Heritage: On the Sindhi Hindu exodus

[Gul Agha <agha@CS.UIUC.EDU>]

Without disputing much of what saaiin Tunio has to say or the thrust
of his heart-felt concerns, I would like to express my concern that
Sindhis in Sindh and those who have left Sindh more recently need to
be more aware and sensitive about making the conjecture expressed in
the last sentence below:

Saaiin Tunio writes:

 > It is for your kind perusal that  there are  more than 3.5 million Sindhi
 > Hindu still  in Sindh. Comrade Sobho Gianchandani gave these facts and
 > figures,  last year at SANA convention in Chicago. Sindhi Hindus were not
 > forced to leave. It was their choice.

To use a phrase from the American asylum law, Sindhi Hindus had "a
well-founded fear of persecution" and their response to protect
themselves and their families was entirely rational.  That millions
chose to stay, usually ones in safer areas where refugees didn't
overwhelm, does not change this fact.

Let me recount one small story as illustration.  I remember my mother
telling me the story of a Hindu physician called Hiro, a colleague of
hers, who refused to leave Sindh, as others were doing, because he
decided he believed he was needed to help all these penniless refugees
who were coming to Sindh (I can't remember if he was in Hyderabad or
Karachi).  In the true Sufi spirit, he opened his clinic to the
refugees and visited refugee camps to provide free medical assistance.
Nevertheless, within a few weeks, he was murdered by a refugee gang
and his clinic confiscated by the Pakistan government as "evacuee"
property!

That Sindhi Hindus trusted their fellow Sindhis is not in dispute, not
in the literature I have read, not in the older people I have talked
to -- but it was not Sindhis who controlled the wheels of government
or the security forces by 1948, when mass emigration of Sindhi Hindus
occured.  By then, even Sindh government and Sindhi officials had been
rendered powerless and the Pakistan government, which was actively
aiding and abetting rioting.  In urban areas, only Sindhi Muslim
neighbors were protecting many Sindhi Hindus, but Sindhis urbanites
were not a militant people and it was not clear for how long this
could go on.  With their homes often marked "intended evacuee" by the
Pakistan government and targetted by rioters, urban Sindhi Hindus
lived in times of uncertainty where some murders did happen, and mass
murder could happen at any time.

Of course, I know of many Sindhi Hindus who did not leave, even though
they were living in cities such as Karachi, and they survive there to
this day.  But I also know the fear and terror they have had to live
with, particularly during after the refugee influx towards the end of
1947.  Such terror may seem common place to Sindhis of this
generation, living as they are in a Sindh where such fear and terror
now envelopes everyone, but it is simply not normal for a peace-loving
society and is an understandable reason for emigration (which is why
some of us now also choose to live outside of Sindh).

Incidentally, I recently read some of Mahatma Gandhi writings about
the Sindh situation after the refugee rioting in Sindh.  Despite his
pacifist philosophy, the Mahatma said it is better to wage a war, if
needed, to protect Hindus in Sindh than for those Hindus to leave what
has been their home for millenia.  He reasons that this drastic
actions would be preferable to doing nothing NOT because the material
welfare of the Hindus would suffer by exile -- as he (correctly)
reasons that it would not in the long term.  To the contrary, the
Mahatma predicted the Sindhi Hindus have the wherewithall to thrive
anywhere.  But preventing a Hindu exodus was necessary, according to
the Mahatma, because of the damage such an exodus would do to Sindh's
welfare, its culture and society, all of which evolved over the
millenia.  Finally, the Mahatma lamented, 'I am just an old man and
who listens to me these days.'

Thus, while Mr. Nehru and Mr. Patel appear to have had no
understanding and little sympathy for Sindh, it appears to me that the
Mahatma was someone who clearly understood Sindh's uniqueness.  Sindh
unique heritage is what the mass of Sindhis in Sindh, regardless of
what community they belong to, are working hard to salvage and promote
to this day, in an environment that has grown ever more hostile.

sadaaiin ggaddu,

Gul Agha