Pakistan’s long-delayed polls have yielded a hung parliament. The results at both national and provincial levels expectedly echo the deep-seated fissures along ethnic lines within the nation. This demonstrates the continued artificiality of Pakistan’s existence, which emerged from the British-orchestrated partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, marking the conclusion of their colonial hegemony in the region. The electoral landscape, both nationally and provincially, underscores the persistent divisions that stem from this historical legacy.
In Sindh, the electoral victory overwhelmingly favours the province-based Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of the Bhutto-Zardari family. PPP’s landslide victory not only signifies the rejection of its rival mainstream political entities like the Punjab-based Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) but also serves as a potent and unequivocal expression of Sindhi nationalism and the yearning for ‘Sindhudesh’ (self-determination). Attempting to interpret this mandate through any other lens would grossly undermine the genuine aspirations of the Sindhi populace and disrespect their democratic choice.
This vote and mandate for Sindhi nationalism is not an isolated incident but rather a continuation of a historical trend. Sindhi people have historically demonstrated determination in prioritising support for the province-based parties to deny space to any extra-regional party trying to make inroads in the political landscape of the region. This refocuses the conversation back to Sindhi nationalism and its longstanding popular aspiration of a separate Sindhudesh with provincial autonomy as a short-term means to achieve that objective. Top of FormIt is reiterated that the Sindhi nationalistic struggle predates the inception of the State of Pakistan in 1947 and is deeply rooted in the historical and cultural fabric of the region.
While the circumstances of the day and Machiavellian political machinations of a few may have linked its fate to Pakistan, the dissonance with the idea of this newly created “Muslim State”, emerged within the first decade.
More so, the language-based oppression, through which Pakistan’s political masters imposed the Urdu language across the country, along with its systematic demographic alteration designs to obliterate the Sindhi character of the province, only fueled popular suspicions of an impending danger to their culture and identity. To the consternating chagrin of ethnically distinct regions such as Sindh, Balochistan, Bengal and Pashtun lands, the consolidation of power within the newly established state by a coalition of Muhajirs (migrants) and Punjabis was a dangerous mix. It not only posed an existential threat to the culturally distinctive lands but also facilitated the exploitation of their rich resources.
Interestingly, the concerns regarding land grabbing by Punjabis also predate Pakistan’s creation. The subsequent consolidation of power within this community, which was one of the largest population groups along with Bengalis in Pakistan, only served to validate these fears. For instance, Sayed Noor Muhammad Shah, a Muslim League legislator in a March 13, 1947 address in the Sindh Assembly rued that Punjabi Muslims never lose an opportunity to grab land even if that meant demolishing houses, mosques and even graves. “They have such land-grabbing instincts that in their vicinity, the Sindhi Musalmans cannot find even an inch of land for burying their dead,” Shah had lamented. The concerns and fears of Sindhi people, such as those voiced by Shah, were soon realised when the Pakistani state lost no time in attempting to change the character and cultural milieu of Sindh province by bringing a large number of migrants to settle across Sindh. This was most prominent in Karachi, then Pakistan’s federal capital, which was transformed into a dominant Urdu-speaking city within no time.
In response to these existential challenges, the movement for Sindhi nationalism gained momentum in the 1960s, propelled by the literary activism of influential figures such as Ghulam Murtaza Syed, known as GM Syed, who reinvigorated the nationalist aspirations of the Sindhi people. In his seminal blueprint for Sindhudesh, A Nation in Chains, Syed exposed how the government of Liaquat Ali Khan initiated a demographic alteration program to render Sindh a Sindhi minority region by orchestrating “orgies of brute mass violence against the life, property and honour of the Hindu nationals of Sindh” to pave way for a “mass immigration” of Muhajir migrants in the province.
More so, Pakistan’s experiment with the One-Unit political system, proclaimed in 1955 meant that the regional identities were subsumed effectively. It unleashed a dark epoch on the land, which revered its distinctive linguistic and cultural traditions along with syncretic religious orientation, and placed it at the disposal of the dominant Punjabi elite and their Muhajir collaborators. This had prompted GM Syed to argue that the One-Unit façade to centralise and control Pakistan’s power dynamics violated Sindh’s “right of self-determination” as it ended its “separate national identity.”
As the Pakistani state inflicted mass violence across the country, particularly in Bangla-dominated East Pakistan, resulting in its secession and emergence as Bangladesh in 1971, it reinvigorated all the ethnic nationalists in the country from Balochistan to Pashtun tribal regions to Sindh. As such, GM Syed decidedly gave the call for the establishment of Sindhudesh in 1972, paving the way for a formal political struggle towards achieving this objective. These political quests invited the lethal wrath of the ‘wounded’ Pakistani security establishment, which had freshly tasted a humiliating defeat in Dhaka, turning the towns and villages of the province red.
It is pertinent to mention that the cause of Sindhi nationalism survived the state’s wrath but flourished in the 1970s and 80s even as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, himself a Sindhi, ruled Pakistan for much of the 1970s decade and led the charge against the Sindhi nationalists. Yet when the same Bhutto was executed by General Zia-ul-Haq in 1979, the Sindhi nationalists protested this gruesome political murder. Even as the Bhutto family-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) became a party to the Punjabi dominated Army inflicted oppression, even the funeral of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 resonated with the slogans of “Pakistan nakhabey” (we don’t want Pakistan), with protestors and provincial political leaders insisting, in unison, that the former prime minister was killed “because of her Sindhi origins.”
Moreover, the Sindhi people have consistently employed strategic voting tactics to prevent major political parties, particularly those rooted in Punjab, from gaining significant traction in the region, even if that meant handing over the electoral governance of the province to PPP, despite ideological reservations. This trend persisted in the recently concluded election of 2024 as well, where the PPP secured a resounding victory both at the provincial and as well as winning near total seats of the National Assembly in the province.
Therefore, it is imperative for the PPP leadership, particularly the Bhutto-Zardari family, to recognise that the overwhelming support from Sindhis does not necessarily equate to an endorsement of their national political agenda. Rather, it signifies a deliberate stance by the electorate to thwart the influence of external powers and safeguard the integrity of their province. The electorate’s decision to rally behind the PPP serves as a political statement to assert and preserve the distinct identity and interests of Sindh in the face of perceived encroachment.
The broader world need not conflate the mandate in any other way and instead support the legitimate struggle of the people of Sindh in realising their longstanding aspiration of Sindhudesh.
The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. His X handle is @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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