| Total population | |
|---|---|
| c. 2,850,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Pakistan | 2,460,000[1][2] |
 India | 350,000[3] |
 United Kingdom | 20,000 (est.)[4] |
| Languages | |
| Punjabi (various dialects),Urdu,English,Hindi | |
| Religion | |
 Christianity (Catholicism andProtestantism) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
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Punjabi Christians are adherents ofChristianity who identifyethnically,linguistically,culturally, andgenealogically asPunjabis. They are mainly found in the Pakistaniprovince of Punjab, forming the largest religious minority. They are one of the four main ethnoreligious communities of thePunjab region with the others beingMuslims,Sikhs andHindus.[5] Punjabi Christians are traditionally divided into variouscastes,[5] and are largely descendants ofHindus whoconverted to Christianity during theBritish Raj incolonial India.[6]
Today, the Punjabi Christians reside in thePunjab region, which includes the countries of Pakistan and India; they are almost equally divided betweenCatholicism andProtestantism.[2][7] With an estimated three million living in thePakistani province of Punjab, they account for 75 percent of thecountry's total Christian population.[2][8][9] They are the second-largest religious community in the province behind Muslims, comprising approximately 1.5 to 2.8 percent of its population.[10][11] In India, a significant Punjabi Christian community is also found in theIndian state of Punjab. With a population of roughly 350,000, they comprise 1.26 percent of the state's population according to officialIndian government figures.[3]
Armenians have been visiting the Indian subcontinent, especially the Punjab region, for trading purposes since the early part of the2nd millennium.[12] There are sparse records existing that document Armenians settling in the region prior to the reign of Akbar.[12] In the mid-16th century, Akbar invited the Armenian merchant Hakobjan, who was based out of Lahore to settle in Agra, and asked him to convince other Armenians based in Punjab to also move to the imperial city.[12] By the 1570s, there was a regular presence of Armenian merchants in the city of Lahore, whom specialized in high-value and low-quantity goods with Persia and Central Asia.[12] In the early 16th century, there was an Armenian colony established in Lahore.[13] There was an Armenian quarter of the city, enclosed by a wall of the city fort.[13] There were interactions between the Armenians and Jesuits, as recorded in the letters left by the Jesuits.[13] The Armenian archbishop died on his way to Lahore via a Persian land-route in 1599, with his belongings being looted.[13] Some of the looted books of the deceased Armenian archbishop came into the possession of the Jesuit Emmanuel Pinheiro, which upset the Armenians.[13] In a letter dating to 6 September 1604, Jerome Xavier records that the Armenians in Lahore could practice their Christian faith freely due to a royal decree (firman) issued by Akbar.[13] Emmanuel Pinheiro, writing on 12 August 1609, states that the Mughal governor threatened to exterminate the Christian religion from the city of Lahore, spooking the Armenians, causing some of them to flee the city, as the Armenians did not have the desire to become religious martyrs.[13] The Jesuits attempted to convince the Armenians of Lahore to convert to Catholicism.[13]Mirza Iskandar, the father ofMirza Zulqarnain, left behind a will bequeathing a sum of 2,000 rupees to the church and Christians of Lahore.[13] Additionally, a sum of 600 rupees was for a Christian cemetery of Lahore.[13]
The Armenians were hesitant to get on the bad side of the Jesuits, as the Jesuits were close with the Mughal viceroy and held political sway as a result.[13]François Valentyn recorded that on 10 December 1711 when a mission of theDutch East India Company led byJohn Jeshua Kettler reached Lahore, they were greeted by an Armenian bishop and some Jesuits.[13] The existence of an Armenian bishop in Lahore in 1711 points to the existence of an established church or chapel in the city to cater to a large congregation.[13]
In 1735, the Jesuit Emmanuel de Figueiredo wrote that the elite Mughal military units stationed in Lahore consisted of many Christian members in its officer-classes.[13]
After the secondDurrani Afghan invasion of Punjab,Ahmad Shah Durrani is said to have taken all of the Christian gunners who were in the service ofMir Mannu, theviceroy ofLahore province, back to Kabul.[13] In 1757, during the third Durrani invasion of Punjab, the Armenian quarter of the city of Lahore still existed, as Armenian andGeorgian soldiers who were employed in the Durrani military protected it from the Afghans, sparing it and its inhabitants from being pillaged and destroyed like much of the surrounding city.[13] An Armenian is said to have cast the famousZamzama gun in Lahore in 1761.[13]
Jesuits arrived in the region in the 16th century during theMughal period but their nascent mission was temporarily shut-down during the reign of emperorShah Jahan.[14] The Jesuit mission in the Indian subcontinent began in 1545, which was marked by the arrival ofFrancis Xavier inGoa.[15] In 1578, Akbar requested for two Jesuits to explain the Christian religion to him at his court inFatehpur Sikri.[15]Antoni de Montserrat, whom had arrived in the Indian subcontinent several years earlier in 1574, andRodolfo Acquaviva, were selected for the task.[15] The pair left Goa in November 1579 whilst being accompanied by a Persian convert named Henriquez, who would act as their translator at the Mughal court, and the group were also chaperoned by a member of Akbar's court.[15] After three months of travel, the two Jesuits and their group arrived at Akbar's court, where they were warmly received and would spend much time in-dialogue with court officials and members of other religions.[15] In 1581, Montserrat accompanied Akbar on a military campaign to the northwestern regions, including Punjab, reaching as far as Kabul, with Montserrat producing an early map of the northwestern region of the subcontinent.[15] In 1595,Bento de Góis travelled to Lahore and Agra as a companion ofJerome Xavier, paying a visit to Akbar's court.[15]
In 1606, Jerome Xavier was in Lahore during the execution of the fifth Sikh guru,Guru Arjan, with Xavier recording an eyewitness testimony of the incident.[16] Jerome Xavier, in appreciation of the courage of Guru Arjan, wrote back toLisbon, that Guru Arjan suffered and was tormented.[17]
According to Ilay Cooper, Christian murals were painted in a Sedari pavilion located on the North Wall of Lahore Fort during the reign of Jahangir in circa 1618.[18]
From the mid-19th to early 20th centuries, a number of Christian texts were translated and made widely available in thePunjabi language, such as theNew Testament,the Gospel, and texts relating toJesus.[19] Ninety-five percent of Punjabi Christians areconverts to Christianity fromHinduism, accepting their new faith during theBritish Raj incolonial India.[6] By 1870, there were only a few thousand Christians in thePunjab Province of colonial India; the 1880s saw the growth of the Presbyterian Church from 660 to 10,615baptized Christians.[20] Continuedevangelism efforts byChristian missionaries, especially those from theChurch of Scotland andChurch Missionary Society in India led to nearly half a million Punjabi Christians by the 1930s.[20] In the Gujranwala, Sialkot and Sheikhupura districts of the Punjab Province in colonial India, Christians came to constitute 7% of the total population.[20]
TheAll India Conference of Indian Christians held its first meeting on 28 December 1914 and was led byRaja Sir Harnam Singh ofKapurthala, who was the president of the National Missionary Society (NMS); the first AICIC General Secretary was B.L. Rallia Ram ofLahore.[21][22] The meeting of the All India Conference of Indian Christians in Lahore in December 1922, which had a large attendance of Punjabis, resolved that the clergymen of the Church in India should be drawn from the ranks of Indians, rather than foreigners.[23] The AICIC also stated that Indian Christians would not tolerate any discrimination based on race or skin colour.[23]S. K. Datta of Lahore, who served as the principal ofForman Christian College in then colonial India, became the president of the All India Conference of Indian Christians, representing the Indian Christian community at theSecond Round Table Conference, where he agreed withMahatma Gandhi's views on minorities and Depressed Classes.[24]
In June 1947, the total population of Punjabi Christians in thePunjab Province of colonial India was recorded at 511,299. Of these, 450,344 were based inWest Punjab and 60,955 were inEast Punjab.[9] After thepartition of British India, most Punjabi Christians remained in place, with the majority finding themselves within the borders of Pakistan and the rest in independent India.[25] Those Christians who were serving in official government positions and the civil service were given the choice of opting for either of the countries.[26] The many British-era churches and cathedrals dotting the various cities of Punjab were overtaken by Punjabi Christians, and they also continued the legacy of maintaining Christian educational institutions and healthcare facilities which had remained nationally renowned.[27]
According to Selva J. Raj, the Punjabi Christian identity is an amalgamation of the Christian faith along with anethnic affinity for theculture of Punjab, which includes the Punjabi language,Punjabi cuisine, the various customs and traditions of Punjab, and the way of life of the Punjabi people in general.[28]
As a result of living close to Punjabis of other faiths for generations, there have been notable cross-cultural influences; theUrdu language for instance, partlydue to its evolution under Muslim presence in Punjab and otherwise due to its official adoption by the British Raj later on,[29] features heavily in the theology andliterature of Punjabi Christians.[25] The earliest Christian scriptures which were published by British missionaries in the Punjab included those written inRoman Urdu.[29]
As of 1981,Lahore was the city with the largest Christian population in Pakistan, numbering over 200,000. The cities ofFaisalabad, Sialkot andSheikhupura are home to sizable communities.[30] In rural Punjab, many Christians belong to theDalit Christian community, specifically thechuhra community,[31] whose ancestors hadconverted to Christianity fromHinduism during the colonial era to escape a discriminatorycaste system in which they were regardeduntouchables.[30][10][6][32][9] According toDawn, compared to the more affluent Pakistani Christian communities ofAnglo-Indians andGoan Catholics, who at the time of independence lived in the major cities, were proficient inEnglish, and maintained upper-class British cultural mannerisms, the chuhras reflected the lower socioeconomic end of Pakistan; they were predominately labourers and peasants who were unskilled, did not own land, were neither highly educated or wealthy, and lived in the villages of central Punjab.[9] Despite having embraced Christianity, they stillfaced discrimination at some level due to their caste, skin colour, and economic status.[9]Peter C. Phan states that these chuhras form the vast majority of Pakistani Christians.[6] There continue to be several Christian-majority villages and settlements throughout Pakistani Punjab, such as Clarkabad and Martinpur.[30] The Christians belonging to the lower-income strata of Pakistani society face a number of social and economic issues, such asbonded labour.[9][10] Because of their impoverishment, many of them are forced to work in menial labour jobs, such as cleaners and sweepers; in Punjab alone, an estimated 80 percent of all sanitation workers belong to the Christian community.[10] As a result of urbanisation, employment-driven migration into larger cities and greater educational opportunities, an increasing number of Punjabi Christians have been able to gain a college education and acquire socially respectable positions in recent times.[27]
In theIslamabad Capital Territory, the Christian community dwells in large numbers in Francis Colony, a legally-recognised residential area situated in sector F-7. Others live in slums (katchi abadis) located on government-owned land, to where they have shifted fromNarowal,Shakargarh, Sheikhupura,Kasur, Faisalabad,Sahiwal and Sialkot in Punjab.[9] InAzad Kashmir, there are close to 5,000 Punjabi Christians who live in the Bhimber, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Poonch and Bagh districts. Their roots lie mostly inRawalpindi andSialkot.[33] Most of the 50,000 or so Christians inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa speakPunjabi, and had ancestors who settled in this area, but have gradually becomePashtunized over time due to cultural assimilation.[34][30][9] The largest Christian population is inPeshawar,[30] and there are a few hundred Christians inSwat.[9] The districts forming the erstwhiletribal areas along the Afghan frontier have been home to thousands of Christians since the early 20th century; according to the1998 census, there were 1,500 Christians in South Waziristan, 2,000 in North Waziristan, 500 in Bajaur, 700 in Mohmand and 1,500 inKhyber District, all of whose ancestors migrated from Punjab.[9] They primarily work in nursing, teaching, cleaning or in clerical jobs.[9]
InSindh, there have been Punjabi Christians settled for several decades; they include farmers, landowners, agricultural workers and other labourers engaged in blue collar work in the rural countryside, with Catholic villages existing inHyderabad, Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpur Khas.[35][9] The metropolis ofKarachi is home to the largest population, with over 20,000 Punjabi Christians living in the neighbourhood ofEssa Nagri alone.[9] InBalochistan, the majority of the province's 80,000 to 100,000 Christians are Punjabis.[9]
InGilgit-Baltistan, Christians from Punjab are present across all of the ten districts, and are involved in janitorial work in both the public and private sectors.[32]
In India, the majority of Punjabi Christians belong to the Dalit community of chuhras[36] and belong to the lower-income working class.[31][3] At just over one percent of Punjab's population, their main population centres include theGurdaspur,Amritsar,Firozpur,Jalandhar andLudhiana districts.[19][37] There have historically been Punjabi Christian communities inJammu,[31]Delhi,[31][38] and inChandigarh, where the Christians are also known asIsai and belong to various sects. The Punjabi Christians in Chandigarh often bear the surnameMasih.[39] Likewise inHaryana, some of the Christians settled there are Punjabis and are also commonly referred to as theIsai.[40] Both Chandigarh and Haryana were a part of Punjab up until 1966, when they were carved out as a separateunion territory and state respectively.[39][40]
As a result of immigration, a large ChristianPunjabi diaspora exists today.[9] There are significant Punjabi Christian communities in Canada (particularlyToronto),[9][41] the United States (particularlyPhiladelphia),[9] theMiddle East,[42] theUnited Kingdom,[25] as well as other parts ofEurope andAustralia.[9] In the UK, Christian Punjabis are concentrated in the cities ofLondon, Bedford, Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford and Wolverhampton among others.[28] One of the most prominent early Punjabi Christians in the UK wasDuleep Singh, who first landed in the country in 1854, he was the Sikh Prince kidnapped by British at young age and converted without his knowing. He left Christianity at a later age and converted back to his Sikh beliefs.[28]
Some who have sought to resettle in theWest arrived inThailand,Sri Lanka andMalaysia as their first destinations, where they filed applications with theUNHCR.[9] Many individuals fled due to unfavorable conditions for Christians in Pakistan, resulting in concerns that such a haphazard diaspora led toirregular immigration and sex trafficking in areas such asChina.[43][44] Among other motives for emigration, Christians have left Pakistan foreconomic reasons, greater opportunities to attain higher education or theological training, desire to join relatives already settled abroad, and to escape religious discrimination/persecution.[9]
A study published inNature analyzed the DNA of Punjabi Christians residing in the city ofLahore and found that they "appeared genetically more associated to south Asian, particularly Indian populations like Tamil, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh than rest of global populations."[45]
Punjab is the center of Pakistan's small Christian community—an estimated 3 million in the Muslim nation of 175 million...
In that way, their good Pope died, overwhelmed by the sufferings, torments and dishonours. – Jerome Xavier, Letter to Gasper Fernandes in Lisbon, On the execution of Guru Arjan
In December 1921, the Punjabi-dominated meetings of the All India Conference of Indian Christians in Lahore was more cautious in their proposals but less cautious in the rationale they offered. They passed resolutions, first indicating that the Protestant missions 'should be completely merged in the Indian Church and that in future all Foreign Missionaries should be related to it', and then urging the missions in the meantime to 'appoint Indians of ability and character on an increasing scale'. Among their supporting arguments were that 'Indian Christians are not going to put up with colour and racial distinctions', that foreign missionaries could not solve the community's problems 'because of lack of sympathy', that the missions were too divided by denominational differences to bring about a united Indian Church, and that 'In these days Indians look up to Indians and do not pay much attention to foreigners.'
Most Punjabi Christians remained on the Pakistani side. Emigration especially to U.K. has taken a tremendous toll. In U.K. they have sunk into the general mass of the British irreligious. On the Indian side, Punjabi Christians found how much they had been influenced by Islam.
Christians are the only community who migrated here from the Punjab, mostly from Rawalpindi and Sialkot.
As Punjabi Christians in India, the vast majority of whom are from Chuhra backgrounds, reaffirm their Dalit identity along with their Christian identity..
The Punjabi of Delhi mainly belong to four main religions, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.
The Christians of Chandigarh, also known as Isai, have a number of sects... There are no accepted titles used by the community, but many Christian migrants from Punjab use Massey with their names.
The Christians in Haryana are numerically small and are popularly known as Issai. Most of them who setded in Haryana are not the original inhabitants of this place. They have migrated to this region from Bengal, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh... Therefore, their food habits, language, festivals, religious faith etc. reflect the impact of the place of their original inhabitation. For example, the Christians of Kerala speak Malayalam; of Karnataka, Kannada; and those from Punjab, Punjabi.
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