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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 11, No. 11

Publication Date: November 25, 2024

DOI:10.14738/assrj.1111.17915.

Kataria, S. (2024). The Non-Partition of Sindh. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(11). 268-280.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

The Non-Partition of Sindh

Shyamal Kataria

Department of International Relations,

University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE

ABSTRACT

While Partition can indeed be viewed as a tragedy of epic proportions for anyone

that has a belief in common humanity, it is undoubtedly the case that certain groups

were more impacted by it than others, both materially and psychologically. This

article will focus on one such group, the Hindu Sindhis, who, unlike most other non- Muslims that fled the territories of would-be/realised Pakistan, did not have a

linguistically similar destination within rump India to migrate to. Indeed, many

Hindu Sindhis lament the fact that they lost their entire province to Pakistan.

Taking this into view, this article will attempt to tackle the question of whether the

partition of Sindh, along the lines implemented in certain other provinces of British

India, was a legitimate option at the time to lobby for.

Keywords: Partition, 1947, Hindu, Sindh, Sindhi, Refugees.

INTRODUCTION

August 15 stands as an important date in India’s history. It marks the date that India, following

a near century-long struggle, was officially conferred dominion status by their hitherto British

colonial overlords. Each year ‘Independence Day’ is commemorated with much pomp and

pageantry across the length and breadth of India, albeit such displays are received with varying

levels of enthusiasm. At the same time, for many nationals, mid-August signifies a moment in

history when the country was bitterly torn apart on communal lines. Hostilities between

Muslims on the one hand and, on the other, Hindus and Sikhs, were essentially rooted in the

selfish desire on part of certain Muslim Leaguers to create a state of their own, Pakistan, in

complete defiance to the rights and sentiments of the country’s overwhelming non-Muslim

population. In the process of doing so, they served, to quote Maulana Azad’s prophetic words,

as a convenient ‘play thing’ in the hands of the those British imperialists wishing to preserve a

strategic base in the subcontinent to check Soviet expansionism (Azad, 1912; Sarila, 2005: 29),

and thereby in the process removing the only conceivable gift that the British, who looted India

to the point of destitution, could have left behind—namely a politically unified India. The

creation of Pakistan not only resulted in the loss of approximately one-third of hitherto Indian

territory, but it resulted in anywhere between fifteen and twenty million people being displaced

(Keller, 1975: 19; Hassan, 2006: 12), and unknown numbers forcibly converted, raped,

mutilated, and killed during the associated brutalities (Hill et al. 2008: 155). Indeed, few would

dispute that, in terms of scale and severity, it was the most horrendous humanitarian debacle

to have struck the subcontinent since the reign of Aurangzeb.

While Partition can indeed be viewed as a tragedy of epic proportions for anyone that has a

belief in common humanity, with victims and culprits cutting across communal lines, it is

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Kataria, S. (2024). The Non-Partition of Sindh. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(11). 268-280.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.1111.17915

undoubtedly the case that certain groups were more impacted by it than others, both materially

and psychologically. Arguably, none more so than those who that had not only attached

significant political and spiritual value to India’s unity but also had their families, homes, and

material possessions fall on the ‘wrong side’ of the newly drawn international border. This

article will focus on one such group, the Hindu Sindhis, who, unlike most other non-Muslims

that fled the territories of would-be/realised Pakistan, did not have a linguistically similar

destination within rump India to migrate. Indeed, many Hindu Sindhis lament the fact that they

lost their entire province to Pakistan. Taking this into view, this article will attempt to tackle

the question of whether the partition of Sindh, along the lines implemented in certain other

provinces of British India, was a legitimate option at the time to lobby for.

PARTITION OF INDIA AND ITS EFFECT ON HINDU SINDHIS

By the time that the last batch of British troops made their symbolic exit through the Gateway

of India in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 28 February 1948, the Raj had transferred administrative

control over its erstwhile territories in the subcontinent to not one but two dominions:

truncated, and principal continuator state, India, with its Hindu majority; and the newly formed

Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. Although the roots of Muslim separatism in the subcontinent

are long and disputed, the notion of actually carving out a separate Muslim state or states as

such had been a relatively late conception—introduced in Choudhry Rahmat Ali’s pamphlet of

1933 (Copland, 1991: 50). However, it was not until March 1940, when the All-India Muslim

League passed its infamous Lahore Resolution calling for areas in which the Muslims

constituted a majority (namely the north-western and eastern zones of India) to be grouped

together to form separate independent Muslim states, that the prospect became a live political

issue in India. Though their reasons were varied, the Muslim electorate seemed to rally behind

the Muslim League in impressive fashion in the 1946 Constituent Assembly elections. With this,

and owing to an aggregate of other factors, the plan to partition India along communal lines

was officially agreed upon in early June 1947 by the three major stakeholders in the country:

the Indian National Congress, the All-India Muslim League, and the representative of the British

Crown, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten.

As a result of the division, the new state of Pakistan was carved out of the north-western and

north-eastern wings of the subcontinent, and sandwiched between: approximately one

thousand miles of Indian land (Stephenson, 1968). The Muslim-majority provinces of

Baluchistan, Sindh, NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and the western portion of Punjab

constituted West Pakistan, with the eastern portion of Bengal and the Sylhet district of Assam

constituting East Pakistan. Punjab and Bengal were the only two Muslim-majority provinces of

British India to be divided along religious lines. This occurred largely due to pressure from the

substantial non-Muslim populations residing in those provinces, and their political leaders who

fiercely opposed the prospect of their ‘homelands’ being subject to long-term Muslim

domination whether in the form of ‘compulsory grouping’ as set out in the 1946 Cabinet Mission

Plan or the complete partition of India. Despite Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s objection to the

partitioning of Punjab and Bengal, the non-Muslim stance seemed more coherent. For if

Muslims could ask to secede from India despite constituting a mere 23.8 per cent of the national

population as per the 1941 census (Census of India 1941: 99), then why could not the non- Muslims of Punjab and Bengal (who allegedly constituted a separate nation), when they not

only constituted well over 40 per cent of those provinces and predominated in certain portions

of them, not be entitled to demand the partitioning of those provinces along communal lines.