Re: Sindh Through Centuries!
I agree. You do get the impression that Sindhis are quite rigid about their identity, and too absorbed in self pleasing romanticism. The real tragedy of all is that xenophobia really sells in Sindh. There’s this perpetual fear, anxiety and scorn for ‘outsiders’. Either someone is a saint or everyone else is the enemy, and it is usually the locals who are the saints. Why is it that Pakistan can have one President and two widely popular Prime Ministers from Sindh, but no one from outside of Sindh is good enough for Sindh? What makes Sindh so special? You look at Larkana the supposed City – and it looks like a glorified village. The shame inducing fact is that this supposed village like City is the one ex-President and two ex Prime Ministers of Pakistan.
KPK, despite its inelastic and temperamental tribal culture and religious conservatism, has the most impressive record political evolution. It seems KPK is the only province that seems to reject parties that do not perform, and experiment with new socio-political ideas. On the other hand, you have Punjab which literally had a love affair with all the rulers, be it dictators or democratically elected, be it local or from a different province. It’s been a home of movements and birth place of ideas. As a result, all leaders – to certain significant extent - always felt some kind of pressure or self-interested obligation to woo the public of Punjab through meaningful developments or providing ideological vigour. Baluchistan has serious population and insurgency issues, KPK had been the home ground for all religious experiments that manufactured the religious extremism and violence that made province the biggest victim of the War, but what exactly is Sindh’s excuse for being so behind in time? Take Karachi out of Sindh (which is a home of many different ethnicities and is ‘built’ by immigrants) what is Sindh? Why is there no such thing as progressive Sindhi middle class which is political enlightened and empowered and really believes in breaking the vicious cycle they they’re in? Why Sindhis have reduced down to mute passive spectators, and why arm chair cynicism has become the only ‘sign’ of intellectualism, and why is that they cannot look beyond habitual critiquing?
Unfortunately, for Sindh and rest of the subcontinent, we have moved far away from the age where we would always be blessed with a local ‘saint’ to fall in love with and comfort ourselves. Time to get practical.