Despite CAA’s Citizenship Promise, Pakistani Hindus in Rajasthan Have Suffered a Harrowing Ordeal After Pahalgam

Jodhpur: One of the decisions that the Union government cleared almost immediately after the Pahalgam massacre was that every Pakistani national in India under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme had to leave the country in two days.

The direction came as a knife in the back to the roughly 10,000 Pakistani Hindus who had fled persecution, currently live in India and are awaiting long-term visas.

Sixty-nine-year-old Hindu Singh Sodha of Jodhpur is president of the Seemanth Lok Sangathan, a non-governmental organisation that he founded in 1998 for the rights and betterment of Hindus migrating from Pakistan. It is Sodha’s organisation that quotes the ‘10,000’ number. "We are already a community fleeing religion-based persecution, what fate do you think we will face [upon return]?” Sodha asked.

At an earlier time, speaking with this correspondent, a Pakistani Hindu immigrant had recalled that Hindus have been trickling into Jodhpur and other places since the Partition. "But the volume increased since 1992 after the demolition of Babri Masjid and subsequent riots. What Hindus do to Muslims here, they do the same to us," he had said. 

This religious persecution of Pakistan's Hindus and their uncertainty in India now is particularly jarring if you consider that the only known reason for the massacre of several of the 26 persons killed in Pahalgam is that they were not Muslim.

A security official stands guard on the banks of the deserted Dal Lake, following a bilateral understanding between India and Pakistan, in Srinagar, Thursday May 15, 2025. The city has witnessed a decrease in footfall of visitors after last month's terror attack in Pahalgam. Photo: PTI.

Sumit Meghwal (name changed) is a 42-year-old from Chamu village in Jodhpur. He said, “They regularly harassed us, we did not get work, they treated us like we were filthy, and called us kafir. The biggest problem is keeping our women safe. Once a girl turns 11-12 years of age, it's impossible to protect them.” 

He claimed that many girls and boys have had to face sexual abuse, forcing many families to migrate.  

“Even a sparrow doesn't leave her nest. That was our land, the land of our ancestors. It was not an easy decision to make,” he added.

They now number close to 25,000 in Rajasthan, according to Sodha’s NGO. As mentioned earlier, the NGO’s records show that 10,000 of them are without long-term visas.

Most of the immigrant Hindus living in Jodhpur are not yet citizens of India. Multiple Union governments have failed to grant them citizenships. Some have waited for decades and are in the dark as to why. This, despite the Citizenship Amendment Act brought by the current government. 

On April 24 this year, panicked at the order to leave, Sodha emailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He wrote in Hindi:

“India considers such people as a part of unpartitioned India and allows them to live here free from religious persecution. The Citizenship Act of 1955 and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act of 2019 contain special provisions to offer citizenship to such people, which reflect the affirmative policies of the Indian government.”

Small huts where immigrant Pakistani Hindu labourers live. Photo: Parul Abrol

Sodha made a request that he and his community not be sent back. 

“We welcome every step taken in the interest of national security, but I request that this order (asking Pakistanis to leave) not be applied to those who have been forced to migrate to India from Pakistan because of religious persecution."

“I’d like to remind you that those persecuted and discriminated against because of their religion have been migrating to India since the time of Partition relying on the affirmative policies of state and union governments of India.

“India considers such people as a part of unpartitioned India and allows them to live here free from religious persecution.

“I also believe that the Indian government did not intend to treat these people – seeking asylum in India from Pakistani persecution and discrimination – as Pakistanis and send them back. But I am receiving distress calls from the districts, towns, and villages of Rajasthan. These people are terrified because local officials are calling their guarantors and local relatives and instructing them to send these immigrants back to Pakistan.”

Sodha said that while he was writing to Modi, the phones rang endlessly at the offices of the Seemanth Lok Sangathan in Jodhpur. One of his volunteers, Tej (name changed), 40, is also an immigrant from Mirpurkhaas in Pakistan. He said, “I got a call from the local police station [on April 24] and they told me to get a list of names of all the immigrants in my area and to bring them all to the station. It was happening at all the police stations in Jodhpur. People, scared and confused, were made to sit in the police station for hours.” 

Sodha met local senior policemen and bureaucrats on April 24 itself. Over decades, many in Rajasthan and New Delhi have gotten to know Sodha and they frantically communicated their worries to him. 

Eventually, Sodha says, the Foreigners Registration Office took heed and agreed to wait for a formal directive from New Delhi. 

Sodha, nervous about decisions in a fast-moving conflict-like situation between New Delhi and Islamabad, released his email to Modi to print journalists on April 25, and to electronic media on April 24. 

The external affairs ministry responded after Sodha’s email gained news and social media traction. Late on April 24, the ministry clarified that Pakistanis in India with long-term visas could stay.

But Sodha said that about 10,000 Hindus who have arrived from Pakistan have been applying for LTVs for many years, but not even one has been granted one in the past two years. These visas are given by the Union home ministry, which has neither rejected nor granted an LTV in this time, he said. The government’s order made no specific exception or mention of immigrant Hindus from Pakistan.

Men point to a fence, near Jodhpur's water reservoir, where immigrant Pakistani Hindu labourers live in a makeshift colony. Photo: Parul Abrol

In Jodhpur, Tej said, police got into action on April 24 after having informally heard of or read about the ordering out of Pakistanis, and called or visited immigrant Hindu families telling them to leave at once. The Wire has not been able to corroborate this with police. 

Some of the immigrants were made to sit throughout the day at the Foreign Registration Office which refused to accept applications requesting that they be allowed to stay on.

Daulat (name changed), 56, shares that they were informally told to pack their bags and leave.

On April 25, Union home minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting, after which it was said that immigrants from Pakistan who have applied for LTVs could also stay in India.

This was an opportunity for Sodha to swing into action. By the original diktat, all Pakistanis in India had to leave by April 27. The government, especially at the state level, does not work on the weekends. April 27 was Sunday. Sodha’s network swung into action and urged immigrant Hindus to apply for LTVs on April 26. 

But what of the 2,000-3,000 people who are in India on a pilgrim visa? The Rajasthan home department needed to give them a ‘No Objection Certificate’ to stay on or even apply for an LTV. Several government servants issued certificates to enable pilgrims to stay on longer.

In Rajasthan, it is an accepted truth that ‘real’ Partition happened after the 1971 war. An electric fence was erected at the border after that. Before this, people used to come and go at will. There are many Hindus in Pakistan with relatives on both sides of the fence. Even now, marriages happen regardless of the border – among Hindus and Muslims, both.

“It is a human rights issue. If refugee status is given, there can then be a legal framework around a receiving mechanism,” Sodha said.

Parul Abrol has been a journalist for 23 years and writes on conflict and development issues.

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