The bill is expected to sail through both houses of Parliament without any hiccups as all parliamentary parties are keen to show support to minorities' rights. The move can only be welcomed in the present times trying for all Pakistanis in general and religious minorities in particular. A bigger presence in the nation's highest legislative forums should enable them to raise a stronger voice for better conditions. Sadly, even though religious parties in this country never tire of asserting that Islam lays a lot of emphasis on safeguarding minorities' rights, when it comes to publicly taking positions on cases involving violation of those rights they almost always look the other way. Same is the attitude regarding the other largest minority population, women.
Reservation of special seats for one or the other group, nonetheless, is a sign of socio-political backwardness of any society. Notably back in 1973, the framers of the Constitution reserved special seats for women for a ten-year period in the belief that in the following years steps would be taken to improve conditions that had kept women backward, so they could compete with men on their own. Yet after a brief gap at the end of 10-year limitation, political parties got together to bring back reserved seats for women, even though several women had gotten themselves elected from conservative rural constituencies on general seats on the basis of same electability criteria that worked for men. Above all, Pakistan earned the proud distinction of electing the Muslim world's first woman prime minister. That shows political affiliations matter more to the electorate than gender considerations. In other words, time has come for political parties to reserve a certain percentage of party tickets rather than reserved seats for woman candidates.
In the case of religious minorities, though, given the prevailing circumstances, it is important to give greater representation to minorities as an oppressed section of society. The concession, however, should be limited to a specific time period. Meanwhile, all political parties, especially those that get a chance to govern, must constantly endeavour to end existing prejudices against religious minorities. The day political parties start allotting tickets to minority communities' members on merit rather than religious affiliations, this society would be able to claim having achieved a meaningful progress.