Less known is the fact that the democratic path also provided a voice to Pakistan’s minorities, who have faced intensifying bias and suffered severe hardship since 9/11 as soft targets of a hardening Muslim identity. During the elections, we saw Veero Kolhi, a freed bonded labourer, contest polls against powerful landlord interests in rural Sindh. As expected, she did not win, but nonetheless made a statement for the rights of up to eight million bonded labourers of Pakistan. Post-elections, Ramesh Singh Arora, a social worker, has become the first Sikh since 1947 to walk the corridors of Lahore’s Punjab assembly—where Sikhs comprised 20 per cent of its members in the First Legislative Assembly of Punjab elected in 1937. Though a Sikh in the Punjab legislature offers hope, it also highlights what needs to be done constitutionally and culturally to bring back 2.9 million non-Muslims, consisting mainly of Hindus and Christians, within the folds of mainstream society.