The ‘hostage principle’ – the idea of minorities as ‘hostages’ – was not a new one. Once the concept of Pakistan had begun to be taken seriously, the problem of minorities had raised its head. In the early 1940s, it was assumed by many that the presence of large minorities in divided India and Pakistan would automatically ensure that they would be not be mistreated, for fear of corresponding reprisals in the other country. The ‘hostage principle’ also seemed to have acquired considerable – though unofficial – popularity among members of the Congress. According to Maulana Azad, at the AICC meeting held on 14 June 1947, when the Congress members from Sindh vehemently opposed the Partition resolution, they were given private assurances by leading Congressmen that if they faced any communal injustice in Pakistan, revenge would be taken on Muslims in India.38 Immediately after this meeting, J. B. Kripalani had also urged the founding of a joint committee to explore the matter of minority rights in areas that would be the future India and Pakistan.
Shortly after this, at a public meeting held in Bombay on 8 July 1947 (which was also attended by Dr Choithram Gidwani), S. K. Patil, the president of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, had declared:
Once freedom is won, we shall pursue the policy of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ for the defence of the rights and liberties of the minorities in Pakistan. Every drop of non-Muslim blood unjustly shed in the Pakistan territories will be avenged… If the Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan continue to be molested we shall definitely retaliate.39
At a public level there was a great hue and cry made over Patil’s overtly communal and violent views, given the Congress’ commitment to secularism and non-violence, and he was obliged to retract his words shortly afterwards. Apart from the Congress and the Muslim League, the ‘hostage principle’ would also be recognised by the general muhajir public, but only after it had become too late.
Minorities in Pakistan
Sindh’s experience of Partition, apart from the relatively diminished degree of communal violence, was unique in the treatment of its minorities by the state in various ways, through omissions as well as commissions. After Independence, it was only in Sindh that a substantial Hindu minority remained to be discriminated against, since communal violence in the other West Pakistan provinces – Punjab, Baluchistan and the Frontier – had resulted in their being largely emptied of Hindus and Sikhs.
Certain legislative measures taken by the Sindh government – such as the regulation of mortgages and transfers of agricultural land – were indeed justified (and, in fact, overdue) and the Hindus bore the brunt of these measures precisely because they had, until then, exercised dominance in these spheres disproportionate to their numbers. Other measures – such as establishing ration shops on a communal basis or the fixing of a communal ratio (70:30 in favour of Muslims) for the appointment of teachers, fellows and members of the senate of the proposed Sindh University – were intended to address a genuine socioeconomic imbalance, but were not quite the appropriate means to achieve equality. In the instance of the ration shops, it was soon found that Hindus wanting to set up shops merely took out licences in the dummy names of Muslims. The suggestions proposed for the Sindh University allowed communal ratios to blindly supersede Hindu merit and the long history of Hindu financial support for education in the province.
Still other measures – such as the extremely arbitrary discrimination against Hindu junior government employees; open preference for Muslims in government jobs; dismissal of Hindus in senior government posts; the requisitioning of empty or near-empty property left behind by Hindus who had departed only temporarily; the censorship of Hindu press which was critical of the government – were clearly prejudicial to Hindus. A blind eye was turned to the searches and seizures of the property of emigrating Hindus undertaken either by the Muslim National Guards or by government officials themselves, who found themselves given unparalleled opportunities for illicit gain.
The transfer of power from the British to a completely new regime, the arrival of vast numbers of refugees alien to the province, the departure of a section of the Hindus – all these brought about a drastic transformation in the society, economy and politics of Sindh, which necessitated, as the historian David Gilmartin phrases it, the symbolic and moral reconstitution of society.
[…] once the Pakistan idea was fixed onto a particular piece of territory, the moral meaning of the politics of place was undone. It was not simply that many Hindus and Muslims were left on the wrong sides of the lines that partitioned India’s territory. It was rather that local communities had, in a sense, to be symbolically and morally reconstituted (as the relations between individuals and moral symbols were themselves transformed) in order to find a place in the larger territories of which they were now a part. And violence, long an instrument of moral negotiation in the local context, became in many instances the chief instrument by which this process was carried out.40
This moral reconstitution of society in Sindh, in the aftermath of Partition, was no exception.
To a large extent, Hindus in Pakistan were indeed more sympathetic to India than to Pakistan, and this was primarily due to two reasons. First, the recent freedom struggle in which a section of the Sindhi Hindus had played a role had brought about a sense of patriotism towards the idea of India as a nation. Second, the Muslim League high command had always projected the idea of Pakistan as a homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent; they had remained silent on the subject of minorities until the eleventh hour. During the entire duration of the Pakistan movement, they had made no movement towards rapprochement of the minorities that were expected to remain in the areas that would become Pakistan, and had indeed been overtly hostile towards Hindus and Sikhs in particular. As a result, minorities in West Pakistan did not feel included in the new nation-state. As Parsram Tahilramani pointed out, the Sindh government’s claims of equality and protection to minorities mattered little, if the Pakistani public felt otherwise.
The Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan were, in effect, a ‘microcosm in reverse’ of the Muslims in India. Yet the Muslim League high command was unable to look past their personal experience as a Muslim minority in undivided India, and to address the problems inherent in any heterogeneous democracy which inevitably will create political minorities. It was this fundamental lapse that contributed significantly to the Muslim League high command’s disregard for the minorities of Pakistan when it was eventually formed, more so than the atmosphere of communal discord that had prevailed in the 1940s, or the suddenness of the establishment of Pakistan. This lapse was also responsible for the spectacular failure on the part of the Muslim League to fulfil what it had originally set out to do: to safeguard the interests of the Muslims in the Muslim-minority provinces of India. India’s Muslims continue to outnumber Pakistan’s, and their problems remained unaddressed by the Muslim League after the creation of Pakistan.
Notes
1.This chapter focuses mainly on the Sindh government, and not the Pakistan central government, although the latter had been newly established in Karachi. The West Punjab government found it difficult to cope with the severe communal violence, the exodus of the Hindus and Sikhs to India, and the influx of a vast number of Muslim refugees from East Punjab. As a result, after end-August 1947, many senior officials in the Pakistan central government shifted temporarily from Karachi to Lahore for most of the remaining year, to deal with the situation there. These included Governor-General Jinnah (who returned to Karachi only at the end of November 1947) and Premier Liaquat Ali Khan (who returned in December 1947).
2.The Times of India, Bombay, 8 February 1948.
3.As quoted in The Times of India, Bombay, 23 October 1947.
4.See Vazira Zamindar, The Long Partition, p 52.
5.These included Yusuf Haroon, Shaikh Abdul Majeed, Ghanshyamdas Jethanand, Jethi Sipahimalani, G. Allana and M. P. Tahilramani.
6.The Times of India, Bombay, 6 October 1947.
&nbs
p; 7.Free Press Journal, Bombay, 4 November 1947.
8.In this context, Shyam Hiranandani also recalls that when his family left Sindh by train in October 1947, they passed a stationary train near Ajmer, surrounded by police standing guard. He recalls, ‘Our train came to a halt on the track alongside. My mother immediately put her hand over my eyes and forbade me from looking in the direction of the other train. But one cannot control a 10-year-old boy’s curiosity and what I saw was gory. There was complete silence, the doors were all shut and blood was trickling down from the gaps in and under the doors of the train. The train had been carrying Muslims from Ajmer to the “safety” of Pakistan.’ See Lata Jagtiani, Sindhi Reflections, p 437.
9.Mohan Makhijani, interview, March 2009.
10.Vazira Zamindar, ibid, p 55.
11.For similar usurpation by the Indian state of empty or near-empty Muslim property in India, see Vazira Zamindar, ibid, pp 123-134.
12.As quoted in Free Press Journal, Bombay, 1 October 1947. Also an interview with Nimmi Vaswani, April 2012.
13.Free Press Journal, Bombay, 24 November 1947.
14.The Times of India, Bombay, 28 November 1947.
15.Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, ‘Partition and Gujarat: The Tangled Web of Religion, Caste, Community and Gender Identities’, p 463, and Census of India, 1941.
16.The Times of India, Bombay, 5 June 1947. Mandal went on to become Pakistan’s first minister for law and labour. Later, however, after coming into conflict with other Pakistani politicians over minority rights in Pakistan, he resigned in 1950 and shifted to India.
17.Motilal Jotwani, ed, Gandhiji on Sindh and the Sindhis, p 518.
18.Founded by Gandhi, the Harijan Sevak Sangh’s initial name was National Anti-Untouchability League.
19.Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, ibid, 475.
20.This organisation was established by Sane Guruji, the renowned teacher, freedom fighter, writer and activist, in response to the RSS.
21.The Times of India, Bombay, 4 December 1947.
22.Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, ibid, p 474 and p 463.
23.Lata Jagtiani, Sindhi Reflections, pp 376-377.
24.Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, ibid, pp 473-475.
25.The Times of India, Bombay, 28 March 1948.
26.Lata Jagtiani, ibid, pp 378-379.
27.Victor Barnouw, ‘Social Structure of a Sindhi Refugee Community’, p 149, note 12.
28.Akanksha Kumar, ‘Dalit Refugees from West Pakistan in Post-Partition Delhi’, p 152.
29.Dawn, Karachi, 14 September 1947.
30.Sarah Ansari, Life after Partition, p 55.
31.Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition, p 132.
32.Free Press Journal, Bombay, 23 October 1947.
33.Kuldip Nayar and Asif Noorani, Tales of Two Cities, pp 37-39. See also Vazira Zamindar, ibid, p 50.
34.As quoted in Free Press Journal, Bombay, 26 September 1947.
35.See Penderel Moon, Divide and Quit, p 108.
36.The Times of India, Bombay, 6 May 1947.
37.Hamida Khuhro, Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, pp 319-320.
38.Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, India Wins Freedom, pp 198-199.
39.The Times of India, Bombay, 9 July 1947.
40.David Gilmartin, ‘Partition, Pakistan, and South Asian History’, p 1086.
CHAPTER 6
Sudden Blood
Violence in Hyderabad
On 6 December 1947, communal violence broke out in Ajmer, precipitated by an argument between Sindhi Hindu refugees and local Muslims in the Dargah Bazaar. The violence spread to other parts of the town, leaving about 9 killed and 50 injured. The military and the police then patrolled the streets of the town. Ajmer remained tense for a couple of days and then relapsed into normalcy which was, however, short-lived. On 14 December, communal violence flared up again, with looting, arson and stabbing, despite the presence of the police and the military. This time, the violence continued for two more days bringing the death toll to about 60 and injuring about 100, with mostly Muslim casualties.
The news of this second spate of violence in Ajmer, together with rumours that Hindus had attacked the sacred dargah of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti in that town, travelled with Muslim refugees across the Thar desert via train to Hyderabad. On 16 December, Professor Narayandas Malkani, a staunch Gandhian and the president of the Inter-Dominion Minorities Board,1 sent an emergency telegram of warning to Nehru, reporting the arrival of the refugees from Ajmer, with their narratives of violence at the hands of Hindus, some of whom had been Sindhi, and apprehending ‘ugly repercussions’ especially in Hyderabad, where the train from Ajmer terminated.
Barely two months earlier, in the third week of October, similar rumours about violence in Ajmer had reached Hyderabad. Then, the muhajirs had only threatened violence. This time, the worsened mood of the muhajirs in Sindh, combined with rumours of the dargah’s desecration, culminated in an anti-Hindu pogrom in Hyderabad on 17 December.
Ramkrishin Hiranand Advani was a young man of 23 in 1947. Although he was a government employee, he also worked as a freelance journalist, contributing to several magazines and newspapers in Sindh. He recalls the last days of 1947 in his essay titled ‘Humanity Is Still Alive’:
It was December 1947. I was a shop inspector in Tando Allahyar, about 24 miles from Hyderabad (Sindh). I boarded the Qureshi Bus Service from there, and began my journey to Hyderabad. On a road outside Hyderabad we met a Sindhi Muslim bullock cart driver, who passed alongside our bus and shouted out, ‘All the vanias (he meant Hindus), get off. There have been riots in Hyderabad.’
His voice was lost in the wind, but the Hindus sitting in the bus, like me, felt their hearts lurch. Even though we had never witnessed a riot before this, the distressing stories of the riots of Punjab and Noakhali had created panic in our souls.
Even as our bus travelled at a high speed, racing against the wind, I wondered what to do. The next minute, I took out my diary, which had my name on it, from my pocket and threw it under the benches of the bus. And then I borrowed a Turkish cap from Abdul Rehman Khan, the young sugar trader from Tando Allahyar sitting next to me, and put it on my head. Apart from the Hindus in the bus, one aged Sindhi Muslim was also greatly frightened, and he was being reassured by his grandson, ‘Baba, there is no risk or fear for us Muslims. The muhajirs will not touch even a hair on the heads of us Momins, believers.’
When the bus approached the Phulaili railway crossing [outside Hyderabad city], we saw from afar that about 500-600 Muslim refugees with sticks and cudgels in their hands were running towards us. In the meantime, the train from Hyderabad to Ajmer passed by. It must have been about five in the evening. On the train, armed soldiers were standing [on the footboard] outside the carriages. Consequently, once they saw them, the goondas stopped and sat down. Our bus driver stopped the bus a short distance away and then, taking the crank key, got down and shouted out, ‘Beware of coming any closer.’ The sub-inspector of the police station at Chambar (his name was perhaps Qurban Ali), sitting in the bus, had a revolver with him, and he also got out and threatened the refugees that if any of them advanced, they would be shot. In the meantime, in the distance, from another road, the bus from Tando Alam-Mari arrived. The mob of muhajirs swarmed over it like black ants. The Hindus sitting inside jumped outside like terrified deer and ran helter-skelter trying to save their lives. The air resounded with the sky-rending slogans of ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ and as we watched, many innocent travellers were killed at the hands of the Pakistani goondas, just because they were Hindu. […] The Hindus sitting in our bus were terrified.
In the meantime, after the train had passed, the two leaders of the Muslim refugees who were talking to our bus driver Sikander and sub-inspector Qurban Ali, made a demand in very clear terms that the Hindus should get off the bus, otherwise the whole bus would be attacked. They said that a train filled with Muslim corpses had arrived in Hyderabad from Ajmer (in fact this wa
s a rumour)2 and they wanted blood for blood. The refugees standing at a distance were also shouting that the Hindu women should be handed over to them. On witnessing this, all the Hindu travellers lost their courage. But I kept my wits about me. Courageously, I got out of the bus and went outside and stood near the leaders of the goondas, who were talking to the driver and the armed sub-inspector. I thought that they would attack the bus, so it would be comparatively safer to be outside the bus. Also, since I had the Turkish cap on my head, I thought that if they asked me my name, I would say Shaikh Rahimbaksh Hyderbaksh; this would match the initials on my shirt which had the English letters R.H. embroidered in red thread.
They say that the one who saves is more powerful than the one who kills. All of us Hindus were still fated to live. Because at that very moment, a taxi from Hyderabad crossed the Phulaili railway crossing, and came and stopped next to us. The blessed taxi driver, who was a Sindhi Muslim and whose name was Maulabaksh (or Allahbaksh), called out to the Hindus to come and sit in his taxi in order to save their lives. In all, 11 Hindus, including me, and two Sindhi Muslims jumped in and sat inside his taxi. The taxi sped off and took us back to Tando Allahyar.
THE MAKING OF EXILE: SINDHI HINDUS AND THE PARTITION OF INDIA Page 16