Back Σιχισμός στο Πακιστάν Greek Sikhisme au Pakistan French पाकिस्तान में सिख धर्म Hindi Sikhisme di Pakistan ID ਪਾਕਿਸਤਾਨ ਵਿੱਚ ਸਿੱਖ ਧਰਮ Punjabi پاکستان وچ سکھ مت PNB Sikhism in Pakistan SIMPLE பாக்கித்தானில் சீக்கியம் Tamil پاکستان میں سکھ مت Urdu

Sikhism in Pakistan

Sikhism in Pakistan Pakistan
Gurdwara Janam Asthan
Total population
15,998 Increase(2023 census)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Punjab5,649
Sindh5,182
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa4,050
Balochistan1,057
Languages
Punjabi • Urdu • Pashto • Sindhi • Balochi • Pakistani English

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] At the time of the Partition of India in 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). After the Partition of Punjab, many Sikhs in Pakistan felt unsafe due to the occurrence of severe riots and mass scale persecution over there; soon, almost the entire Sikh population left Pakistan's West Punjab for India's East Punjab 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.

  1. ^ "7th Population and Housing Census - Detailed Results Table-9 Population by sex, religion and rural/urban". Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 14 September 2024.
  2. ^ Gupta, Hari Ram (1991). History of the Sikhs. Munshiram Manoharlal. p. 201. ISBN 978-8121505154.
  3. ^ Singh, Khushwant (2004). History of the Sikhs. Oxford University Press. p. viii. ISBN 978-0195673081.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference punjab1941 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "The Mutual Genocide of Indian Partition". The New Yorker. 22 June 2015.
  6. ^ "Sikh farmers who migrated twice suffered the most during Partition". 15 August 2022.
  7. ^ "Sikh pilgrims arrive in Pakistan to attend Guru Nanak's birth anniversary celebrations". thenews.com.pk. Retrieved 13 November 2019.


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