After the end of the British occupation of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, Pakistan was declared an independent and sovereign nation and millions of Indian Muslims began immigrating there. Some Muslims who moved to Pakistan were refugees, or Muhajirs, who fled pogroms in India. Muhajirs continued to face difficulties in Pakista, though. Soon after Pakistan gained independence, riots in response to the partition of India and Pakistan and forced migration killed as many as one million civilians on both sides of the border. Additionally, the leadership of prime minister Ayub Khan beginning in the 1950s shifted political and economic power away from Muslim refugees and reduced their job opportunities in government. Khan's predecessor, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was an ethnic Sindhi who made Sindhi the only official language of Pakistan in 1972, which caused rioting in Muslim communities throughout the state of Sindhi. Since the 1970s, however, Muhajirs have enjoyed improved conditions and increased their class standing, literacy, and political power.
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