Hindkowan in the context of "Hazarewal"

Hinduism in Afghanistan is practiced by a very small minority of Afghans, about 30–40 individuals as of 2021, who live mostly in the cities of Kabul and Jalalabad. Afghan Hindus are ethnically Pashtun, Hindkowan (Hindki), Punjabi, or Sindhi and primarily speak Dari, Pashto, Hindko, Punjabi, Sindhi, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu).

Before the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, the Afghan people were multi-religious. Religious persecution, discrimination, and religious conversions of Hindus in Afghanistan perpetrated by Muslims, has caused the Afghan Hindus, along with Buddhist and Sikh population, to dwindle from Afghanistan.

Hindko (ہندکو, romanized: Hindko, IPA: [ˈɦɪndkoː]) is a cover term for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northwestern regions of Punjab.

The name "Hindko" means "the Indian language" or "language of Hind", and refers to the Indo-Aryan speech forms spoken in the northern Indian subcontinent, in contrast to the neighbouring Pashto, an Iranic language spoken by the Pashtun people. An alternative local name for this language group is Hindki. A speaker of Hindko may be referred to as Hindki, Hindkun, or Hindkowan (Hindkuwan).

Sikhism in Afghanistan in the contemporary era is limited to small populations, primarily in major cities, with the largest numbers of Afghan Sikhs living in Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kabul, and to a lesser extent in Kandahar and Khost. Sikhs have been the most prevalent non-Muslim minority in Afghanistan, and despite the many political changes in recent Afghan history, governments and political groups have generally not indulged in openly discriminating against the Sikh minority; however, their status have been severely impacted amid the country's conflict since 1978.

The origin of the Sikh community in Afghanistan has broadly two streams, including indigenous Pashto and Dari speakers, descendants of converts to the teaching of the Sikhism’s founder Guru Nanak during his trip to Kabul around 1520. The second stream derive from the later Sikh Empire as it pushed westward, establishing trading routes for Sikh merchants into Kandahar and Kabul; this group speak Hindko, a dialect of Punjabi. Due to this mixed ancestry, Afghan Sikhs are from various ethnolinguistic backgrounds including Pashtun, Hindkowan or Punjabi.

Mansehra District (Urdu, Hindko: ضلع مانسہرہ) is a district in the Hazara Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northern Pakistan. The city of Mansehra serves as the headquarters of the district. The district has a Hindkowan majority, with a small Pashtun and Kohistani population.

Mansehra was established as an independent district in 1976. It was previously a tehsil within the broader Hazara District. In 1993, a former subdivision of Mansehra, Battagram, was separated as an independent district. Similarly, in 2011, another subdivision of Mansehra, Kala Dhaka, was separated which is now known as Torghar District.