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As per the 2017 data, more than 99% of Afghan Sikhs and Hindus have left the country in the last 3 decades. [72] Many of Afghan Hindus and Sikhs have been settled in Germany, France, United States, Australia, India, Belgium, the Netherlands and other nations. [4] The Afghan Hindu population declined to approximately 50 in 2020. [4]
Sikhs in Afghanistan continue to face problems, with the issue of the Sikh custom of cremation figuring prominently. In September 2013, Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a legislative decree, reserving a seat in the National Assembly of Afghanistan for the Hindu and Sikh minority. [45] However this decree was blocked by the parliament.
Afghan Sikh history is considered to stretch back 200 to 500 years. [6] [7] Not all Sikhs are of Punjabi origin however; a small minority include locals whose ancestors adopted Sikhism during Guru Nanak's 15th century expeditions to Kabul. [7] In the 18th century, Hindu Khatri merchants from Punjab settled in Afghanistan and dominated regional ...
Historically, the Southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan had long periods of Hindu-Buddhist predominance. There are about 1,300 Afghan Sikhs [40] [41] and a little over 600 Hindus [42] living in different cities but mostly in Kabul, Jalalabad, and Ghazni. [43] [44] Senator Awtar Singh was the only Sikh in Afghanistan's parliament of 2010. [45]
According to historians Roger Ballard and Harjot Oberoi, Afghan Hindus and Sikhs descend from the members of the country's indigenous Khatri population who resisted the conversion from Buddhism to Islam between 9th and 13th centuries. Later, they aligned themselves to the teachings of Guru Nanak, himself a Khatri and converted to Sikhism.
South Asia was primarily Hindu in ancient times. Buddhism appeared around 500 BCE. [10]Christianity and Islam made an appearance in Kerala during this time period; Saint Thomas is believed to have travelled to Kerala soon after the death of Jesus and converted some people, [11] while the first mosque to be built in India was built during the Islamic prophet Muhammad's lifetime in Kerala. [12]
The Afghan people of all ethnicities are predominantly and traditionally followers of Islam, of whom around 90% are of Sunni and 10% the Shia branch. Other religious minorities include the Afghan Hindus, Afghan Sikhs, Afghan Zoroastrians, Afghan Jews and Afghan Christians. [86]
There were thousands of Sikhs living in Kabul before the Soviet–Afghan War and Afghan Civil War (1992–1996). Many of them fled among the Afghan refugees in the 1980s and 1990s to India and neighboring Pakistan. [1] [2] [3] After the American military involvement and the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001, some of them decided to ...