Muhammad Murad
“Sindh is our mother. Who would want to leave their mother? Yet, we are being forced to leave it behind. We have to suppress our emotions to convince ourselves to abandon our birthplace – Sindh,” said a member of a small family from the Jacobabad district of Sindh who recently migrated to India while speaking in Sindhi to the local media.
This story is not just about one family; it reflects the experiences of many Hindus who have emigrated from Pakistan due to ongoing socio-political issues and security concerns in Sindh.
According to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report – titled “Exodus: Is the Hindu Community Leaving Sindh?” – the 2023 national census revealed that Pakistani Hindus number 5.2 million, making them the largest religious minority in the country, followed by Christians, who total 3.3 million. The highest concentration of Hindus in Pakistan is in Sindh, where they constitute 8.8 percent of the province’s total population.
Unfortunately, the Hindu population in Sindh has been declining for decades. In 2014, Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani informed the National Assembly that approximately 5,000 Hindus emigrate to India each year. The HRCP report outlined various factors contributing to this exodus, including religiously motivated violence, the overall law and order situation, and the erosion of Sindh’s sociocultural norms.
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