On 6 January 2015, Sudhanshu Trivedi, a spokesperson for an Indian political party B-J-P, said on a television interview that “when Pakistan was created there were 24% Hindus in Pakistan. Now there are less than 1% Hindus…what happened to the rest? Obviously they were converted.” Mr. Trivedi has got his numbers wrong. It was both West Pakistan and East Pakistan in 1947 that had 24% Hindus, with the vast majority living in the east. After 1971 and the secession of East Pakistan, the Hindu population would obviously drop since the east would no longer be part of Pakistan’s population census. But Mr. Trivedi is not an exception when it comes to making wild accusations about Pakistan. A vast majority of our neighbours to the east and even some gullible Pakistanis seem to think that the Hindu population of Pakistan has indeed been completely wiped out since 1947. This fortunately is untrue. Let’s look at this from a rational and factual point of view. To get a better understanding, I would advise you to refer your attention to the graph entitled “Population of Hindus in Pakistan”.
