THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Freedom Movement in Sindh
“NADIR SHAH looted the country only once. But the British loot us every day.
Every year wealth to the tune of 4.5 million dollar is being drained out, sucking
our very blood. Britain should immediately quit India.” --- That’s what the Sindh
Times wrote on May 20, 1884, a year before the Indian National Congress was
born and full 58 years before Gandhiji thought of the “Quit India” movement!
The partition of Bengal --- “Vanga Bhanga” --- triggering the Swadeshi
movement, gave a great fillip to the freedom movement in Sindh, as elsewhere in
the country. When Khudiram Bose was hanged in 1908, his portrait found its
way into all patriotic homes. In the same year, Virumal Begraj (1874--1955) set up
a swadeshi store in Sukkur, and Lokram Sharma in Hyderabad. They then held
the first All-Sindh Political Conference in Sukkur.
When in 1907 Principal Jackson of D.J. Sindh College of Karachi said, “You
Indians are liars”, leading students such as Jivat, Jawahar and Narain left the
college and migrated to Baroda and Pune. Later the three of them became
famous as Acharya J.B. Kripalani, Swami Govindanand and Prof. N.R. Malkani.
When in 1908 Bal Gangadhar Tilak was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment,
many young men began to sleep on the floor --- something unusual in a province
where even beggars slept on cots.
In Shikarpur, the Pritam Dharma Sabha, set up in 1888, not only did much social
reform, but also inspired the setting up of swadeshi sugar, soap, and cloth mills.
The literature produced by the Sabha was considered so revolutionary that, in
1909, Seth Chetumal, Virumal Begraj and Govind Sharma were all sentenced to
five years’ rigorous imprisonment. Judge Boyde said in his order: “These young
men are members of a religious organisation. Their influence on the people,
therefore, will be great. Their writings and activities are so seditious that they
deserve death. But in view of their tender age I am handing out a lesser
punishment.”
In 1910, Acharya Kripalani, Kaka Kalelkar, Swami Govind- anand, Dr.
Choithram and others set up the Brahmacharya Ashram in Hyderabad --- next to
Dr. Tarachand’s Hospital in East Kutch. This was not only an institution to
produce patriotic young men --- through song, drama and gymnastics --- but also
a forum for other patriotic activities, including shelter for revolutionaries-inhiding.
Dr. Choithram, Swami Alaram, Pandit Deendayal Vachaspati and Swami
Satyadev went on a cow protection tour of Sindh singing “Bael Saheb ko karo
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