April 20, 2016: Bishan Singh, a cloth trader in a commercial centre of Lahore’s upscale Gulberg district has been able to double his business over the last five years as his professional courtesy attracts more and more customers. He believes that no customer discriminates him on religious grounds. Over the last decade, dozens of Sikh families have migrated from Khyber Pakhtun Khawa and Central Punjab’s Nankana Sahib District to Lahore while looking for greener pastures. Now one can find a number of Sikh shopkeepers in the wholesale markets of Akbari mandi, Azam Cloth market and Shah Alam Market in Lahore and Moti bazaar of Rawalpindi. Clinics of Sikh physicians practicing herbal medicine in all the major cities of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtun Khawa are mushrooming. It is also believed that Sikhs with better entrepreneurial skills are fast dominating the business in Lahore.
Besides business, Sikhs are now joining the ranks of Pakistan Army, Rangers and Police in addition to other sectors of life. Amarjit Singh, a Sikh Jawan sporting colourful turban, becomes a source of attraction while performing lowering ceremony of Pakistani flag as a part of Pakistan rangers contingent at India-Pakistan Joint Check Post Wagha in the evening. In the recent past, Ghulab Singh, a warden used to regulate unruly traffic in Lahore.
In 2013 General Elections, Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora, a Sikh from Nankana Sahib was elected minority member of the Punjab Assembly. He is the first Sikh Parliamentarian to be elected for provincial legislative assembly in Pakistan’s 69 year history.
Just before three decades, local Sikhs were seldom seen on the roads of Lahore and other parts of the Punjab province. Majority of the Sikh population living in the areas now are part of Pakistan who migrated from Indian Punjab and even beyond in 1947. Sikhs living in the Khyber Pakhtun Khawa and some areas of Punjab started becoming active individuals of Pakistani society in 1980s after a long hibernation. During 1990s, a number of non-functional Sikh Gurdwaras (temples) including Sucha Saudi Gurdwara in Sheikhupura district were restored to facilitate the local and foreign Sikhs.
According to estimates, the total population of Sikhs in Pakistan is not more than 20,000. Of this, more than half live in Khyber Pakhtun Khawa, FATA, Sindh and Balochistan while 6,000 live in Nankana Sahib District while the rest live in Lahore and other districts of Punjab. Due to peculiar security conditions in tribal areas and certain Khyber Pakhtun Khawa districts, hundreds of Sikhs have now settled in Rawalpindi and Lahore. These Sikhs are now running businesses mainly merchandise. To facilitate the children of Sikh families, Punjabi language is also taught in Gurmukhi script in Nankana Sahib. Federal government and provincial governments have recently taken a lot of steps to improve the roads linking Nankana Sahib, the home to Sikhdom’s holiest places like Gurdwara Janam Asthan to Lahore. Guru Nanak University is also being set up in this central Punjab town. Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (Pakistan Gurdwara Management Committee) is being restructured to ensure the participation of each and every segment of Sikh community living in Pakistan. Members of Sikh community believe that they will soon co-exist with their Muslim compatriots the way they used to live in the past.