the questionnaire will be distributed among the people to be filled and completed at their

convenience. This would also help us in gaining honest and reliable data.

Data Analysis.

Data collection is the first step and data analysis come later. For the analysis of the data, the

following software’s will be used:

 SPSS.

 AMOS.

 PLS 3.

The collected data will be run on these software’s to be observed and analysed.

SPSS stands for ‘Statistical Package for the Social Sciences’ and it is mostly used for

statistical data. The quantitative data will be managed and analysed using SPSS.

AMOS is also used for statistical analysis but it is mainly used for the analysis of moment

structures. It is considered to be an added module of SPSS and the structural equation

modelling, path analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis is usually done by AMOS. AMOS

is also known as casual modelling software and covariance software.

PLS 3 is a software that will be used to conduct a comprehensive understanding of

development and evaluation of the structural models and their measurements.

Theoretical framework.

The theoretical framework would include 3 Independent variables and 1 dependent variable

for the study. The following diagram shows the theoretical framework.
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The independent variables of our study would be Political campaigns, laws and policies and

social activities and we will observe their impact on the minority rights in Pakistan.

Ho - There is no political impact on minority rights in Pakistan.

H1 - The political activities have a negative impact on minority rights in Pakistan.

H2 - The laws and policies have a negative impact on minority rights in Pakistan.

H3 - The social activities have a negative impact on minority rights in Pakistan.