Hindu facial tattoos, a tradition at risk of disappearing in Pakistan

▲ In the age of social media, young women consider themselves unattractive with geometric designs on their faces, arms, and hands. Moving away from their villages also contributes to the loss of this centuries-old practice. Photo: Afp

AFP

La Jornada Newspaper, Sunday, August 24, 2025, p. 3

Umerkot. After mixing charcoal with a few drops of goat's milk, 60-year-old Basran Jogi turns his needle toward his guests of the day: two Pakistani girls who have come to get their first traditional tattoo.

In Hindu villages on Pakistan's eastern border, near India, tattoo artists have been using needles to draw dotted lines, circles, and other geometric designs on the faces, arms, and hands of young girls for centuries.

“First, we draw two straight lines between the eyebrows,” Jogi explains. “And then we gently insert the needle between those two lines until the blood appears,” he continues.

Pooja, 6, grimaces as the dots begin to form circles and triangles on her forehead and chin. Her older sister, Champa, 7, grows impatient: “I’m ready too!”

This once common sight has become increasingly rare in recent years as more Hindu families—barely 2 percent of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's 255 million people—move to live in the city.

“The last generation”

“These tattoos make us identifiable in a crowd,” says Durga Prem, a 20-year-old computer engineering student from Badin, a city in the southern province of Sindh, where the Hindu minority is concentrated.

"Our generation doesn't like them anymore. In the age of social media, young women avoid getting facial tattoos because they believe such designs would make them look different and unattractive," she told AFP.

Her sister Mumta also refused to get the tattoos of the dots that adorn the faces of her mother and two grandmothers.

But "if we had stayed in the village, we would probably have those tattoos on our faces or arms," ​​he says.

In a country where non-Muslim minorities feel discriminated against in many areas, "we cannot force our daughters to continue" getting tattoos, says Hindu rights advocate Mukesh Meghwar.

"It's their choice. But sadly, we may be the last generation to see tattoos on women's faces, necks, hands, and arms," ​​she adds.

In his opinion, some of the comments from other Pakistanis are also "unfavorable," since some schools of Islam condemn tattoos.

This would mean the end of a centuries-old practice, deeply rooted in the culture, according to anthropologists. So much so that most Hindus interviewed by AFP defend the tattoos, but admit they cannot explain their meaning.

“To ward off evil spirits”

"These symbols are part of the culture of peoples originating from the Indus civilization," during the Bronze Age, says anthropologist Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro.

“These 'marks' were traditionally used to distinguish members of a community” and to “ward off evil spirits,” he describes.

For Jogi, tattooing is above all “a passion” for beautifying women’s faces.

“They’re not done for any particular reason, it’s a practice that’s been around for a long time,” he explains, while carefully inspecting Pooja and Champa’s newly tattooed faces.

Now the dots that adorn their foreheads are a deep black and then they will turn dark green and remain until their last days.

Basran Jogi and Jamna Kolhi can attest to this.

“These tattoos were drawn for me by a childhood friend who died a few years ago,” says Kolhi, 40.

"When I see them, I think of her and our youth. It's a memory that will last a lifetime," he says.