In part, that's because many Punjabis displaced by the partition came to New Delhi and became restaurateurs.

NPR: Indian Food: Eating in Technicolor

With Punjabis as president, prime minister and army chief, many Pakistanis feel colonised by their own countrymen.

ECONOMIST: Pakistan takes a beating

The Baloch are convinced that they are being exploited to death by the country's dominant ethnic group, the Punjabis.

ECONOMIST: Balochistan

Punjabis control the central bureaucracy and are over-represented in those of other provinces.

ECONOMIST: Is Pakistan living at the edge of disaster?

It has murdered political opponents, policemen, journalists and Punjabis.

ECONOMIST: No end in sight to the rebellion

Even though he was always surrounded by great wealth, and has properties all over the world, many Punjabis see the family's industrial background as a welcome break from the landed aristocrats who have tended to dominate the country's politics.

BBC: Pakistan election: Why voters backed Nawaz Sharif

They are perceived as a homogenous and exclusive community, despite the fact that the differences between the different religious and cultural groups within the Asian community - between Hindus and Moslems, between Goans and Punjabis - can be as deeply divisive and mutually exclusive as those dividing Asians from their African neighbours.

BBC: Kenya's Asian heritage on display