Indus Priest King
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Pakistani Hindus: A Demographic Study
All of us have at one point in time come across the question about the status of Pakistani Hindus, and specifically the supposed “decimation” of its population. Contrary to the sensational headlines about the declining Hindu population in Pakistan from our neighbours to the east, the fact is that Pakistan is actually home to one of the fastest growing Hindu communities in the world. In fact, the Hindu population is growing at a faster rate in Pakistan than in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
On 6 January 2015, Sudhanshu Trivedi, a spokesperson for an Indian political party B-J-P, said on a television interview that “when Pakistan was created there were 24% Hindus in Pakistan. Now there are less than 1% Hindus…what happened to the rest? Obviously they were converted.” Mr. Trivedi has got his numbers wrong. It was both West Pakistan and East Pakistan in 1947 that had 24% Hindus, with the vast majority living in the east. After 1971 and the secession of East Pakistan, the Hindu population would obviously drop since the east would no longer be part of Pakistan’s population census. But Mr. Trivedi is not an exception when it comes to making wild accusations about Pakistan. A vast majority of our neighbours to the east and even some gullible Pakistanis seem to think that the Hindu population of Pakistan has indeed been completely wiped out since 1947. This fortunately is untrue. Let’s look at this from a rational and factual point of view. To get a better understanding, I would advise you to refer your attention to the graph entitled “Population of Hindus in Pakistan”.
- For 1931 and 1941, the data is cited for the British Raj provinces that would become West Pakistan only (hence excluding Bengal but including United Punjab)
- For 1951 and 1961, the data is cited for West Pakistan only (hence excluding East Pakistan)
- For 1971, data could not be accessed
- For 1981, 1998 and 2017, figures are cited from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics
From a healthy 14% in 1941, the Hindu population came down to just 1.3% in 1951. Thus in 1947 we can conclude that a large segment of the Pakistani Hindu population left to India. The claims that over the past 60 years Hindus have been forced out of Pakistan are an absolute lie. After 1951, the Hindu population for West Pakistan actually steadily increased from 1.3% in 1951 to 1.6% in 1998. The PBS is still tabulating the 2017 census numbers. Furthermore, according to the Pew Research Center in 2010, Pakistan had the 5th largest Hindu population in the world at 3.33 million. By 2050, this will rise to the 4th largest in the world to 5.63 million. Now that we’ve established that the Hindu population was not forced out of Pakistan, we now need to establish what happened in 1947 and the sudden drop from 14% in 1941 to 1.3% in 1951. This is no small discrepancy and the reason for the drop should be answered.
~ Demographics ~
I will only cite Punjab and Sindh, as the majority of Hindus (> 95%) lived in these provinces. One interesting note to add is that the statistics for Punjab are for United Punjab and hence the population for Hindus and Muslims are for both East and West Punjab combined.
In the 1931 census:
- Punjab had a total population of 28.5 million of which Muslims made up 52.4%, Hindus 30.2%, Sikhs 14.3% and others 3.1%.
- Sindh had a total population of 4.1 million of which Muslims made up 73%, Hindus 26% and others 1%.
In the 1941 census:
- Punjab had a total population of 34.3 million of which Muslims made up 53.2%, Hindus 29.1%, Sikhs 14.9% and others 2.8%.
- Sindh had a total population of 4.5 million of which Muslims made up 71%, Hindus 28% and others 1%.
~ Punjab ~
As noted above, these statistics are for pre-partition Punjab. Two thirds of Punjabi Hindus already lived in East Punjab and hence India. The remaining Hindus in West Punjab were a significant minority in every district. It is estimated that the total population of Hindus in West Punjab in 1941 was roughly 3 million while Sikhs were 1.6 million. Of the 29 districts of Punjab, 16 remained in Pakistan while 13 were given to India. What resulted was instant mayhem. Punjab bore the brunt of migrations between Pakistan and India. By 14 August 1947, an estimated 2 million West Punjabi Hindus and 1.1 million West Punjabi Sikhs had already moved to India. Between 18 September and 29 October 1947, a further estimated 849,000 Hindus from West Punjab crossed over to India. An equal number of Muslims from East Punjab went the other way. In the case of East Punjab, the situation was very violent. Gurdaspur was actually a Muslim majority district; while in Amritsar and Ferozpur, Muslims were the largest minority at 44% and 46% respectively. Overall, they made up about 36% of East Punjab. By 1947, over 2 million East Punjabi Muslims would migrate to West Punjab. Another reason for the mass movement was over the situation occurring in Jammu & Kashmir as Muslim migrants from Jammu were flooding into Punjab. Survivours of Dogra atrocities told harrowing tales of entire villages being burnt to the ground and the Muslim populace being forced to march towards Sialkot. This caused even more outrage and unfortunately was taken out on the West Punjabi Hindu population as "revenge".
~ Sindh ~
Of the 1.3 million Hindus in Sindh, 724,000 remained in Sindh while 576,000 migrated to India. The majority of those who left were mainly urban Hindus who resided in Karachi, whereas interior Sindh Hindus from cities such as Larkana and Shikarpur remained.
~ Conclusion ~
By 1951, almost 4.7 million Hindus and Sikhs in total had left to India from Pakistan, while 6.5 million Muslims from India came to Pakistan. In total by 1951, the migration picture looked like this:
West Punjabi Hindus
2,849,000 migrated, 451,000 remained
West Punjabi Sikhs
1,100,000 migrated, 500,000 remained
Sindhi Hindus
576,000 migrated, 724,000 remained
Total Hindu population in West Pakistan in 1951 = 1,175,000
Total Hindu population in West Pakistan in 1961 = 1,190,000
Total Hindu population in Pakistan in 1981 = 1,210,000
Total Hindu population in Pakistan in 1998 = 2,443,000
Total Hindu population in Pakistan in 2010 = 3,330,000 (est.)
Total Hindu population in Pakistan in 2017 = Tabulation underway
Total Hindu population in Pakistan by 2050 = ~5,630,000
Sindh was relatively spared from the violence despite the fact it had a large Hindu minority, while Balochistan, NWFP (now KP), the Tribal Areas and Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan) were all significant Muslim majority regions (>95%) and hence saw little to no violence. Jammu & Kashmir was excluded from this study.
One could argue had Punjab not been partitioned and remained with Pakistan, we would have seen a similar migration pattern as that witnessed in Sindh. In fact, migration from Sindh only increased after violence erupted in Punjab, otherwise a majority of the local Hindu population had no intent on leaving.
In the subsequent years, the population of Hindus in Pakistan has steadily increased, contrary to sensationalist propaganda from our eastern neighbour. Ironically after the secession of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh, its Hindu population has decreased each year.
Furthermore, according to the Pew Research Center in 2010, Pakistan had the 5th largest Hindu population in the world at 3.33 million. By 2050, this will rise to the 4th largest in the world to 5.63 million.
While it's true that the Hindu population in Pakistan has steadily increased every year, this doesn't excuse the fact that Hindus in Pakistan unfortunately are discriminated against by certain groups in our country. While in recent years the government have initiated programs to promote Pakistani Hindus into mainstream society through government quotas, special educational seats etc, events such as forced marriages and forced conversions are still being heard of and should be condemned and stopped.
However, the idea that some large exodus and forceful expulsion is occurring is quite overblown and quite frankly ridiculous. The numbers simply don't add up.
