Minority rights remain systemically fragile

Despite the government announcing economic relief for minorities in 2025, progress on security, religious freedom, and

LAHORE:

In 2025, Punjab's record on religious minority rights reflected a complex mix of policy ambition and ground-level challenges. While the provincial government rolled out expanded budgets, welfare schemes, and legal reforms, human rights groups questioned their effectiveness, highlighting persistent gaps between official claims and lived realities. During the past one year, the Punjab government significantly increased the budget allocated for minority affairs. Development funds were enhanced for the repair and restoration of minority places of worship including churches, temples, and gurdwaras and permission was also granted to celebrate minority religious festivals at the official level in various districts.

Punjab's Minister for Human Rights and Minority Affairs, Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora, stated that in the education sector the government introduced 5,000 scholarships for minority students, a quota system for degrees and government jobs and a special portal established to ensure implementation of the policy. Minority students were also being prepared for the CSS examinations at government expense.

"Under welfare initiatives, the Minority Support Card project was launched in 2025, through which poor minority families were given financial assistance of Rs10,500 on a quarterly basis, along with an additional Rs15,000 on religious festivals. In 2025, the number of registered families was 50,000, which is to be increased to 100,000 in 2026. On the legal front, following the approval of the Sikh Marriage Act 2024, progress was made in 2025 toward implementing the Hindu Marriage Act 2017," claimed Arora.

However, despite these measures, human rights activists and minority representatives maintained that ground realities remained alarming. HRCP Secretary General Harris Khalique opined that while initiatives like the Minority Card and legislation related to the establishment of the National Commission for Minorities reflected the state's awareness of the structural issues faced by religious minorities, symbolic or welfare-oriented measures cannot substitute for effective protection of fundamental rights.

"During 2025, HRCP documented numerous cases of forced religious conversions, attacks on places of worship, and failures by law enforcement agencies to provide effective protection and justice. The true test of the state's commitment lies in preventing abuses against minorities, holding perpetrators accountable, and guaranteeing equal citizenship to all under the law," said Khalique.

Peter Jacob, Executive Director of the Centre for Social Justice, revealed that while the Punjab government was taking several steps, there was a need for measures that ensured sustainable economic development with respect to minorities' fundamental rights. Preventing child marriages must be ensured, and the performance of Mithaq (Covenant) Centres needs improvement. Concurrently, government claims regarding the protection of sanitary workers also came under scrutiny, when four workers reportedly died from toxic gas while cleaning sewers in Lahore and Gujranwala, prompting civil society to express concern over the lack of safety kits and machinery.

Minority rights lawyer Samuel Pyara stated that financial assistance alone was insufficient for religious minorities. "Without education, tolerance in curricula, and inclusion of minorities in policymaking, durable solutions are not possible. Trust cannot be restored without timely and strict action against violence and hate-based crimes," urged Pyara.

Civil society and human rights organizations have urged the government to make protection, legal reforms, independent grievance mechanisms, and genuine representation of minority communities the focus of policies in 2026. Transparent, consistent, and inclusive implementation rather than charity-based measures is the true benchmark for evaluating government claims regarding minority rights.