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The law related to compulsory registration of marriage and resolution of family disputes in Pakistan was enacted in 1961 under the name of the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance. It was supposed to be legislated for all citizens of the country at once but here the largest minority, the Hindu community, was kept deprived of this legal right for decades.

Finally, the Parliament passed the Hindu Marriage Act in 2017, whose scope was kept limited to the federal capital of Islamabad, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan but not in Sindh because a similar law already existed in the province.

There, the provincial assembly approved the Sindh Hindu Marriage (Amendment) Act in 2018 and a year later, in 2019, its rules were made, leading to its implementation in the province. The Balochistan government adopted the Sindh rules in 2019 and announced implementation of the Hindu Marriage Act. After the Act was passed in Punjab and Islamabad, it took another seven years for the rules to be formulated there but its formal implementation started there last year. However, the Hindu community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is still waiting for the implementation of this law despite the passage of more than eight years.

Social activist Pushpa Kumari, a former member of the Sindh Human Rights Commission and a member of the National Lobbying Delegation (NLD) for Minorities, which played a key role in the passage of the Hindu Marriage Act, says that the majority of women in Hindu communities are illiterate and do not know either the law or their rights. That’s why Hindu women are constantly at the mercy of social injustice. Registration of marriages under this law will at least provide them with protection in case of domestic disputes.

“Unfortunately, the Hindu Marriage Act does not seem to be fully implemented in most parts of the country,” she says.

According to the Hindu Marriage Act 2017, marriage ceremonies can be performed according to the local traditions or customs of one party, for which the free consent of both the bride and groom and the presence of two adult witnesses are required.

The law includes a marriage form to be filled by the registrar (registered Pandit). The bride, groom and witnesses will sign this form, while the registrar, as an authorised officer, will record the signatures.

Under the law, marriage registration will be required within 15 days and it is the responsibility of the marriage registrar (registered Pandit), who will provide a copy of the marriage form to the parties concerned and ensure its entry in the official records.

The law states that the government will appoint a marriage registrar through an official gazette notification, which may be one or more for the convenience of the Hindu population living in a district or area. According to the procedure, after the registration of the marriage, a computerised marriage certificate or National Data Registration Authority (NADRA) form is issued by the union council (UC). This means that the role of the marriage registrar or Pandit in the Hindu marriage law is the same as that of the Nikah Khawan (Nikah registrar) in a Muslim marriage.

Tando Allahyar-based social worker Babulal Bheel says the Hindu marriage law was implemented first in Sindh, but in many areas, no Pandit had been registered yet. In some union councils, even if a Pandit goes for registration, the registration staff gets confused due to lack of awareness.

"As a result, in many Hindu-majority areas, marriages are not registered under this law."

The population of Union Council No. 14 of Hyderabad city is about 30,000, including 25,000 Muslims and more than 5,000 Hindus. There are 15 marriage halls registered here, meaning that there is one marriage registrar for about 1,500 Muslim population while not a single Pandit for all Hindu marriages.

UC Secretary Muhammad Zubair confirms that no one has approached him yet for Hindu marriage or Pandit registration.

Thirty-five-year-old Tilok Chand, a resident of village Donbaro in tehsil Chhachro of Tharparkar, is a Pandit from Meghwar, the largest Hindu community living here. His job is to conduct marriages and perform other religious rituals.

Chand says he came to know in October last year (2025) that the Hindu Marriage Act had come into force in the province, for which he (the Pandit) will now have to register.

“When I reached the UC office to register, the secretary was unaware of this law. I told him that Pandits are being registered in Umerkot, that is why I have come, but he refused to register me. After a month and a half, I was registered on the request of the UC chairman,” says Tilok Chand.

Awareness campaigns are conducted all over the world before the implementation of new laws and facilities are provided to the public for their implementation but nothing like this happened here.

Pandit Rana Ram, a resident of Rajar Colony in Mirpur Khas city, was the first person in this district to register himself as a marriage registrar. He said he had to pay Rs5,000 as a fee for his registration. The municipal officer clearly said if he wanted to register himself, he would have to pay this fee in any case.

It should be noted that the government fee for the registration of Muslim marriage priests in various union councils of the same district ranges from Rs800 to Rs1,000.

Chandan Malahi, a member of National Lobbying Delegation (NLD) for Minority Rights, and coordinator of the National Human Rights Commission in Sindh, says that there are some obstacles in the full implementation of the law. Local bodies in Sindh are autonomous in setting their own fees and they have done that for Pandits and marriages in various UCs at their own pace.

He says the second major problem is that while there is a uniform form of marriage certificate for Muslim citizens across the country while the government has not prepared any such form or certificate for Hindu marriages. Every Pandit makes his own marriage certificate, which may lead to some problems.

“Last week, our delegation met with provincial additional secretary for local government, Aamir Hussain Panohar, in which the issues of uniform registration fees and uniform marriage certificate were put before him. He assured that both our problems would be resolved under the new rules. Officers will also be trained in this regard, for which the Hindu Marriage Act has already been included in the curriculum of the Local Government Academy,” says Malahi.

Krishan Sharma, chairman of the Pakistan Hindu Temple Management Committee, a federal body established to maintain temples, says that full implementation of the marriage law is very important. In this regard, he is not only in touch with the authorities, but all his colleagues are also running awareness campaigns in their respective communities. He seems very optimistic, but agrees that the pace of implementation of the Marriage Act is certainly slow, but the situation is constantly improving.

Krishan Sharma says the Hindu Marriage Act is applicable in all four provinces, but unfortunately, rules have not been made in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa yet. He, along with other colleagues, also met with provincial ministers and the speaker of the provincial assembly in Peshawar.

According to him, the proposed rules were previously a football match between different provincial ministries. Now it has been revealed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa law ministry has found a flaw in this act, for which it has proposed an amendment.

He says that in Sindh and Balochistan, the responsibility of registering Pandits and marriages has been given to the Local Government Department. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa law ministry believes that the law has made the 'government' responsible for registration and the government means ‘cabinet’.

Therefore, the registration of marriages and Pandits should either be done by the provincial cabinet or the law should be amended to replace the word 'government' with 'local government'.

Haroon Sarab Diyal, a leader of the Hindu community and social activist in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, says that dozens of cases are pending in the provincial courts, which cannot be decided due to the lack of rules for this law.

“This law was made to protect our daughters-in-law but due to the lack of rules, we are not able to register our marriages despite the passage of years. Therefore, it is necessary to approve the rules immediately in the province.”

In Punjab, the implementation of this law has begun but the procedure is very complicated. Unlike Sindh, here, the responsibility of registering Pandits lies with the Human Rights and Minority Affairs Department while the registration of marriages is the job of the local bodies.

According to the Punjab Hindu Marriage Rules 2025, the Pandit will apply to the deputy commissioner for his registration who will send it to the Human Rights and Minority Affairs Department after verification. The same department will issue a registration certificate to the Pandit.

The Pandit (Marriage Registrar) will be responsible for issuing and maintaining records of the marriage certificate. He will submit the marriage certificate to the UC concerned from where the NADRA certificate will be issued.

Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab has the largest Hindu population in the province, consisting of 176,416 people. Pandit Devaji Ram, a resident of this district, says that so far only five Pandits have been registered in the entire district and registration of marriages has not started yet.

Hindu marriage was implemented in Balochistan six years ago where the Sindh rules have been adopted, but Pandits (marriage registrars) or marriage registration has not started yet in the entire province. However, NLD member Shezan William from Quetta says things have been streamlined. Hopefully, marriage registration will start here soon.

The Hindu community, consisting of five million people, is the largest religious minority in Pakistan and the married daughters of this community are not given a share in the family inheritance and the property of their deceased father. Simply because in the country, the same centuries-old outdated system is prevalent that does not consider daughters as heirs.

The Hindu Law of Inheritance (Amendment) Act 1929 is one of those laws of the British Raj that were implemented in Pakistan after independence without any amendment. The country's courts not only have no objection to it but they are also setting new precedents in the 'light' of old decisions.

After the 18th Amendment, these matters are the responsibility of the provinces. The largest representation of the Hindus in parliament is in Sindh, but there is no such law there that can give daughters a share in their father's property.

Momal Bheel is a resident of tehsil Islamkot of Tharparkar. She is the third of five daughters of her father, Ladhu Bheel. They are all married and live with their respective in-laws. Momal says that her parents’ house and her father’s 180 acres of arid land are in village Malho Bheel. When her father died, her uncle’s sons threw her (Momal’s) mother out of the house and occupied the entire property.

“We (five sisters) asked for our share, but they refused. Mother is forced to live in our younger sister’s house. We complained to the assistant commissioner Islamkot as well as the tehsildar but they told us to decide the matter mutually or we would have to visit to look into the matter. When our cousins came to know about the case, they sold our father’s land. Now we have no choice but to remain silent,” laments Momal.

Kewal Menghwar was a resident of the village of Warwai, which was part of the Thar Coal Project. Jiyan Bai is his only child. When Kewal’s wife died, he married his daughter, kept his daughter and son-in-law in his house and died some time later.

iyan Bai says that when the coal company evacuated the village, it promised to compensate the victims for their houses and lands. As soon as this news came, her paternal cousins ordered her to go to her in-laws’ village with her husband.

“I said that I am the sole heir of my father’s property and I will take the compensation for the house. At this, they (the cousins) filed fake cases against my husband, evicted us and took the compensation for our house themselves. Now I can’t do anything.”

Tharkparkar District Council Vice Chairperson Kamla Bheel confirms that dozens of such cases are pending in the courts of Tharparkar, especially in the coal project area, which daughters have filed to claim their inheritance rights.

“They are facing endless trials. People also come to us with complaints, but we cannot do anything because there is no Hindu inheritance law,” she says

Bhagwan Das Bheel, a lawyer, informs Lok Sujag that in Sindh, the Hindu Marriage Act 2016 recognises some rights of women, including marriage and divorce, but there is no comprehensive inheritance law.

“In the cases involving Hindu women, family courts usually give decisions based on traditional Hindu principles or British-era law, which go in favour of men,” he adds.

Bhagwan Das Bheel refers to a judgment of last year (March 6) in which the Sindh High Court quashed the order of the district court under which a married Hindu woman was declared a legitimate sharer of her deceased father’s property. The high court passed the said order on the petition of Shrimati Saraswati Devi, who had challenged the decision of the lower court. The petitioner maintained that the survivors of her husband Khem Chand included three daughters, two sons and a widow (herself). Under the Hindu law, married daughters are not entitled to share in their father’s property during their mother’s lifetime. Two daughters did not object, while the third daughter objected, so the trial court gave her a share contrary to Hindu law. The petitioner's daughter argued that she was entitled to her rightful share in the inheritance as the daughter of the late Khem Chand. She said the country's Constitution guarantees equality without discrimination on the basis of sex, caste, religion or race, and any law that contradicts the Constitution is considered null and void.

“The trial court's decision is in accordance with the constitutional principles that protect the rights of women and prohibit gender discrimination.”

The lawyer for the defendant (daughter) cited the precedent of the Indian Supreme Court's decision under which daughters have been given equal inheritance rights as sons. However, a single bench of the Sindh High Court ruled that the district court's decision was not correct because laws and customs applicable to the Hindu community in Pakistan should be interpreted within the Pakistani legal framework. Therefore, the inheritance certificate will be issued only in the name of the deceased's sons, widow and grandchildren, excluding married daughters.

Punjab is still under the Hindu Succession Act of 1929, while Sindh sometimes takes help from the Indian Hindu Succession Act of 1956, sometimes the Hindu Succession Act of 1929 and the Hindu Women's Right to Property Act of 1937.

In the Saraswati Devi case, the high court had made it clear that the trial court had misapplied the Mitakshara principle in the decision. Under Mitakshara, daughters are not entitled to share in the father's property during the mother's lifetime, their right to inheritance arises only after the mother's death.

The Sindh High Court also gave a similar decision on the petition of Ratna Devi, widow of former caretaker Chief Justice Rana Bhagwandas. His daughter Mrs Anita Kumari was deprived of her father's inheritance while the widow (the petitioner) and her two sons were declared entitled to the property.

In the sub-continent, Hindu law of inheritance was derived from two major cultural and traditional principles called 'Mitakshara' and 'Dayabhaga'. The Dayabhaga system was prevalent in Bengal and adjoining areas, while the Mitakshara was prevalent in the northern and eastern parts of India and the present-day Pakistani territories. Under this, the daughter was not considered a sharer in the family property. Only the widow could get a share after the death of her husband, and that too was limited. Both the above systems, which are based on patriarchal agricultural social traditions, deprive daughters of inheritance. India replaced these traditional rules with the Succession Act in 2005, but in Pakistan, they are still being ruled on by outdated customs.

Advocate Bhagwan Das explains the above traditions as follows: “In the Hindu community, marriages are not done within blood relations. Therefore, the dowry is declared as the daughter's share so that the inherited land and house are not divided.”

Last month, a meeting of the Sindh Assembly Parliamentary Working Group (Minority Parliamentary Caucus) was held under the chairmanship of Giyanchand Essrani, and Hindu inheritance laws were also discussed along with Christian marriage.

The meeting was attended by Special Assistant to the Chief Minister Dr Sham Sundar Advani, Deputy Speaker Anthony Naveed, Rana Hamir Singh, minority members of the assembly, the secretary Minority Affairs Department and other officials, as well as members of the National Lobbying Delegation (NLD) for Minority Rights.

The participants said that due to the vague Hindu inheritance laws, daughters are being abused in the distribution of property. During the discussion, several suggestions came up, on which Giyanchand Essrani directed the law department to prepare a legal draft and present it in the next meeting so that progress could be made towards legislation.

NLD member Krishan Sharma, who is also the chairman of the Pakistan Hindu Temple Management Committee, says that neighbouring India, which has the largest Hindu population in the world, has had a comprehensive inheritance law since 2005, which declares sons and daughters as equal sharers of the father’s property.

Sharma adds: “We want our daughters to have equal rights. We are working on a legal draft that will be presented in the assembly after consulting Hindu panchayats and legal experts. Hopefully, our daughters will get good news soon”.

**People of Tando Muhammad Khan district are divided into two parts despite living within the same district. The reason is not a political boundary but a canal. The Guni (Phuleli) canal, which originates from the Kotri Barrage, passes through the middle of the district. However, due to the absence of a bridge at RD 41/42, the populations on both sides of the canal have effectively been cut off from each other.**

According to local residents, not only daily movement but also access to basic facilities has become a major issue. Schools for boys and girls, graveyards, and other essential places are located on the opposite side of the canal, and women, elderly people, and students all have to use boats to cross.

Due to the lack of a nearby bridge, people are forced to travel around 4.5 kilometers to take an alternative route, which is not feasible for most residents.

Recently, in Village Haji Ghulam Hussain Laghari, Deh Aari Pota, Union Council Saeed Mato, Bulri Shah Karim taluka, the body of 83-year-old Muhammad Parel Laghari was also transported across the canal by boat for burial in the graveyard.

Locals say that a bridge was approved here two years ago. Construction began and iron rods were installed on both sides of the canal, but work was later stopped and the contractor disappeared. Even today, the iron rods standing along the canal banks serve as a symbol of unfulfilled government promises.

Different candidates from the Somro family have been elected seven times from this area on the Pakistan Peoples Party ticket. At present, Khurram Karim Somro is the MPA, while Syed Naveed Qamar has been elected MNA nine consecutive times from the National Assembly constituency. However, none of them has addressed this serious issue.

A protest was held in Tharparkar against the killing of a pregnant deer by illegal hunters. The protesters blocked traffic at Dano Stop, causing disruption. They demanded strict action to protect wildlife and ensure the survival of wild animals.

This song sung by Thar folk singer Mai Dhai is very popular.

'Ankharli Pharo Ke Mahare Gharan Naan Padharo Thana Joey Joey Jeevan' (My eyes are fluttering. Come to my house. I will get life by seeing you).

But most of those who sing this song do not know what language these lyrics are in. Did you know?

This is a folk song in the Dhatki language, which is considered a dialect of the Thar Desert spread across Pakistan and India. It is one of the old languages of the Hakra Valley, which is close to Marwari and Sindhi.

Bharumal Amrani, a well-known Thar writer and researcher on the Dhatki language, says the Thar Desert has two parts, one was called Dhat and the other was called Rajputana or Rajasthan. At the time of the Partition, the Dhat area became a part of Pakistan and Rajasthan became a part of India. Thus, in Pakistan, this language is called Dhatki (some people also call it Sodhki) and in India, Rajasthani or Marwari.

Dhatki is the mother tongue of millions of people. The boundaries of Dhat include the Thar area of the present day Umerkot tehsil, Mithi tehsil of Tharparkar, Islamkot, Chhachro, Dahli and the northern desert villages of Nangarparkar. In addition, Dhatki is also spoken in Badin, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Tando Allahyar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Matiari and various areas of Hyderabad.

According to the research of Dr Abdul Jabbar Junejo and linguist Dr Hidayat Prem, 75 percent of the people of Tharparkar have Dhatki as their mother tongue and 97 per cent can speak and understand it well. Fifty-four percent of the people of Umerkot district have Dhatki as their mother tongue and more than 80 per cent understand and speak it. The members of the Silawat community who were already settled in Hyderabad and those who came to Karachi and Hyderabad from Jaisalmer after the Partition also speak Dhatki.

According to the Encyclopedia Sindhiana, compiled by the Sindhi Language Authority, Dhatki is a dialect of Sindhi, also known as Dhati or Thari.

Encyclopedia Sindhiana says that Tharparkar is physically divided into seven parts, which are called Dhat, Samruti, Wat, Wingi, Parkar, Khayar and Kanthi. A sub-dialect of Dhatki is spoken in each part.

The Thakur, Sonara, Mehraj, Vaniya, Sothar, Meghwar, Rahma, Nehri, Sameja, Bheel, Bijir, Kambhar, Mangaria, Aresar, Mallah and many other Muslim and Hindu communities living in Thar speak this language.

In the Dhatki dialect, a ‘o’ is often added to the noun, for example, Somar is addressed as Somario, Wahid as Wahidio. Many speakers of this language are associated with education and employment in different cities of the province and speak standard Sindhi well.

Contrary to the Sindh Language Authority, educationist and writer Prof Noor Ahmed Janjhi considers Dhatki a complete language.

According to him, "Some people are mistaken that Dhatki is a dialect while it is a complete language on its own. It is true that its alphabets are not fully prevalent but a lot of work is being done in this regard”.

The ancient writings of Dhatki are found in the Devanagari script. In the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, it is still written in Devanagari; however, in Sindh, it is being written in the Arabic script.

Work on an individual level for the development of Dhatki began in the 1980s. When the folk songs of this language reached other regions, poetry progressed and writing began. An alphabet was established from the Sindhi and Arabic scripts, which includes 34 letters. These do not include about 11 Arabic letters and about four Sindhi letters.

Mirpurkhas social worker Poonam Paschal says the missionary institution Institute of Applied Linguistics not only prepared courses for elementary education in the Dhatki language but also had the Holy Bible translated into it.

There is also a translation of the Holy Quran in Dhatki by Haji Muhammad Siddiq Rahimoon. The first story was written by Haji Muhammad Kambhar and Shah Latif’s poetry (Shah Jo Risalo) was translated into this language by the famous Sindhi writer Luqman Laghari, also known as Ustad Laghari. A Dhatki translation of Sheikh Ayaz’s poetry has also been published.

Apart from these translations, several books have been published in Dhatki, including Bharomal Amrani's books Chatar Boli Charan (Analysis of the Poetry of the Charan Community), Dharti Gay Geet, Geet Sanwan Mann Bhavan Ja, and Saroop Chand Shad’s a collection of poems. Further publication work is also underway.

Like the major languages of the world, Dhatki also has a vast vocabulary, which is confirmed by the dictionaries of the desert language compiled across the border. Hamir Nam-Mala, Dingal Kosh, Hekarthi Kosh and Udharam Kosh are dictionaries in which hundreds of Dhatki words have been recorded.

In Sindh, Abdul Karim Azad Samejo has compiled a Dhatki dictionary. In the Sindhi dictionaries, compiled under the supervision of Dr Nabi Bakhsh Baloch, the founding chairman of the Sindhi dictionaries, Dhatki words are also found under Thari words. Renowned poet, writer and intellectual Bharumal Amrani says that Dhatki has a rich repertoire of poetry, especially folk songs, couplets and surthas. Now, Baet, Ghazal and Nazm are also being written.

Syed Misri Shah and Khalifa Nabi Bakhsh Qasim are considered classical poets, Bagh Ali Shauq (Rajasthan) and Bankidas Charan are well-known names.

Among the modern poets, Saroop Chand Shad, Sai Dad Sand, Faiz Muhammad Firaqi, Piyaro Showani, Bharumal Amrani, Chitun Rohlai, Mircho Vartio, Mahendra Mastano, Ramchand Rahmi and others are prominent.

When it comes to Dhatki folk literature, Doro and Charmi etc are famous folk songs. Many folktales, including Sadowant Saranga, Dhol Maruyal and Odhe Hothal, are literary masterpieces of this language.

Dhatki poetry was introduced to the world by Thari artistes. Mai Bhagi, Mai Dhai, Shafi Faqir, Murad Faqir, Budhu Faqir, Sadiq Faqir, Barkat Faqir, Bhagro Nacheez, Karim Faqir, Rajab Faqir and other singers and others are popular across the borders of the country.

In Thar, the Bhagats (bhajan singers) often sing poetry from Hindi, Sindhi, Marwari and other languages in the Dhatki style or devotional singing.

According to the research of Dr Abdul Jabbar Junejo, about 70 percent of the folk literature of Dhatki is influenced by the neighbouring desert languages, in which not only the characters are the same but the creators are also the same people. The role of Charan, Bhat, Bhan and Maganhar among these tribes, who are the guardians of art, is highly commendable.

At present, Radio Pakistan broadcasts two programmes in Dhatki from Mithi while Mithi FM Radio also plays local songs and runs programmes.

Sohail Sangi, a journalist from Thar, says that Dhatki is one of the languages in the world that is part of the oral tradition, i.e. it is spoken. The migration of people from Thar for education and employment is also affecting the language here, but now work is being done on its writing.

He believes that very few languages have such a vast literature, poetry and folk literature as Dhatki. “There have been some attempts to preserve it through cassettes and videos in the past, but a lot of work remains to be done,” he adds.

Professor Noor Ahmed Janjhi is hopeful that Dhatki is now being used commonly in schools, colleges and digital media. “People are uploading a lot of content in their own language on Facebook, TikTok and other platforms on both sides of the border, and the trend of adopting mother tongue is also increasing among the youth.”

Dr Phuloo Sundar Menghwar, who is doing a PhD in Dhatki language and folk literature, says that some people like Bharumal Amrani, Amar Raisingh Rajput and Professor Noor Ahmed Janjhi are working on the preservation and documentation of Dhatki on their own, but nothing like this is happening at the official and institutional level.

“Articles 251 and 28 of the Constitution guarantee the protection of local cultures and languages, but so far government resources have not been spent here. In Thar, missionary institutions had compiled textbooks to teach children up to the first and second grades, but nothing like this has happened in government schools.”

Menghwar suggests that there should be a separate government institution for indigenous languages or that some budget be allocated for the development of local languages in the Sindh Language Authority, which can also digitize the literature of languages like Dhatki for future generations.