Chapter 1
Introduction

Chapter 2
Sindhudesh & Pakistan

Chapter 3
Sindh's Concept of Pakistan

Chapter 4
Sindh Under Pakistan

Chapter 5
Sindhudesh - The Prospects

Chapter 6
Mission of Sindhu Desh

Sindhu Desh was born with the birth of Mother Earth. Our attachment with it, too, is as old and ancient as that. As the days pass into nights and the seasons change, man, observes his regime of wakefulness and sleep and register the effect of the change. Like individuals, the peoples also have their cycles of hibernation and soulfulness of life and activity. At certain times of their history, they rise and took some giant steps on the road to civilization heights, and putting a mile stone or two on the path, they slow down and then step aside to catch breath some times even slide down dangerously and wait quietly for the chance to rise and get the way again.

Sindhu Desh is the land of the people, noted for their ancient civilization and culture. They have had a remarkably magnificent past. For some period in their recent history, they hose to forget their status as a people and fell into a regret able bout of slumber, and permitted themselves to be overrun and ruled by alien peoples.

We, the present generation of the people of Sindhu Desh are the product of that hapless period of our history.

After separation of Sindhu from Bombay Presidency in India in 1936 when we found our political freedom, economic prosperity and cultural growth check mated at home, we over reacted, and largely misconceiving the situation, held the Hindu vested interests, to be responsible for it. Consequently, we chose to see the solution of the situation in the establishment of Pakistan the land of the holy (Muslim) people.

It is said, "the path to bell is paved with good intentions". We too strove to gain Pakistan, with a view to attaining the following objectives:

1. Establishment of separate states of the local Muslim peoples in the Muslim majority areas in the Indian sub continent, in order to provide them with full opportunities for progress and development, in accordance with the ways and traditions of their life.
2. Promotion and establishment of mutual co operation among such separate Muslim states in order to ensure their political freedom, economic prosperity, and cultural growth. We have now expended full twenty-seven years on this experiment. We should now be in a position to appraise the performance and measure the fulfillment.

Muslim rulers held their sovereignty over a large part of the Indian sub continent, for a great number of years although; almost entirely this rule was personal and tribal.

Under these ruler ships, certain classes and coteries of Muslims, almost exclusively belonging to the non Indian descent who arrived in India with or in the wake of the invading armies, established their vested interests as land owning gentry or officials in government establishments. The Maulvi, the Pir, the feudalist and the mandarins, constituting themselves as serving Muslim aristocracy and who benefited the most under these personal tribal seats of power, found their privileged position better ensured and protected in calling these establishments the Muslim States or better still, the Islamic States.

The Muslim aristocracy, thus entrenched, adopted two positions, choosing one or the other as it suited their purpose, for safe guarding their social, economic and political hegemony in India.

First, as later in the period of Mughal Imperial Rule, they would exert to preserve the vested interests by basing the State Power on semi settler foundations seeking help and support both of the Muslim and the Hindu powerful tribes. This approach, speaking in broad terms, worked, to an extent to the benefit of both the Hindu and the Muslim communities and easily won a considerable measure of popular acceptance in the sub continent. In course of time, however, this approach proved a failure. Solely because of the element of mistake, inherent in its basic formulation viz., joining religion with politics, under a patronizing show of impartiality, for purposes of States administration.

Second, on failure of the semi secular approach, the Muslim Aristocracy sought to protect and enlarge their vested interest by building exclusive Muslim domination in the affairs of State, basing all State Power on theocracy, throwing out secular politics completely out of the field. This could evidently lead to disaster, as it actually did, under the realities and in the steady awakening of political atmosphere and social and economic life in the sub continent.

The British power, armed with superiority's gained from Industrial Revolution back at home, soon walked in, and established its thorough imperialist domination in the subcontinent. The Muslim aristocracy, left high and dry, found it self divided into two camps. One consisted of those who sought to dislodge the British and restore the Mughal rule with the support of the outside friendly Muslim powers and the local Hindu Chieftains. That move, however, failed on the fields of the war of liberation of 1857, and its leading members had to suffer terribly in the cause. The other group sought to save and maintain their privileged positions and vested interests secured by them during the Mughal days, by collaborating fully and unconditionally with the alien imperialist British Raj.

Some time later, when the British imperialists, under pressure of the rising public opinion in India and the world opinion generated under the two world wars conditions started offering political reforms to the people of India on democratic basis. This last group of the upper class Muslim Collaborators fearing injury to their class interests under democracy, first strove to protect the same by consolidating and further expanding areas of their collaboration with the British. However, on seeing the freedom movement gathering momentum and advancing irresistibly, they revised their policy, and with the help and support of their British masters, started movement for establishing sovereign independent states in the Muslim majority provinces, in an arrangement superlatively called Pakistan.

The Muslim upper classes of the Muslim majority Provinces did not apprehend any challenge to their vested interests in conditions of democratic political freedom. These and the common Muslims in those Provinces were, however incited to join the movement for Pakistan by holding out to them temporizing prospects of :

1. Establishment of independent sovereign Muslim states in their Provinces.
2. Introduction of a way of life in those states in full accord with the injunctions of Islam and holy traditions of the Prophet.
3. Freedom of the Muslims of these Provinces from the real or imaginary economic domination of the non Muslims, i.e., the Hindus; and
4. Establishment of Unity of all the Muslim Countries, with Pakistan as the hub center of the chosen brotherhood.

For the attainment of these tantalizing objectives, the Muslim vested interests in the Muslim minority Provinces invented the theory of separate nationhood of Muslims. This theory of the nation had its basis solely on considerations of religion. And although, none of the people in any Muslim Country of the world believed in any such theory, the Muslim masses of Sindh, Baluchistan, Pakhtoonistan, and Bengal were soon taken in under the lavish use of Islam's name as an adulatory brief for it. They could not foresee the price they were to pay for the dubious privilege of being termed a nation on basis of religion. They could not realize in time the utter barrenness of the theory both in terms of any national gain or even as a leverage for attaining Islam's power and glory in the world. They were swept completely off their feet in the exuberance of religious favor, remaining utterly oblivious of their fate as victims of the cruel hoax.

Some of us who all the time remained conscious of the national distinctness of the People of Sindh and of their significant past history, participated in the movement for Pakistan solely for the purpose of ensuring thereby political independence, economic prosperity and cultural advancement of Sindh. We remained convinced throughout of the validity of the teaching of our great political thinkers like Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Allama I. I. Kazi and others who considered the Sindhi people a separate nation. In spite of these convictions, if we joined hands with advocates of the religious nationality theory, who in fact clandestinely strove only to establish the Muhajir Punjabi exploitative hegemony over the Muslim majority provinces. Our sole reason for such a participation was the most unambiguously declared objective of the Pakistan movement, as defined in the 1940 Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League, to found "Independent and Sovereign States" in the Muslim majority Provinces in the sub continent. Mr. Jinnah, when questioned, soon after at his press conference in Madras as to the meaning and effect of the above words in the Pakistan Resolution, most unequivocally declared that "Punjab, for example, will be an independent and Sovereign State"

It was Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his group of workers only, in the Muslim majority areas, whose even in those days, could see through the game and did not get into the trap of the "Two Nation Theory", which the dying Muslim privilege in India was trumpeting about for salvaging its sinking fortunes in Indian life.

At the start, we here in Sindh, participated in the Pakistan movement, under the leadership of Shaikh Abdul Majid Sindhi, on the basis of the theory of separate Muslim nationhood, but soon after we ourselves could see through the class intentions of the Muslim Vested interests of the Muslim minority Provinces and those of our own exploitative Muslim elements who joined with them for the fool hardy and shortsighted purpose of gaining sole positions of power and privilege locally at the cost of their Hindu rivals. Realizing the above, we parted company and came out of the Muslim league.

Pakistan came into existence on August 14, 1947. At the inaugural session of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder and its first Governor General, made a declaration. That was timely, appropriate and the most devastating in importance in the context of the two nation theory on the basis of which the Muslim League, under his own Presidentship, fought for the partitioning of the Indian sub continent and establishment of Pakistan. This declaration of Quaid-e-Azam stands as a complete and most decisive rebuttal of the theory of nation on basis of religion, over which Pakistan was founded. Following is the ad verbatim report of the speech as officially published.

"Now if we want to make this Great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well being of the people and specially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his color, cast or creed, is first, second and last, a citizen of this State, with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make."

"I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims, you have Pathan, Punjabis, Shiyas, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, and also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on will vanish. Indeed, if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance, and but for this, we should have been free peoples long ago. No power on earth can hold another nation and specially a nation 400 million souls in subjection nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time but for this (Applause) Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques, or to any other place of worship in the State of Pakistan, for you may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State (Hear, hear). As you know, the history shows that in England conditions some times ago were much worse than those prevailing in India today were. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination between one caste or creed or another. We are starting with this, fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of One State (Loud applause). The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation, had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by Government of their country, and they went through that fire step by step. Today you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain, and they are all members of the nation."

" Now, I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal matter of individual citizen, but in the political sense and as citizens of the State."

The same Mr. Jinnah, on the 23rd of March 1940, at the Lahore session of All India Muslim League, said the following:
 

"There is no doubt that Musalmans are to elect their representatives on the constituent Assembly through separate electorate. That is a good thing but decisions on Constitution are nevertheless to be taken by majority. Should there be difference on any issue between the minority and the majority, who will decide the point?"

"All the talk today takes place on the assumption that Musalmans are a minority. We have got so used to this that we are not able to think any other way. We have totally forgotten the fact that Musalmans are not a minority but, in every sense and from all view points they are a separate nation."

The political argument developed, by Mr. Jinnah in his speech quoted in these extracts can exactly apply mutandis to the claim of Sindhi people to be treated as a notion and not as a minority in Pakistan.
 

"The problems then in India is not of an inter communal but manifestly of international character and it must be treated as such. So long as this basic and fundamental truth is not realized, any constitution that may be built will result in disaster as will prove destructive and harmful not only to Muslims but to the British and Hindus also."

"There is no reason why these States should be antagonistic to each other. On the other hand the rivalry and the natural desire and efforts on the part of one to dominate the social order and establish political Supremacy over the other in the government of the country will disappear. It will lead more towards natural goodwill by international pacts between them, and they can live in complete harmony. This will lead further to a friendly settlement all the more easily with regard to minorities by reciprocal arrangements and adjustments between Muslim India and Hindu India, which will far more adequately and effectively safeguard the rights and interests of Muslims and various minorities."

"It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real natures of Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact, quite different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality."

"This misconception of one Indian nation has gone far beyond the limits and is the cause of most of our troubles and will lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religion philosophies, social customs, and literature. They neither inter marry nor inter dine and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations, which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their outlooks on and of life are different. It is quite clear that Hindus and Muslims derive their inspiration from different sources of history. They have different epics and episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise. Their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single State, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a State."

Before commenting on the contradiction involved in the two positions as revealed in Mr. Jinnah's two speeches quoted above, it would be better to quote him from another speech of his, which he made on the 28th of September, 1939, at the Osmania University, Hyderabad Deccan. Addressing the Old Boys of the University at their annual "get together", he said:

"In matters of life, I am basically a realist, and have always followed pragmatic approach in politics. The terms nationality and nationalism have meant different things to different people, according to practical bearings thereof upon their given interests. Strictly speaking, I am still a nationalist. I have always stood for Hindu Muslim Unity. But that unity and understanding should be honorable and just, and not that one party should grow all powerful, while the other may not exist."

Studying the three declarations, explicit as they are, it becomes clear that Mr. Jinnah, while advocating the separate Muslim nationality theory, remained throughout a believer in Indian Nationalism, Strictly speaking". It was because of lack of an "honorable understanding" for settlement that, Pragmatic" or practical politician as he was, he spoke of Muslim nationhood and separate Muslim State or States in the sub continent. And when Pakistan was actually established, he without losing a moment, called upon his followers and all citizens in Pakistan "to work in cooperation forgetting the past," told them unequivocally that you may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State" that "We are all citizens and equal citizens of one State," and that "in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal matter of individual citizen, but in the political sense and as citizens of the State."

What was Mr. Jinnah's actual mind in holding forth so brazenly with these contradictions? Firstly, Mr. Jinnah was never at all a principled politician. His was a pragmatic approach in affairs of life. He hesitated at least in changing his standpoints as and when it suited his purposes. Secondly, Mr. Jinnah had a very patchy and incomplete knowledge of Islam. He had no true contact with the Muslim masses either. Thirdly, he was only playing the role of an expert and efficient advocate holding and defending his brief for the waning Muslim Vested Interests of the Muslim minority, Provinces, who, while seeing their privileged position under challenge in conditions of democracy in a free India strove to provide themselves with a safe heaven in a separate country, where they would install and preserve their vested interests, and put their exploitative talents to the best and safest use.

It was for this very objective that Mr. Jinnah has changed his mind, towards nearly the fag end of his life, from being a strong Indian nationalist to a pragmatic Muslim separatist; bad worked and brought about partitioning of the sub continent; and had finally re asserted his faith on secular nationalism in place of religions nationalism as he realized that alone could ensure security, stability and well being of the new State founded by him. He thus disparaged Indian Nationalism and sponsored Muslim Nationalism only as an argument for the sake of argument, and, on gaining his point, immediately gave it up, as an argument no more needed. He was a secular nationalist to begin with and when he saw that was the only way to run a modern State, he promptly came back to it and spoke of Pakistani nationalism, he knows that no country in the world could ever accept the concept of nation on basis of religion.

Unfortunately for him, however, as he was totally wrong in his argument for his brief for Pakistan as a political concept, he was equally wrong, though in a different way, also in the argument for his brief for Pakistan as a political fact. When he addressed the inaugural session of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11th, 1947, and adumbrated Pakistani Nationalism as theory for running Pakistan in place of Muslim Nationalism which brought it about, he was turning his blind eye to the following very pertinent facts of nature and history:

• There was no country, nor any nation, in the Indian sub continent known to history at any stage as Pakistan or Pakistani Nation.
• Historically, the States which had been collected together and formed into a Pakistan were each a separate homeland for a separate nation.
• Culturally, politically and economically, too, these were the countries and nations, each being not only a distinct but also even an exclusive entity existing in its own right.
• Considerations, which could weigh with any body for denying status of one nation or one country to India, could exactly, and even in greater weight apply to Pakistan for withholding the same status from it.
• To begin with, Pakistan was not a country nor the peoples living in it were a nation by any modern definition of the term. They could, however be welded into one nation and one country, just as Indian sub continent too could have been so welded, through "honorable and just understanding" and settlement among different national interests living in it.

In brief, Mr. Jinnah, in his secular nationalism for Pakistan was becoming guilty of the same mistaken approach as he himself had seen castigated in the stand point of the Indian National Congress vis a vis its Indian "Nationalism". Avery prolonged and sustained effort, on the basis of mutual understanding for living together, was needed for converging individual interests of different national entities living in Pakistan, as in Indian sub continent, into one, and for forging an impregnable and lasting unity out of them to emerge into living history as a well knit and fully viable nation.

To talk about a thing or to express an opinion on it is not a matter of much difficulty. It is an entirely different thing; however, to translate into reality what one professes to stand for. To weld divergent peoples living for thousands of years under variegated geographical conditions, into one could not, by any way, be an easy proposition. The peoples, with established homelands of theirs, joined under the new state administration, had their linguistic divergences, to start with Their national temperaments, customs and traditions and political and economic interests differed visibly. Theirs were also the conflicts in history, which turned what was good for some into the bad for others. Their differences of this kind stood petrified, in certain cases in their language expressions. The Sindhi Language in this connection, had the following citations to offer: "Oh, our beloved Sindh, thou art under the menace ever from the direction of Qandhar"; "Allow one Punjabi in, the second is bound to sneak in, and when they are two together, mind your person and your home", "Spare the snake and kill the Punjabi Muhajir".

Mr. Jinnah, in turn, instead of blunting the edges of conflict and soothing the sore spots among such mutually dissimilar peoples, did his worst to aggregate differences and widen the schisms among them by the following thoughtless moves of his probably the result of over estimation on his part of his powers, allowing his exuberance at earlier easy political successes to get better of his discretions:

1. The First move of his that planted a tough and growing suspicion in the mind of the original peoples who came together in Pakistan, was the move at imposition of Urdu as the national Language on them, the language of the Muslim Vested Interests of the Muslim minority Provinces of India, a large portion of whom had already migrated into Pakistan and were jockeying for the privileged position in the country similar to the one they held back at home, thereby causing the peoples, whose mother tongues were thus being ignored, apprehensions of conditions building up for Muhajir cultural domination in their homelands.
2. The second un-statesman like move of Mr. Jinnah, which too served as a divisive move rather than a cementing one for the peoples of Pakistan, was his effort at concentrating all power at the center and making the Central Government overwhelmingly strong, ignoring completely the rights and privileges of the original Pakistan Peoples with the exception of the people of the Punjab, who by dint of absolute majority in West Pakistan and their monopolist hold on the military forces were already in the position of masters in the country thereby causing the rest of the smaller peoples apprehensions of conditions building up for the Muhajir Punjabi political domination in their homelands.
3. The third wrong move, which ignited fires of mistrust and suspicion among the peoples in Pakistan was the move by Mr. Jinnah to send for high Civil Servants from the Muslim minority provinces of India and install them in superior administrative positions in the country, who, assuming thereby airs of alien conquerors, began to rule the local population with haughty indifference to their interests, utilizing their entire power and influence for nothing but nepotism, favoritism and self aggrandizement.
4. Mr. Jinnah dismembered Sindh by cutting off Karachi, its leading city, from it and handed it over to the Central administration with Liaquat Ali Khan as its head, for colonization of the city by Muhajirs.
5. Mr. Jinnah persecuted the nationalist Muslims workers in Pakistan ruthlessly, even after he, on his own part, had publicly discarded the Muslim nationality theory. This pursuit of mere vendetta, then, shut out all avenues of reconciliation and understanding which was otherwise a pre condition for taking first cautious steps towards building Pakistani Nationalism in due course.
6. Mr. Jinnah offered, in almost its entirety, the evacuee property of limitless value, left behind by the Sindhi Hindus and Sikhs, to the Muhajirs mostly the Urdu speaking Muhajirs, hailing from U.P., C.P. and Hyderabad Deccan, who, treating the entire property as nothing but war booty, grabbed it as right fully be longing to them as victorious soldiers of Islam and conquerors of the land of infidels. The local (Muslim) people were not only deliberately kept deprived of any share worth the name in this property, but were in many cases, even dispossessed of any customary or legal right they held in it.
7. Mr. Jinnah, declaring Pakistan to be the homeland of all the Muslims of the Indian Sub continent opened its borders to measureless immigration of Muslims from India, exposing the local nationalities particularly the Sindhis, to the threat of their population to be unbalanced and thus reduced from majority into a minority in their own homelands.

Mr. Jinnah's life did not last long. It would never be possible, therefore, to assess with any degree of confidence as to how he would have translated into reality what he declared, towards the end of his life, to be his belief regarding the concept of nationhood, viz., that religion being a personal matter of an individual, it had nothing to do with the business of the State, and that there was no nation like Muslim nation in the world and that the people of Pakistan irrespective of their religious pursuits, were first, second and last citizens and equal citizens oft he State. The Muslim Vested Interests of the Muslim minority provinces in India i.e., the Muhajirs in Pakistan whose hero and representative he bad set himself out to be, did not, however, accept Mr. Jinnah's view point, but all the more vehemently stuck to their self induced belief of separate Muslim nation hood their emerging economic vested interests including the ones subsisting in the evacuees property loot, in Pakistan, could not permit them to give up the theory. All this, on the contrary, strengthened their loyalty to the theory, since that alone was the guarantee and protection for their ill gotten wealth and property and for their privileged position, which they had been able to secure in the name of that theory, in Pakistan. They argued in favor of the theory further in their mind thus:

1. Since different populations who had joined Pakistan possessed different languages, past history, culture and political and economic interests and had geographically well defined areas as their homelands, they could live together only in the name of religion, on which basis they had untidily brought about the partitioning of the sub continent. If the religious basis of the arrangement were given up, there would soon arise the questions of national status and the right of self-determination of these different populations, which would surely weaken the foundations of Pakistan and lead to an unmanageable situation absolutely.
2. Since the forces of genuinely interested in the continuance of the arrangements comprise only the Muhajir Punjabi patriotic axis, theirs should be the condition of overwhelming advantage in the scheme of things in Pakistan, so as to keep their stake in its preservation as high and pressing as possible. Moreover, the Muhajir Punjabi axis could retain their said advantage in the country only on the basis of the religious nationality theory and on no other basis.
3. Since the original motivation for establishment of Pakistan was to provide a grant locale for the settlement and colonization of Indian Muslims and transplantation of their vested interests, and the two nation theory was devised as a rationale for the operation, the entire purpose will be lost with the acceptance of Mr. Jinnah's mental somersault at this stage.

Thus Pakistan's politics, with the very inception of the State, stood divided into two strains pulling in opposite directions:

1. There were the original people of the area, who considering their newly won freedom from alien British occupation a blessing, desired to work for consolidation of their political freedom and for development of their economic prosperity and cultural well being, on the basis of their sovereign and independent existence as National States.
2. There was the Muhajir Punjabi axis, and their local agents, holding the other strain in the body politics of Pakistan, who desired nothing but preservation of their vested interests in the name of religion, for carrying on, unchallenged, their ruthless exploitation of the country in all fields.

The British imperialism, while quitting India, transferred their Power in Pakistan to their henchmen, the Muslim Vested Interests of the Muslim minority provinces, who collaborated with them originally in their consolidation of power in India, and their Punjabi feudalist and upper class agents, who supplied them with cheap soldiers ready to become canon fodder in their Imperialist wars outside India and to stand guard as sword arms of their Imperialist over lordship inside the sub continent. These inheritors of the mantle of their masters in subterfuge and ruthlessness, putting fully to use their newly won powers and through all sorts of propaganda, began their rule with total suppression of the voice of their opponents from the first group. The nationalist workers were subjected to torture and ignominy, so as to keep them immobilized completely, and with the help and support of paid local agents and the wildest use possible of the technique of the big lie, the peoples mind was constantly sought to be kept vitiated and fully occupied in irrelevant and vain distractions.

On their part, to begin with, the nationalist leadership, from Bengal, Sindh, Baluchistan and Pakhtoonistan, convened into a conference at Karachi on May 8, 1948, and set up an organization, calling it Peoples Organization (Awami Tanzeem), through which they could operate within available constitutional means, for influencing the course of events, which they could already well see was otherwise heading, under the, Stewardship of the Muhajir Punjabi axis toward disastrous shoaly waters. As chairperson of the Reception Committee for that conference, the writer gave an address, making, among others, the following points:
 

"I welcome you, on behalf of the people of Sindh, to the land of Sindhu Desh, which holds a very important place today in Pakistan." "It is on this land that the destinies of our different peoples are going to be decided, and it is from here that a voice has to be raised for democratic values to be incorporated in the new constitution so that all concerned may secure their rights in Pakistan". "Friends, the people of Sindh have a unique history. It is, therefore, natural that they should struggle to ensure a bright future for themselves as a people."

"Sindh has remained the seat of an ancient civilization and culture. The remains of the great Mohen-jo-Daro are witnesses to it. A number of races and many philosophers merged into one another here and became one. All the same, Sindh has retained its individual status and place in history for centuries. Buddhism took birth on the land of Hind, but it grew and flourished here on this land. Our glorious Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai taught the lessons of unity among different sects, communities, and religions here on this land, which we may call the message of Sindhu Desh to the worrying world today. In the recent scene of wild hate among human beings staged in the Indian sub continent, the Sindhis as a people took no part."

"The People of Sindh, retaining their nationality and culture, have played their full role in history through the ages. Theirs has indeed been an eventful history. The Iranians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Afghans, and the Mughal Emperors of Delhi exercised their way on this land in their own time. At certain times, it appeared that Sindh's star had almost set, but each time it rose and shone brighter than before. The urge for freedom in the heart of the Sindhi people has always remained strong and turbulently alive. Their long and checkered history is the recorded witness to it."

"The Sindhi Muslims struggle for freedom from the British Imperialism started much earlier than the Lahore resolution of March, 1940. It aimed at liberation from the rule of alien masters and also from the domination of the Hindu vested interests." " They had started struggle isolatedily, aimed at first at elimination of the non Sindhi Hindu Vested Interests, interference into their national affairs."

"It was in the year 1945 that we first realized that under the protective shadow of the Muslim League ideology and organizational strength, the Muslim Vested Interests of the Muslim minority provinces were aiming at establishing their class domination worst than that of the Hindu Vested Interests over us. We at once re appraised our situation and set the course of our struggle aimed at reassurance of freedom for Sindh and for other States in Pakistan in terms of the Lahore Resolution guaranteeing independent and sovereign status to such federating States."

"That struggle of the weak and smaller peoples in Pakistan continues. We cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be expected, to acquiesce in more change of sub ordination from that the Hindu over lords to the one under the Muslim over lords. It could never be a happy perspective for a people to substitute their compatriotic masters with the alien ones not withstanding the luxury of the slave to pray standing shoulder to shoulder with his master in one case and the misery of it all where he may pray isolatedly and away from the master. Slavery remains slavery more unbearable certainly in the case of the whip being swashed by an alien hand instead of a compatriotic one. As. long as slavery lasts, it is the birth right of the slave to struggle by every means at hand for his liberation."

"It is only proper that the present discontentment and unrest among the people of Sindh is examined cool mindedly. It would not be correct to hold them guilty of "provincialism" and refuse to probe into the basic causes of their dissatisfaction. The new administration in the country would not at all benefit at this initial stage of its career by any such attitude of haughty indifference to these problems."

"People living in this country speak different languages, and differ widely from each other in their customs and traditions. It would indeed be for the good of the country. Therefore, to recognize honestly the realities rather than ignore these differences or to suppress them by overplaying some for effacing the other. People's energies and resources must not be dissipated in defending or saving these differences. It must be remembered that the people are in great love with those differences. They would rather lose their lives than give some of them up. It would therefore be of no good to any body to deny the reality of the existence of nationalities in Pakistan. Any such ostrich like policy in national affairs can only boomerang, to the determent of all concerned."

The "Peoples organization" was set up during the lifetime of Mr. Jinnah. Freedom of association to organize an opposition party for pursuing a political program constitutionally is a basic right of the people in a democratic state. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Jinnah, after the establishment of Pakistan inspite of all loud claims for democracy did his very worst to slippers democratic traditions and values in almost every department of life. He took strong measures to crush every bit of democratic aspiration that he could detect anywhere among the people.
 

1. To begin with, he took away all important subjects from the jurisdiction of the Provincial. Governments and handed the same over to his Central Administration working under despotic control of the functionaries of the Muhajirs Punjabi Axis.
2. Mr. Jinnah governed the country as its semi dictator, designating himself as Governor General of Pakistan, speaker of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and the President of Muslim League, the ruling party of Pakistan all the three rolled into one.
3. He introduced the practice of dismissing democratically elected Provincial Ministries and of installing those of his owns stooges in the office at his whim. The first such ministry that he arbitrarily dismissed, even though it enjoyed majority confidence in side the Provincial Assembly was the ministry of Doctor Khan Sahib in the NWFP. In its place, he imposed on the Pakhtoon people the government of Khan Abdul Qayoom Khan who boasted himself in being called the iron man of Sarhad. This ruthless enemy of the people commended his rule by enacting the barbaric cold blooded massacre of the nationalist Pakhtoon workers and the mass arrests of the nationalist leadership. In Sindh, Mr. Jinnah dismissed under similar conditions, the Khuhro Ministry, even though it enjoyed the majority support in the Assembly; and trusted on the peoples of Sindh the government of Pir Illahi Bukhish, who had hardly any qualification for the position except that he was Mr. Jinnah's nominee and a completely pliable tool in the hands of the Muhajirs Punjabi Axis for the execution of their anti Sindh policies in the province, Similarly, the popular nationalist Ministry of Hussain Shahid Suharwardy was dismissed and that of Khuwaja Nazimuddin, a Muhajir Punjabi Axis agent was foisted on East Bengal.
4. Mr. Jinnah clamped into jail leading workers of the newly formed opposition party, the Peoples Organization under the safety and the security of Pakistan Acts. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Amir Ahmed Khan and Kazi Attaullah from Sarhad, Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai, Shahzada Abdul Karim and Muhammad Hussain Unka from Baluchistan, and G. M. Syed and others from Sindh were put behind the bars without due process of law, only with a view to make it impossible for any opposition to exist in the country. For the same purpose, Hussain Shahid Suharwardy was disqualified from membership of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to which he was legally and constitutionally elected. Maulvi Fazul Haque, another popular stalwart nationalist leader of the people of East Bengal was, to attain the same result, hounded out of politics altogether.
5. Mr. Jinnah, because of his anti democratic attitude of mind, and giving full play in practice too, to his dictatorial approaches in the settlement of national problems made it impossible for the work of constitution making to progress normally. No serious work could therefore be done on the constitution of the country as long as he lived and the country had to remain deprived of the constitution allowing him and his Muhajir Punjabi bureaucratic clique to govern the country as arbitrarily as possible.

On the death of Mr. Jinnah, his right hand man, Liaquat Ali Khan, grabbed the reins of government and held them as despotically and sinisterly as his departed master, particularly to the ill luck and manifest detriment of the weak and smaller peoples in Pakistan.

To speak of Sindh in Particular, what the Sindhi people suffered under the fiercest and the most fanatic rule of the Muhajir colonialists under the direct auspices and egging of this man, may be noted in brief, as follows:

1. It was Liaquat Ali Khan, who conceived the vivacious criminal plan of colonization of Sindh by the Urdu speaking Muhajirs, and for putting the plan into action organized their mass immigration into Sindh from their home provinces of UP, C.P., Hyderabad Deccan and certain native states of India.
2. It was Liaquat Ali Khan whose masterminded orgies of brute mass violence through bands of his trained ruffians against the life, property and honor of the Hindu nationals of Sindh, so that they should be forced to vacate their homes and properties to be occupied and appropriated by the Urdu speaking Muhajirs from India.
3. It was Liaquat Ali Khan, who with brutal openness expressed his unreserved contempt for the people of Sindh and their culture, so that they started counting him as their worst enemy.
4. It was he who maneuvered with Mr. Jinnah for award of place of privilege to Urdu over all the other people's language in the country, and for relegation of those languages into the background and for submerging them finally into lifelessness under Urdu.
5. It was him, who laid the ground for dismissal of Provincial Ministries and their replacement by others through nomination.
6. It was he who introduced disunity and strife among the members of Sindh Legislative Assembly, by tempting some and intimidating others.
7. It was he who arranged the predatory occupation of houses, lands, shops, factories, banks, Business establishments and services of the Sindhis by Muhajirs.
8. It was he who involved Pakistan as a Pawn in the game of international politics of world imperialists, deliberately going out of the way to keep its relations with India, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, its neighboring countries, as un easy and difficult as possible.
9. It was he who set one province of Pakistan against another, sowing poisonous seeds of distrust and enmity among them.
10. It was he who repeated the name of Islam the most, and also organized Meena Bazaars the most without the least qualms of conscience, and thus destroyed the prestige of Islam almost beyond repair in the mind of men all over the country.
11. It was he who proclaimed Mukka mailed fist to be the symbol of politics in Pakistan, and thus pulled it down from high pedestal of being the art and science of civilized living to the depth of a mere wild game of the jungle where might and cunning ness alone clinch the issue. It was he who gave coup de grace to democracy in Pakistan, and in its place, introduced fascism for the first time in the country.

Liaquat Ali Khan built a total control over the Army as well as the Civil Services through his picked functionaries mostly the Muhajir officers and turned his entire government into a handmaiden of the Muhajir vested interests. Their senior partners in exploitation, striving to be the sole masters of the show, in due course namely the Punjab Vested interests, couldn't accept this situation for long. They therefore, took due steps and got physically rid of the man, and thus freed themselves and the rest of the peoples of Pakistan from the doings of this first Muhajir Empire building Nawab from U.P. in India.

Then followed the rivalry for supremacy in Pakistan between its two big provinces the East Bengal and the West Punjab. A number of Ministries at the Central Seat of power succeeded one after another as a result of this rivalry. Khuwaja Nazimuddin, Mohammed Ali Bogra, Mohammed Ismail Chundrigar, Chaudhri Mohammed Ali, Hussain Shahid Suharwardy, Sir Feroze Khan Noon, and the rest quickly stepped on the stage, strutted about a bit, and turned to the exit as the masters of the ceremonies, the civil and Military functionaries of the Muhajir Punjabi Axis willed them to do. Till at last, on October 8, 1958, the junta came out in the open, and applying martial law to the country, first installed Iskandar Mirza as the President for twenty days and then removing him from office in a huff, brought General Ayub Khan, the C in C of Pakistan Army, fully and truly their own man, on the stage, which he occupied for ten years and ruled Pakistan with ruthless efficiency, serving no other interest except that of the Muhajir Punjabi. Imperialism albeit of native variety.

What actually transpired during the period of this coloring Gendarme of the Muhajir Punjabi Raj in Pakistan will be separately elsewhere. It would suffice here to say that when his rule began getting unpopular; he staged an extremely risky diversion for the people by launching the country into War with India on the question of Kashmir. Finding the going not at all good, he briskly withdrew from war on international advice; and signed the Peace Treaty with India at Tashkent. His irresponsible adventure in foisting war on the country and its consequent after effects and the general failures and foul actions of his 10 years old arbitrary rule gave rise to almost spontaneous angry mass reaction all over the country, which left him with no alternative but to s quit the stage. But before he did so, he managed to bring in. as his successor his most obedient second in command partner, General Yahya Khan, and thus made his exit as safe un explosive as possible.

The army and civil service Junta, who jealously and Stubbornly stood guard over the Muhajir Punjabi Raj in Pakistan and whose latest "show boy" this General Yahya Khan was possessed mentality completely impervious to considerations other than those of service and benefit of their class interest. They were totally indifferent to the general interests of the country. As to the national interests of different peoples in Pakistan, they were positively hostile. Theirs was an entirely small vision. This junta, therefore, hardly learned any lesson out of the miserable doings of their previous shout boy General Ayub Khan, and only made his successor to go through an exercise of some fringe actions, without as much as even touching any core problem responsible for the mess they had landed the country in.

The petty measure, which the junta initiated through. General Yahya Khan in order to remedy the situation were as follows:

1. Considering the One Unit arrangement of the Provinces of West Pakistan to be the main cause of the anti Ayub commotion in the country, the same was disbanded and the former provinces of West Pakistan were restored.
2. For revival of democracy in the country, general elections were announced.
3. All political parties were ensured of full freedom to convass the electorate at the time of elections.

The main and selfish vested interests, who formulated this policy and gave it to General Yahya Khan to implement failed to realize that without attacking the fundamental problems, there, palliatives could never cure the country of its basic affliction and set it on the road to recovery. Their mind, at the time, had certain baseless assumptions before it, on which it was proceeding. Firstly, they imagined that by mere restoration of provinces in West Pakistan, all the unrest and opposition of the smaller units there will immediately subside and the people will at once settle down well pleased, at the situation. Secondly, they assumed that majority seats in West Pakistan and some substantial number of them in East Pakistan would be won in the general elections by candidates of their own choice, and through them they would thus continue maintaining their way in the country as before. Thirdly, they presumed that since the effectiveness of religion as a weapon of propaganda for keeping the mind of the masses befogged had considerably worn out, if they now added some handfuls of economic preservatives or piquancy to it, they could well succeed in holding the masses to their side for quite some time longer.

With these calculations in mind, the Muhajir-Punjabi Axis took no time in launching on the political scene in the country the Peoples Party of Pakistan, through their prize piece of show boy, Mr. Bhutto, with all the three note catching cliches of class chicanery tied to its banners namely Socialism, Democracy and Islam to hoodwink and hold the masses prostrated under class dictatorship in the name of those cliches. There were several other cards too held by these Muhajir Punjabi vested interests to play the game and win it. They had two stalwarts of the pure Pakistan ideology, Khan Qayum Khan from the West Pakistan and Nurul Amin from the East Pakistan, with their moribund political parties in fair trim, who could yet continue full throatily trumpeting the name of religion for catching marginal votes and collecting a few decisive seats to tilt the balance their side, if need be.

However, the things did not shape themselves completely their way. Their calculations went almost wrong. The people of East Bengal, in a national mood of refusal and rejection, swept off the stage every thing and every body except their national organization. The Awami League and its candidates, when they voted almost cent percent and thus declared their loyalty only to their six points charter of national existence as an independent and Sovereign State. In West Pakistan, however the people, fallen and crushed as they remained under One Unit, failed to show that grit and that vision, which could be expected from a proud and awakened people out to break chains and jump the wall, no matter what the risk and what the con sequences. Among the smaller peoples, Sindhi masses particularly succumbed to the verbiage and big mouthfuls of promises held out to them by Mr. Bhutto. The people of Punjab, being sharers, direct and indirect, in the exploitative lot of the Muhajir Punjabi vested interests could not but accept the Peoples Party as their own party. The Peoples of Baluchistan and the NWFP, on the other hand sent up in different proportions, their national representatives defeating Mr. Bhutto's Peoples Party decisively both in the Central and Provincial Assemblies.

The over all party position that emerged out of elections for the Central Assembly completely belied all hopes and upset all calculations of the ruling Junta, throwing it into its tantrums. From West Pakistan, over whelming majority of seats were carried by Mr. Bhutto's party, the Juntas own approved party, while from the East, with the exception of two members, the entire contingent of the elected members belonged to the Awami League, the party hated like poison by the ruling junta and their backing vested Interests in West Pakistan. This gave a comfortable over all majorities at the Center to the East Pakistan's Awami League members. By all democratic considerations, the power and control of Government at the Center had to pass over to the East Pakistan Awami League. This Muhajir Punjabi Axis and its Army and Services functionaries could never countenance. They, with an alacrity, unprecedented in the world of democracy anywhere, made Mr. Bhutto, their kept, show boy groomed for service precisely in such exigencies, to declare that unless he was made a co sharer in power and control of Government, he would stage a revolt and boycott the Central Legislature and the constituent Assembly. General Yahya Khan, to play his part of the job at once cancelled the Assembly's inaugural sessions which otherwise stood summoned at Dacca in the Eastern Wing of the country. Simultaneously, he also started shipping and air lifting his troops and weapons to that area, although at the same time, he kept the show of discussions and negotiations, in all apparent seriousness going with Shaikh Mujibur Rehman the majority leader, whom he publicly kept on calling the Prime Minister designate of Pakistan! When the military build up in East Pakistan reached the desired point, General Yahya Khan broke off negotiations, refused induction of the Awami League into office, and proclaiming martial law in Bangla Desh, let his army loose on the defenseless miscreant population of that land. The Army however, could only kill, rape, and burn the person and property of the people. As for the spirit of the people, the army could not as much as even touch. The people finally triumphed, and broke as under the iron chains that bound them, and became free. The dark night of slavery to the Muhajir Punjabi tenancy in Bangla Desh was thus over for all times to come.

It has already been stated above that the power? And control of government at the very inception of Pakistan passed on into the hands of the Muhajir Punjabi vested interests who for maintaining that position and also for using it for their exclusive class advantage, exercised that power with the sole object of keeping the original peoples in Pakistan weak and divided, so that they could with ease and facility, be kept under subjection and may never be able to raise their head and assert their individuality as peoples. To this effect the ruling entente of the Punjabi Muhajir vested interests insisted on imposition of ideological, cultural, political and administrative uniformity completely cut to shape and size and steamroller on all the peoples, no matter what rich and hard variety of differences there may otherwise exist on reality among them. This was a foolhardy task, to say the least, taken up by the inheritors of the British imperialist mantle in Pakistan, and was doomed to failure. And the first successful escape from that suffocating clamp of Muslim nation hood theory, which, in fact, was only another name of the Punjabi Muhajir grippers round the necks of the weak arid smaller peoples, was effected by the people of Bangla Desh. The struggle for escape by the rest of the victims remains ordained and inevitable as long as the clasp and squeeze of the gripper round their neck lasts.

Mr. Jinnah's inaugural speech at the constituent Assembly of Pakistan, disclaiming the ethics or efficacy of the Muslim nationality theory had raised brightest of hopes for our good future in our hearts. But those hopes were dashed to pieces against the bad faith of the Muhajir Punjabi Vested interests who instead of letting us live with honor and in peace and freedom and work for building a better future for ourselves, imposed their cynical rule over us and went on tightening their grip on us, so that their squeeze on the blood of our simple, honest and industrious working people may continue and they may go on fattening more and more at our cost. This, blood sucking rule of theirs they launched with Mr. Jinnah and, perhaps, inspite of him, and consolidated it during the period of Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, because of him. They have since carried on this rule, under different juridical and executive sanctions but all in the pattern set for it by Liaquat Ali Khan, Ministries succeeded ministries, One Unit of the West Pakistan provinces was formed and then dissolved, two martial laws of pretty long durations followed one after the other, wars were fought and defeats incurred but the squeeze and the despotism on our people yet continued unabated. At last, after the passage of twenty five such sordid and sad years, peoples witnessed coming on the scene young Mr. Zulfikar Ali Khan Bhutto with fan fare of democracy, socialism, and Islam about him. This once again stirred dying emblers of hope in our hearts. We felt that Mr. Bhutto, belonging as he does, to an oppressed nationality, President and then Prime Minister of the country as he has become may have the problem of nationalities in Pakistan examined denovo and may take bold and correct steps to remedy the tragic situation. With this hope and prayers in his mind, the writer made the following points in an address at his 69^th birthday celebrations at Sann on January 17th, 1972.

"The new President (now Prime Minister) courageously released us and also freed Shaikh Mujibur Rehman on January 8,1972 who reached Dacca and took up the reins of government there."

"The new President assumed office at the time, when Pakistan stood confronted with a number of problems and difficulties.

"The defeat in war left nearly a hundred thousands of its soldiers as prisoners. In material terms, it has suffered losses worth hundreds of crores of rupees. It has lost considerable areas of West Pakistan to Bharat. The armies are still standing face to face on the borders. Popular demand is building up for the lifting of martial law and installation of popular governments in the Provinces. The framing of Constitution, the recognition of Bangla Desh, (since recognized) restitution of normal relations with Afghanistan and Bharat and removal of poverty of the masses are some of the problems that demand urgent solutions. The future security reconstruction and progress of the country very closely depend on finding satisfactory and viable solution to these problems."

"I, on my part, have long been thinking most earnestly on these problems. To the best of my mind, the following appear to be the basic causes of all the existing ills of Pakistan, its instability disorderliness, and backwardness

(1) The concept of separate Muslim Nationhood.

(2) The idea of religious form of government.

(3) The fascist theory of politics.

(4) Exploitation of the country by a particular coterie of vested interests.

(5) Hostile relations with neighboring countries.

"It would be worth while to study these factors more closely, in their different aspects.

Continued part 2