Pakistan Destroying Sindh

By ABDUL LATIF BHATTI

As a Sindhi-American, I want to bring to the attention of your readers the sorry plight of my people in Pakistan. GM Syed’s books The Past, Present and Future of Sindh, Sindhu Desh - What and Why and Consciousness of Sindh reveal clearly how the Pakistani rulers have reduced Sindhis to a subject people.

The fate of Sindh was sealed in 1947. But it has been unsealing from the very first day. Sindhi Muslims were asking for Partition of India because other Muslims were also doing so-- and because the Hindus were saying no. But most of us never thought about the consequences.

By 1945 the two most respected leaders of Sindh had already resigned from the Muslim League in disgust over Jinnah’s preference for the pro-British reactionaries in Muslim society. One was Sheikh Abdul Majid, who had joined the League in 1915, and edited the chief organ of Muslim opinion in Sindh, the daily Al-Wahid, and inducted stalwarts such as Khaliquzzaman of UP and Abdur Rab Nishtar of NWFP into the League. The other was GM Syed who, as President of the Provincial League, had transformed it from a sleepy little feudal outfit into a mass organization.

In 1947, the Muslims were 13 percent of the population of UP but had 45 percent of the jobs. Yet they came to Sindh in Large numbers. It was a career choice. They wanted even more in Sindh than they ever had in UP. The Hindus left vast properties in Sindh -- all these went to the Mohajirs. Even the Hindu properties sold to Sindhi Muslims were declared evacuee property and handed over to Mohajirs. Many of these Mohajirs had filed false claims; but all these were certified by their fellow-Mohajirs manning the Evacuee Property and Rehabilitation Departments.

It was these Mohajirs who had murdered and looted the Hyderabad Hindus, December 26, 1947 and the Karachi Hindus, January 6, 1948. This marked the first public dispute between the Sindh Provincial Government and the Pakistan’s Central Government. White the Mohajirs wanted to kill as many Hindus as possible, the Sindhi Muslims refused to cooperate. Premier Khuhro went out, revolver in hand, to quell the riots. When the Sindh Government arrested the Mohajir rioters, and recovered looted properties, the Mohajirs were heard saying, "The Sindhi Muslims seem to be born from the urine of Hindus." Premier Khuhro’s firm action against the rioters, led the Mohajir Supremo, Liaqat Ali Khan, to turn against him.

Liaqat Ali detached Karachi from Sindh and asked the Government of Sindh itself to shift to Hyderabad. When the Sindhis asked at least for compensation for the loss of Karachi, they were told that it was a conquered territory, for which there could be no compensation. When Khuhro protested they just dismissed him. In his place they brought in a spineless man, Pir Illahi Bux. This puppet promptly made Urdu compulsory in Sindh.

When Syed Ali Akbar Shah, Sindh Muslim League President, led a Sindhi deputation to Liaqat Ali to urge protection for Sindhi culture, the latter remarked: "What is Sindhi culture, except driving donkeys and camels?" This same Liaqat Ali invited all the Indian Muslims to Pakistan when he said it was good enough for all the ten crore Muslims.

The Mohajir leaders have been obliterating old Sindhi names and substituting new ones for them. (In Karachi, the ancient Ram Bagh has been renamed Aram Bagh - and Achal Singh Park, as Iqbal Park.) On the other hand, foreign names have not been replaced in Sindh. For example, we still have Jacobabad, named after General Jacob who had conquered Sindh with Napier. However, in the Punjab, Montgomery has been named Sahiwal, and Lyallpur as Faisalabad to restore the ‘Punjabi self-respect.’

People could not have survived as Bengalis in East Pakistan. That is why they had to fight for Bangladesh. The future of the Sindhis is bleak in Pakistan. Sindhu Desh is our only way out.

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