The population in the Tharparkar district in the Sind province of West Pakistan was 80% Hindu and 20% Muslim at the time of independence in 1947. During the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965 and 1971, the Hindu upper castes and their retainers fled to India, this led to a massive demographic shift in the district. In 1978 India gave citizenship to 55,000 Pakistanis. By the time of the 1998 census of Pakistan, Muslims made up 64.4% of the population and Hindus 35.6% of the population in Tharparkar.