A small group of Phothohari dialect speaking Hindu and Sikh Punjabis ended up in Delhi as early as in March of 1947, when brutal violence erupted in Rawalpindi and Jhelum districts of West Punjab. That was just a trickle, compared to the flood of refugees arriving in hordes.....

After crossing Chakwal’s major bazaar, the ‘Chhapar Bazaar’, one enters the narrow lanes of the historic Moti Bazaar. There are two accounts associated with the name Moti Bazaar. According to some, the bazaar is named after its founder, an influential trader Mota Singh from ...

KABUL: Afghanistan's once thriving Sikh community is dwindling fast as many choose to leave the country of their birth to escape what they say is growing intolerance and discrimination. Once boasting as many as 100,000 members in the 1990s, . ...

This is how young poet and singer, Amjad Shahzad, responded in verse to the declaration issued by Sufi Mohammad – head of the now banned Tanzeem-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) – that music was now ‘forbidden’. The latter had just been released by the government in...

Fifty-three students and two faculty members from Lahore University of Management Sciences arrived in India via the Wagah border on Monday As Ahsan watched the India-Australia World Cup match on a stranger’s phone on the Delhi Metro, the 20-year-old Pakistani....

Last year, I went to visit the Shaikh Bhirkio shrine in a town by the same name some 30 kilometres from Hyderabad in Sindh. This was my fifth trip to the shrine, which I made for my book Sufis, Saints and Shrines: A Journey into the Sufi landscape of Sindh. ...

On a summery afternoon of June 29, Sikh pilgrims, like every year, gather at the mausoleum of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. With the divine memories of his rule, they commemorate his 176th death anniversary in the eastern city of Lahore .....

After waiting for 70 years, Karanveer Singh, a pilgrim from Hoshiarpur in India, is finally allowed to visit Pakistan. Mixed feelings of nostalgia and reverence overtake him as he pays homage to Maharaja Ranjit Singh on his 176th death anniversary. In the midst of ....

Ever since Pakistan’s tumultuous birth in 1947, much has been said and written about the topic of ethnic nationalism(s) in the country. This has always been a thorny and controversial subject because ...