Lhore & Amritsar were among top 10 cities of British India where Muslims & Sikhs, Hindus were minority

Lhore & Amritsar were among top 10 cities of British India where Muslims & Sikhs, Hindus were minority

My father was born at Amritsar around 1920 & died in Lhore in 1998, he often mentioned glimses of twin city culture in Lhore & Amritsar. Today many people will not believe that before 1947 both Delhi & Karachi were not on the top in population but Calcutta & Bomby were the bigest cities and after Madras (now Chunai) and Hyderabad (Now in Talnagana province) Lhore was the 5th largest city, Delhi was 7th and Amritsar was 9th and Luckhnow was 10th. Even Kanpur was bigger than Luckhnow . Amritsar was bigger than Karachi, Dhakka, a fact normally ignored by many. Left intlectual Abdullah Malik lived in Kotcha Chabak Swaraan (walled city Lhore) and his wife was from Amritsar. Rauf Malik , his younger brother (born 1926) mentioned it in his autobiograpghy. 

For refrence of Top 10 cities click here 

As par 1941 census, District Lahore had 60.6% Muslim population & in Amritsar Muslim Punjabis were the single largest community with 46.5%. Similarly Sikhs were 36.1% in Amritsar & 18.3% in Lhore. So in Amritsar both Sikhs & Muslims were more than 82% ad in Lhore both communities were more than 78%.. On the other hand Hindus were 14.9% in Lhore and 13.8% in Amritsar. 

Top 23 cities in British India

1. Calcutta, 2. Bombay, 3. Madras, 4. Hyderabad, 5. Lahore, 6. Ahmedabad, 7. Delhi, 8. Kanpur, 9. Amritsar, 10. Lucknow. The cities that came next included 11. Howrah, 12. Karachi, 13. Nagpur, 14. Agra, 15. Benares, 16. Allahabad, 17. Poona, 18. Bangalore, 19. Madura(i), 20. Dacca, 21. Solapur, 22. Srinagar, 23. Indore.