Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan
Tolerant, resilient, and peace-loving — The Proud Community.
A sizable number of refugees have joined family members in India, Germany, England and Canada. The U.S. has a small community of Hindu and Sikh Afghans totaling about 8,000 people, mostly living on the east coast.
We have lost a peaceful pre-war Afghanistan that was a time when people were innocent, when there wasn't much enmity. There was little religious intolerance. Hindus and Muslims were friends.
They were a God-fearing people, living in peace. People have lost the culture they had for centuries. Something has been lost in this war, and it cannot be found again.
Afghan Hindus and Sikhs lived all over Afghanistan and were mostly prosperous merchants, dealing in textiles, dry fruits, pharmaceuticals, currency exchange and Indian merchandise. Although some small number of intellectuals worked for Afghan institutions in leading positions, the majority were in business and finance. When it came to finance, the Hindus and Sikhs were the backbone of the country.
Sikhs and Hindus have done well, and made themselves a very visible minority. Kandahar had more Hindus; Jalalabad, which had once been controlled by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had a large population of Sikhs. The capital city of Kabul had a big temple (Asamai Mandir) which had a Hindu school and taught religious scriptures and Hindi. In those days Hindus were very safe because they were treated with respect and honor.
Generally, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus lived in mutual respect and friendship.
Real problems of the Hindus and Sikhs began when the leftists and fundamentalists came to the forefront after the collapse of the Dr. Najib government in 1992. So as Afghanistan slowly disintegrated, the Hindu and Sikh population escaped the country. Many Hindus and Sikhs fled to safety in India, Europe, Canada and the U.S.
Indeed, contrary to the oversimplified concept of all Hindus being rich traders, there were many struggling, who had no way of paying passage out of the war-torn Afghanistan.
Over the past 40 years, the Hindu community had to flee, one by one, from their beloved homeland of Afghanistan where they were born and brought up, and now scattered into the far corners of the world. Thousands of Hindu Afghans have seen their loved ones, their community and their way of life evaporate before their very eyes, and virtually all the 50,000 Hindus have fled.
Their properties have been usurped by the terrorists and warlords.
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