Although the government announced economic relief for minorities in 2025, advances in security, religious freedom and
LAHORE:
In 2025, Punjab’s record on religious minority rights reflected a complex mix of political ambition and on-the-ground challenges. While the provincial government implemented expanded budgets, social assistance plans, and legal reforms, human rights groups questioned their effectiveness, highlighting persistent gaps between official claims and lived realities. Over the past one year, the Punjab government has significantly increased the budget allocated for minority affairs. Development funds were increased 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 several districts.
Punjab Human Rights and Minority Affairs Minister Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora said that in the education sector, the government has introduced 5,000 scholarships for minority students, quota system for degrees and government jobs and a special portal set up to ensure implementation of the policy. Minority students are also prepared for CSS exams at government expense.
“Under social welfare initiatives, the Minority Support Card project was launched in 2025, through which poor minority families received financial assistance of Rs 10,500 quarterly, along with an additional Rs 15,000 for religious festivals. In 2025, the number of registered families was 50,000, which will increase to 100,000 in 2026. On the legal front, after approval of Hindu Marriage Act 2024, progress was made in 2025 towards the implementation of the Hindu Marriage Act 2017,” Arora said.
However, despite these measures, human rights activists and minority representatives maintained that the reality on the ground remained alarming. HRCP Secretary General Harris Khalique opined that while initiatives such as the Minority Card and legislation related to the establishment of the National Commission for Minorities reflected the State’s awareness of the structural problems faced by religious minorities, symbolic or welfare-oriented measures cannot substitute for effective protection of fundamental rights.
“During 2025, the HRCP documented numerous cases of forced religious conversions, attacks on places of worship, and failures of 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 ensuring equal citizenship for all before the law,” Khalique said.
Peter Jacob, executive director of the Center for Social Justice, revealed that while the Punjab government was taking several measures, there was a need to adopt measures that would ensure sustainable economic development with respect to the fundamental rights of minorities. Prevention of child marriages needs to be ensured and the functioning of Mithaq (Covenant) Centers needs to be improved. At the same time, the government’s claims about protecting sanitation workers also came under scrutiny, when four workers reportedly died from toxic gases while cleaning sewers in Lahore and Gujranwala, prompting civil society to express concern over the lack of safety equipment and machinery.
Minority rights lawyer Samuel Pyara said financial aid alone was insufficient for religious minorities. “Without education, tolerance in curricula and inclusion of minorities in policy-making, no lasting solutions are possible. Trust cannot be restored without timely and strict action against violence and hate-based crimes,” Pyara urged.
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 the government’s claims regarding minority rights.
