Who are the Sindhi people?
Sindhis are an ethnolinguistic people of the Indus valley — named after the river Sindhu, shaped by 5,000 years of urban civilization and Sufi thought, and scattered across the world by the Partition of 1947. Around 30 million Sindhis live today in Pakistan, India, and more than 100 other countries.
Sindhis at a glance
- Homeland
- Sindh, along the lower Indus River
- Population
- ~30 million worldwide
- Language
- Sindhi (Indo-Aryan)
- Scripts
- Perso-Arabic and Devanagari
- Religions
- Islam (Pakistan), Hinduism (India), Sikhism, Sufi traditions
- Major centres
- Karachi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Dubai, Hong Kong, Lagos
A people named by a river
The Sanskrit Sindhu became the Persian Hind, the Greek Indos, and eventually the words India and Indus. Sindhis carry the oldest form of that name. Their homeland, Sindh, held Mohenjo-daro — a city of grid streets, covered drains and standardized bricks built around 2500 BCE, when most of the world still lived in villages. Read the long version in Ancient Origins.
Faith without hard edges
Sindh absorbed Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism in turn, and rarely kept them in separate rooms. Sindhi Hindus revere Jhulelal, the river saint, and also read the Guru Granth Sahib; Sindhi Muslims sing the verses of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai at shrines that Hindus have long visited too. That syncretism is the single most distinctive thing about Sindhi religious life.
The rupture of 1947
Partition placed Sindh entirely inside Pakistan. Unlike Punjab and Bengal, Sindh was not divided — so Sindhi Hindus had no piece of the homeland to move to. Between 1947 and 1951 roughly 1.2 to 1.4 million left, most arriving in Bombay, Gujarat, Rajasthan and the refugee township that became Ulhasnagar. The full account is in The Great Exile.
A trading people, then a global one
Long before Partition, Sindhworki merchants from Hyderabad ran shops in Cairo, Malta, Panama, Yokohama and Freetown. When the exile came, those networks became lifelines. Today Sindhi families anchor business communities in Hong Kong, Dubai, Lagos, Jakarta, Madrid, London and New York — see A Borderless Nation.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the Sindhi people?
Sindhis are an ethnolinguistic community originally from Sindh, the region along the lower Indus River in present-day Pakistan. They share the Sindhi language, a Sufi-influenced culture, and a history stretching back to the Indus Valley Civilization. Today roughly 30 million Sindhis live in Pakistan, India, and a global diaspora.
Where do Sindhi people come from?
From Sindh, the province named after the Sindhu (Indus) River. The name 'Sindhi' literally means 'of the Sindhu'. Ancient Sindh was home to Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Are Sindhis Hindu or Muslim?
Both. Most Sindhis in Pakistan are Muslim; most Sindhis in India are Hindu. Sindhi Hindu practice is distinctive — devotion to Jhulelal, reverence for Guru Nanak, and a Sufi-inflected outlook shaped by centuries of shared life in Sindh.
Why do so many Sindhis live outside Sindh?
The 1947 Partition of India left Sindh in Pakistan. Around 1.2–1.4 million Sindhi Hindus left for India and elsewhere, mostly with no plan to return. Sindhi trading families had already built outposts from Gibraltar to Yokohama, and those networks absorbed the exiles.
What language do Sindhis speak?
Sindhi, an Indo-Aryan language with about 30 million speakers. It is written in Perso-Arabic script in Pakistan and in Devanagari (or Perso-Arabic) in India, and is one of India's 22 scheduled languages.