Sikhism is a minority religion in Pakistan with a population of around 16,000 Sikhs, accounting for 0.01% of the national population. Although Sikhs form a small community in Pakistan today, Sikhism has an extensive heritage and history in the country. Sikhism originated from what is now Punjab, Pakistan in the 15th century. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Sikh community had become a major political power in Punjab, with Sikh leader maharaja Ranjit Singh founding the Sikh Empire which had its capital in Lahore, today the second-largest city in Pakistan. Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is located in Pakistani Punjab; moreover, Kartarpur Sahib, the place where Guru Nanak died and was subsequently buried, is also located in the same province.
According to the 1941 census, the Sikh population comprised roughly 1.67 million persons or 6.1 percent of the total population in the region that would ultimately become Pakistan, notably concentrated in West Punjab, within the contemporary province of Punjab, Pakistan, where the Sikh population stood at roughly 1.52 million persons or 8.8 percent of the total population. By 1947, it is estimated that the Sikh population had increased to over 2 million persons in the region which became Pakistan with significant populations existing in the largest cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad (then Lyallpur). With communal violence and religious cleansing accompanying the Partition of British India at the time, the vast majority departed the region en masse, primarily migrating eastward to the region of Punjab that would fall on the eastern side of the Radcliffe Line and Delhi, with corresponding mass migration of Muslims into Pakistan from India.
In the decades following Pakistan's formation in 1947, the Pakistani Sikh community began to reorganize, forming the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) to represent the community and protect the holy sites and heritage of the Sikh religion in Pakistan. It is headquartered at Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore. The Pakistani government has granted permission to Sikhs from India to make pilgrimages to Sikh places of worship in Pakistan and for Pakistani Sikhs to travel to India.
History Colonial era
Prior to independence in 1947, and played an important role in its economy as farmers, businessmen, and traders. Significant populations of Sikhs inhabited the largest cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Lyallpur. Lahore, the capital of Punjab, is the location of many important Sikh religious and historical sites, including the Samadhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.The nearby town of Nankana Sahib has nine gurdwaras, and is the birthplace of Sikhism's founder, Guru Nanak.
Partition of India (1947)
Sikh organizations, including the Chief Khalsa Dewan and Shiromani Akali Dal led by Master Tara Singh, reacted negatively to the Lahore Resolution and the Pakistan movement, viewing it as welcoming possible persecution; the Sikhs largely thus strongly opposed the partition of India. The majority of the Sikhs and Hindus of West Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan migrated to India after the independence of Pakistan in 1947, with a small community of the Sikhs remaining. These Sikh and Hindu refugee communities have had a major influence in the culture and economics of Delhi. Today, segments of the populations of East Punjab and Haryana states and Delhi in India can trace their ancestry back to towns and villages now in Pakistan, including former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. According to Khushwant Singh, approximately 2.5 million Sikhs vacated Pakistan after the country's formation in 1947. According to the Military Evacuation Organization (E.M.O.) on 15 November 1947, around 3,680 non-Muslims (including Sikhs) remained in West Punjab immediately after partition that occurred three months prior on 15 August 1947.
Modern era Sikhs have mainly kept a low profile within the monolithic Muslim population of Pakistan. Though Pakistan maintains the title of Islamic state, the articles twenty, twenty-one and twenty-two in chapter two of its constitution guarantees religious freedom to the non-Muslim residents.
From 1984 to 2002, Pakistan held a system of separate electorates for all its national legislative assemblies, with a handful of parliamentary seats reserved for minority members. Minorities were legally only permitted to vote for designated minority candidates in general elections.
The regime of former President General Pervez Musharraf had professed an agenda of equality for minorities and promotion and protection of minority rights, however, the implementation of corrective measures has been slow. Considerable amount of Sikhs are found in neighbourhood called Narayanpura of Karachi's Ranchore Lines.
The historical and holy sites of Sikhs are maintained by a Pakistani governmental body, the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which is responsible for their upkeep and preservation. The 2010s saw a renewed interest especially amongst scholars regarding Sikh heritage remaining in Pakistan.Singh, Gurharpal. 2021. “Reconsidering Sikh Architecture: The Sama̅dhi of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore.” Sikh Formations 17 (4): 519–29. doi:10.1080/17448727.2021.1886403.
The emergence of the Sikh community within Pakistan
After the independence of Pakistan and the migration of nearly all Sikhs to India the Sikh community's rights were significantly diminished as their population decreased."Partition Of The Punjab - 1947" 12 November 2006 Today, the largest urban Sikh population in Pakistan is found in Peshawar, in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where the Pashtun law of "nanawati" (protection) spared the scale of violence which had raged across the Indus River in Punjab. Despite the longstanding tensions between the Sikh and Muslim communities in South Asia, the Pashtuns were tolerant towards the religious minority of Sikhs. There are small pockets of Sikhs in Lahore and Nankana Sahib in Punjab.
There has been an influx of Sikh refugees from Afghanistan to Pakistan due to the turbulent civil war and conflicts that have ravaged neighboring Afghanistan, and many of these Sikhs have settled in Peshawar."The Heart-rending Story of Afghani Sikhs" 4 October 2006 Afghanistan, like Pakistan, has had small Sikh and Hindu populations. There has been a massive exodus of refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan during the past 30 years of turmoil up to the reign of the Taliban and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Due to Pakistan's porous borders with Afghanistan, large numbers of Afghanistan's minority communities, based mainly around the cities of Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad have fled, and some Sikhs have joined their kinsmen in Peshawar and Lahore.
The Pakistani Constitution states that Sikhism is a monotheistic religion. Recently the Sikh community within Pakistan has been making every effort possible to progress in Pakistan. For example, Hercharn Singh became the first Sikh to join the Pakistan Army. For the first time in the 58-year history of Pakistan there has a Sikh been selected into Pakistan's army. Prior to Harcharan Singh's selection in the Pakistani army no individual person who was a member of the Hindu or the Sikh community were ever enrolled in the army, however; the Pakistani Christian community has prominently served in the Pakistan Armed Forces and some had even reached the ranks of Major Generals in the army, Air Vice Marshals in the Pakistan Air Force and rear Admiral in the Pakistan Navy. It has received various awards for gallantry and valor. Moreover, members of the tiny Parsi community have some representation in the Armed Forces. Other prominent Sikhs are Inspector Amarjeet Singh of Pakistan Rangers and Lance-naik Behram Singh of Pakistan Coast Guard.
In 2007, the Pakistan Government enacted the Sikh marriage act that allows Sikh marriages in Pakistan be registered."Pakistan Minister gives assurances for enacting Sikh Marriage Act" 24 November 2007 In 2017, the Punjab legislative assembly passed the Anand Karaj act thereby allowing the Sikh marriage in Punjab province be registered. In the Sindh province, the Sikh marriages are registered under the Sindh Hindu Marriage Act of 2016.
Demographics
Decadal censuses taken in British India revealed the religious composition of all administrative divisions that would ultimately compose regions situated in contemporary Pakistan. The 1901 Census in British India taken in administrative divisions that would ultimately compose regions situated in contemporary Pakistan indicated that Sikhs numbered approximately 529,910 persons and comprised roughly 3.0 percent of the total population, followed by an increase to around 884,987 persons or to 4.7 percent in 1911. The Sikh population would rise to approximately 931,489 persons in 1921 with the share of the total population rising to 4.8 percent, further increasing to 5.7 percent in 1931, with total Sikh population growing to roughly 1,282,698 persons.
According to the Government of Pakistan's National Database and Registration Authority, there were 6,146 Sikhs registered in Pakistan in 2012. A 2010 survey by the Sikh Resource and Study Centre reported 50,000 Sikhs living in Pakistan. Most are settled in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa followed by Sindh and Punjab. Other sources, including the US Department of State, claim the Sikh population in Pakistan to be as high as 20,000. In a news article published in December 2022, there was an estimated 30,000–35,000 Sikhs in Pakistan according to Gurpal Singh and Sikhs will be included as a separate category and enumerated on the 2023 Census of Pakistan. The results of the 2023 census will be a milestone in the first official inclusion of Sikhs since the formation of Pakistan as a sovereign nation. The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has provided the numbers of eligible voters belonging to minority religions (registered in electoral rolls): 2013: 5,934 Sikh Voters dawn.com Dawn.com. 28 May 2018. 2018: 8,852 Sikh Voters
1901 census
According to the 1901 census, the Sikh population in Pakistan comprised roughly 529,910 persons or 3.0 percent of the total population. With the exception of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, all administrative divisions in the region that composes contemporary Pakistan collected religious data, with a combined population of 17,633,258, for an overall response rate of 99.6 percent out of the total population of 17,708,014, as detailed in the table below.
+ Sikhism in Pakistan by administrative divisionAdministrativedivision1901 censusSikh PopulationSikh PercentageTotal ResponsesTotal Population Punjab 483,999 10,427,765 10,427,765 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 25,733 2,050,724 2,125,480 AJK 17,132 872,915 872,915 Balochistan 2,972 810,746 810,746 Gilgit–Baltistan 74 60,885 60,885 Sindh 3,410,223 3,410,223 Pakistan 529,910 17,633,258 17,708,014
1911 census
According to the 1911 census, the Sikh population in Pakistan comprised roughly 884,987 persons or 4.7 percent of the total population. With the exception of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, all administrative divisions in the region that composes contemporary Pakistan collected religious data, with a combined population of 18,806,379, for an overall response rate of 92.1 percent out of the total population of 20,428,473, as detailed in the table below.
+ Sikhism in Pakistan by administrative divisionAdministrativedivision1911 censusSikh PopulationSikh PercentageTotal ResponsesTotal Population Punjab 813,441 11,104,585 11,104,585 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 30,345 2,196,933 3,819,027 AJK 20,391 854,531 854,531 Sindh 12,339 3,737,223 3,737,223 Balochistan 8,390 834,703 834,703 Gilgit–Baltistan 81 78,404 78,404 Pakistan 884,987 18,806,379 20,428,473
1921 census