THE%20SINDH%20STORY

muttered “lainat! lainat!” in resentment. The Sindh Sabha duly sent a delegation
--- including Dayaram, Hiranand, Futeh Ali, etc. --- which joined other
delegations in honouring Ripon at a public reception in Bombay But Effendi did
not join it; instead, he set up Sindh Madrassa for Muslim students the very next
year in l885. Although the Madrassa was born in resentment against servility to
the British, it grew up as an ordinary school with no particular impact on the
political or literary life of the province. Much of the time it had English
headmasters. The Muslim zamindars refused to help Muslim education; they
feared that if their underlings, children went to school, they would cease to be
their obedient servants!
Interestingly enough, even Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) did not have
much of an impact on Sindh. The only AMU graduate who became a Sindh MLA
was Mohammed Amin Khoso, who joined the Congress.
The Khilafat movement did affect Sindh much. Sheikh Abdul Majid Lilaram,
Sheikh Abdul Rahim (Kripalani) and Obaidullah Sindhi (born Sikh) even got
involved in the Silk Kerchief Case, inviting the Afghan King to “liberate” India.
But the whole thing only earned them long terms in jail or exile. Thousands of
Sindhi Muslims staged a hijrat to Afghanistan; but they too came to grief. The
talk of Khalifa and Turkey did initiate them into West Asian affairs. But the
Arab-Turkish animosity bewildered them. The emergence of Kamal Pasha as the
saviour of Turkey thrilled them. But his war on mullahs, Arabic language and
Fez cap left them cold. The anti-climax was complete when the leaders in Iran,
Arabia and Turkey ridiculed the Khilafat movement and expressed themselves
in favour of the freedom movement in India.
While the Muslims elsewhere in India gloried in Urdu and Iqbal, the better type
of Sindhi Muslims ridiculed and rejected “Urdu” as “Phurdu”. They marvelled
at how Iqbal had praised Amanullah, King of Afghanistan, as also Nadir Khan,
the British stooge who succeeded him. They viewed the whole thing as the limit
of opportunism.
At one time conversions had provided an emotional boost to the Sindhi Muslims.
But with the coming of the Hindu renaissance and the growth of the Freedom
Movement, that too had stopped.
For years the Sindhi Muslims concentrated on the separation of Sindh from
Bombay, to the neglect of everything else. It had been separate barely two years
when World War II broke out, bringing in its wake political storms such as “Quit
India” of the Congress and “Direct Action” of the Muslim League. The Sindhis
just did not get time enough to settle down and think out their future. The
Muslim peasants declared themselves “Lengi” and duly voted for the Muslim
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