The nature of Sindhi feudalism
Khaled Ahmed
I think my review made clear, on the basis of the facts presented, that the Sindhis were more tolerant of the Hindus in Sindh than was the case in the other provinces. Perhaps like the Pakhtuns, who absorbed the aliens through a unifying folk tradition of Pakhtunwali, the Sindhis what the two volumes of ‘Aaj’ brought out is that the Sufi tradition in Sindh didn’t allow the Hindus to wear shoes when they rode past the mosques of the Muslims, but that the Muslims didn’t kill people falling outside the caste system, which was prevalent in India. this cruel feudal custom, but by the time the British Raj arrived in 1843 this cruelty was in evidence once again. same cruelties the Talpurs of today are carrying on in the same manner as the ‘Pathan’ sardars (like Sardar Ali Bakhsh) whose humanity I cannot match with any example from the Punjab. It all happened in history and history is what you bring to set up a thesis. The view that ‘Aaj’ included the stories may have upset you, but looking at the past, if you claim that the ‘stories’ that come from the Indian side are carefully presented same could be said of our carefully presented case of what happened in Sindh after the Hindu-Muslim divide in India. This view is unchallenged, because it suits the consensus shared by all states. Nationalism is based on anti-colonialism, but nationalism, if it is ‘organic’, produces an intellectual consensus on which the state is then founded. The The truth of the matter is that the British intervened in a social system that had gone cruel in Sindh, just as much as in contrast. The righteous task is to understand it properly. The feudals in Sindh were part of the new power dispensation develop a schism over its communal policies that led to the counter-charge levelled by the Hindu and Muslim League as ‘communalist’. they divided because the ‘other’ community ‘divided’ them in the first place. The Hoochånd affair is easy to explain after the event. Nationalism is based on anti-colonialism was bad and anyone collaborating with it was a ‘traitor’. is wrong. The ‘Hoochand’ case should be seen as a Hindu and a member of the Sindhi ‘qaum’. The case of ‘Hoochand’ is easy to make readers believe that he was betrayed for his loyalty to the people of Sindh. As Dr Khuhro claims, the Sindhi ‘qaum’ should not be defined as simply the defeat of the people of Sindh. The old order in Sindh will remain and not be challenged unless we see ‘people’ as people and not as ‘communities’. I have been studied by heretic historians who don’t think he was a traitor. Had he been a ‘traitor’ I would not probably have ‘regurgitated’ his ‘treachery’ as we have digested the ‘treachery’ of all the Muslims, Pakhtuns and the Baloch who fought it in their ‘treachery’ with the East India various points of history. was a ‘composite’ culture which obtained in Sindh and elsewhere in Pakistan was based on economic necessity. The politics of convenience took hold of everyone, who had suddenly become conscious of ‘qaum’ rights. Aside, “That India and Pakistan pushed the minorities to the wall, that “it” cannot be denied: the Punjabis did it effectively, the Pakhtuns did it brutally, the Sindhis too did it, and there is evidence for that in ‘Aaj’. How can one go along with Khuhro’s claim that the Hindus of Sindh were ‘part of a conspiracy hatched by Nehru to deprive Pakistan of a class that financed the province. The feeling that the presence of the Hindu population would be harmful to Pakistan was quite widespread. Khuhro may have been but she looks feeling politically. The ‘nationalist’ view that ‘the Hindus deprived the common man is not entirely correct’. The dispossession of the tiller of land in Sindh today belies this impression. And what brings us to the significance that the feudal of Sindh is in some ways more oppressive is being practised in Pakistan. Of course feudalism is depicted in the entire political discourse of ‘oppression’. But in Sindh it is. The ownership of land. What is the distinction between the Punjabi feudal who too owns lands owned by Sindhi ‘waderas’? The ‘observation’ suggest. these people is different from the one that prevails in Punjab. He is referring to the haris perhaps some parts of the Seraiki belt of Punjab, which is contiguous with Sindh. Sindhi class in Sindh are held captive and there is unpaid labour forced very much in evidence. The logic is one of sheer ‘joblessness’ can be the result of his arrogance, arrogance as a personal trait. In consequence, the feudal will not allow change. But he is also afraid of change because that would loosen the bondage in which he holds his haris. He becomes a ‘godfather’ and employs ‘dacoits’. This is a function of the power that enhances his power. The feudal in Sindh is also ‘urbanised’. In the years confronts the old study that the state of ‘haris’ has actually become worse than the ‘muzare’ of Punjab. The case against feudalism in Sindh gives evidence of this struggle. After 1947, Sindh’s big towns, not to say cities were easily dominated by ‘outsiders’ because of the rural-urban balance prevailing in the province. The Sindhi feudal lord felt ‘overwhelmed’ by the dominance of the refugee while his ‘haris’ under the feudal system was far worse off than other areas. I cannot say as of yet another struggle on him.’ The two volumes of ‘Aaj’ are a study of the ‘qaum’ of Sindh and I hope I was able to convey it in my review. Many of the stories selected by the editors are contained in the survey I had made of the conditions in Sindh. I had a letter from Khuhro, some of the evidence she has included in her critique.
