Hindu population in Pakistan declines from 14.6% to less than 2%: Report

British Hindu advocacy group INSIGHT UK presented a report on Wednesday (October 28) to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for British Hindus, highlighting how Hindus have been systematically hounded, dispossessed and decimated in Pakistan. In the report, the organisation came up with historical records together with present-day testimonies to lay bare the systematic discrimination, attacks on religious freedom and threats to life and dignity experienced by Hindus across the border.

The report opens with a single statistic that captures the scale of what the community has faced. According to the 1941 Census of India, Hindus made up 14.6 per cent of the population in what later became West Pakistan. After partition, that figure dropped sharply. Currently, Hindus account for less than 2 per cent of Pakistan's population.

Such a steep, decades-long decline, the report notes, doesn’t square easily with Islamabad’s repeated assurances that it safeguards minority communities. Behind the statistics, it argues, lies a longer story of violence and economic squeeze. The report traces recurring waves of violence against the community dating back to the 1947 riots. It points out that thousands of Hindu families who fled or were uprooted lost their ancestral land and farms under Enemy Property laws, a move that, over time, left the entire community impoverished and permanently displaced.

According to the report, this persecution isn’t confined to the streets; it’s embedded in Pakistan’s legal framework itself. Articles 41 and 91 of the Constitution bar anyone but a Muslim from holding the office of President or Prime Minister, a restriction that still stands after a 2019 reform bill aimed at changing it was blocked.

Group demands minority protection non-negotiable

The report noted that every Pakistani is compelled to disclose his religion on his passport, adding that there is no functioning Hindu mandir in Islamabad. The first planned construction of a temple for Hindus in the capital was halted in 2020 after violent protests by Islamist groups despite official permission. Since then, it has remained unbuilt in the city.

It also added that nearly one thousand or more Hindu and Christian women and girls are kidnapped in the country. Later, they are forcibly converted to Islam and forcibly married to their kidnappers every year. Among these, most of the victims are minors from poor families with no access to justice.

In the end, the report makes five immediate demands to the UK Government, demanding to make minority protection non-negotiable in every UK-Pakistan dialogue with time-bound action on temple protection and speedy trials, connecting British aid to Pakistan to develop on human rights and ring-fencing funds for minority rights groups, reserving two positions at the British High Commission in Islamabad for members of minority communities to make the violence and abuse get reported without a filter, publishing an official six-monthly report on the socio-economic condition of Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities, and creating safe asylum pathways for victims of forced conversion and religious persecution.