Punjabi Hindus in the context of "Damodar Gulati"

The Punjabis (Punjabi: پنجابی (Shahmukhi); ਪੰਜਾਬੀ (Gurmukhi); romanised as Pañjābī) are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group associated with the Punjab region, comprising areas of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. They generally speak Standard Punjabi or various Punjabi dialects on both sides.

Majority of the overall Punjabi population adheres to Islam with significant minorities practicing Sikhism and Hinduism and smaller minorities practicing Christianity. However, the religious demographics significantly vary when viewed from Pakistani and Indian sides, respectively, with over 95 percent of the Punjabi population from Pakistan being Muslim, with a small minority of Christians and Hindus and an even smaller minority of Sikhs. Over 57 percent of the population of the Indian state of Punjab is Sikh and over 38 percent Hindu with a small minority of Muslims and Christians.

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.

Punjabi Christians are ethnic Punjabis who adhere to Christianity. They are mainly found in the Pakistani province of Punjab, forming the largest religious minority. They are one of the four main ethnoreligious communities of the Punjab region with the others being Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. Punjabi Christians are traditionally divided into various castes, and are largely descendants of Hindus who converted to Christianity during the British Raj in colonial India. About 90 to 95% of Punjabi Christians are Dalits from the Chuhra caste who converted from Hinduism.

Today, the Punjabi Christians reside in the Punjab region, which includes the countries of Pakistan and India; they are almost equally divided between Catholicism and Protestantism. With an estimated three million living in the Pakistani province of Punjab, they account for 75 percent of the country's total Christian population. They are the second-largest religious community in the province behind Muslims, comprising approximately 1.5 to 2.8 percent of its population. In India, a significant Punjabi Christian community is also found in the Indian state of Punjab. With a population of roughly 350,000, they comprise 1.26 percent of the state's population according to official Indian government figures.

Nanakpanthi (Gurmukhi: ਨਾਨਕਪੰਥੀ; nānakapathī, "follower of the way of life of Nanak"), also known as Nanakshahi, is a syncretist movement which follows Guru Nanak (1469–1539), the founder of Sikhism, but without necessarily following his successors among the Sikh gurus nor formally identifying as being Sikh in terms of religious affiliation, as is the case with numerous Punjabi Hindus and Sindhi Hindus. "Nanakpanthi" as a term is often used to refer to non-Khalsa Sikhs, some of whom may belong to Udasi orders but others are affiliated with other heterodoxical, non-Khalsa sects. In the broadest sense of the term, it simply refers to a follower of Guru Nanak's teachings and practices.