Religious minorities in Pakistan face violence, forced conversions, and legal discrimination, betraying Jinnah’s vision of equality and freedom of faith
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Religious minorities in Pakistan — including Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, Sikhs, Shia, Parsis, Goan Christians, Ismailis, Hazaras, and others — face enduring challenges spanning legal discrimination, violent persecution, forced conversions, and political marginalisation. This reality stands in sharp contrast to the ideals laid out by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in his historic 11 August 1947 address to the country’s first Constituent Assembly:
Mr Jinnah had told the religious minorities that: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship… You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.” Jinnah’s words promised an inclusive, secular-spirited Pakistan where faith was a personal matter and citizenship the sole basis of equality. Today’s realities paint a very different picture.
Seventy-eight years later, the religious minorities living in Pakistan face harsh realities they might not even have imagined at the time of the country’s creation.
Blasphemy Laws and Mob Violence
The most feared weapon against minorities is the blasphemy law — particularly Section 295-C of the Penal Code — which prescribes death or life imprisonment for alleged insults to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad. Its vagueness allows for rampant misuse.
Topping previous years, 2023 appeared to be the worst year, as nearly 499 cases of blasphemy were registered across the country, according to statistics compiled by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), an independent non-governmental organisation that has been keeping track of blasphemy cases since 1947. Yet rights groups say the actual numbers are much higher, as the majority of cases remain out of their sight.
Allegations often ignite mob fury before facts are established, as in Jaranwala (August 2023), where around 150 houses of Christians and nearly a dozen churches were torched, and in Sargodha (2024), where 73-year-old Christian Lazar Masih was lynched. Jinnah’s voice, echoing across time: “That has nothing to do with the business of the State” — as these senseless killings were taking place.
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Minorities face systemic barriers: biased school curricula that depict non-Muslims as “others,” job quotas that are poorly implemented, and constitutional clauses barring them from top offices like President or Prime Minister
Ahmadis’ Persecution
The Ahmadi community has endured systematic oppression since 1974, when they were declared non-Muslims through the second amendment to the country’s first “unanimous” Constitution, and then in 1984, when the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq’s regime, through Ordinance XX, criminalised their religious expression. Ahmadis cannot publicly pray, publish their beliefs, or even greet someone with “Assalamu Alaikum.”
Many have been murdered, such as Laeeq Cheema’s lynching in April 2025 in Karachi by a violent mob led by Tehreek-e-Labbaik protesters opposing Friday prayers offered by the Ahmadi community at their place of worship. Then, 58-year-old Ahmadi doctor Sheikh Mahmood was shot dead in Sargodha in July 2025. The Ahmadiyya community might have painfully recalled Jinnah’s speech wherein he said: “You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
Minority Women’s Forced Conversions
Hundreds of Hindu, Christian, and Sikh girls, many of whom are underage, are abducted annually, particularly in Sindh province, pressured into converting to Islam, and married off to Muslim men. Sindh’s Bharchundi Sharif shrine is infamous for such cases.
In a recent instance, four Hindu siblings in Sindh were allegedly coerced into conversion by their teachers — a case that drew outrage but no significant legal consequences for the perpetrators, who for decades have been running this so-called campaign to Islamise the Sindhi Hindus. Christian and Hindu communities today question Jinnah’s assurance, now a distant echo: “You are free to go to your temples… or to any other place of worship.”
Institutional Discrimination
The worst form of persecution of religious minorities is institutional discrimination. Minorities face systemic barriers: biased school curricula that depict non-Muslims as “others,” job quotas that are poorly implemented, and constitutional clauses barring them from top offices like President or Prime Minister. Marriage and inheritance laws for Hindus and Christians are incomplete, leaving families vulnerable.
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In the face of such “continued” discrimination by state institutions, Pakistan’s religious minorities are even losing their voice in reminding the “current” Pakistan of Jinnah’s political ideal: “In the course of time… Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims — not in the religious sense… but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”
The plight of Pakistan’s religious minorities — marked by violence, coercion, and systemic exclusion — is a direct betrayal of the founding ideals. Jinnah’s 11 August speech is not just a historical artifact; it is a moral compass. Every instance of mob lynching, every coerced conversion, every barrier to opportunity pushes Pakistan further from that compass point.
Restoring Jinnah’s vision will require more than words. It demands repealing or reforming discriminatory laws, holding perpetrators of sectarian violence accountable, revising educational curricula to promote pluralism, and protecting every citizen’s right to worship — or not worship — freely. Only then can Pakistan truly fulfil the promise about “religious business” made on that August day in 1947, when its founder told the nation: “That has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
Tags: Religious minorities Pakistan, blasphemy law abuse, forced conversions Sindh, Ahmadi persecution, Jinnah vision Pakistan, TFT, Friday Times
Naeem Sahoutara
Categories: The Muslim Times