International

70 years after Pakistan-India split, Sikhs search for home

Radesh Singh, a Pakistani Sikh, talks at a temple in Peshawar, Pakistan. Singh's said that his grandfather was just 11 years old when he left his "simple village" in India's Punjab province to move to Peshawar, in the far northwest of the country on the border with Afghanistan. Seventy years after Partition of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan’s Sikhs say neither India nor Pakistan feels like home for a young generation searching for peace and security elsewhere.   | Photo Credit: AP

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Seventy years after the Indian subcontinent was partitioned by the departing British, Pakistan’s Sikhs say neither India nor Pakistan feels like home for a young generation searching for peace and security elsewhere.

Sikhs form a tiny minority in Pakistan and most live in the conservative northwest that borders Afghanistan. For centuries they lived in peace with their Muslim countrymen until jihad and Islamic radicalism turned their neighbors against them.

Relations with Hindus, meanwhile, broke down in 1984 when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.

Some Pakistani Sikhs say they are eyed with suspicion in both countries, and that young people now want to move away from the subcontinent entirely.

Printable version | Aug 14, 2017 1:47:06 PM | http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/70-years-after-pakistan-india-split-sikhs-search-for-home/article19490402.ece