THE MAKING OF EXILE

by NANDITA BHAVNANI

  For example, Sindhi Hindus had usurped Muslim evacuee property in the town of Rajkot as early as mid-November 1947, and Muslim sanatoria in Deolali in January 1948. Further, in the North Gujarat town of Godhra, they played a significant role in the riots of March 1948, which resulted in the emigration of a number of Muslims of that city to Pakistan and, according to one account, also resulted in Sindhi refugees occupying about 3,500 Muslim properties.33 (Godhra continues to have a history of communal violence between the local Ghanchi Muslims and the Sindhi Hindus since then.) There was friction between Sindhi Hindus and Muslims elsewhere also. Vishnu Sharma writes:

  Thanks to Dr. Choithram [Gidwani’s] efforts, a large number of Sindhis had settled in Udaipur, but the refugees, whose hearts were filled with sorrow, could not quite control themselves at times, and those who are miserable also get inflamed quickly.

  There was trouble in Udaipur. Some Bohri boys who had gone on an outing came across a couple of Sindhi boys, whom they teased, and who retaliated. One Sindhi, Mr. Gobindram Khubchandani’s son, was killed. This murder gave rise to much anger. Consequently, Hindus and Sikhs got together and looted Muslim shops and set some fires. Three Muslims were killed. After this, curfew was imposed and, summoned by the Sindhis, Dr. Choithram went there. He immediately met the concerned authorities and established a citizens’ board for peace. The people settled down and the Sindhis who had been arrested were released. But Dr. Choithram pleaded with the Sindhis to live peaceably, in order to fully rehabilitate themselves. They should face up to injustices, but only in a peaceful manner.

  In Ajmer, some Sindhi policemen disappeared. There was a suspicion that Muslims had killed them and thrown them somewhere. After two days a policeman’s corpse was found and curfew was imposed. Investigations started. Thus the Hindus and the policemen were quite inflamed. Some Muslim shops were burnt and looted. When the military started firing, about fifteen Muslims and seven Hindus, including three Sindhis, were killed and about 200 Hindus were caught for violating the curfew, including 15 to 20 Sindhis. On the twelfth day, the Muslims assembled in the Dargah [of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti] and having collected gunpowder and weapons, confronted the military and attacked the Hindus. Some ten Hindus and a few Muslims were killed. Five Sindhi Hindus were killed at the hands of the Muslims. The riots had a bad impact on the Sindhis. The Sindhis who had not yet put down their roots properly were uprooted again due to the riots, and made homeless again. To arrange for the release of those who had been arrested, to handle their cases, to provide help to the families of those who had been arrested or killed – all these matters were of concern to Dr. Choithram. But many hands make light work. Other Sindhi workers also joined Dr. Choithram and the work went smoothly.34

  If the Sindhi Hindus transplanted their Sufi shrines from Sindh in India, they also transplanted their Hindu right-wing organisations. The writer, Mohan ‘Kalpana’, joined the RSS at the age of 13. He tells us that, before he abandoned the RSS in 1952, he helped found a new branch of the RSS at Kalyan camp as early as 1948.35 Not all Sindhi Hindu refugees sought to rebuild the edifices of their Sufi faith in India; some sought to rethink their approach to religion, and to shrug off their more inclusive spiritual ideology in favour of a more rigid and right-wing version of Hinduism.

  Hassaram Ramchand, who was a highly active member of the RSS in his village Bhadro in Sindh, and had been responsible for running the local branch of the Balak Hindu Sabha, the local children’s wing of the RSS, only strengthened his affiliation with the Sangh Parivar after coming to India. His younger brother had been born after several miscarriages. The Muslim midwife who delivered him successfully had been granted the right to name the child; she named him Khudabaksh. Soon after Partition, Ramchand arranged to have his brother’s name formally changed to Shyam, ‘a good, pure name’. According to him:

  In those days [before Partition] there wasn’t that much bhed-bhaav, communal discrimination, like there is today. At that time we did not have so much hatred for the Muslims or for Islam. But as time has passed and we have read history and then we see things for ourselves, things which are happening to us today or what had happened earlier, like Aurangzeb did this or so-and-so did that, then the feelings in our minds also change. After coming here, my way of thinking became staunch Hindu.36

  In 1968, when the first Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Sammelan was held at Allahabad, Ramchand presented a half-hour programme in Sindhi, consisting of a short play that he had written himself, decrying provincialism and lauding pan-Indian patriotism. In late 1990, Ramchand joined a small group of about a dozen members of the Ulhasnagar branch of the VHP and went to Ayodhya to perform kar seva (that is, work as service or offering, to construct a Ram temple at the exact spot where the Babri Masjid stood). They were arrested, along with many other kar sevaks, before they could even reach the Babri Masjid, and were then transported to Allahabad, from where Hassaram and his companions took a train to Bombay. They had been able, however, to visit the Babri Masjid the evening before they had been arrested. Ramchand speaks with great pride about his trip to Ayodhya and his arrest there, and has even published a small booklet narrating his experiences and opinions on this event.

  This shift to the Hindu right had been propelled by several factors. In Sindh, Hindus, living as a minority among a Muslim majority, were compelled by their circumstances to find ways of coexistence. The dislocation engendered by Partition meant that many Sindhi Hindus now did not have Muslim neighbours, and hence did not need to find ways to coexist with the ‘other’.

  Hassaram Ramchand recalls the sense of bhaichaara, the sense of fraternity, that existed in his village, where Hindus believed in Muslim pirs and Muslims participated in Hindu festivals. According to him, this bhaichaara stemmed from the fact that Hindus and Muslims living in the same village were obliged by their circumstances to find ways to live together peacefully. He says:

  This feeling of living in the same village like brothers – it is a good thing for both [parties] that that feeling used to be there. Now that feeling is not there any more, it has diminished.37

  Ramchand, and other Sindhi Hindus like him, have little regret for the loss of this bhaichaara, and this is largely because he has pinned the blame for the upheaval in his life onto the ‘other’ community. Ramchand admits candidly that if Partition had not happened, his attitude towards Muslims would have been somewhat different.

  Sindh had been under Muslim rule for 11 unbroken centuries before the British conquered the region. During this long epoch, in the absence of royal patronage and a flourishing Brahmin community, Hinduism as practised in Sindh was distant from Sanskritic Hinduism. Rather, Hinduism in Sindh was strongly influenced by Sufism and the teachings of Guru Nanak. Consequently, Sindhi Hindus had few compunctions about eating meat, or about untouchability; they often followed Muslim pirs and were generally eclectic about their personal religion. Moreover, the Sindhi script is derived from the Arabic, and Sindhi Hindu women traditionally wore, not saris and bindis, but suthan-cholo, a dress which often reminded other Hindus in India of Muslim attire. All these factors created a quasi-Muslim image of the Sindhi Hindu in India, which was especially ironic since the latter had fled Pakistan on account of their Hindu religion. This quasi-Muslim image had a highly negative impact on the reputation of Sindhi Hindus in India in the years immediately following Partition, when there still existed communal antipathy towards Muslims. This impact was felt more in the western regions of present-day Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where there were stronger ritual taboos on pollution. Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan quotes from her interviews with Sindhi Hindu women in Gujarat:

  Gujarati society was hostile to Sindhis. Many were orthodox Jains or Vaishnavas and therefore vegetarians. We ate meat, so people refused to give us their houses on rent. How long could we eat it in secret? Many of us simply gave it up so that we would be accepted by them. Then there was our dress. None of us ever wore saris, we wore patloon-kurtas. But we could not get that
kind of cloth here. And anyway this dress made us look like Muslims. So we started wearing saris in the Gujarati style. It was uncomfortable in the beginning but I got used to it.

  Sindhi Hindu women never wore bindis and this bothered Gujaratis. You see, in Gujarat, wearing a bindi on the forehead indicated that the woman was Hindu; Gujarati Muslim women did not wear bindis. This is how you can tell women from the two communities apart. So soon Sindhi Hindu women began to wear bindis so that they would not be mistaken for Muslims.

  We had to watch our language too because Sindhi Hindus use many expressions associated with Muslims. Even today, the exclamation ‘Ya Allah’ slips out rather than ‘Hey Bhagwan.’ So you can imagine how many such expressions my parents’ generation would have had to be careful to avoid.38

  Rita Kothari also affirms that the discrimination meted out to Sindhis was worse in Rajasthan and Gujarat, since the ‘strongly vegetarian Hindus’ there disapproved of the Sindhis eating meat and drinking liquor.39

  Several Labana Sikhs who resettled in Bharatpur recollect that the caste Hindus there considered them ‘dirty’ and disliked them using the same well. Pribhibai Varjitia, then a 20-year-old mother of an infant son, recalls:

  At the well, they would not talk to us; they would not let us keep our water pots there. They would wash their clothes by beating them with a stick; no sign of any soap. We would use soap but they would consider us to be dirty. (Later they learnt to use soap from us.)

  Then all our men got together and went to the police station. ‘Let us all draw water from the well. Why should there be a fight? They beat us, they break our water pots, what is all this? We are Sardars. If you trouble us, we will fight you.’ The men were ready to draw their swords.

  Then the locals were made to understand that we should also be allowed to draw water from the well. Today we are all like brothers; we eat together at weddings too.40

  Consequently, another factor which propelled the Sindhi Hindus towards a more right-wing approach to Hinduism was the desire to gain acceptance in a Hindu-dominated Indian society. As Rita Kothari quotes from her interview with Maya Kodnani, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader who was arrested on charges of leading, inciting and arming a communal mob that slaughtered and burnt alive 98 people in the Gujarat violence of 2002, ‘We had to become more Hindu than the Hindus to prove we were not Muslims.’41

  It was in this context – of remodelling Hinduism as practised by Sindhis to a religion closer to Sanskritic Hinduism – that Ram Panjwani and others chose to recast Jhulelal (earlier a marginal deity in Sindh) into a Sindhi icon in post-Partition India, now describing Jhulelal as an avatar of Vishnu.

  Today, while there are several Sindhi Hindus in India who continue with their Sufi-flavoured traditions, many Sindhis have swung towards the Hindu right.42 This ideology has also been transmitted to younger generations of Sindhis, and is reflected in the increasing number of Sindhis who have gained prominence in the Hindutva movement, from L. K. Advani (and his rath yatra in 1990) to Maya Kodnani (and her alleged role in the Gujarat violence of 2002).

  Notes

  1.Hari Motwani, Aakhri Panna, p 85. My translation.

  2.Gobind ‘Malhi’, Adab Ain Adib: Nirvaas Mein Aas, p 56.

  3.Dr Nari Kripalani, interview, October 1997.

  4.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, Government and the Displaced Persons, p 119.

  5.Horace Alexander, New Citizens of India, p 66.

  6.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, pp 75-76.

  7.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, pp 93-94.

  8.Kavita Daswani, Kishinchand Chellaram: Sindhi Pathfinder, p 10.

  9.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, p 110.

  10.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, pp 120-121. See also Horace Alexander, ibid, p 65.

  11.Hassaram Ramchand, interviews, January and February 1998.

  12.Hassaram Ramchand, interviews, January and February 1998.

  13.The only exception to this is apprenticeship with another businessman – often a relative or family friend– as a stepping stone to setting up one’s own business.

  14.Thomas Postans, Personal Observations on Sind, pp 63-68. See also Marianne Postans, Travels, Tales, and Encounters in Sindh and Balochistan 1840-1843, pp 18-19.

  15.R. D. Choksey and K. S. Sastry, The Story of Sind, p 128 and p 132.

  16.Anita Raina Thapan, Sindhi Diaspora, p 42. See also Mark-Anthony Falzon, Cosmopolitan Connections, pp 167-168.

  17.As quoted in Victor Barnouw, ‘The Sindhi, Mercantile Refugees in India: Problems of their Assimilation’, p 42.

  18.Stephen Keller, ibid, p 82 and p 6.

  19.Horace Alexander, ibid, p 62.

  20.Subhadra Anand, National Integration of Sindhis, p 105. See also Rita Kothari, The Burden of Refuge, pp 154-156. Punjabi refugees also faced similar problems; a study of Punjabi refugees in Dehra Dun district found that 75.8 per cent of the refugees felt that their rehabilitation had incurred local economic rivalry. 53 per cent of them felt that the locals were not sympathetic to them. R. N. Saksena, Refugees: A Study in Changing Attitudes, pp 23-24.

  21.Mohan Panjabi, ‘Doctor Choithram Gidwani Sindhyun Laye Penhinji Siyasi Aaindah jo Daav Lagayein’, May and June 2001. My translation.

  22.Gulab Gidwani, ‘Sindh je Naeen Itihaas mein bi Aamilan jo Yogdaan Aahe’, in Amil Samachar, April 2003.

  23.Popati Hiranandani, Muhinji-a Hayati-a ja Sona Ropa Varqa, pp 88-90.

  24.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, p 16.

  25.As quoted in Subhadra Anand, ibid, pp 142-143.

  26.Vakil and Cabinetmaker, ibid, p 122.

  27.As quoted in Nandita Bhavnani, I Will & I Can, p 80.

  28.Narayan ‘Bharati’, Sarau ja Pann, pp 62-63, pp 57-58, and pp 49-50. My translation.

  29.Reena Rupani, Success Is Our Birthright, p 14.

  30.Sundri Gangwani, interview, April 2001.

  31.See Nimanal Shah Yaadgaar, and Lachmibai Verhomal Bhavnani, Nimanal Maan.

  32.Interview with Prakash Kundnani, manager, Khatwari Darbar, March 2009.

  33.See Dr Zainab Banu, ‘Two Sides of a Coin: A Comparative Study of the Riots at Godhra and Udaipur’, pp 232-233 and Asghar Ali Engineer, ‘Case Studies of Five Major Riots’, pp 248-249, in Asghar Ali Engineer, Communal Riots in Post-Independence India.

  34.Vishnu Sharma, Dr. Choithram Partabrai Gidwani ji Jeevani, pp. 244-246. My translation.

  35.Mohan ‘Kalpana’, Ishq, Bukh, Adab, p 44.

  36.Hassaram Ramchand, interviews, January and February 1998.

  37.Hassaram Ramchand, interviews, January and February 1998.

  38.Suchitra Balasubrahmanyan, ‘Partition and Gujarat’, pp 479-480.

  39.Rita Kothari, ibid, p 116. Also see the narratives of Javhar Advani and Sundri Uttamchandani, as quoted in Lata Jagtiani, Sindhi Reflections, p 430 and pp 154-155.

  40.Pribhibai Varjitia, interview, December 2012.

  41.Rita Kothari, ibid, p 173.

  42.As Ashis Nandy et al also observe, ‘Forced to migrate from Pakistan at the time of the Partition in 1947, the Sindhis are usually strong supporters of the BJP.’ See Ashis Nandy et al, Creating a Nationality, p 129. Also see Farhana Ibrahim, ‘Mobility, Territory, and Authenticity: Sindhi Hindus in Kutch, Gujarat’ in Michel Boivin and Matthew A. Cook, eds, Interpreting the Sindhi World, p 57, Note 73.

  CHAPTER 13

  Women

  Gidumal’s Daughter

  Divan Gidumal was a prominent minister at the Hyderabad court. Able and loyal, he had served first Nur Mohammed Kalhoro, and then his son Ghulam Shah Kalhoro. It was Gidumal who had spent two whole years building the new capital at Hyderabad, exhausting the two boatloads of money that Ghulam Shah sent him. The temporary camp that Gidumal set up on the banks of the Sindhu during these two years became a permanent settlement named after him: first by the name of Gidu jo Tando, and later, Gidu Bunder. When the new capital was ready in 1768, Gidumal and his famil
y settled down near the fort, in what would later be known as the Gidwani Lane. Later, when the Talpur Mirs overthrew the Kalhoras in 1783, Gidumal changed allegiance to the new rulers of Sindh.

  Gidumal had no children of his own: He considered his brother’s children his heirs, and was especially fond of Draupadi, his brother’s daughter. Known as Sadori, or ‘good girl’, tales of her matchless beauty reached the Talpur court. Soon, Gidumal’s new masters cast their covetous eyes on her – though the legend does not tell us which Mir among the many Talpur brothers and their sons who ruled Hyderabad was interested.

  One day, Gidumal received news from his Makrani guards – slaves of African origin that he had imported into Sindh from the Makran coast. The Mir, desirous of seeing Sadori’s beauty for himself, had disguised himself as a burqa-clad woman and had tried to enter Gidumal’s zanana. The Makranis reported that they had beaten him up and thrown him out unceremoniously.

  Realising his now-tenuous position in the Hyderabad court, Gidumal fled with his family to the safety of Kutch. The Mir sent a message to the Maharao of Kutch, acknowledging his folly and asking for forgiveness. He requested the Maharao to send Gidumal back. When Gidumal returned to Sindh, he learned from his assistants that the letter was a lie, and that the Mir intended to take Sadori by force.

  Now Gidumal ascended to the terrace of his house. The Talpur palaces loomed in the distance. Then he called for Sadori. When she came, he explained his unbearable dilemma to her. Sadori offered to end her life. Some say she jumped off the terrace, some say she drank from a chalice of poison, and still others say that Gidumal executed her with his sword.

  The Mir heard of Sadori’s death, and flew into a rage. When Gidumal next attended the Talpur court, he was surrounded by guards who sank their iron tiger-claws into his belly. Legend has it that he died then and there.

  Women and Partition

  Sindhi Hindus, being a religious minority living in a highly feudal society, had long harboured anxieties about the possible abduction and conversion of their women, and so ensured that the latter lived restricted lives. As the writer Kavita Daswani describes Hindu women in Sindh, ‘they were, effectively, in the smallest and most insignificant minority: Hindu Sindhi women in a male-dominated, Muslim majority population.’1 As a result, Sindhi Hindu women maintained purdah, one of the many common customs and ways of living that Sindhi Hindus had acquired after living under Muslim rule for centuries.