Genocide of Ahmadis: Pakistan’s population up 16% in six years, The number of Ahmadis down by 15% in this period

Between 1998 and 2023, the total population of Ahmadis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province of Pakistan diminished by 98 per cent. Those left behind were less than a thousand, just 951 to be exact, and most of them may have vanished when the next census happens. According to the 1998 census, there were 42,500 Ahmadis in KP. However, in the census figures released a couple of months ago, it was found that the number of Ahmadis had dwindled at an alarming rate.

This has happened because of both official and unofficial persecution (no less than a planned genocide) of the Ahmadis in Pakistan,  which has been going on right since the nation was born in August 1947. In the initial years, Ahmadis were tolerated to some degree, mainly because they had sided with Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League. The Ahmadis counted themselves among Muslims, the rich and powerful members of the community backed Jinnah wholeheartedly.

In 1998, in Balochistan, over 10,000 Ahmadis lived in the province but in the recent census conducted officially, only 557 Ahmadis were found living in the province. During six years from 2017 to 2023, Balochistan’s population has increased by 18 per cent. However, at least 74 per cent of the entire Ahmadi population of the province had disappeared in 2023, compared to 2017. Similarly, using figures from the 2023 census, Balochistan has seen its Ahmadi population diminish by 94% compared to the 1998 census figures.

It needs to be mentioned that galloping demographic growth is a major worry for Pakistani planners nowadays. Not that they are doing anything much to control it as radicalisation of the entire society means birth control measures are frowned upon by most people. Between 2017 and 2023, the overall population of Pakistan rose from 208 million to 240 million, a massive increase of 16%. It is thus said by some experts that the population bomb is not ticking but has already exploded in Pakistan. 

In the same period, a sharp decline in the number of Ahmadis in Pakistan has been recorded, and this decline has been estimated at 15% per annum; this translates to a 2.53 percent decrease every year from 2017 to 2023. This also means that while the population in Pakistan has been going north, that of the Ahmadis, all over Pakistan, has steadily been going south.

In the more populous provinces of Punjab and Sindh, the census reports a minuscule increase in the overall Ahmadi population mainly due to migrations from elsewhere in the country,  according to The Friday Times.

The report says that the onslaught on Ahmadis has been ruthless, and there are three main dimensions to these systematic attacks. One is the official policy of constitutional persecution which dates back to the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto era from 1974. The second is legal discrimination through Ordinance XX and the third is the action of informal extremist religious groups. Radical organisations like the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Tehreek Labaik Pakistan (TLP) have been particularly harsh against the Ahmadis during the past few years.

The Ahmadis were systematically targeted during the regime of Zulfikar Ai Bhutto when they were barred by law from being called Muslims. Bhutto’s bête noire General Zia ul Haq ensured the former’s “judicial murder’’ but they agreed on one thing, the systematic elimination of the Ahmadis. What Bhutto had started, Zia ul Haq took further and farther.

It is now widely believed that the Second Amendment, coupled with Ordinance XX of 1984, will ensure the obliteration of the Ahmadi community from Pakistan soon. Such legal frameworks are bound to disband and annihilate any targeted community over time according to most human rights experts. Incidentally, Zafrullah Khan, the first foreign minister of Pakistan under Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was an Ahmadi, and the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, Abdus Salam, a Nobel winner, was also an Ahmadi.

A couple of months ago, some scholars and Faculty members at a university in Islamabad planned an event to honour Dr Abdus Salam. However, the university authorities withdrew permission to hold the seminar as some radical elements opposed it. The initiative had been taken by renowned author and physicist Pervez Hoodbho but some viral posts on social media by radicals targeting the organisers and declaring the late Dr Salam  a heretic were enough to bury the idea.

Pakistan’s first foreign minister Zafarullah Khan was considered to be very close to Jinnah. It is believed that he was one of the few persons whom the ‘Qaid i Azam’ held in high esteem, both for his sharp intellect and his contribution to the creation of Pakistan. According to some accounts, in March 1958, Zafarullah Khan performed Umrah and visited the shrine of Prophet Muhammad in Medina. During his visit, he met with King Saud of Saudi Arabia, and stayed at the Royal Palace as a personal guest of the King. 

Since then, the legal and social status of Ahmadis has fallen steeply. They are not regarded as Muslims in Pakistan today and run a real risk of being lynched if they claim to be.

According to the UN, the definition of genocide includes an “intent to destroy, whole or in part, a religious group”. It also includes policies of “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The drive to eradicate  Ahmadis therefore meets the definition of genocide. 

The physical element of genocide is fulfilled through repetitive attacks on Ahmadi persons, property, and places of worship. Recently, during Ramzan, the Ahmadis were forbidden from fasting, and on Eid ul Zuha, they were prevented from making the mandatory sacrifice. If the present State and religious policies continue, the Ahmadi community will vanish from Pakistan altogether.