Pakistan forcibly retained Untouchable sweepers despite otherwise religious fervor.

Evidence

Amidst the frenzy of killing, ethnic cleansing and chest-thumping religious fundamentalism on both sides, the Government of Pakistan kept its head about one thing: it declared that Untouchable municipal sweepers were part of the country’s ‘essential services’ and impounded them, refusing them permission to move to India. (Who else was going to clean people’s shit in the Land of the Pure?) Ambedkar raised the matter with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in a letter in December 1947.104 With great difficulty Ambedkar managed to help at least a section of the ‘essential services’ get across the border. Even today in Pakistan, while various Islamist sects slaughter each other over who is the better, more correct, more faithful Muslim, there does not seem to be much heartache over the very un-Islamic practice of untouchability. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 172

Categorization

• SHARE: So specific and grimly ironic that it’s worth sharing with anyone who tracks caste politics or South Asian history.
• SEED: An article angle: how caste hierarchy persisted and was even weaponized inside Pakistan’s self-consciously Islamic founding — untouchability as the one ‘un-Islamic’ practice nobody minded.