Sindh Through Centuries!

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

So, how come Mirs (Talpurs) could retain such larger areas (land) in Sindh, even they were defeated by British. Mughals got no such land in Delhi?

Do you know the terms ‘Aamil’ and ‘Bhai-Band’ for Sindhi Hindus?

Aamil’ is indeed a slight perplexing term. Indeed it is even used as a derogatory term for `outside settlers’.

Bhaiband' is again a derogatory term for those who show-off their money/power :cb: And it's actual term is Brotherhood’. They are indeed belng to Lohana caste(traditionally merchants)… Do only merchants show-off their wealth?

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@Arleitter

Aamil’ is indeed a slight perplexing term. Indeed it is even used as a derogatory term for `outside settlers’.

Bhaiband' is again a derogatory term for those who show-off their money/power :cb: And it's actual term is Brotherhood’. They are indeed belng to Lohana caste(traditionally merchants)… Do only merchants show-off their wealth? :hehe:

Amil = Munshi = Accountant

The Sects of Sind | Beyond Sindh Magazine

The Muslim rulers were uneducated! Some Hindus carried on the administration on their behalf. They were called Amils, who were well versed with Persian. Those Amils were called Kudhabadi Hyderabadis. Among them there was a proverb “Farsi Gore Charihas” (If you know Farsi, you can get a high position).

But among those Amils, there were families where the sons didn’t pursue education. These uneducated boys were taught trade. In the days of the British, they sold some specially embroidered cloth pieces. English men called those boys Sindu workers. But the family members called them Bhaibands.

Now Hyderabad had sects of classes like Amils and Bhaibands. Later on these became disconnected. Generally, a boy of seventeen or so, among Bhaibands, went abroad for some time. That was called his first tour. When he finished his tour he came back to Hyderabad and was married. Earlier on the Pashim Bhaiband men went to different lands: Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Saigon, Jawa, Sumatra…even the remote corners of the world and did business. They suffered many difficulties. They had to learn the language of the place and eat food they didn’t like, but they learned the tricks of the trade! Most often, they established their own firm. The members of the firm were brothers or cousins only. Each member set up base in one country. The system of demand and supply used to send these members to different countries and lands in order to spread their network far and wide. Perfumes, cloth, almonds, pistachios, and such goods, bought cheap in one land were sold expensively in other lands and all the partners of the firm became rich! So, Kishchand Chellaram’s firm was richer than Assoomal’s firm because they sold more goods than the other!

[TheRealDeal]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

Very interesting and worthwhile thread.

[Ali_Syed]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@Arleitter

Taken from Dawn.

The invisible partition of Sindh - Blogs - DAWN.COM

Are all Pathans stupid? It can’t be. Then why are they normally the butt of every other joke? Is there something sinister behind this stereotyping? Since most of these jokes are community creations, I would rather not look for a ‘well-hatched’ conspiracy theory. But then why are Pathans portrayed the way they are? I recalled all the Pathans that I have ever interacted with, one by one, from my college days, from my professional life, from my neighborhood, my social circles, Facebook friends. The identification parade told me that some of them did live up to the stereotype, but there is no indication of an abnormally high tendency for joke-worthiness among Pathans.
All communities carry all colors and characteristics, and it is the competing and conflicting interests of various communities that make them exaggerate and twist some of those. I have used this formulation to explain away all the community stereotypes that we frequently encounter. While I still may not mind laughing at a Pathan joke, this explanation helps me guard against letting this fun convert into a discriminatory attitude. But let me admit, that I have struggled with the stereotype of a Sindhi far longer. Are Sindhis docile, smug and the least entrepreneurial people? Most of my friends think so. One joked that if a Sindhi has to go to even the railway station in his hometown, he falls homesick and immediately starts calling himself a pardesi! This proved to be a tough test for my formula to fight off such stereotypes.
I decided to hold an identification parade for all the Sindhis that I had ever interacted with – my college fellows, colleagues, neighbours, friends and all. That’s when I realised all the Sindhis I knew could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Had I not attended a college that had a quota for students from all provinces and areas of Pakistan, I am sure I would have befriended none. I then decided to look into the statistics.
The last population census, held in 1998, counted a total of 18.7 million people speaking Sindhi as their mother tongue in Pakistan and 20.4 million Pashtu speakers. The two thus are quite comparable in size. But that’s where their similarity ends.
The traditional Sindhi homelands comprise of Sindh, parts of one district of Punjab, Rahimyar Khan, and some of Balochistan that is bordering Sindh. There were, in 1998 just about 50,000 Sindhi-speakers living outside this ‘Sindhi homeland’ or you could safely say that only one in every 375 Sindhis had dared to leave his/her traditional homeland looking for jobs, business opportunities, or under an economic or social compulsion.
Compare this with the trend in Pashtuns, a whooping two million of them lived in Punjab and Sindh (1998 figures) or every 10th Pashtun was living outside his/her traditional homeland. In four Punjab districts, their population exceeded 100,000. Two of these, Mianwali and Attock are either partly their homelands or exist in close proximity. But in the other two, Rawalpindi and Lahore, they had settled taking up jobs and running businesses. More importantly, the Pashtun population in the Punjab districts seems to be directly proportional to the size of that district’s economy.
The economic size logic can be extended to Karachi too, which is the biggest metropolis of the country with its economic, industrial and financial hub and the main commercial port. According to past census, half of Karachi’s 8.9 million population had Urdu as its mother tongue, another quarter was made up of speakers of Pashtu and Punjabi while Sindhis were just five per cent of the population of the capital of Sindh, and half of them lived in the suburban area of Malir. On the other hand, Karachi had more Pashtuns than Peshawar, the capital of Pakhtunkhwa!
The language barrier between the Pashtuns and speakers of other languages is linguistically bigger than the one between Sindhi and others but nothing seems to hold back the Pashtuns and conversely nothing seems to push the Sindhis out of their homes.
What complicates the matter further is that Sindhis are not stuck because their homes are cozy and their lives prosperous. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Sindh has some of the worst economic indicators of the country and most of its districts have the highest percentages of people living in abject poverty within Pakistan. And while, economic depravity generally drives people out of their homes, forcing them to search for opportunities elsewhere and prodding them to take up the riskiest of ventures. This doesn’t happen with the Sindhis, as whatever the circumstances, they remain holed up, or perhaps they are chained?
With this much statistical evidence, I could have easily concluded that the Sindhi stereotype is an exception, it is true that for some unexplainable reason this community is docile, homebound and the least entrepreneurial – if I hadn’t met an Indian friend. We were discussing politics and it was only a chance reference that brought Sindhis to the center of this chat. I was shocked to realise that our respective perceptions about Sindhis was not only different but in fact completely opposed each other. As I searched deeper, the contrast between the stereotype of Pakistani and Indian Sindhis became sharper.
I was stunned to the point of disbelief. Before writing this article, I again approached a lot of my Indian Facebook friends just to reaffirm that I was not mistaken. But they are unanimous – a Sindhi for them meant a rich businessmen, the very entrepreneurial types who can find their way through the trickiest of situations. Nifty, shrewd and cunning are the words that they used to describe them. They are flashy, ultra-fashionable, love driving big cars and send their kids to English medium schools only.
While there is no doubt that all of this cannot hold for all Indian Sindhis but it also can’t be denied that this is the dominant impression in India about them as a community. There are many Indian Sindhis running successful businesses outside India as well, mainly in Singapore but also in USA, Canada and Australia. In Lahore, however, you will find a Pashtun enterprise at every corner and even a Sikh cloth merchant but never a Sindhi businessman. The Pakistani labour working in Middle East is almost exclusively Punjabi and Pashtun.
How could the two Sindhis, Indian and Pakistani, stand at two extreme poles? I have made some effort to understand this and offer the following as a plausible explanation. The urban population of Sindh, at the time of the Partition was around one million and Hindus constituted more than half of the urban population, including Karachi. They inhabited rural areas all over the province as well.

http://i.dawn.com/large/2013/08/520c92bc1bfe2.jpg

50 Years of Pakistan in Statistics - Volume II (1947-1997); Growth of selected towns from 1901 to 1981; pg 45; Federal Bureau of Statistics, GoP. Find the total population of Sindh for years 1931, 1941 here.
Hindus not only formed the business community of the pre-Partition Sindh, they also dominated professional spheres. In present day Pakistan, the population of the two religious minorities, Christians and Hindus, is almost the same (after including the Scheduled Casts into what was earlier categorised and counted separately as Hindu-Jati). But despite this numeric equivalence, it is much too easier to find a Hindu doctor, engineer, lawyer or businessman in Sindh today than it is to identify a Christian of similar economic status in Punjab.
I think it is safe to say that Hindus were a dominant part of the pre-Partition Sindhi middle class, if not actually the Sindhi middle class themselves. Like in Punjab, the jagirdars, feudal lords, were Muslims and so was their ryot, mostly the landless farm labourers or the hari. There were substantial numbers of Scheduled Casts (not Hindu-Jati) haris also and they still form a majority in the poor desert districts of Sindh.
The upper and the lower classes are always stuck in a rut of exploitative economics. They hardly have the potential and never get an opportunity to defy the status quo. The middle class, in contrast, has the time and the relative comfort to think anew, take risks and chart new waters. They serve as the engine of change, fountain of creativity and hub of the entrepreneurial culture for every society. They are looked up at as beacons of hope by the lower classes.
And they all left Sindh in one go, in almost an overnight fashion – as India and Pakistan separated and gained independence in 1947. Most sources estimate that around 800,000 of Sindhi Hindus migrated to India. Most of the Scheduled Casts that were much poorer than the Hindu-Jatis stayed back. The total population of Sindh at that time was around five million and I suppose the size of the Sindhi middle class would not have been more than one million.
Studies of the Partition of 1947 generally lay too much emphasis on the ethnic and religious composition of the populations that had migrated to and from the two countries but little attention has been paid to their class composition and how had it impacted the societies they left behind or those they joined.
The exodus of the middle class crippled the Sindhi society. It denuded it of all the characteristics that are associated with this class. Are Pakistani Sindhis of today least entrepreneurial, docile and homebound because the class that had the skills, energy and will had quit its homeland in 1947? It is not all about a stereotype but about the overall economic aspirations of Sindh as a society – if you minus the middle class ambitions, the sum total is bound to hit rock bottom.
The niche created by the gouging out of Sindhi middle class was evened immediately by those migrating from various parts of northern India and since they found themselves in a privileged position they didn’t feel compelled to find a common cause with the other two – the upper and the lower classes of Sindh.
Amid the riotous events of the Partition, Sindh lost its cultural composure. I don’t know how it would fair if compared with the loss of geographical territory. Sindh today has a lower and upper class that is culturally and linguistically Sindhi, while its Urdu-speaking middle class is not only alien to both, it insists on a distinct identity and independent politics. The Partition choked Sindh right in the middle. It deprived it of its capacity to channelise the struggle among its various classes into a progressive political discourse.
Earlier, the economic structure of Sindh had a clear religious divide as its middle class professed a faith different from the majority of the upper and the lower tiers of the society. In 1947, it achieved a religious unanimity but lost the cultural harmony among its classes. I wonder, had it preferred the latter, would it be less divided and violent than it is today.

I opened a thread once on this topic http://www.paklinks.com/gs/culture-literature-and-linguistics/575098-dharti-maan.html

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@TheRealDeal

Very interesting and worthwhile thread.

Jahaan jeeyu tahaan sikhu,Bro :)

[kakaballi]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

The Hindus praise the expression of Hind,
The Sindhi praise the expression of Sind.

(Galal ud-Din Rumi, Matnawi Vol. II 1757)

Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860-2000 - Mark-Anthony Falzon - Google Books

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@kakaballi

The Hindus praise the expression of Hind,
The Sindhi praise the expression of Sind.

(Galal ud-Din Rumi, Matnawi Vol. II 1757)

Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi Diaspora, 1860-2000 - Mark-Anthony Falzon - Google Books

Interesting book. I think Hindus were not comfortable with sea trade due to some religious issues. So when we hear about trade from Sindh to other parts of world (after 711 AD), it might be through Sindhi Muslims. There are families like Abdullah Haroon, who are famous for trade. Even if we go through 19th Century Sindhi novel ‘Zeenat’ by Mirza Qaleech Baig, it mentions many Sindhi Muslim families doing trade with Masqat through sea route.

Sindhi Shaikh - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In South Asia, it is used as an ethnic title generally attributed to Muslim trading families descended from the higher clans and are generally very rich and powerful in the local administration and economy.[SUP][3]](Sindhi Shaikh - Wikipedia)[/SUP] Shaikh families are descended from Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis who travelled from the rest of the Muslim world to the Islamic Sultanate in South Asia and settled permanently. In Sindh, the families of the Makhdums of Hala are Siddiqui Shaikhs, who arrived from Central Asia. The shaikhs who migrated from the Arab lands as Sufis conjointly lived with the existing wealthy Shaikh inhabitants of Larkana, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Khairpur while now they have spread throughout Sindh, making a worthy population around 1 Million. [Sindh - Pakistan].

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

Around 15 Buddhist monasteries could be explored in Sindh? What happened to thousands of other?

Buddhism became a popular religion in Gujarat during the Kshatrapa period (1st to 4th Century A.D.) and it continued to flourish during the Maitraka rule (470-788 A.D.). Hiuen Tsiang, the Chinese traveller and scholar, visited Gujarat in 640 A.D. during the Maitrakas’ reign. He records that there were about 200 monasteries with 10,000 monks living in them. These monasteries were located at Bharuch, Atali, Kheta, Valabhi, Anandapura and Saurashtra. Another Chinese traveller, I-tsing, who visited Gujarat around 670 A. D., too observed that the Sammitiya school had the greatest number of followers in western India.

Past and present glory - The Hindu

Kutch was another region on the ancient route connecting Gujarat and Sindh, where Buddhists were in significant numbers. These findings clearly show that in western India Gujarat was dotted with several Buddhist centres in ancient times. However, further detailed studies are necessary to understand the role of Buddhism in the socio-cultural development of this region.

[the_kaur]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

As a language, is Sindhi similar to Gujarati? Are these two language mutually intelligible?

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@the_kaur

As a language, is Sindhi similar to Gujarati? Are these two language mutually intelligible?

Gujrati is West Indian and Sindhi is North-Western language of Indo-Aryan family. There are overlapping words in both the languages. I think people on border areas of Sindh and Gujarat can understand each other.

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

Around 15 Buddhist monasteries could be explored in Sindh? What happened to thousands of other?

Bhai,those Budhists were settlers and I think they hardly played any role in Sindhi community,society or culture.

This is one reason,we do not have Budhist influence in our community.

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

Gujrati is West Indian and Sindhi is North-Western language of Indo-Aryan family. There are overlapping words in both the languages. I think people on border areas of Sindh and Gujarat can understand each other.

About 40%,it is the same.I believe.

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

You can not find a secular Sindhi because all Sindhis are secular-Arleitter

:D

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@Arleitter

Bhai,those Budhists were settlers and I think they hardly played any role in Sindhi community,society or culture.

This is one reason,we do not have Budhist influence in our community.

No role? Moen jo DaRo is basically Buddhist Stupa (The main site).

Culturally, you can even see statues of Gautam Buddha in Sindhi Muslim's household. What is the word for 'listen' in Sindhi? Budh :)

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

No role? Moen jo DaRo is basically Buddhist Stupa (The main site).

Culturally, you can even see statute of Gautam Buddha in Sindhi Muslim's household. What is the word for 'listen' in Sindhi? Budh :)

I was specifically talking about their influence daily life.

Islam is a conspicuous one even in a Sindhi Hindu's life.Like that...

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

No role? Moen jo DaRo is basically Buddhist Stupa (The main site).

Culturally, you can even see statute of Gautam Buddha in Sindhi Muslim's household. What is the word for 'listen' in Sindhi? Budh :)

I believe it was predominantly a Hindu site.Lord Siva is given prominence in many things ,unearthed from there.

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@Arleitter

I was specifically talking about their influence daily life.

Islam is a conspicuous one even in a Sindhi Hindu's life.Like that...

But then why Sindhi society as a whole remained peaceful and away from arms across the history? Isn't it influence of Buddha's teachings. This might be the reason for popularity of Sufism in Sindh.

[muqawwee123]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@Arleitter

I believe it was predominantly a Hindu site.Lord Siva is given prominence in many things ,unearthed from there.

Siva's influence can be seen in Sehwan (Qalandar's maar). red flags and dhamal.. but what are the influences of Shiva apparent from Moen Jo Daro sites? I don't think they found murtis there except dancing girl and king / priest with Ajrak.

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

But then why Sindhi society as a whole remained peaceful and away from arms across the history? Isn't it influence of Buddha's teachings. This might be the reason for popularity of Sufism in Sindh.

I think the major reason for Sindhis being secular is,both the communities lived side by side for generations and there is a `brotherhood' feeling among the people of both the communities.I do not think it is the Budhist influence that played the role but the various sufi sages taught the importance and need for unity.They acted as the peace brokers.

[Arleitter]

Re: Sindh Through Centuries!

@muqawwee123

Siva's influence can be seen in Sehwan (Qalandar's maar). red flags and dhamal.. but what are the influences of Shiva apparent from Moen Jo Daro sites? I don't think they found murtis there except dancing girl and king / priest with Ajrak.

Have you forgotten the `Pashupati seal'?