THE%20SINDH%20STORY

Prasad’ from the neighbourhood gurdwara. After the Khilafat movement had
petered out, the Congress discovered that it had only one active Muslim worker,
Maulvi Mohammed Sadiq of Karachi. Later Comrade Taj Mohammed joined the
Congress in Shikarpur. The Congress had only one Muslim MLA Khoso of
Jacobabad, an AMU graduate. But the Jacobabad District Congress Committee
office had a separate water pot (surahi) for him! No wonder they all felt that “the
Congress is a Hindu movement.”
Tilak was, if anything, a profounder Hindu than Gandhiji. But he had kept the
struggle political, secular --- and moved the Hindus and the Muslims alike.
Gandhiji heightened the struggle -- but he also divided it.
And then there was a third factor the British presence. It worked both ways.
During the Muslim rule the Hindu was kept down. When the Muslim hand was
replaced by a neutral hand, things changed dramatically. The Hindu came into
his own. By and large, Brahmins and Vaishyas had not converted to Islam. Their
traditions of learning and trading blossomed forth into higher education and big
business. Large sections of the Hindu society forged ahead, leaving the Muslims
far behind.
As a perceptive observer in Sindh noted: “The offices are full of Hindus and the
jails are full of Muslims.” The Muslim mind, rooted in mediaevalism, and still
basking in the sunset of the Mughal empire, could not comprehend the dynamics
of modernity. It reacted to the new situation by staging a riot or throwing a
spanner in the freedom movement.
On the other hand, when the Hindu asked for Independence, the British booked
Muslim support with many favours and then used the Muslim dissent as a veto
to stall Indian independence. The Hindu now saw the Muslim as a stooge and a
traitor.
This was the all-India context in which partition took place. But it also had a local
Sindhi context, which only made matters worse.
The biggest single factor in Hindu-Muslim tension in Sindh was the conversions
which continued even under the British rule. These incidents rocked the province
and poisoned relations between the communities. The most sensational in this
genre was what came to be known --- and published --- as “The Great Sheikh
Case”. In 1891, Moorajmal Advani, a cousin of Showkiram Advani, the mukhi of
Hyderabad Hindus, became Muslim His three sons also became Muslim. One of
them, Mewaram, invited his wife Mithi Bai with her four children --- Khushali,
Nihali, Parmanand, and Hemi --- to join her. She refused. Mewaram moved the
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