Migration from India to Pakistan: 1947–1951 and after 1951.

The 1951 Census of Pakistan recorded that;

The largest number of Muslim refugees came from the East Punjab and nearby Rajputana states (Alwar and Bharatpur).

They were a number of 5,783,100 and constituted 80.1% of Pakistan's total refugee population.

This was due to the division of Punjab. The Muslim population of East Punjab was displaced, like the Hindu/Sikh population in West Punjab.

Migration from regions ofIndia was as follows:

East Punjab and nearby Rajputana states 5,783,100 or 80.1%.

Bihar, West Bengal, and Orissa, 700,300 or 9.8%.

UP and Delhi 464,200 or 2.4%.

Gujarat and Bombay, 160,400 or 2.2%.

Bhopal and Hyderabad 95,200 or 1.2%.

Madras and Mysore 18,000 or 0.2%.

So far as their settlement inPakistan is concerned;

97.4% fromEast Punjab and nearby Rajputana states (Alwar and Bharatpur) to West Punjab.

95.9% fromBihar, West Bengal and Orissa to East Pakistan.

95.5% from UP andDelhi to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi and Sind.

97.2% fromBhopal and Hyderabad to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi.

98.9% fromBombay and Gujarat to West Pakistan, largely to Karachi.

98.9% fromMadras and Mysore went to West Pakistan, mainly Karachi.

The Government undertook a census of refugees inWest Punjab in 1948, which displayed their place of origin in India.

Data on the Number of Muslim refugees inWest Punjab from the Districts of East Punjab and Neighboring Regions.

Places Number

Amritsar (East Punjab) 741,444

Jullender (East Punjab) 520,189

Gurdaspur (East Punjab) 499,793

Hoshiarpur (East Punjab) 384,448

Karnal (East Punjab) 306,509

Hissar (East Punjab) 287,479

Ludhiana (East Punjab) 255,864

Ambala (East Punjab) 222,939

Gurgaon (East Punjab) 80,537

Rohtak (East Punjab) 172,640

Delhi 91,185

Kangra (East Punjab) 33,826

United Provinces 28,363

Simla (East Punjab) 11,300

Data on the Number of Muslim refugees inWest Punjab from the Princely states in East Punjab and Rajputana.

Name Number

Patiala (East Punjab) 308,948

Alwar (Rajputana) 191,567

Kapurthala (East Punjab) 172,079

Faridkot (East Punjab) 66,596

Bharatpur (Rajputana) 43,614

Naba (East Punjab) 43,538

Jina (East Punjab) 41,696

Together other small states 39,322

West Punjab received the largest number of refugees, 5,783,100.

It constituted 73.1% of the total Muslim refugee population in Pakistan.

East Bengal received the second largest number of refugees, 699,100.

It constituted 9.7% of the total Muslim refugee population in Pakistan.

66.69% of the refugees in East Bengal originated from West Bengal.

14.50% from Bihar.

11.84% from Assam.

Karachi received 8.5% of the total migrant population.

Sind received 7.6%.

NWFP andBaluchistan received the lowest number of migrants.

NWFP received 51,100 migrants (0.7% of the migrant population).

Baluchistan received 28,000 (0.4% of the migrant population).

A study of the total population inflows and outflows in the districts of the Punjab, using the data provided by the 1931 and 1951 Census has led to an estimate of 1.26 million missing Muslims who left western India but did not reach Pakistan. The corresponding number of missing Hindus/Sikhs along the western border is estimated to be approximately 0.84 million. This puts the total missing people due to Partition-related migration along the Punjab border to around 2.1 million.

The Indian government claimed that 33,000 Hindu and Sikh women were abducted, and the Pakistani government claimed that 50,000 Muslim women were abducted during riots. By 1949, there were governmental claims that 12,000 women had been recovered inIndia and 6,000 in Pakistan. By 1954, there were 20,728 recovered Muslim women and 9,032 Hindu and Sikh women recovered from Pakistan. Most of the Hindu and Sikh women refused to go back to India, fearing that they would never be accepted by their family, a fear mirrored by Muslim women.

Even after the 1951 Census, many Muslim families from India continued migrating to Pakistan throughout the 1950s and even early 1960s. In 1959 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) published a report stating that between the periods of 1951-1956, a number of 650,000 Muslims from India relocated to West Pakistan.

The 1961 Census of Pakistan incorporates a statement suggesting that there had been a migration of 800,000 people from India to Pakistan throughout the previous decade.

Since 1950, after Liaquat-Nehru Pact has been a movement of Muslims from Uttar Pradesh India to Western Pakistan through the Jodhpur-Sindh via Khokhropar. Normally, traffic between India and West Pakistan was controlled by the permit system. But in huge quantity, these Muslims from Uttar Pradesh came without permits to West Pakistan via Khokhropar.

From January 1952 to the end of September, 53,209 Muslim emigrants came via Khokhropar. Most of these probably came from the Uttar Pradesh. In October 1952, up to the 14th, 6,808 came by this route. After that Pakistan became much stricter on allowing entry on the introduction of the passport system. From the 15th of October to the end of October, 1,247 came by this route. From the 1st November, 1,203 came via Khokhropar.

Indian Muslim migration to West Pakistan continued unabated despite the cessation of the permit system between the two countries and the introduction of the passport system between the two countries. A fair number of Muslims crossed into Pakistan from India, via Rajasthan and Sindh daily. Mostly they came from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It is evident that they came in for better chances of employment.

In 1952 the passport system was introduced for travel purposes between the two countries. The legal route was taken by unemployed but educated Indian Muslims seeking better fortunes in Pakistan, however poorer Muslims from India continued to come illegally via the Rajasthan-Sindh border until the 1965 India-Pakistan war when that route was shut. 

After the conclusion of the 1965 war, most Muslims who wanted to come to Pakistan had to come via the India-East Pakistani border. Once reaching Dhaka, most made their way to the final destination-Karachi. However, not all managed to reach West Pakistan from East Pakistan.

The 1951 census in Pakistan recorded 671,000 refugees in East Pakistan, the majority of which came from West Bengal. The rest were from Bihar. By 1961 the numbers reached 850,000. In the aftermath of the riots in Ranchi and Jamshedpur, Biharis continued to migrate to East Pakistan well into the late sixties and added up to around a million. Crude estimates suggest that about 1.5 million Muslims migrated from West Bengal and Bihar to East Bengal in the two decades after partition.

Over on the India-West Pakistan border, in the aftermath of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, 3,500 Muslim families migrated from the Indian part of the Thar Desert to the Pakistani section of the Thar Desert. 400 families were settled in Nagar after the 1965 war and an additional 3000 settled in the Chachro taluka in Sindh province of West Pakistan. The government of Pakistan provided each family with 12 acres of land. According to government records, this land totaled 42,000 acres. According to a November 1995 statement of Riaz Khokhar, the Pakistani High Commissioner in New Delhi, the number of cross-border marriages was 40,000 a year in the 1950s and 1960s.