Sindh: An Introduction

Sindh, the southernmost province of Pakistan, is situated in the northwest corner of the India sub-continent and covers about 17.5% of the total area of Pakistan. It is a fertile land, mainly due to the river Sindhu and its many tributaries, and the province is also rich in natural resources.

Sindh gets its name from the river Sindhu, the original name of the river Indus. Over the centuries the name of Sindh has taken many forms: Indus, Indos, India, Sindhus, Sindhos, Sinthos, Hindus, Hindos, Hindu, Hind, Hindustan. These forms are all phonetic variants of the root word `Sindhu` involving, as can be seen, alternation between /s/ and/h/. In modern times both Kucchi,, a dialect of Sindh (1), and Gujrati show dialect /s/-/h/ alteration, and the form `Indus` itself is the result of metathesis dating from the time of Alexander the Great (Lambrick, 1964:1).

Historical perspectives

Early history

Sindh`s historical roots remain for the most part unknown, but the city of Mohen jo Daro, fascinating for both archaeologist and historians, seems to have been one of the major cities of the ancient world. It dates from 2500BC and excavation of this city, which probably gave birth to Indus civilization, uncovered a very ;advanced urban net work. During the period 1300 to 1200BC, there was autonomous Ariyan rule in Sindh. Later in the 6th century BC the Achamenians, under king Darius, annexed Sindh to their empires, and later the Greeks, under the Alezander the great, invaded the country. Subsequently the Mourya Dynasty introduced Buddhism and human rights. In the 2nd century BC the Greek kings of Bactria established power in Sindh and then came the Scythians. The Parthians and Persians followed them and then in 499AD the local Rai dynasty took power and for the next 150 years the boundaries of Sindh were extended towards Persian controlled territory. The Rai replaced scattered tribal organization with centralized rule. The culture of Sindh was enriched as a result of the mingling of various ethnic groups and the lovely land of Sindh was ruled in ease prosperity (Burton, 1851:14).

Following the death of the last king of the Rai, his minister Chach took control and from his time the Brahmin dynasty began. Chach governed the country independently, extending its boundaries, and almost the whole of the present day Pakistan was under his control. The country’s seaports saw considerable trade and communication, and rich agriculture land brought great prosperity. Sindh had firmly established traditions of statehood, a regular indigenous army, a popular administration, its own distinct culture and language and in addition its own script, calendar and coinage.

The Arrival of the Arabs

With Sindh’s stable prosperity and its strategic geographical possession, it is not surprising that it was subject to successive onslaughts by foreign invaders. The Arabs persistently attempted to conquer the country but were unsuccessful until AD 712, when Sindh was annexed into the Arab empire and became the ‘Arabian gateway’ into India (later to become known as Babul Islam, the gate of Islam). After the conquest by the Arabs, the people of Sindh were influenced by the new faith of Islam and many accepted it as more appealing than Buddhism and Hinduism, since among other things it did not, at least theoretically, differentiate between social groupings but preached the equality of all human beings. In practice, of course, inequalities remained. The Arab policy in Sindh has been described as, ‘…essentially a sound imperial policy…so constructed as to win the support of all politically and socially important classes, and at the same time keep them from uniting against Arab rule. The privileges of the Brahmins were fully maintained and in certain respects increased…. The policy was essentially conservative and avoided anything that would have disturbed the social structure in Sindh…’ (Islam, 1975)

Local Rule

Despite the constant turmoil which rivalry for power brought the country, it remained under Arab control until AD 1010, when its ruler began to loose their grasp. A bitter struggle for supremacy in Sindh took place between local tribes and eventually the Soomras emerged as the most powerful, followed by the Sammas, who extended their powers very rapidly, especially during the reign of Jam Nido (1461-1508). This era was known as the ‘Golden Age of Sindh’: the economy flourished, and a strong state was created which, however, maintained intellectual freedom.

In the 16th century, many changes came to Sindh, as dynasty succeeded dynasty and bloody battles were fought. During one particular conflict the then ruler, Mirza Isa Khan, called for Portuguese assistance in attempting to recover his power, but by the time the Portuguese arrived he had already made peace with his enemies. The frustrated Portuguese, created havoc, ransacking and looting the towns, ‘the likes of which had rarely been taken from Asia’ (Aitken, 1907: 104-105). This period for Sindh was one of the bleakest and darkest in its history and acts of barbarity were wide spread.

Sindh was annexed to the Mughul Empire in 1592 AD during the reign of Akber. The chief of the Kalhora tribe of Sindh, Mian Noor Muhammad, tried to prise Sindh’s independence from the Indian Empire but was unsuccessful. However, his son Ghulam Shah succeeded in 1762 and established a stable kingdom, extending Sindh’s borders southward to the sea. It was Ghulam Shah who gave permission for the establishment of a factory at Thatta, and the East India Company here makes its first entry into Sindh.

After a bloody battle, the Kalhoras were overthrown by the Talpurs (1783-1843), a Saraiki speaking tribe of Sindh of Baluch, with support of Kandhar’s Taimur Shah.

The British Rule

Prior to the eighteenth century Sindh was virtually unknown to the British (Aitken, 1907:119), but through the East India Company the British gradually increased their influence among the rulers of Sindh, a process which continued through a succession of interchanges of treaties. In 1836 Punjab invaded some parts of Sindh and demanded a tribute, and Sindh, unable to cope with this crisis, accepted British intercession. At this British interest in Sindh was also aroused as result of that Russia might march through the northwest and extend its influence from central Asia. In order to halt Russian progress and to secure their trading and commercial interests, the British focused on the River Indus as a strategic point of major importance (Burton, 1851:2).

During the Afghan crisis, British intervention in Sindh intensified, with the Indus being used to ship troops north to Afghanistan. Finally in 1843, after success in the battles of Miani and Dubbo, where the British forces were commanded by Charles James Napier, Sindh was joined to the British Empire. Following this annexation, Napier was made the civil and military Governor of Sindh, and under his rule (1843-47) the country remained a separate state. Napier’s inner conflict about the situation may be summed up in his own words: We have right to seize Sindh, yet we shall do it and a very advantageous, humane, and useful piece of rascality it will be (Aitken, 1907:125).He later wrote to lord Ellenborough, Governor General of India, “I have sinned by the conquest of Sindh” (Irfan,1936:52). However, Napier succeeded in gaining the respect of local inhabitants, doing much to improve their economy and displaying his loyalty to people by attempting to curb British influence.

The advent of the British in Sindh represented not only a change of sovereignty from a local ruling dynasty to foreign colonial rule, but also the exposure of the tribal and feudal system to emergent capitalist system. The steps the British took to reorganize Sindh’s administration and socio-economic system were comparative progressive (Channo, 1988).

Because of the country‘s central location for trade and commerce, the growing Indian business class had designs on the country (Channo, 1984) and this, together with British imperialism, eventually led to Sindh’s annexation to the Bombay presidency in 1847.Once again Sindh had lost her autonomy, and for the next 90 years, Sindh strove to obtain separation from the Bombay presidency. In 1936 these efforts proved successful, and some scholars hold the view that this was the first step towards the foundation of Pakistan (cf. Soomro, 1989:118). However, Sindh always strove to maintain independence in isolation from any foreign influence.

In 1936 Sindh acquired status as a province with its own legislative assembly. The country continued to attempt to free her self from British imperialism and established contacts with the freedom movement. Its people met with Indian Muslims and made their claim for a separate state consisting of those areas where Muslims were in the majority. The Sindh provincial Muslim League demanded this passing resolution in 1938, and following this, the ‘Lahore Resolution’ was passed for a separate territory in 1940. The Sindh legislative assembly was the first provincial assembly within India to adopt this in March 1943.Sindh played an integral role in assuring the success of the Muslim League which led to the formation of Pakistan.

The Emergence of Pakistan (1947 onward)

The British government presented a plan for the division of British India, the terms of which meant that ‘Hindustan’ and ‘Pakistan’ were to be created as two separate federations (Civil and Military Gazette, June 3, 1947). In June 1947 exclusive session of the Sindh provincial Assembly voted for incorporation into Pakistan, and in August Pakistan actually came into existence, with Mohammed Ali Jinnah as Governor General. Sindh, during the period 1843-47 and 1936-47 had been one of the eleven independent provinces of India, now become a province of Pakistan, and together with Punjab, Baluchistan, Sarhad (North West Frontier Province) and East Bengal, formed the new country of Pakistan.

Additionally, Sindh provided Karachi as the capital, since it was the largest and most developed city with an international seaport. Karachi was detached from Sindh and was made a federal territory. The people of Sindh struggled in vain against this decision, and the Chief Minister of Sindh lost his post as a result of his protests (Kazi, 1989:27).

Sindh now saw the largest influx of Muslim immigrants in her history: over two million people from India, the majority of whom spoke various dialects of Hindi-Urdu (2), flowed into the cities of Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur, as well into the countryside. Reverberations of this migration were felt throughout Sindh, in particular affecting the Sindhi Hindus who were for the greater part (about 0.8 million) ousted from their homes by the incoming refugees and a counter migration from Sindh to India began (Hiranandani, 1986:35). Economically, Sindh suffered considerably from this flood of migrants, with different cultures and languages, and a great strain was placed on her financial resources.

In 1955 Sindh again lost her identity when it was combined with three other provinces, Punjab (N.W.F.P), Sarhad, and Baluchistan as ‘One Unit’ to form West Pakistan, but division took place in 1969 under martial law. An interesting point is that during the ‘One Unit’ period, it was forbidden to write the original name of the province and one was expected to write ‘West Pakistan’ Scholars wishing to allude to the word ‘Sindh’ had to precede it with ‘former’ (cf. Allana, 1964, Sorley, 1968). At this time Sindh was again faced with many problems of an economic, educational and agriculture nature. These problems created the conditions for the emergence of nationalism, which up until then had been the concern of only a handful of intellectuals and politicians, such as G.M. Sayed Hyder Bux Jatoi and Shaikh Ayaz.

The successive instability of governments and their failure to provide the people with a constitution brought distress to all provinces, especially in East Pakistan and Sindh this resulted in a long struggle against General Ayoob Khan’s martial law regime. Seizing power from Ayoob khan, General Yahya khan broke up ‘One Unit’ and held elections for the first time on the basis of an adult franchise.

These resulted in a victory for the Pakistan People’s Party, headed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in the western part, and for the Pakistan Awami League, headed by Shaikh Mujeeb-u-Rehman, in the eastern part. A debate, centring on the parties’ claim to government, resulted in a series of strikes which culminated in complete revolt in Bengal and the Pakistan government sent troops from the western part to quell the violence. India intervened and supported the Bengali struggle, with the result that in December 1970 the eastern part of Pakistan became an independent country, Bangladesh.

Under Bhutto all the four provinces of the new, smaller Pakistan enjoyed during British rule. However, in 1977 elections were held and the People’s Party again won the majority of seats, but opposition parties alleged that the elections had been ‘rigged’ and strikes were called in the larger cities with the support of industrialists who had been affected by Bhutto’s nationalization policies. General Zia, the Army Chief of Staff, sacked Bhutto, dissolved the assemblies and imposed martial law in June 1977. Bhutto was imprisoned and in April 1979 was hanged on the charge of being an accessory to the murder of the father of a political opponent. There followed a ten year period of martial law. More large scale migration to Sindh from Burma, India, Bangladesh and other provinces exacerbated problems and after the revolution in Afghanistan more refugees swarmed in.

In 1988 martial law came to an end. In that year free party elections were held and the Pakistan People’s Party was returned with Benazir Bhuttto elected as Prime Minister.

After only 20 months in office she was sacked under allegations of nepotism and corruption, and an interim government was formed. In October 1990 elections were held, resulting in the formation of a coalition of Islamic fundamentalist parties, headed by Nawaz Sharif, formed under the Islamic Democratic Alliance. Sindh now came under the rule of minority parties and the independent members of the Assembly.

Nawaz Sharif remained in office until June of 1993 when national and provincial assemblies were dissolved under the allegation of corruption and inefficiency. A new interim government took control of the country and announced the elections in October 1993. As the result of these elections Pakistan People’s Party is retuned to power with Benazir Bhutto as a Prime Minister of Pakistan.