Pakistani Sikhs

Pakistani Sikhs

Sikhism in present day Pakistan area has an extensive heritage and history, although Sikhs form a very small community in Pakistan today. Most Sikhs live in the province of Punjab, a part of the larger Punjab region where the religion originated in the Middle Ages. Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism, is located in the Punjab province.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Sikh community became a powerful political force, with Sikh leader Ranjit Singh founding the first Sikh empire, which had its capital in Lahore, the second-largest city in Pakistan today. Significant populations of Sikhs inhabited the largest cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Lyallpur (now Faisalabad). However, after the partition of 1947 to create the Muslim state of Pakistan, a significant portion of the Punjab region became part of the new state. Ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Sikhs led to a major exodus of those communities from Pakistan into India; conversely Muslims in the Indian territory were subject to the same ethnic cleansing at the hands of Sikhs and Hindus and forced migration to Pakistan.

In the decades following Pakistan's creation, the Sikh community began to re-organise, forming the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PGPC) to represent the community and protect the holy sites and heritage of the Sikh religion in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has begun to allow Sikhs from India to make pilgrimages to Sikh places of worship in Pakistan and for Pakistani Sikhs to travel to India.

The estimated population of Pakistan is 172,800,000 according to the July 2008 census. According to the 1998 census, the population consists of 96% Muslim, with Christians (1.6%) and Hindus (1.6%) making up the largest minority faiths. Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Ahmadi Muslims and some adherents to animist religions make up the remainder.