It should be noted that this phenomenon – the forcible occupation of properties belonging to the minority community, by members of the majority community, often incoming refugees – had already reared its head elsewhere in the subcontinent. Property belonging to Muslims in parts of Northern India had similarly been occupied forcibly, sometimes by locals, and sometimes by Hindu and Sikh refugees from West Pakistan. In Sindh, however, this phenomenon played a major role in the marked change in Sindhi society. According to Vazira Zamindar, the forcible occupation of Hindu houses by muhajirs – which had soon become one of the most common crimes – was the factor that contributed the most to the average Hindu feeling like ‘a stranger or foreigner in his own land of birth.’6
Sindh Begins to Transform
Popati Hiranandani, the well-known writer, describes her last days in Hirabad, a locality in Hyderabad (Sindh):
It was announced on the radio that the country would be partitioned. The papers published the news that all of Sindh had gone to Pakistan. Refugees had started coming to Sindh. One day we heard that 5,000 Muslims had arrived in Hyderabad, some of whom were put up in the Muslim Hostel, some in the Salata7 locality and some in the madrassa. The Muslim Hostel was on the road to the right of our house. There was fear in the air, panic in the atmosphere and terror pervaded our hearts. And when some Muslim youths came out from the hostel and raised the slogan, ‘Hand over to us the houris of Hirabad’ our pulses quickened all the more! In each and every house, girls were instructed that, if a Muslim were to enter the house, they were to put their fingers in the two holes of the electric socket, switch it on and end their lives. Small packets of poison were also distributed in houses, to be consumed by women in times of trouble.
At six o’clock in the evening, on hearing the sound of the loudspeakers, I went and stood at the mouth of my lane. There was a line of police trucks passing by and they were announcing: ‘There won’t be any riots; police sentries are on the alert and the military is also ready to act.’ But as the trucks were passing by, doors and windows were being closed. People were expecting something to happen. It had become a ghost town.
Coming home, I was about to switch on the radio when Ammi forbade me: ‘The wretches will think that we are enjoying songs on the radio.’ Ordinarily, the light above the outer door of the house would be switched on at seven o’clock, and would stay on late into the night. The outer door, too, would remain open till 11 or 12 o’clock, but today we didn’t even switch on the lights in the courtyard and the veranda. We locked the three kinds of latches on the door.8
Even before Independence, muhajirs had been sent to be resettled in Hyderabad, since Karachi had been swamped with incoming refugees.9 Hyderabad was a convenient destination because this was the terminus of the railway line from Jodhpur.
Now the city began to transform, with the arrival of large numbers of muhajirs, many of whom were lower middle class Muslims. By the end of September 1947, there were at least 40,000 muhajirs in Hyderabad.10 They began to occupy public spaces and institutions in the city, such as Noor Muhammad High School, and Training College. They also occupied Hindu properties such as the Brahmo Samaj Mandir, Hindu Ashram and Sanskrit Pathshala, but were made to vacate these after the Hindus protested. The presence of large numbers of discontented Muslims, their ‘intrusion’ into heretofore Hindu domains, their occasional forcible occupation of Hindu houses and their open antipathy towards resident Hindus highly alarmed the Hindus of Hyderabad (many of whom already had a communal outlook).
As mentioned earlier, Sindhi Hindus had become used to their sociocultural dominance of the province, and on occasion, were given to arrogance and high-handedness. Respondents from the Hindu-dominated Hirabad, then a relatively new suburb of Hyderabad (Sindh), are actually proud to relate that when Sindhi Hindu women came out for a walk in the evenings, Sindhi Muslim men were actively and aggressively discouraged by Sindhi Hindu men from passing through this neighbourhood. Similarly, according to Pir Ali Muhammad Rashdi, the Muslims of Sukkur were forbidden to pass through a lane in the city where a home for Hindu widows was located.11 According to Professor D. H. Butani, Hindu women walked freely through their neighbourhoods in the town of Sehwan in Central Sindh, for ‘no Muslim was allowed to pass through Hindu streets.’12 Now it was the Hindus who were wary, on the defensive.
A parallel development was the burgeoning spread of wild rumours among the Hindus. Rumours, which could spread like wildfire, had particular potency in that era of limited communication. There were stories being spread that, instead of goats and sheep, Hindus would be slaughtered on Bakr-Id, falling on 26 October 1947; that Hindu drinking water would be poisoned; that their properties would be taken over.13 There were other rumours that emigrating Hindu women and girls were being molested by the Muslim National Guards at the Karachi docks.
Sindh was undergoing a transformation, not only in the cities, but in the villages as well. In his autobiography, the writer Gobind ‘Malhi’ describes how the changed environment in his village of Tharu Shah made his father decide to migrate to India.
In Tharu Shah as well […] the seed of communalism began to sprout among many Sindhi Muslims. My father also lost heart. In a letter to me, he wrote: ‘The Muslim haaris have started becoming uncooperative. Some of them have already started telling the shopkeepers openly: ‘Vania, watch out. Now we Muslims will reign.’ One haari told me: ‘Landlord, change the sharecropping system. Not 50-50 any more; we will take two-thirds, one-third for you. Now your security lies in our hands.’ Come and take us away from here.14
Gobind ‘Malhi’ sent his father and the rest of his family to India. As described earlier, he himself left a few days later.
There were some instances where agricultural lands belonging to Hindus who were still living in Sindh were forcibly taken over by Sindhi Muslims. In other cases, land belonging to Hindus who had temporarily moved to India was being taken over illegally by Sindhi Muslims, who then claimed that the land had been sold or leased to them. A section of the Muslim press called upon peasants not to repay loans advanced to them by Hindu landowners. According to the then Lahore high court judge, Gopal Das Khosla, Muslim zamindars refused to give Hindu haaris their share of crops, while Muslim haaris refused to hand over crops to Hindu zamindars. Houses and shops in rural areas were broken into and burgled, while cattle were stolen.15 From the interiors, there also came complaints of illegal extortion. According to one report from the town of Halla in Southern Sindh, one anna per square yard of cloth was taken from customers by ration shopkeepers ‘for contribution to the refugee relief fund’, but without issuing any cash memos or receipts.16
The press in Sindh had also become highly polarised and antagonistic, with newspapers like Hilal-e-Pakistan (a Sindhi daily published from Hyderabad) and Al-Wahid (one of whose directors was Khuhro himself) speaking for and to the Muslims. According to one source, the 6 October 1947 edition of Hilal-e-Pakistan:
[…] called on Muslim criminals to not bother Muslims any more, and instead use their full strength, valour and weapons on Hindus. It asked every Muslim who read the article to convey this request to any dacoit, thief, aggressor or a patharidar [harbourer of criminals] that they may happen to know.17
The Dawn,18 relocated from Delhi to Karachi, was in those days also openly prejudiced against Hindus. On the other hand, the Hindu press, which included papers like the Sind Observer (the largest English-language daily), Sansar Samachar, Hindu and Hindustan (all in Sindhi) were biased towards the Hindu point of view and were highly critical of the Sindh government.
Several of the steps taken by Khuhro’s government to reassure the Hindus of their safety and of their place in Pakistan had not proved very effective, simply because the government’s claims were often at odds with ground realities. For example, the appointment of Dr Hemandas Wadhwani as the leader of the Sind Minorities Association was criticised, as he did not have any popular backing among the Hindus, and since the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha leaders
(who did have popular support) were bypassed. Moreover, the Sindh government clearly gave preference, and preferential terms, to Muslim employees. In late September 1947, along with advertisements for Godrej steel almirahs, Klim powdered whole milk, Kolynos dental cream and Cox & Kings passages (sea or air) to England, the following advertisement appeared:
Advertisement – Sind Public Service Commission
Applications are invited, before 31-10-1947, for the post of Assistant Statistician in Sind Provincial Service, Class II. Moslem candidate with requisite qualifications, if available, will be given preference. […] Age :– Not more than 35 years (38 in the case of Muslims) on 31-10-1947. May be relaxed in the case of Sind Government servants.19
A Bomb Explodes
Hindu discontent and antipathy towards Muslims continued to mount in Sindh. It had taken merely 10 weeks for Pakistan to crystallise from an official announcement on 3 June to a reality on 14 August. This was too swift a transformation for many Sindhi Hindus, who were yet to digest the changed socio-political reality in Sindh. They continued to retain their sense of superiority and power even after the birth of Pakistan, and were outraged at having their social status threatened.
Partition-related communal violence or instances of aggression directed against Hindus, the forcible occupation of Hindu houses by muhajirs in Karachi, and various measures taken by the Sindh government perceived to be anti-Hindu – all these served to foment a strong sense of resentment among a section of Sindhi Hindus. The undermining of their sense of socioeconomic dominance by an ‘overnight’ Muslim ascendancy to power only contributed to a hardening of their communal stance.
As mentioned earlier, the advent of first the Arya Samaj and then the RSS had done a great deal to cement Hindu antipathy towards Muslims in Sindh since the mid-1920s. Both the RSS and the Congress had arranged for the military training of Sindhi Hindu youth in present-day Rajasthan, prior to Independence. Now, with Sindh transforming and Sindhi Hindus becoming increasingly vulnerable, some hardliners among them, who derided Gandhi’s ideals of non-violence, decided to take matters further by resorting to violence against Muslims.
Matters reached a head in the second week of September. On 11 September 1947, The Times of India carried an article with the headline, ‘Bomb Explosion in Karachi – Police Precautions’. It read:
One person was killed and two were injured when a country-made bomb exploded in a building in the Upper Sind Colony in the Jamshed Quarter[s] this afternoon. The explosion was followed by a fire which was, however, controlled by the timely arrival of the fire engine. The police soon arrived on the spot and cordoned off the area. Some arrests are said to have been made in this connection.20
In August 1947, Raibahadur Totaram Hingorani had taken his family and had gone to India for the time being. He had left his house in Karachi’s upmarket Shikarpur Colony in the safekeeping of Nand, the 22-year-old son of his neighbour and good friend, Gobindram Badlani. Nand Badlani had not only been a member of the RSS for the last seven years, but had also been personally very close to M. S. ‘Guruji’ Golwalkar, who had always stayed in the Badlani home on his annual visits to Karachi. Now Nand Badlani, who was studying for his Bachelor of Engineering examinations, permitted several of his friends (including other RSS members) to use the Hingorani house, purportedly to study for their exams.
By early September, anti-Muslim violence raged in Delhi and this had brought reprisals in Sindh. On 8 September, a crowd of muhajirs attacked Hindus at the Drigh Road railway station in Karachi, killing nine and injuring 26. The next day, 9 September, a bomb exploded on the Embankment Road, near Lea Market in Karachi, which injured five Muslims; the bomb had been thrown from a building near Nadi Garden. Local Muslims were upset and had to be persuaded not to retaliate against the Hindus; since there had been no loss of life, passions cooled. The following day, 10 September, some RSS members were in the process of manufacturing bombs at Raibahadur Hingorani’s house in Shikarpur Colony when a bomb accidentally exploded at around 3 pm, killing two Sindhi Hindus, Pribhdas Butani and Vasudev Kaba.
Nand Badlani is proud to state that he was born in 1925, the same year that the RSS was founded. He actively continued his affiliation with the Sangh Parivar after migrating to India. He claims that he had no involvement in, or knowledge of, the conspiracy to make and detonate bombs. He recalls:
I was coming back home one day, when I found smoke coming out of our neighbour’s house and a large crowd had gathered outside. I also stood there, with the rest of the crowd, wondering what had happened. I had not done anything, otherwise I would have run away. When the police came, I was pointed out to them as the person in charge of the house. That is when they arrested me.21
According to Atmaram Kulkarni, biographer of L. K. Advani, the RSS had made detailed military preparations in Karachi, in conjunction with similar preparations in the Punjab. Individual swayamsevaks, men and women, had obtained weapons and had set up a transport network consisting of various vehicles to carry arms and ammunition. Under the cover of coaching classes, they used Raibahadur Hingorani’s house to manufacture bombs, with the help of some members who had earlier been socialists and had learnt this technology during the Quit India movement of 1942. They raised funds specially for this purpose, and also raised a volunteer military corps, and set up an elaborate radio communications network.22
According to Dawn, when the police arrived at the scene, they discovered ‘large quantities’ of gelignite on the premises. They also found a substantial number of guns, cartridges, hand grenades, swords, poison, chloroform, various explosives and other incriminating evidence. But, ‘more valuable’ for the Karachi police was the RSS organisational literature that they found at the Hingorani bungalow.23
This incident exposed the organisation’s propensity for violence, and it now seemed more likely that the Sindh RSS was responsible for the Lea Market bomb explosion as well. The RSS was also suspected of having been involved in other murders and dacoities in Sindh, which had earlier been assumed to be non-communal crimes.
Thenceforth, Sindhi Hindus were watched carefully by the government. In India, it appears that the RSS high command sought to swiftly deny any involvement in this development and distance itself from the ensuing negative publicity. Golwalkar met with Gandhi and his doctor and friend, Dr Dinshaw Mehta, the day after the Shikarpur Colony bomb explosion to ‘assure’ them that the RSS ‘did not stand for the killing of Muslims. […] It stood for peace.’ It is not known whether Gandhi believed these assertions.24
According to Dr Niranjan Dudani, crowds of Muslims gathered on the small hills overlooking the Shikarpur Colony the next day. The police and military were called in to avert any violence.25 Steps were taken to swiftly apprehend the perpetrators of this first act of violent terrorism in Pakistan. Nearly 30 members of the RSS were arrested within a few days and soon after charged with ‘conspiracy against the state of Pakistan’. These included Khanchand Gopaldas Mansukhani, a 61-year-old prominent barrister and the president of the RSS in Sindh, who was charged with controlling the activities of the entire group.26 Rajpal Puri, who was the prant pracharak in charge of Sindh, happened to be away in Delhi attending a national meeting of prant pracharaks, and so evaded arrest.27 Other RSS members all over Sindh immediately went underground.
Dr Ram Hingorani, one of the teenagers sent by the Sindh RSS to Jodhpur for military training in early 1947, also lived in Shikarpur Colony. He recalls that, together with other volunteers, he was recruited in this ‘bomb factory’, where they were taught to fill gunpowder and a detonator in empty grenade shells. As luck would have it, Ram Hingorani was not present when the explosion occurred; nevertheless he was arrested soon afterwards.28
It is interesting to note that while the objective and actions of the RSS in Sindh had shifted from self-defence to aggressive violence, some of these members continued to justify their actions as self-defence. As the writer Rita Kothari observes, ‘The irony of moving from a simple drill to manufac
turing ammunition, of moving from devices of defence to those of attack escapes most RSS followers.’29
Mohan ‘Kalpana’ Lala, the noted Sindhi writer, was a 16-year-old boy living in Karachi at the time of Partition. He joined the RSS in 1941, and left it in 1952, after starting an RSS shakha in the refugee camp at Kalyan in 1948. In his autobiography, Mohan ‘Kalpana’ clearly acknowledges the RSS’ contribution to sabotage and violence:
I made a name for myself in the Sangh. I became acquainted with Rajpal Puri, who was in charge of Sindh. There was another person, Pribhdas Butani, who said: ‘Pakistan will definitely happen. Then, out of the blue, we will take over Sindh’s police stations, airport, radio stations, etc.’ I was still quite young for all this, and I had no idea where the weapons came from. I was given the key to an empty flat. Some Sangh revolutionaries used to come there. Shri Shivaji Singh used to visit often, and one Punjabi, Charanjit Singh. […] Once I got the empty flat, I was given some cartridges and swords. The swords were like small lathis in one’s hand. Like daggers if they were unsheathed. I was told that since I looked innocent, I should join the undercover section, and learn the art of spying. ‘We will attain Independence, but Pakistan will also happen. You take down these names and addresses, and follow the people mentioned. See where they go, who they meet and what they do. All this information must be conveyed by you to Rajpal Puri, who we call Shriji, at this location.’
THE MAKING OF EXILE: SINDHI HINDUS AND THE PARTITION OF INDIA Page 10