Association of Religious Activities and Social Interaction of Christian and Sikh Minorities with Muslims in Pakistan

Abstract

Faith in any religion takes significant importance in a country where intolerance and extremism are high. Acceptance and tolerance are keys for adjustment in religious activities and are pertinent for smooth running and dynamism. In contrast to it, intolerance and non-acceptance in religious activities is a burning issue with respect to adjustment problems faced by minorities in a country. This study aims to explore the adjustment problems faced by minorities, especially by Christians and Sikhs for the performance of their religious activities in district Peshawar and Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The prime aim and goal of the study is to illustrate the ways minorities are targeted (Christians and Sikhs) and have to adjust with Muslim majorities for the performance of their religious activities, along with making efforts to strengthen various modes of social interaction within themselves in the targeted area. For the measurement of variable, five-level Likert scale was used, and the chi-square test was applied to find out the association level of an independent variable with the dependent variable. Based on the Sekaran table, a total of 372 respondents were selected from the local minorities to analyse the adjustment problems faced by minorities in the performance of their religious activities. The findings of the study reveal that Christians and Sikhs usually celebrate their religious festivals and rituals publicly which highlights the strong social interaction between majorities and minorities in the target area. But still, slight issues of disturbances with their religious rituals and festivals were found in some places of the target area.

Keywords

• religious activities
• social interaction
• adjustment problem
• minorities