.svg) | |
 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
15,998  (2023 census)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Punjab | 5,649 |
| Sindh | 5,182 |
| Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | 4,050 |
| Balochistan | 1,057 |
| Languages | |
| Punjabi • Urdu • Pashto • Sindhi • Balochi • Pakistani English | |
| Part of a series on |
| Sikhism |
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Sikhism in Pakistan has an extensive heritage and history, although Sikhs form a 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, with some also residing in Peshawar in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is located in Pakistan's Punjab province. Moreover, the place where Guru Nanak died, the Gurudwara Kartarpur Sahib is also located in the same province.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Sikh community became a major political power in Punjab, with Sikh leader Maharaja Ranjit Singh founding the Sikh Empire which had its capital in Lahore, the second-largest city in Pakistan today.[2][3]
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,[a] 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.[b]
By 1947, it is estimated that the Sikh population 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), however with violence and religious cleansing accompanying the partition of 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, in the contemporary Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi.[5][6]
In the decades following Pakistan's formation in 1947, the remaining Sikh community began to re-organize, 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 headed by Satwant Singh.[7] 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.
- ^ "7th Population and Housing Census - Detailed Results Table-9 Population by sex, religion and rural/urban". Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
- ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1991). History of the Sikhs. Munshiram Manoharlal. p. 201. ISBN 978-8121505154.
- ^ Singh, Khushwant (2004). History of the Sikhs. Oxford University Press. p. viii. ISBN 978-0195673081.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
punjab1941was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "The Mutual Genocide of Indian Partition". The New Yorker. 22 June 2015.
- ^ "Sikh farmers who migrated twice suffered the most during Partition". 15 August 2022.
- ^ "Sikh pilgrims arrive in Pakistan to attend Guru Nanak's birth anniversary celebrations". thenews.com.pk. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
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