Washington DC: An immersive art exhibition and documentary screening on Capitol Hill has brought into sharp focus the plight of Hindu and other minority communities from Pakistan, highlighting forced conversions, abductions, and a refugee crisis that organisers say has remained largely invisible in global discourse.
Titled Seven Decades and supported by Hindu Action, the exhibition combines photography, large-format visual installations, quilts, and film to convey what organisers describe as a “silent refugee crisis”.
The event sought to sensitise US lawmakers and congressional staff to what activists called widespread and systemic abuses faced by minorities, particularly Hindus, in Pakistan, as well as the experiences of refugees who have fled to India.
Kiran Chukkapalli, founder of the Refugee Aid Project, said the exhibition documents the lives of refugees who have escaped persecution and are now living in camps across India.
“We host about 92 refugee camps across India, and we have about 383,000 Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist refugees,” he said, describing the display of black-and-white photographs, long visual panels, and textile art as an effort to make their stories visible. “We call it the silent refugee crisis,” Chukkapalli added, noting that such communities rarely feature in mainstream global conversations on displacement. One prominent installation, the ‘Goddess Quilt’, was described as symbolising the resilience of women who, Chukkapalli said, have rebuilt their lives after enduring persecution.
Other sections, including what he called the “absence series”, focus on loss and silencing, portraying homes left behind and disrupted traditions.
The exhibition has previously been shown in cities including Sydney, Melbourne, London, New York, and Mumbai, he said, but bringing it to Washington carried particular significance.
“This issue should be a mainstream issue… their voices deserve to be heard,” he said.
Alongside the exhibition, a short film and documentary screenings addressed forced conversions and abductions in Pakistan. Rahul Sharma, founder of the humanitarian group Indus Valley Minorities, said his organisation works directly with victims and families, representing them at police stations, courts, and hospitals.
An interactive walkthrough element of the exhibition used reconstructed domestic spaces and testimonial narratives to depict what organisers called an organised system involving traffickers, clerics, political figures, and complicit officials.
The accompanying documentary traced what was described as the mechanics of abduction, rapid conversion, and marriage, and the role of poverty and vulnerability in targeting minority girls. (IANS)
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