How Pakistanis are treated in Saudi Arabia
Allow me to highlight some of the difficulties which the pilgrims from Pakistan have to face during the course of their visit to Saudi Arabia. Also the atrocities of the blood sucking mafia operating in our country in the shape of travel agents.
A senior colleague of mine has recently come back from Saudi Arabia. He went there to perform Umrah. He stayed there for thirty days during the Holy month of Ramadan.
From what I have heard from him, I do not think that the treatment meted out to him there, during the course of his stay, was entirely to his satisfaction.
He had been lucky enough, in the past, to perform the religious duty of Hajj in the year 1985. At that time Saudi Rial was worth two and a half Pakistani Rupees. When he now landed in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Rial had considerably gone up. To begin with, it was worth 25 Pakistani rupees. During the course of his stay, his market experience showed that the money exchangers of Saudi Arabia were not even prepared to accept 25 Pakistani rupees for one Saudi Rial. This degradation in the value of Pakistani currency was really mind boggling for him.
Even much worse treatment is being dealt out to the Pakistan currency by the USA dollar.
It is the talk of the day that most of the people, having lots of riches in Saudi Arabia, prefer to deposit the same in American banks, just like what the Pakistani politicians are reportedly doing. This flight of capital from the country seems to be the main reason for the sharp decline in the value of the Pakistani currency.
If the value of Saudi Rial keeps going up, who knows what consequence would result therefrom. If there is no let-up in the situation, the middle class and the lower middle class of Pakistan would soon come to realise that performance of the religious duty of Hajj and Umrah is something utterly beyond their financial capacity which facility would then possibly remain available only to the elitist class of Pakistan.
There are rows and rows of multistoried buildings in the two holy cities. The Mecca tower is the tallest. It is a massive building, having thousands of rooms. Someone told him that rent, per day, of a room in the Mecca tower is four thousand Saudi Rials. In terms of Pakistani currency, the rent would be Rs 100000/-. So, perhaps even the elite class of Pakistan cannot afford the luxury of staying in Mecca tower.
The message of our religion is that all human beings are equal, regardless of the colour of their skins, on account of being the offspring of Adam and Eve. However, as per him, during the course of his stay in Saudi Arabia, he felt that he was being treated as a human being of a lesser kind. Coming back to Mecca, from Madina, by a passenger bus, he and other Pakistani travellers were told, by the Arab bus driver, to disembark from the bus, pick up their luggage and to walk to their hotel, which happened to be at a considerable distance from the point, where the passenger bus was brought to a halt. The protests and entreaties of the passengers remained unheeded The Arab driver pointed out that beyond that point only Arabic speaking passengers had been allowed the privilege to move forward in a passenger bus, and that the said facility was not available to or could be claimed by non-Arabs.
This discriminatory treatment was quite unwelcome to the Pakistani passengers, but quite obviously they could do nothing about the same and were forced to march towards their hotel, on foot.
Does this mean that in the eyes of the Saudis, Pakistanis are Muslims of an inferior category?
In fact, the same discriminatory treatment was meted out to him even in the Islamic Republic of Iran when he went there some years ago for Ziarat. The shopkeepers and traders of Saudi Arabia do their utmost for depriving the Zairin of what little they have. In Mecca, a cup of coffee was worth two Rials in the beginning. The price later on went up initially to five Rials, for a single cup of coffee, and later to 13 Rials.
Perhaps the authorities concerned in Saudi Arabia do not think it proper to subject business community to any check or control.
Even before he left for Saudi Arabia, a surprise confronted him. The concerned travel agent demanded a sum of Rs 32,000/- as visa fee. He later learned that the government of Saudi Arabia does not charge even a single penny for issuing visas. The travel agents in the business thus appear to be operating like a mafia. They amass wealth by sucking the blood of the poor and unsuspecting pilgrims. The matter definitely needs to be looked into by the ministry. Especially when the religious affairs minister has been able to secure bail, after more than one year of his arrest, in a criminal case registered against him.
Both in Mecca and Madina, he found people openly enjoying soft drinks during day time. No one seemed to be interested in taking them to task for violating the sanctity of Ramadan. This failure to react, on part of the society, is a very healthy and pragmatic attitude.
With more money and riches people start having greed and exaggerated avarice for gold. This became apparent in Madina. On one side of the Haram there was a massive and far spread out market of gold smiths, who shut down their business only during the prayer time. Their shops were adorned and packed with sparkling and glittering golden ornaments. Glare and brilliance of gold is like hell fire. Presence of such a huge gold market, in such close proximity of the Masjid-e-Nabvi, is repugnant to good taste and quite un-salutary. Coming out of Haram, one is practically catapulted into the gold market, as if thrown from the heaven, into the hell. The Saudi authorities should be kind enough to look into this.
Finally, during Ramadan, whereas in Madina the hosts beg the Zairin to let them have the honour of joining them at Iftar time, the attitude at Mecca is quite different. The official staff in a harsh and disgraceful manner throw the Iftari packs at the Zairin, which induces in them the feeling as if they are beggars.
Value of the Indian Rupee and Bangla Deshi currency is much better in Saudi Arabia as compared to Pakistani currency. Most of the sanitation staff appears to have been recruited from Bangladesh, whereas in the not too distant past such staff used to be recruited from Pakistan.
It seems that Pakistan is no more treated as a favourable country in Saudi Arabia.
The writer is a lawyer.