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esolution. “He just allowed us to use it as a hint, a threat, a political stunt.” The real object was to topple Allah Bux somehow, anyhow. They got 29 Muslim MLAs to join the League. With the help of 3 European MLAs, they could have formed a government of their own. When, however, a no-confidence motion was moved, only 7 of them voted for it. And the League leader Hidayatullah himself quit the party and joined the Allah Bux ministry. Indeed the League was so rootless in Sindh that when they announced a public meeting for Jinnah in Jacobabad, nobody turned up. Rashdi had to request his local friend Hakim Kaimuddin to ask his Hindu friends to produce an audience. The Hindus, as good friends, obliged. They even pocketed their “Gandhi caps to avoid embarrassment to Jinnah; but they refused to shout “Jinnah Saheb Zindabad” with any gusto. However, the League persisted in its mischief. The respected Pir of Lawari, near Badin in the Hyderabad district, had organised a local Haj for those who could not afford to visit Arabia. It had gone on since 1934. The pilgrims gathered on Ziwal-Haj, read namaz while turning to the durgah, went to a local well renamed “Zam Zam”, addressed the Pir as “Khuda” and greeted each other as “Haji”. It gave these poor people great spiritual satisfaction. But the fanatics denounced it as un- Islamic, agitated violently, and forced Allah Bux to ban it in 1938. Success here only whetted the League appetite. Meanwhile, under Hindu pressure, the government regularized a small unauthorized Hanuman temple on Artillery Maidan near the Sindh Secretariat and banned the Om Mandali which has since become the Brahma Kumaris organization. All this encouraged the Leaguers’ belief that the government could be brow-beaten. They now mounted a big agitation to topple Allah Bux. Manzilgah was a couple of dilapidated structures on the bank of the Sindhu in Sukkur near the Sadhbela Island Mandir of the Hindus. It had long been used as a government godown. The Muslims now claimed it to be a mosque. The Hindus opposed the claim as fake; they also feared that a mosque near Sadhbela would be used to provoke controversy and tension. Allah Bux was on the horns of a dilemma. Ghulam Hussain before him had held Manzilgah to be government property and had refused to hand it over to the Muslims. Allah Bux sent Muslim officers to inspect the Manzilgah. They came back and reported that the original Persian inscriptions described it as an inn and that the “mehrab” was a later addition. But the Leaguers were determined to create trouble. From 3 October to 19 November, 1939, under the leadership of G.M. Syed, Khuhro and Sir Haroon, they forcibly occupied Manzilgah. On I November, 1939, Bhagat Kanwar Ram, the well-known singer-saint of Sindh, The Sindh Story; Copyright © www.panhwar.com 95
was gunned down at Ruk railway station --- and nobody was arrested. Sukkur district observed complete hartal for fifteen days. When Pamnani, MLA, said that the Pir of Bharchundi had got Kanwar Ram killed (earlier the Pir’s son had been beaten for kidnapping Hindu girls) he, too, was gunned down. The Sindh Hindus were stunned. But worse was to follow. Word went round that killing one Hindu was equal to doing seven Haj pilgrimages. Sixty-four Hindus were killed and property worth several million was looted or burnt in the Sukkur countryside. In this violent atmosphere, G.M. Syed said on the floor of the Assembly that the Hindus shall be driven out of Sindh like the Jews from Germany --- a statement he has very much regretted since. But the damage was done. It was a tragic situation, in which the Congress should have understood Allah Bux’s dilemma. Here was a man who had presided over the All-India Azad Conference in Delhi in 1940 and said: “The Muslims as a separate nation in India on the basis of their religion, is un-Islamic.” And the Congress should have understood why he had vacillated on the Manzilgah issue. As Gandhiji rightly pointed out in the Harijan (2 December, 1939), the basic problem was that selfadministration was new to Sindh. “Sindh is nominally autonomous and to that extent less able to protect life and property than the preceding government. For it has never had previous training in the Police or the Military arts.” But Congress joined hands with Muslim League to topple the Allah Bux ministry! (And when Khoso, the only Congress Muslim MLA, objected, he was expelled from the Party!) It was a great gift made by the Congressmen of Sindh to the Muslim League, two days before that party met in Lahore and adopted the Partition resolution on 25 March, 1940! The Muslim leaders have since freely admitted that the Manzilgah issue was a bogus (“hathradoo”) agitation, staged just to topple Allah Bux. Responsible Hindus were shocked by the short-sightedness of Sindh Congressmen. Professor N.R. Malkani wrote to Sardar Patel to do something about it. And the Sardar wrote back: “I have received your distressing letter of the 1st March 1940. Our friends of the Congress Assembly Party in Sindh have acted in a manner which has brought discredit to the organization and to themselves . . . The Hindu Panchayat of Sukkur has, it seems, succeeded in coercing them to a line of action which they would not have taken if they had the choice or the requisite courage to stand by the principles of the Congress . . . They talk of wider interest of the country in relation to their action, while they forget that they are not serving the local, much less the wider interest.” The League ministry fell the following year and Al]ah Bux came back to power. But the damage had been done. The Muslim League branches in Sindh went up The Sindh Story; Copyright © www.panhwar.com 96
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THE THE SINDH SINDH STORY STORY A G
Page 4 and 5:
Appendix: G M Syed’s Visit .. ..
Page 6 and 7:
Preface to Reprint “The Sindh Sto
Page 8 and 9:
My grateful thanks are due to Prof.
Page 10 and 11:
information. In this connection I m
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Mr. Malkani’s book is a book of h
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--- “Employment of appropriate ph
Page 16 and 17:
effort had been made to synthesise
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Long have we suffered; see how grie
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Sindhu is Divine IN THE BEGINNING w
Page 22 and 23:
Interestingly enough, the Bhagvad G
Page 24 and 25:
Sindhu Mata THE VEDAS and the Puran
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to Encyclopedia Britannica, “the
Page 28 and 29:
no lime in the area to use as cemen
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Alexander’s Waterloo in Sindh EVE
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The philosophers in turn posed him
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Truth about Dahir Sen THE PROPHET o
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next 80 years, led by Hakam, Abdull
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army of Islam became irresolute and
Page 40 and 41:
order to meet the financial deficie
Page 42 and 43:
priest would not agree to Sita beco
Page 44 and 45:
“Jhoolay Lal” WHEN Mahmud Ghazn
Page 46 and 47: of the Khaljis. But more revealing
Page 48 and 49: The Umar Marui is one long paean of
Page 50 and 51: OH LORD of Sindh, Jhoolay Lal, and
Page 52 and 53: Napier had written off all the pre-
Page 54 and 55: loosely knit system that could be a
Page 56 and 57: Dayaram helped set up the Nari Shal
Page 58 and 59: when Gandhiji wrote his autobiograp
Page 60 and 61: muttered “lainat! lainat!” in r
Page 62 and 63: to convert them to Christianity. An
Page 64 and 65: anybody else. Colonel Trevor, the C
Page 66 and 67: The theosophists also joined hands
Page 68 and 69: “Sangathan”, and “Sanskriti
Page 70 and 71: Freedom Movement in Sindh “NADIR
Page 72 and 73: When Tilak visited Sindh in 1920, y
Page 74 and 75: of 40 women satyagrahis. Many young
Page 76 and 77: Ahmedabad municipality and Subhas C
Page 78 and 79: “I am a Sindh” -- Gandhi “EVE
Page 80 and 81: consider him a Mahatma. He used to
Page 82 and 83: On one occasion not only was a saty
Page 84 and 85: not anti-Muslim. I decline to think
Page 86 and 87: wrote to Sucheta in 1945 to ask Kri
Page 88 and 89: able to admit of inter-migration, s
Page 90 and 91: Thrown to the Wolves INDIA BECAME F
Page 92 and 93: sessions judge of Hyderabad, an Eng
Page 94 and 95: Hindus were, if anything, even more
Page 98 and 99: from 30 to 400. During this one Lea
Page 100 and 101: Nehru declined the offer --- even a
Page 102 and 103: In January, 1948, Government of Ind
Page 104 and 105: The Sindhi leaders in their goodnes
Page 106 and 107: language of Sindh, Bhutto had the p
Page 108 and 109: and destiny. In the process it has
Page 110 and 111: ealization, and not in hatred and v
Page 112 and 113: Allah Alone Knows SINDH’S REJECTl
Page 114 and 115: Baluchi guerrillas and 3,300 Pakist
Page 116 and 117: It will thus be seen that the democ
Page 118 and 119: G. M. Syed Or Sindh has said that a
Page 120 and 121: Sindhi Society and Culture SlNDHI S
Page 122 and 123: Cardinal Wolsey, was murdered in th
Page 124 and 125: Panhwar, Malah, Mangta, Sodha, Dhat
Page 126 and 127: And Muslim backwardness in the fiel
Page 128 and 129: malicious, Sir Bhutto’s wife, who
Page 130 and 131: Muslims believed that marriages sol
Page 132 and 133: Shah, Sachal and Swami LANGUAGE AND
Page 134 and 135: Sindhian ra istalah Sindh madah; Hi
Page 136 and 137: you want to be a yogi, follow the g
Page 138 and 139: Mohammed Khan Sewhani, Bherumal Meh
Page 140 and 141: Even as they tried to lift themselv
Page 142 and 143: Individual Sindhis have also made a
Page 144 and 145: just dubhashis, bilingual; they are
Page 146 and 147:
Appendix: Report on G M Syed’s De
Page 148 and 149:
The Bar Association of the Supreme
Page 150 and 151:
Q. Why are you more opposed to Bhut
Page 152 and 153:
(English) Bibliography Ahmed Q.: Th
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Sheikh, M. Somar: Kachyun Ja Qaul S
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