Religious persecution is the systematic oppression of an individual or a group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations or their lack thereof. The tendency of societies or groups within societies to alienate or repress different subcultures is a recurrent theme in human history. Moreover, because a person's religion frequently determines his or her sense of morality, worldview, self-image, attitudes towards others, and overall personal identity to a significant extent, religious differences can be significant cultural, personal, and social factors. Religious persecution may be triggered by religious or antireligious stances (when members of a dominant group denigrate religions other than their own or religion itself where the irreligious are the dominant group) or it may be triggered by the state when it views a particular religious group as a threat to its interests or security. At a societal level, the dehumanization of a particular religious group may readily lead to acts of violence or other forms of persecution. Religious persecution may be the result of societal and/or governmental regulation. Governmental regulation refers to the laws which the government imposes in order to regulate a religion, and societal regulation is discrimination against citizens because they adhere to one or more religions. In many countries, religious persecution has resulted in so much violence that it is considered a human rights problem.
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Religious cleansing in the context of Christian emigration
The phenomenon of large-scale migration of Christians is the main reason why Christians' share of the population has been declining in many countries. Many Muslim countries have witnessed disproportionately high emigration rates among their Christian minorities for several generations. Today, most Middle Eastern people in the United States are Christians, and the majority of Arabs living outside the Arab World are Arab Christians.
Push factors motivating Christians to emigrate include religious discrimination, persecution, and cleansing. Pull factors include prospects of upward mobility as well as joining relatives abroad.
Religious cleansing in the context of Sikhism in Pakistan
Sikhism is a minority religion in Pakistan with a population of around 16,000 Sikhs, accounting for 0.01% of the national population. Although Sikhs form a small community in Pakistan today, Sikhism has an extensive heritage and history in the country. Sikhism originated from what is now Punjab, Pakistan in the 15th century. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the Sikh community had become a major political power in Punjab, with Sikh leader maharaja Ranjit Singh founding the Sikh Empire which had its capital in Lahore, today the second-largest city in Pakistan. Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is located in Pakistani Punjab; moreover, Kartarpur Sahib, the place where Guru Nanak died and was subsequently buried, is also located in the same province.
According to the 1941 census, the Sikh population comprised roughly 1.67 million persons or 6.1 percent of the total population in the region that would ultimately become Pakistan, notably concentrated in West Punjab, within the contemporary province of Punjab, Pakistan, where the Sikh population stood at roughly 1.52 million persons or 8.8 percent of the total population. By 1947, it is estimated that the Sikh population had increased to over 2 million persons in the region which became Pakistan with significant populations existing in the largest cities in the Punjab such as Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad (then Lyallpur). With communal violence and religious cleansing accompanying the Partition of British India at the time, the vast majority departed the region en masse, primarily migrating eastward to the region of Punjab that would fall on the eastern side of the Radcliffe Line and Delhi, with corresponding mass migration of Muslims into Pakistan from India.