The Case of Sindh

BY SAIN G M SAYED

I consider straight politics an integral part of my faith. True service of the people earns for you divine blessings and spiritual solace. Until such time as individuals or parties use politics for serving humanity, they have my support and sympathy When I realize that they are using politics for promoting class or individual interests which are likely to hurt Public interests or that their policies are not based on equality and justice, I consider it my duty to oppose them.
Here I may refer to my policy differences with my friend Jamshed Nusserwanji. The latter was of the view that no matter how bad the present, one should not strive against it unless one was sure of a better future. Many experienced and sincere political workers have adhered to this political creed. Contrary to this, however, I have held and continue to hold the view that if one is not satisfied by the present, one should struggle for change and that the future will take care of itself. In other words, I have subconsciously subscribed to Shah Waliullah’s credo that all unacceptable systems should be demolished.
Soon after I joined the Muslim League, something happened which vitiated the atmosphere of unity and brotherhood that had prevailed in Sindh for centuries. The Sindh of Sufis and sadhus was engulfed in the flames of communalism which reduced the land of love and unity into ashes and as a result of which the sub-continent was divided in 1947. It is a tragic fact that as a result of partition, the Punjab and Bengal were divided into separate geographic entities while in Sindh a whole nation was divided and a large numbers of our people were forced to say goodbye to the land of their ancestors. The people who were obliged to leave were the very same who had played a great role in contributing to the material welfare of Sindh and to its linguistic and intellectual advancement. Among them were the devotees of Shah Sachal Sarmast, Shah Inayat and Sami. They had retrieved and collected the works of Sachal and Sami. They included people like Dr. Gurbakhsani, Kalyan Advani, Lal Chand Amardinomal, Jethmal Parsram, Bherumal M. Advani, T.L. Waswani and others.
The incident that shook Sindh is known as the Masjid Manzilgah Case. There was an old place in Sukkur, which had been named Manzilgah Masjid by the Muslims. Several delegations from Shikarpur and Sukkur called on the Prime Minister of Sindh, Allah Bux Soomro and demanded that the Muslims be given possession of this Masjid. Soomro deputed some ulema of the Jamiat-i-Islam, Sindh, to visit the site and report back to him as to what were the merits of the case. These ulema confirmed that the place was indeed a mosque. The Hindus objected that if the place was given over to the Muslims, they would violate the privacy of the female Hindu devotees who came to pray at the temple, which was situated on the bank of the Indus.
It had been established that the place was a mosque and there was pressure on Allah Bux Soomro whose government depended for survival on the support of the Congress and the independent group opposed to the site being handed over to the Muslims. Therefore, Soomro could not take any decision in the matter.
Tired of Allah Bux Soomro’s ambivalent attitude, Muslim delegations called on the Muslim League President, Haji Abdullah Haroon and proposed that the League should take the matter in its own hands. Haroon called a meeting of his party’s provincial working committee of which I was a member. I suggested that since the Muslim League was a political party, it should not embroil itself in a dispute that was purely religious because it would stoke the fires of communalism much against the interests of Sindh.
However, the working committee ruled in favor of taking up the Manzilgah Masjid issue and chalked out a sattyagraha program. Pir Mian Abdur Rehman of Bharchondi played a major part in this. To defuse the situation, Allah Box Soomro had an ordinance issued of the Governor under which anyone could be sent to jail without proper legal proceedings. Around 3,500 people were arrested after the promulgation of the ordinance much to the consternation of the League leadership, and the agitation began to peter out.
My days with the congress had taught me that once it has started, it is extremely insulting and damaging to call off an agitation halfway through. Therefore,) took over the leadership of the movement and had the Masjid Manzilgah taken over by force. The Allah Bux government tried to have the occupation vacated by the police. The people set up barricades to foil the police bid to retake the mosque.
On November 14, 1939, 1 was arrested along with two other sattyagraha leaders and sent to the Central Jail, Hyderabad. Soon afterwards the Muslims inside the mosque, instead of being arrested, were forced to leave after they had been baton-charged and tear-gassed. Hindu-Muslim riot started that very day in which several innocent lives were lost and property worth millions destroyed. This was a black spot on the fair name of Sindh.
Arrested with me were Agha Nazar Ali Pathan, Dr. Mohammed Yamin and Nematullah Qureshi. Others arrested were Shaikh Wajid Ali from Shikarpur, Qazi Fazlullah from Larkana and Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan from Sultan Kot. Pir Ghulam Mujaddid Sirhindi of Shikarpur and some others were also put in jail.
After a while, the Hindus urged Allah Bux Soomro to provide protection to them in the countryside or face the ouster of his government. Meanwhile, I was released from the Central Jail, Hyderabad, on January 9, 1940, after serving a two-month term. I met some sagacious and farsighted Hindu colleagues and told them that I would not stop at anything short of the removal of Allah Bux Soomro’s government who had put my friends and me in jail. Thus we got rid of the Soomro cabinet with the help of these Hindu friends. Before I proceed further, I want to present two documents here. They shed some light on my thinking despite the fact that I had taken part in a communal movement. With my release, I issued the following statement:
"After my arrest and that of my colleagues on October 1 9-20, 1 939, certain extremely tragic events took place in and around Sukkur. I came to know of these painful events in jail through my Hindu and Muslim friends. Further details have come to hand after my release. I sympathize with the Hindus and Muslims for what they have suffered during these riots. My heart goes out especially to those innocent Hindus who have suffered grievous losses. I could not sympathize with them earlier because I was in jail. I hope they will forgive me for this.
‘When I decided to take part in the Masjid Manzilgah movement, I could not even dream that it would have such bloody consequences. Murder, dacoits and arson are against our creed and are to be condemned. Sindh is in the teething stage in politics. It may have to learn several lessons before it can hope for a better future. The main reason for our recent tribulations is our inexperience and shortsightedness.
"Hindus and Muslims have been living together with great love and amity for centuries, guided as they have been by Sufis and man of great learning and piety. It is our ardent desire that in the future, too, this unity should blossom and be a beacon light for the rest of India. We are pained when we-find that there are obstacles on the road to the realization of these objectives. A permanent peace between the two communities is the need of the hour. It is my fervent desire that) should work towards this and. Our province is passing through a critical period and I appeal to everyone for Hindu-Muslim unity so that we can live like good neighbors.’ (Naeen Sindh laai Jidda Juhud, P. 67-69).
My mentor and spiritual leader and great Sindhi intellectual, Allama I.I. Qazi had written to me before the publication of the above statement saying that there was a similarity of views between him and me. An important excerpt from his letter is quoted below:

(We think in one direction and Providence in other)
"For Ghulam Murtaza, G.M. Syed, I have a great deal of spiritual attraction but I am also annoyed with him. Why did he put himself into trouble by taking part in the Masjid Manzilgah Tehrik? (We think in one direction and providence in another). He was the only one left in ‘Sindh and he, too, chose the path of darkness, that is, he took part in the Manzilgah movement. Therefore, what will become of us? Five hundred mosques in Sindh are in a state of disrepair. All Madrassahs in Karachi, Larkana and Tando Bago have gone from bad to worse. The Muslims themselves have ruined all Islamic institutions. People are seeking martyrdom for Manzilgah I am not sorry that I was not consulted on the issue. What makes me sorry is that good sense did not prevail."

Qazi Sahib wrote this letter to me in Karachi on January 12, 1940. (Saneh Ja Singhar, p. 102, letter 42). When my statement on the riots appeared in the Press, the Allama wrote to me again in February 1940. Excerpts:
"Dear Murtaza,
"I congratulate you. You have not yet lost your spiritual purity. This is a miracle. After 11 years of hard work, we continue to strive. Let us prevent the recurrence of past events...
By recounting all this, I want to show that I had joined the Muslim League thinking that it was a strong political party which would help me in securing the welfare objectives and not to use it to promote communalism. It was my desire that Sindh should be free of the communal virus. I continued to strive for this when I became the Minister of Education Industry, Labor and Forests in the Mir Bande Ali Cabinet As a Minister, I tried to accomplish the following for the promotion of Sindhi language and literature and for the general welfare of the province:
The establishment of a commission for the University of Sindh.
The setting up of a Central Advisory Board for Sindhi Literature. This was later to become the Sindhi Adabi Board.
The constitution of a committee comprises intellectuals for the compilation of a dictionary of the Sindhi language.
To promote secondary education, the constitution of a committee, which committee later became the Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education.
Ordered that Sindhi be made compulsory language in all schools in the province.
Prepared a plan for the construction of a road from Karachi to Kotri.
However, since we, too, had acceded to power with the help of Hindu members, we could not get legislation through on the writing off of loans, tenancy matters, mutation of land and other people-oriented projects and plans. Therefore, I told Mr. Jinnah that since we were not in a position to do any progressive work, we should abandon bothering about the assembly and our race for power and instead start work on building and organizing public opinion. Mr. Jinnah agreed. However, I thought that before implementing the decision, efforts should be made to form an all-parties coalition of Muslim members and then I should resign from the Cabinet. For this purpose, I invited Maulana Abul Kalam Azad of the Indian National Congress and proposed that Allah Bux Soomro should join the Cabinet. It was decided that a six-member cabinet should have two ministers each from the Allah Bux, the Muslim League and Independent Hindu groups. But none of the incumbent ministers was willing to resign. We had tried to cobble this coalition together without Mr. Jinnah’s consent. When he came to know of it, he asked the Sindh Muslim League President to order that no one should resign from the Cabinet.
Shaikh Abdul Majid did not resign because he was discipline-bound not to do so. It was considered necessary that Khuhro should be in the cabinet. I had undertaken to secure the resignation of two ministers under the agreement arrived at in Maulana Azad’s presence. Therefore, I resigned to honor the accord and asked Maulana Azad to give me a month to get the other resignation.
After my resignation, the Muslim League members asked Mr. Jinnah to take disciplinary action against me. Mr. Jinnah refused to do so and asked me to organize the League and made me chairman of the organizing committee. I put Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan (Sukkur, Syed Haji Hasan Bux (Nawab shah), Qazi Fazlullah (Larkana), Mohammed Hashim Gazdar (Karachi), Sahibzada Abdus Sattar Jan Sirhindi (Hyderabad), Faqir Mohammed Mangrio (Mirpur khas) and others on the committee and set about the task of organizing the party. I toured most of Sindh for this purpose. In the speeches I delivered, I also made a critical appraisal of the Ministry’s performance and called upon the Muslim League members of the provincial cabinet to fulfill. The promises they had made to the people.
Within the short span of a year, I succeeded in raising the Sindh Muslim League membership from 6,000 to 300,000 which came to 25 percent of the total number of adult male Muslims in the province. Primary branches rose to 450 in number that proved that we had spread the League message to every nook and corner of Sindh. We opened a complaint cell in the provincial office to bring people’s problems to the notice of the cabinet and the bureaucracy. The Muslim League literature was distributed far and wide and every effort was made to introduce Mr. Jinnah to the people. All this shows the spirit with which I worked for the Pakistan Movement and the Muslims. I reproduce here the text of a poster that was published during this period.
POSTER
The Muslim League demands Pakistan. Pakistan means an Islamic State. "In Pakistan,
The government will be established according to Qura'anic principles.
Everyone will have political, social and economic equality.
The government will be in the hands of upright and pious people.
The foremost duty of the government will be to banish poverty, repression, ignorance, and every effort will be made to prevent the exploitation of the people for class interests. Gambling, adultery, drinking and usury shall be outlawed and no one will have to purchase justice. It will be freely available to all in equal measure.
Social status will not depend on power and pelf but on piety.
In addition, a book Hindustan JA Muscleman Ain Pakistan was distributed free of cost on my behalf as Chairman, Organizing Committee, and Sindh Provincial Muslim League. The book contained translated versions of the articles published by a Punjab paper, The Asian times, on January 5, February 16, April 12 and 26, 1940.
Thus I struggled day and night, organizing the party, little caring for personal comfort. However, I was aware even then that the Muslim League was not an end in itself for me but a means to an end. The feudal lords dominated the Muslim League. I decided that if an attempt was made to put the People on the wrong trail in the name of the League, I would oppose it. I give an example here. A Bill seeking to conduct a survey of the feudal estates and to ameliorate the lot of the oppressed peasants was presented in the Sindh Assembly during its budget session in 1941. Had the Bill been passed, serfdom would have come to an end in Sindh. Mir Bande Ali was then heading the Cabinet. Because I had resigned from the Cabinet, Khan Bahadur Allah Bux presented the Bill. However, the feudals who had joined the League in search of office, opposed the Bill and forced the party not to vote for it. I voted for the Bill against party discipline. The speech I made on the issue in the Assembly on March 26, 1 941 is being reproduced here:
Sir, I feel called upon to make a statement of my views at a moment when I and the majority of the members of my party do not see eye to eye upon this question of the Amendment of Land Revenue Code. There were times when, if I differed from the majority view, I did not consider it necessary to explain the reasons that made me adopt a course different from majority view. But now I feel that I am moving in such environment and surroundings that my individual actions contrary to the accepted procedure of the day are not going to remain unchallenged. I feel that such occasions do create misunderstandings and confusion. It is therefore but right on my part to make my position clear when there is a conflict between my conscience and the majority view of my party which I have accepted with open eyes as an instrument for the fulfillment of my ideals. Such incidents are of very delicate character in the life of a man whom politics are the means for spiritual evolution-
"Sir, I must make it clear that with me politics are a faith which has no connection with ambition for power or prestige, name or fame, or an engagement for leisure hours. It is a serious effort of the spirit for the highest manifestation and accomplishment of body and soul. Organizations, their codes and regulations, individuals and their mutual attachments are all to me the means to achieve the end; and the situation becomes indeed delicate when there is a conflict between ideals and means.
"Sir, Islamic philosophy to me is the means, which will bring us nearer to the realization of our ideal that aims at the establishment of the long-cherished Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Muslim League Organization in India having taken upon itself the duty of organizing the Muslims in India for the achievement of the said ideal, becomes identical with Islamic philosophy and so when t joined the Muslim League, I did it with that idea in my mind. It is true that organizations are made up of individuals and majority of individuals lack higher perception, with the result that in democratic organizations it is generally the case that their standard is lowered according to exigencies and requirements of the majority caprices. It is thus very difficult for those who have a higher vision of life to submit at times to things, which according to them are contrary to the accepted principles. They are then torn between two powerful forces; obedience to rules of Organization and obedience to the higher truth, Today I find myself in this position. If the Muslim League stands for equality, fraternity and equity, on which the foundations of Islam and Pakistan are laid, which latter is the immediate goal of the Muslim League, then I cannot understand how my friends can compromise this principle by advocating the perpetuation of a system which is diametrically opposed to the said principles. Jagirs are a remnant of the old feudal system, where in return for martial, civil and administrative services, or for the maintenance of families of royal relationship, these lands were given as bestowals. The foundation of this system was based upon inequality and created class distinctions, which were forbidden by Islam. I cannot understand on what authority in these democratic days when feudal system is a thing of the past my friends are indirectly helping in the preservation of this system. I know that we are still controlled by a Government that recognizes class distinctions and is supposed to be the custodian of vested interests. Therefore, if we are not in a position immediately to do away with the jagirdari system, still I cannot see why we should not strive to relax, if not altogether break, the shackles that hang heavily upon the poor people.
"Now, I shelf go into the details of the Bill itself. It has two main features; survey of Jagirs and settlement of Jagirs lands. There appears to be no possible reason to oppose the principle of survey of the jagiri lands as in the absence of such survey, there is always the possibility of undue loss of revenue to Government.
"As regards the settlement itself. We know that there are several honest jagirdars who will be pleased at the passage of this Bill, as at present they hold land-areas beyond their legitimate title to the same. It is only the few dishonest and high-handed jagirdars who have been accustomed to squeezing their poor tenants that will object to the passage of this Bill. The jagirdar’s position in respect of the jagiri lands is identical to that of the Government in respect of the ordinary lands. There is no reason why jagirdars should be allowed an opportunity to charge the poor tenants more than what the Government charge the zamindars.
"On the other hand, it is to be borne in mind that the jagirdar enjoys his right as a form of political pension. So he should get only some share out of the revenue but he should have no hand in the management of the land. It is high time that Government should recover the land revenue from the zamindars or Mukhadams in the jagiri lands and pays to the jagirdars a share out of the collected revenue. The jagirdars should now become pattedars, until Government revises the whole land policy,
"Sir, these are my views which I believe to be the real views of the Muslim League; but if I have not been fortunate enough to convince some of my colleagues of this truth, I am not disappointed. I shall carry on my work patiently until I succeed in converting my friends to the true ideals of our Organization"
It was strange that the same Muslim League was opposing those Bills for whose passage we had joined it after protracted opposition to these measures by the Hindu members of the Assembly and the Allah Bux Ministry. Our own League was opposing our basic aims and objectives whereas members of the Sindh Assembly and Allah Bux were trying to get these measures approved by the House!
The Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 2)
In 1941, I was nominated to the Working Committee of the All-India Muslim League. Haji Abdullah Haroon was already a member. The first meeting of the Committee was held on October 26 the same year in Delhi. It was for the first time that I acquainted myself with important all-India political problems, which gave me fresh impetus to continue to work for the welfare of the Muslims.
Towards the end of the year, the Second World War took a turn for the worse. Japan’s sudden decision to jump into the fray and its initial successes put Indian security into jeopardy. This had a deep impact on the internal situation in India, especially in Sindh. The year 1942 has a special significance in the history of Sindh and will always be remembered. First, there was the Hur rebellion as a result of which the British imposed Martial Law on the province and an avalanche of suffering overwhelmed the people. Then there were devastating floods in Upper Sindh that affected half a million people and destroyed property worth millions. Yet again, the Indian National Congress launched the Quit India Movement against British imperialism.
The year brought untold personal grief for me when on April 27. The President of the Sindh Muslim League, Haji Abdullah Haroon, died suddenly. It was the Haji Sahib’s probity, loyalty and personality, which had lured me into the Muslim League. Differences arose over the election of his successor. A meeting of the Muslim League Council decided that it was not the right time for a contest and nominated Khan Bahadur Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, a member of the party’s Working Committee, as President of the Sindh League for the time being.
In the meantime, I started canvassing for Yusuf Haroon’s candidature for the central legislative assembly seat that had fallen vacant (because of Abdullah Haroon’s death). Allah Bux’s brother, Maula Bux, was persuaded by me to withdraw from the contest, and Yusuf Haroon was returned unopposed.
All this while, Martial Law was enforced on both sides of the Indus with great severity. I had plans to challenge the imposition of military rule in a court of law but Mr. Jinnah directed us sternly not to do so. Military rule had a negative impact both on the hot uprising and the Quit India Movement in Sindh. Therefore, I deem it necessary to throw some light on the events of the time.
The Hurs had been simmering with discontent for quite some time but their struggle caught the limelight when the British arrested their spiritual leader, Syed Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi 11, The arrest forced the Hors into taking the law into their own hands and resorting to a violent struggle against British imperialism. There is no documentary evidence on the real objectives of the hot struggle. But one thing is clear, When I met the Pir before his arrest, I became convinced that he was totally opposed to communalism and regarded the Muslim League was dangerous to Muslim interests. Also, he wanted an end to British rule over Sindh, In this regard, he thought that a struggle should be launched in collaboration with all the revolutionary forces in the rest of India. Here I want to reproduce adverbum the dialogue I had with the Pir and which was included in the noted Sindhi intellectual, the late Mohammed Usman Deplai’s historic work, Sanghar pp. 100-101.
"The moving spirit behind the Sindh Muslim League, G.M. Syed, led a delegation to Pir Sibghatullah Shah 11 to request him to join the Muslim League.
‘Why?’ the Pir asked smilingly.
So that we should struggle for the independence of the country as laid down in the 1940 (Lahore) Resolution,’ Syed Sahib replied.
"The Pir laughed and said, ‘The Muslim League and independence? Shah Sahib, I thought you were a big politician but you don’t know the basics of politics."
"Syed Sahib had informal relations with the Pir. He smiled and said, ‘Since you have been kept in several jails and have had the opportunity of meeting political prisoners you have politics on your finger-tips.’
I don’t claim that I know everything about politics but a party which acts under British instructions, a party which has all the Sirs, Khan Bahadur, waderas feudal lords) and the money bags on its roll, and which yet ‘talks about independence, then there is nothing further I can say in the matter,’ the Pir said,
"Shah Sahib became sombre, ‘Sir, we shall soon have the Sindh Assembly pass a resolution demanding independence for Pakistan.’
"Smiling, the Pir said, ‘Yes, the moment you get the resolution through, the British will give you independence! Remember this, Shah Sahib. In the first place, the British will not grant you independence. And even if the demand for Pakistan is conceded, the new country will be a tailored affair where the British will call the shots for years.’
‘We’ll not allow the British to have any say in the affairs of our independent country,’ Shah Sahib said heatedly.
"The Pir smiled, ‘Where will you be then? Will you hold the reins then? You forget, Shah Sahib, that while you fight, when victory comes; only those will be in the saddle who have been born British lackeys. You will be the fly in the ointment and you will be thrown out of the ointment. Not only thrown out but possibly put in prison, If we live and if my predictions come true, then we’ll know who is more adapt at politics between the two of us. I will, by the grace of God, either gets my country or my coffin, but you will be nursing your wounds,’
"At this Shah Sahib said a quiet goodbye to the Pir and left. Anyhow, most of the Pir’s bitter predictions have turned out to be true. He was a true nationalist, a staunch anti-imperialist and a great votary of communal harmony. He did not reveal the plan he had in his mind for the attainment of a new Sindh nor did he live long enough to do so. But in my view, he never accepted alien domination over Sindh. It is a matter of regret that his successor and eldest son is so different from his father and has aligned himself with the inheritors of British imperialism, the Punjabis."
After Pir Sibghatullah Shah’s martyrdom, there was no moral force that could give direction to the Hur movement. As a result, rudderless as they had become, the Hurs fall into inexperienced hands and became a band of terrorists. The British treated them with bestial brutality. Hundreds of these intrepid patriotic Sindhis were sent to the gallows’ shot dead or tortured because of their love for their spiritual mentor. Women were dishonored and their lands and other property was confiscated without due process of law. Punitive fines were imposed. Special tribunals and military courts handed out heavy sentences. ‘Many people were expelled from Sindh and kept in special camps and jails or exiled to the Andamans. When jails began to overflow, thousands of men and women, both young and old, and even children were put in concentration camps where there were no provisions for medical treatment or educational facilities for the young. This was their plight, and State repression continued till 1951.
Now I come to the Quit India Movement. The World War had, begun in 1939. The British also threw India into the inferno, against the wishes of its people. The Indian National Congress reacted very strongly against it. It maintained that unless the Indians were made masters of their own resources, they would never take part in the war. The Americans put pressure on the British to hold talks with the Indian leadership. The British sent several powerful delegations to India for detailed discussions with Indian leaders but they all proved inconclusive because the British were not willing to give total independence to India and the Congress would not accept anything less.
As a result of the impasse, the Indian National Congress passed a historic resolution at Bombay in August 1942, which came to be called the Quit India Resolution.
As soon as this resolution was passed, large-scale punitive action started against the Congress. The moving spirit behind the party, Mahatma Gandhi, its President, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and all members of its Working Committee except Raj gopal achari were arrested. This provoked a nation-wide protest and a non-violent movement turned violent. The British Government tried to counter violence with violence but the agitation continued to mount. Sindh took full part in the movement.
After the passage of the Quit India Resolution, Mr. Jinnah sided with the British. He said it was not directed against the British but was a Congress conspiracy against the Muslims. Consequently, he called a meeting of the Working Committee of the All India Muslim League at Bombay on August 16, 1942, to consider the Quit India Resolution. Ayub Khuhro and Yusuf Haroon reached Bombay to Represent Sindh. Yusuf Haroon proposed that since Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang was also in town, certain matters should be discussed with him. So Khuhro Yusuf Haroon and myself called on the Nawab at the Green Hotel, which is now part of the Tai Mahal Hotel. The Nawab said that all Congress leaders except Raj gopal achari have been arrested. However, the Congress leaders had learnt from Mr. V.P. Memon, Secretary to the Viceroy at the Central Secretariat that the Government had been assured that Mr. Jinnah would persuade the Muslim League Working Committee to endorse a resolution to the effect that the Quit India Movement was in effect against the Muslims and not against the British. The Nawab said that since such a move, if carried, would serve no-one except the British and be extremely detrimental for the Muslims, it should be opposed, He then turned to me and said, "Mr. (G.M.) Syed, don’t let any such resolution) be carried because it would be extremely inappropriate at this stage.
The Nawab then told us that the Congress leaders wanted to meet us. However since all male leaders were in jail, Mrs. Krishna Hutheesingh, Mirdula Sarabai and Khurshid Bar Dadabhai Nauroji wanted to see us and that we should agree to do so. We accepted the Nawab’s advice and attended a lunch hosted the following day by Mirdula Sarabai. The ladies gathered there told us that the Congress was willing to accept the Muslim League demand that there should be free and autonomous Muslim governments in the provinces in which they were in majority. Other demands could also be met and Mr. Jinnah could work out the modalities in consultation with Mr. Raj gopal achari. And, if possible, he (Mr. Jinnah) could meet Gandhi for a personal assurance in the matter. They asked us to keep trying to prevent the passage of the proposed anti-Quit India resolution that Mr. Jinnah wanted moved at the behest of the Viceroy. We undertook to make every effort to abort the move.
In spite of my differences with the Congress, I felt as a progressive Muslim that if there were an agreement between the Muslim League and the Congress, the alien rulers would dare not harass the people who were struggling for independence in the manner in which they had been doing.
The All India Muslim League Working Committee met at Mr. Jinnah’s Mount Pleasant residence on August 16, 1942. Mr. Jinnah presented the resolution against the Quit India call as he had pledged to the Viceroy to do. Speaking against the resolution, I said that it would be highly improper for us to regard that the Congress Quit India Resolution that was part of its independent struggle was against the Muslims. I added that since the Congress wanted the British to leave India. We should not torpedo its struggle against imperialism by endorsing the proposed resolution because this would close the doors on any future League-Congress settlement.
Mr. Jinnah reacted angrily to this. It was not possible to negotiate any settlement with Congress, he said. At this, I proposed an amendment to the effect that we should hold talks with the Congress and if it accepted our terms, we should enter into an agreement with it but if it didn’t, we would be free to pass any resolution. A one-sided resolution would not be appropriate, I said. Mr. Ayub Khuhro supported me, as did the Raja Sahib of Mohmoodabad. Mr. Jinnah at which he walked out in protest snubbed the latter. Hasan Isphahani was also not allowed to speak nor was Nawab Ismail Khan. My proposed amendment was shot down and the resolution was carried as moved but with a note of dissent by me. The full text of the resolution successfully moved by Mr. Jinnah, (Appendix 2) would show how the Quaid-e-Azam of the Muslims of India sabotaged the independence struggle and how he played into the hands of the British imperialists.
The proceedings of the Muslim League Working Committee meeting left me heart-broken but I did not lose courage. I continued to think, as did some of my Communist friends such as Syed Sajjad Zaheer, Dange and Comrade Ashraf, that the Muslim League could be put on course despite all the faults of its High Command. "So, I continued to work as a leader of the Sindh Muslim League. I persisted with my efforts for party reform and for the betterment of the Muslims. In this regard, I moved a historic resolution, which was passed by the Sindh Assembly on March 3, 1943. This was the time when Allah Box Soomro, an important Congress supporter, had been dismissed’ from the Cabinet, and Congress leaders who were members of the Assembly were in jail because of their participation in the Quit India Movement. Those of them not arrested were not members of the House. The text of the resolution and the speech I made on the occasion can be seen in Appendix 3.
This resolution had the support of all Muslim members present in the House. Khan Bahadur Allah Box was not present in Karachi. Two Hindu Ministers and a parliamentary secretary voted against it while the independent Hindu members walked out in protest. It may be recalled here that Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro had become the Acting President of the Sindh Muslim League after the death of Sir Haji Abdullah Haroon. When Khuhro became Revenue Minister, some progressive workers of the League wanted to make the party truly representative of the rights and aspirations of the people. It was felt that it was necessary to keep the functioning of the League independent of the influence of the Ministry and make the League Ministers answerable to the party.
Contrary to our wishes, Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro, the Acting League President, did not leave the Ministry. As election time for the League offices approached in 1943 differences between the progressive and conservative groups of the party deepened. The Progressives were working under the leadership of Shaikh Abdul Majid Sindhi. To sort out these differences, we attended the meeting of the All India Muslim League Working Committee on April 23, 1943, in Delhi and complained about the anti people steps of the Ministry. However, Mr. Jinnah paid no attention to these complaints but said that he would look into them when he visited Sindh.
On our return from Delhi, a great tragedy occurred in the martyrdom of Allah Box Soomro. I had several differences with him but he was a patriotic Sindhi politician and a true son of the soil whom, unfortunately, I couldn’t fathom while he lived. Shaheed Allah Bux was a strong-willed and able politician and a true friend. In 1942, he renounced his titles of Khan Bahadur and OBE in a letter he wrote to the Viceroy on September 26. He was punished for this by being dismissed as Prime Minister and a new Muslim League Ministry, headed by Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah was formed. Excerpts from Shaheed Allah Bux’s letter to the Viceroy are being reproduced here:
"I have come to the conclusion that in view of the public opinion prevailing in the country, I cannot keep the titles given to me by the British Government. I have decided, therefore, to return them. The Indians have been struggling for freedom for quite some time. After the start of the War, it was being hoped that on the basis of the principles, for which the Allies were fighting the forces of fascism, India would be freed and allowed the privilege to take part in the War independently. This was not done. It is my firm belief that the Indians have the right to independence. Recent statements by the British Government indicate that by creating hurdles in the way of a settlement among various Indian political parties, the British want to maintain their imperial stranglehold over India, The latest speech made in the House of Commons by the Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, has gravely disappointed concerned and nationalistic circles in India. It clearly shows that the British have no intention of granting freedom to India. Therefore, I cannot keep titles given to me by such a Government and am, therefore, returning them.’
The Khan Bahadur was a nationalist. The views expressed by him while presiding over the Muslim Azad Conference in Delhi on April 10, 1940, is now part of history. In addition, I want to put the record straight and I consider it necessary to reproduce parts of the dialogue he had with me. I in answer to the questions put these to him.
Q 1: What differences do you have with Mr. Jinnah?
Q 2: What do you think about a Congress-Muslim League agreement? Answer to Q 1: "Mr. Jinnah’s view that the country should be divided because the Muslims are a separate nation on the basis of religion is not acceptable to me because this ideology is UN-Islamic, archaic and against all modern principles of nationalism.’
Answer to Q 2: ‘The Congress and the Muslim League are both all-India Parties, Joining them would be detrimental to the separate identity and interests of Sindh. The Sindhis have attained separation from Bombay with great difficulty, Now they should not do anything, which ends Sindh’s autonomy. G.M. Syed, you still think that the creation of Pakistan will solve all problems facing Sindh? This is wrong and far removed from facts. You will get to know that our difficulties will begin after Pakistan has come into being. If You read the presidential address delivered by Dr. Shaikh Mohammed lqbal at the Allahabad session of the Muslim League in 1930 with any degree of care, you will discover that he wants to end Sindh’s freedom and make it subservient to the Punjab. At present, the Hindu trader and moneylender’s plunder is worrying you but later you will have to face the Punjabi bureaucracy and soldiery and the mind of U.P. Then you will know whether the partition of India was good or bad. You live in a dream world about the 1940 Resolution. That is why you are ignorant of the practicalities of politics. In practical politics, there is little room for promises, resolutions and principles. Read history and you will find that religious edicts and agreements among governments, have been often sacrificed at the altar of power, facts, individual and group interests and local situations, requirements and considerations. The Pakistan for which you keep worrying day and night will, at a later stage, become a headache for you. It will pose a threat to Sindhi independence, Indian unity and the peace and progress of Asian nations, After the creation of this aberration, you will have to struggle to fight its concomitant evils."
The causes of Allah Bux’s martyrdom are not known. Some people think the Hors were responsible while the others feel the deed was born out of the Muslim League’s policy of vindictiveness. Soon afterwards (in June 1943), 1 was unanimously elected President of the Sindh Muslim League in the presence of Mr. Jinnah. It was an office held in an acting capacity for quite some time by Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro after Haji Abdullah Haroon’s death. Although I was an active worker of the Muslim League, I tried not to accept the office. I was reluctant because the Muslim League preferred to cling to office instead of working for the welfare of the people. Nevertheless, I accepted the office at Mr. Jinnah’s insistence and tried to make the ministers answerable to the party and take the League out of the influence of the conservatives and let the Progressives who wanted to serve the people take over control. I waged a protracted struggle to achieve this end and I continued to apprise Mr. Jinnah of the Ministry’s corruption and shortcomings i6 letters and reports and often in person. But all this was fruitless. All these ills were rooted in the mental make-up of the Muslim League High Command and, therefore, there was no remedy for them. Public opinion, democratic decisions and the submissions of the Sindh league’s leadership had no impact on the party High Command which was quite dictatorial in nature despite all this, I continued to improve the party with the help of my friends. Impressed by my efforts and concerned at the League attitude, my friend Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi wrote me an impassioned letter from Delhi on November 15, 1943, parts of which are being presented here:
"Consider the ideas you had in 1938 and decide whether six years later you are fighting for the same high ideals or whether you have been driven away from them. You had embarked on your political career to free the poor from the stranglehold of the oppressors, to cleanse the Muslim community and to put it on the road to progress, to save the rural populace from the rigors and flaws of law, to secure a reduction in land revenue and to fight bureaucratic corruption and pomp. Recall your writings and speeches of these days and you will realize that

(the path you are treading leads to Turkistan).
Forgive me if I remind you where you have reached after six years of rigorous effort. Have you not made yourself an instrument of the very forces of evil the extermination of which you had made the sole objective of your life? After all, what is your Position in the provincial politics?

You have been put in the position where you are so that they (the oppressors can achieve their objectives while you get them into power by singing their praises in public and overriding the objectives you had set for yourself in 1938. They will indulge in corruption and all manner of wrongdoing while you give them cover and hide their misdeeds from the public eye, and have to continue proving that they are nice public servants.
"All this is being done under cover of Muslim unity and solidarity and Pakistan as if Islam means that parties should be set up in its name and then converted into dens of depravity. Islam is being used as a haven for exploiters. If you don’t mind, let me tell you I have seen the efforts you have made but I am afraid that at this moment you are not serving the cause of the Muslims but are strengthening their enemies. You have abandoned your principles. If the Muslim League is going to entrust the protection of our rights to these men (Ministers) who are the enemies of the people, It would be futile to expect anything to happen in our lifetime..... If Pakistan is the best (solution) it will not be secured through evil. Good is never born out of evil. It is my sincere advice to you that if you have lost the will to secure the aims and objectives you had set for yourself in 1938, don’t make yourself a tool for these to be subverted. Everything you do must be done in the light of the political standards you had set for yourself in 1938. Anything below these standards should be resisted manfully. Why shouldn’t all your friends abandon you in this contest so that you are left alone? Even if the whole world prevents you from following your high principles, you should stand up and give it a fight. No matter at what stage they are now, the traditionalists will be nowhere in a year or two..… I have reviewed your political performance over the last two years. It is falling steeply. Moreover, from being a revolutionary and a defender of the civilization and culture of Sindh, you have become a tool in the hands of the corrupt and the conservatives.
"Don’t pride yourself on your new and colorful robes or your presidency (of the League), but hark and think for a moment that the very thing you were opposed to you are helping in the name of Islam! These thieves have appointed you the so-called president of their party. It was but a petty price to pay to buy off your conscience. I wonder how your conscience has been clouded over by unreason. I have been suffering from a serious heart ailment for some time now and I can die any moment. That is why I have written you this letter to take it all off my chest. The way you have chosen for yourself, you may also die heartbroken one day. The epitaph on your grave will read:
‘Here lies a man who tried Who wanted good out of evil He started off as a revolutionary But ended up as an extreme reactionary And whose struggle in national affairs created confusion Rather than improvement’
This letter is from a close friend of 28 years standing, Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi, who had warned me after a careful study and understanding of the Muslim League’s policies. His warning had impressed me a great deal but I was still determined to improve the party and turn it into one geared to the service of the people. Therefore, I did not attach too much importance to the letter and continued with my organizational work.
Soon afterwards, a meeting of the All India Muslim League was held in Karachi in a gorgeous manner after months of tireless efforts. It proved to be the last meeting of its kind. Sindh’s traditional hospitality was fully on display; and organizationally, the meeting was a great success. The Muslim League meetings so long had in a way subsisted on Nawab Bahadur Yar Jang’s speeches. When he clod sometime later, the All India Muslim League died with him.
The Karachi meeting appointed an action committee. Nawab Ismail Khan with Liaquat Ali Khan as secretary headed it. I was one of its members. Others included Nawab lftikhar Hussain Mamdot, Seth Abdus Sattar of Madras and Qazi Mohammed Isa. Meeting on February 2, 1944, this Committee appointed another committee on which several leaders from all over India was co-opted. They included Chaudhry KhaliQuzzaman, Maulana Abdul Wahab, Jamal Mian Farangi Mehli, Maulana Abdul Hamid Badayuni, Haji Syed Ali Akbar Shah, Maulana Ghulam Murshed, (Khatib, Jamia Masjid), Lahore, Allama I.I. Qazi, Raja Sahib Mahmudabad and Maulana Akram Khan (Bengal). This committee was asked to define and determine how true Islamic spirit could be enkindled among Muslims and how Muslim society could be cleansed of UN-Islamic customs and influences.
I prepared a questionnaire and a covering letter for eliciting opinions on the task assigned to the committee and had the same circulated to the best ulema all over India through the provincial branches of the Muslim League.
Questionnaire:
On what basis and in the light of what Islamic injunctions can the social, political and economic life of the Muslims will be transformed?
Please give such suggestions as can bring Muslims belonging to different sects to a single platform so that they can become one united nation.
Please give a plan for attaining the progress and prosperity of the Muslim society in the light of Islamic principles.
Do you think that politics and religion can go hand in hand with each other? If they can, please explain how.
Please give a scheme for the social, cultural and educational uplift of the Muslims in the light of Islamic tenets.
Outline a plan for bringing the religious institutions, charities, auqaf (trusts) and other means of income belonging to various sects under one central system without creating a clash among different schools of thought.
We sent this questionnaire to the following ulema and leaders, for favor of response:
1. His Highness Sir Agha Khan (Ismaili leader)
2. Syedna Saifuddin Tahir (Bohra community)
3. Allama Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi (Khaksar Tehrik)
4. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
5. Khwaja Hasan Nizami
6. Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani
7. Muslim professors of philosophy in various colleges
8. Members of the Committee
9. Administrators of important Arabic Madrassahs and the khatibs of Jamia Masjid.
We received several useful suggestions in response but Alas; there was no room for them in the counsels of the League because it was a party of a power-hungry coterie, which wanted to perpetuate self-interest in the name of Islam. The reconstruction of the Muslim society on the basis of these suggestions was against their class interests.
While I was deep in the quagmire of the provincial Muslim League’s politics, my old colleague and excellent politician, Shaikh Abdul Majid Sindhi, sick of the goings-on in the Muslim League, resigned from the primary membership of the party. This put the entire burden of leading the sincere and progressive workers of the party on me. All this while the ministers and assembly members remained busy with their capricious and anti-people activities. I spent the whole year of 19 44 in reorganization work but I could not succeed in mending matters. Nor did the League High Command pay any heed to my repeated reminders.
However, I did not consider it expedient to withdraw from the Muslim League because that would have made the party a hand maiden of the opportunists and the anti-people elements and they would have used it pretty much as they pleased. I had the full support for all that I was doing of the sincere and selfless party workers not only in Sindh but also from all over the sub-continent. Therefore, I didn’t lose hope. Differences between the Sindh Muslim League and the Ministry had deepened but because of my lack of experience and naiveté, I was under the impression that if these matters were brought to Mr. Jinnah’s notice in a person-to-person meeting, he would take the necessary remedial steps. I kept on apprising him of the situation in quarterly reports.
On July 28, 1944, a delegation of the Sindh Assembly Party and the Provincial Working Committee of the League wanted to call on Mr. Jinnah at Lahore. I was asked to seek an appointment. Mr. Jinnah refused to meet the delegation. He asked me to present the delegation’s point of view to him. I was, therefore, obliged to work as the delegation’s spokesman. I apprised him in detail of the grievances we had against the Ministry. Mr. Jinnah said the War was on and the Prime Minister of Sindh was in the good books of the British and that the Muslim League Ministries were functioning with the help of the British bureaucracy. It would be expedient under the circumstances, therefore, to tolerate the Ministers’ acts of omission and commission. I was also told that the Ministry was answerable only to the party’s Central High Command and the provincial wing of the League should not interfere in its working. The Ministry should be kept intact under all circumstances. At this I told him I was not willing to accept this nor would the majority of the Muslim League in Sindh and the conscientious elements in the Assembly party do so. At this Mr. Jinnah lost his temper and said he was not willing to listen to this kind of talk.
I told Mr. Jinnah that I had brought the Sindh case to him hoping for justice but I was sorry to point out that I had not presented the case to an impartial judge but to Sir Ghulam Hussain’s defense counsel. This incensed Mr. Jinnah and he asked me to apologize for using such disrespectful language. I refused to do so and he left the room angrily. I apprised the delegation of the situation. Members of the team were greatly annoyed and expressed their willingness to leave the Muslim League. However, I told them that it would be precipitate to do so and will harm the struggle for the achievement of Pakistan.
It was under these circumstances that the year 1945 began. The War ended and the British authorized the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, to set up an interim government and to arrive at a settlement with the Indian leadership. Accordingly, he summoned a conference of Indian leaders in Simla on June 2 5. Earlier on June 15, several leaders of the Congress Working Committee were released. On June 14, Lord Wavell issued an important statement that is being excerpted here:
The British Government awaits a settlement with the Indians on a new constitution. The Government has no desire to impose a constitution of its own and wants no changes in it except a rapprochement among the various communities in India. However, the Government intends to present certain proposals for an interim acceptance by the leading parties.
"It is proposed that the Viceroy should reconstitute his Executive Council on which Hindus and Muslims from amongst the important parties should have equal representation. In this regard, the Viceroy has summoned an all parties’ conference. The Executive Council shall be reconstituted in consultation with them. Except for the Viceroy and the commander-in-chief, all other members of the Council shall be Indians....."
To consider these proposals, the Congress and the Muslim League held meetings of their Working Committees in Simla. Since I was a member of the League Working Committee, 1, too, had to go to Simla. I took Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi, Yusuf Haroon and Shaikh Abdul Majid Sindhi along with me so that I could benefit from their advice.
The following important leaders attended the Simla conference:
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, President, All India Congress. Mr. B.N. Bannerjee, Nationalist Party. Mr. Bhola Bhai Desai, Leader of the Congress Assembly Party. Sir Ghulam Hussain, Prime Minister of Sindh. Mr. Hussain Imam, Leader of the Muslim Council of States. Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, President, All India Muslim League. Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Deputy Leader, Muslim League. Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana, Prime Minister of the Punjab. Mr. B.G. Khere, former Prime Minister of Bombay. Mr. G.S. Moti Lal, All India Congress. Khwaja Nazimuddin, ex-Prime Minister, Bengal. Pundit G.B. Pant, ex-Prime Minister, U.P Maharaja Parlkandi, ex-Prime Minister, Orissa. Mr. Rajagopalachari, ex-Prime Minister, Madras. Mr. Henry Richardson, leader of the European Group. Sir Syed Mohammed Saadullah, Prime Minister of Assam. Dr. Khan Sahib, Prime Minister of the NWFP. Mr. R.S. Shukla, Prime Minister, U.P. Master Tara Singh, leader of the Sikh Akali Dal. Mr. S.K. Sinha, ex Prime Minister, Bihar. Mr. N.G. Shivraj, leader of the Scheduled Castes.
Several meetings were held in which the British Government proposed that until the election of a constituent assembly for an independent India, there should be an interim administration on which the Muslims and the Hindus should have equal representation but should have European, Scheduled Castes and other members. Mr. Asif Ali and Pundit Pant told me that Mr. Jinnah was trying to sabotage the interim government idea at the behest of the British. The British contemplated the induction of five members each from the Congress and the Muslim League into the interim cabinet but Mr. Jinnah insisted that the Congress should not nominate any Muslim to the cabinet out of its quota because it represented only the Hindus. Only the League should have the right to do so because it was the only party, which represented the Muslims. In spite of the fact that there were no Muslim League governments in Bengal, the NWFP and the Punjab, Mr. Jinnah stood his ground. 130th Asif Ali and Pundit Pant thought that Mr. Jinnah’s opposition to Muslims being nominated to the interim government by the Congress was neither just nor principled. They said that the Congress was nationals party whose President, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad himself was a Muslim. Therefore, failure to reach a settlement on the issue would jeopardize the interests of an independent India. Mr. Jinnah was in constant consultation with a so-called Working Committee of the Muslim League. However, he kept the Committee in the dark about what transpired between him and the Viceroy and between him and the Congress. Nawab Ismail Khan, Chaudhry KhaliQuzzaman and the Raja Sahib of Mohmoodabad had already had discussions on the issue with Mr. Jinnah but had failed to bring him round. When I told Mr. Jinnah that the talks were about to breakdown because he was not willing to come to terms with the Congress and that whether the Congress nominated Hindus or Muslims to the interim government was its internal matter, Mr. Jinnah lost his temper. He said he wanted to prove that the Congress represented only the Hindus. While we were discussing the issue, Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan walked in. Mr. Jinnah told him that the Raja Sabah of Mohmoodabad and G.M. Syed were trying to force him to arrive at a settlement with the Congress. Liaquat Ali Khan told Mr. Jinnah that my (G.M. Syed’s) policies were becoming more and more intolerable, There and then Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah too complained about me, at which Mr. Jinnah told me angrily that my attitude had become unacceptable and that it would be better if we parted company.
In short, Mr. Jinnah was adamant on wrecking a Congress-Muslim League settlement. The Muslim League Working Committee met the following day to consider a reduction in the powers of the provincial leadership 6, the party and to give greater authority to the All India League. I opposed the move because it was palpably against the principle of provincial autonomy for which we were fighting. I said any decision in this regard would not be acceptable and if it were forced on us, we would leave the Party. When Liaquat Ali Khan told all this to Mr. Jinnah, he said bitterly that time had arrived for a parting of the ways. I replied that if he felt so, I was ready to go my own way. Thus the differences between us went on increasing, but being simple and inexperienced at the time, I could not then decide to leave the League, otherwise I would not have let myself to be later answerable to myself for plunging yet further into difficulties. Anyhow, the Simla Conference failed because of Mr. Jinnah’s pro-British policies. The Congress President, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad publicly held the Muslim League responsible for the breakdown. Mr. Jinnah was demanding the right to nominate Muslims to the interim government for the League, which, if ceded by the Congress, would have turned it into a non-Muslim Organization in violation of its 50-year traditions. Azad said he himself was a Muslim and he could not accept Mr. Jinnah’s demand while being in the Congress.
The next important development after the failure of the Simla Conference was Mr. Churchill’s defeat in the British general elections. The Conservatives were ousted from power and Clement Attlee of the Labor Party formed the new government. The Viceroy of India left for Britain to hold talks with the new administration on the future of the sub-continent. Before leaving, he had a meeting with all provincial governors and announced that elections to the provincial assemblies would be held in 1946. He left for England on August 24, 1945 for detailed discussions with the British Government. It was decided that the Indian leaders would be consulted on a new constitution for India after the elections. The Viceroy returned to India on September 16 and issued the following statement on the 19th:
While inaugurating the new Parliament, His Majesty the King Emperor had announced that autonomous governments would be established as soon as possible in India in consultation with the Indians themselves. I have had detailed discussions on the issue with the British Government during my stay in London. I have already announced that elections will be held during the winter, after which, the British Government hopes, the winning parties will accept ministerial responsibilities in all the provinces. The British Government has decided that a constituent assembly is established as soon as possible. I have been authorized to solicit the provincial representatives’ views after the elections as to whether the 1942 proposals made by the Government or any other amended formula is acceptable to them or not. Talks shall also he held with the representatives of the Indian princely states on the methodology of their participation in the constituent assembly. The British Government is working out an accord, which will be signed between it and the government of India. For the time being the Government of India will continue to function as it is doing at present, and work for the social and economic uplift of the country will go on.
"Later, India will have to participate in international affairs. I have been authorized by His Majesty’s Government to constitute an Executive Council with the support of all parties after the elections to run the affairs of State. The new British Government has taken in hand the India Question in spite of the fact that it is faced with grave problems, This shows its resolve to solve the India Question as soon as possible. The task of constitution making will be extremely intricate and difficult. All parties must address it coolly and sympathetically. After the elections, talks will be held with the Indian leaders as to what shape to give to the constituent assembly. The best thing to do would be to give them an opportunity to decide their own future. The British Government and the Viceroy are well aware of the obstacles in the way. However, they are determined to find a permanent solution for the problem."
The same day, Prime Minister Attlee also said in a radio speech that although he knew that the Cripps proposals would not be acceptable to the Indian Political parties, his Government was determined to move ahead on the basis of these proposals He assured that the settlement between Britain and India would include nothing detrimental to the interests of the latter, He appealed to the Indian leaders to gather together and work out a constitution acceptable to all.
The Working Committee of the All India Congress, meeting in Bombay on September 23, 1945, Passed a resolution, declaring that Lord Wavell’s proposals were unsatisfactory and that nothing short of complete independence would be acceptable to the Indians. However, the meeting decided to take part in the elections and all parties started making preparations for the contests. The Congress demanded a new ministerial pattern in the provinces in which it was in majority but could not succeed because of opposition from the Muslim League and the governors,
The Muslim League wanted to fight the elections on its demand for Pakistan. Therefore, its High Command decided, at the behest of Mr. Jinnah, that independent, progressive and broadminded party candidates should not be allowed to be returned to the assemblies. It was urged that if the League decided that all Muslims should vote for even an electric pole, all of them should vote for it. Discerning politicians didn’t take long to foresee the way the wind was blowing, It was apparent that sycophants would gain advantages for themselves in the Muslim majority areas where the League would be helped by the British. Sensing this, many Muslims in the Congress joined the League. Prominent among such people was Khan Abdul Qayum Khan. In Sindh, a group in the League, because of its naiveté, could not decide to leave the party. Even so, its members refused to play yes-men to the party High Command, which is to say, Mr. Jinnah. It decided, however, to stay back in the Muslim League for the sake of achieving Pakistan.
Towards the end of August 1945, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad presented a plan for resolving the communal issue. Some of the important points of the Azad plan were:
Efforts should not be made to establish a unitary form of government.
Partition of the country would be against the interests of the Muslims.
The future set-up should be federal in nature with the center having only those powers that the provinces were willing to cede to it. The provinces’ right to self-determination should be recognized.
Muslims should be given representation equal to that of the Hindus in the central assembly and the Executive Council until such time as communalism existed and this parity should continue until political parties begin to work as political parties.
A convention should be established under which the head of the Federation should be a Hindu for one term and a Muslim for the next. If the Muslims are convinced that no decisions would he foisted on them by the majority community, they might, in time, stop thinking in terms of partition and begin to realize that their interests lie in a united India. Once power was transferred to the Indians, economic, political and regional problems would relegate communal issues to the background.
I do not know how did the Congress Working Committee react to these proposals. However, as usual, it pissed a resolution in favor of a united India in September 1945. The only addition in the resolution was that while every effort would be made to establish a strong central government, no Province would be forced to join the center against ifs will, The resolution also proposed that instead of working for a settlement with the Muslim League. It would be more Profitable if direct contact was made with the Muslim masses.
Elections were held towards the end of the year for the Central Assembly. Congress secured 19.3 Percent of the non-Muslim votes while the Muslim League won 36.6 patient Of the Muslim votes, Out of a total of 102 seats, the Congress won 57, the Muslim League bagged 30. There were five independents, two Akali Sikhs and eight Europeans.
A look here at the scene in Sindh would be in order. Having reorganized the Muslim League, we held elections to Provincial offices of the party on June 3-4, 1945. 1 was reelected President. The resolutions passed at the time included one condemning interference in the affairs of the provincial League by the central party. I had already earned Mr. Jinnah’s ire by bringing this matter to his notice during the Simla Conference. However, it was time now to constitute a new parliamentary board so that the party could take part in the provincial assembly elections. It was decided to put up progressive candidates since the constituent assembly was about to come into being and we had to have only such people elected who could give the new country, Pakistan, a clean and honest leadership.
The ministerial group opposed all this and invited Mr. Jinnah to Sindh. He asked me to reconstitute the parliamentary board in a manner in which the ministerial group could gain a majority in it. Important members of the assembly strongly opposed this move. However, partly because of the weaknesses of some Sindhi feudals and partly because of my commitment to Mr. Jinnah. I persuaded the Provincial Muslim League to pass a resolution giving the ministerial group four out of the seven seats on the parliamentary board. Thus it was that, on our own, we made the party that much subservient to the cabinet.
When the time came to award party tickets towards the end of the year, the ministerial group began patronizing its toadies. Al this, the provincial party revolted, The Ministers called Mr. Jinnah to their rescue. The latter asked us to surrender the award of party tickets to the Central Parliamentary Board. We were beginning now to lose faith in the central leaders, especially the High Command and Mr. Jinnah. Therefore, I refused to obey Mr. Jinnah because had I done his bidding, it would have meant trampling underfoot the rights of the people. It would also have meant sacrificing the future of Sindh at the altar of All India interests at a time when our hopes for a better tomorrow were about to come true.
Apart from this, I was among the leaders of the progressive elements in the party who had made untold sacrifices in the hope that the awakened masses would transform the League and that it would never go back to its bad old ways. I convened a meeting of the provincial party on October 14, 1945, where great fervor was shown for this point of view. The meeting appealed to the Central Parliamentary Board that party tickets in Sindh should be awarded in consultation with G.M. Syed, Khair Shah, Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan, Syed Mohammed Ali Shah and Rais Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgri.
When Mr. Jinnah came to Karachi and stayed at Sir Ghulam Husain’s bungalow, I apprised him of the provincial party’s resolution. He was greatly annoyed and said the meeting that had passed the resolution consisted of irrelevant people who had nothing to do with the issue at hand. I felt that the time had come to go my own way. I had been sailing on two boats for a long time and was under great mental strain,
On the one side was a man whom I had regarded at one time as the Quaid-e-Azam and a guardian of the future of the Muslims and at the wrong news of whose death I had cried myself into a swoon, On the other side, was my love for Sindh, my country, where I was born and brought up and where twenty generations of my family lay buried and for whose independence and prosperity, thousands of men of piety and commitment had sacrificed their lives.
During this internal struggle, I became convinced that I would have to choose between the two. After Jinnah’s dictatorial attitude, it was my duty to express my dissent and rebel. I wish to make it clear here that these conferences were not between two personalities, as is generally thought, but a conflict between two distinct political points of view. The President of the All India Muslim League had complete disregard for the interests of Sindh. It was for him to order and for the others to obey. I refused thus to obey him. At this, Jinnah Sahib asked me in cold anger to reconsider my views because I had no realization of the consequences of my stance. I told him that I had been thinking things over for two years and I knew fully well what I was doing. My first loyalty was for the provincial Muslim League Party without whose permission I would endorse no decision taken by anyone. Jinnah Sahib said my refusal amounted to a violation of party discipline and asked me once again to review my decision and consider its repercussions. I thanked him but reminded him that during our last meeting, he had talked of the possibility of a parting of the ways. Now, after due consideration, I had reached the conclusion that it would not be possible for me to renege on the provincial council of the party and accept the one-sided decision of the League’s Central Parliamentary Board. Jinnah Sahib thought that since the provincial party was a branch of the All India Muslim League, it was subservient to the latter and had no independent status. I was not willing to accept this position for Sindh.
It was tinder these circumstances that I thought it advisable to take the Sindh Muslim League out of the central party in order to protect the interests of the people of the province. My last meeting with the League President was a testing and challenging occasion for me; I was pitted against the power and glory of office. Not only the League High Command, I was also earning the ire of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. But I decided to face all this. Mr. Jinnah had left me with but two options: unconditional obedience or separation. I opted for the latter course. As a last warning, Mr. Jinnah sent me a list of candidates approved by the League High Command and asked me to support them. I refused to do so and decided to explain my standpoint through the Press. Accordingly, I issued a lengthy Press statement on October 28, 1 945, in which I explained my differences with Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatuilah’s Ministry and the Central High Command. A summary of this statement is being reproduced here. Newspapers published this summary or concise version on October 29- 30, 1945. I had started that -The Quaid-i-Azam’s Press statement of October 27 has made it incumbent upon me to place a few facts before the people. The coming elections were vital for the future of a hundred million Muslims of India and the prosperity of the people of Sindh. Any misunderstanding on these two issues at this stage would have grave consequences. I thought it necessary to explain that so far as the Muslim League’s claim that it represented the hundred million Muslims of India was concerned, there could tie no two opinions. We were also wedded to the arms and objectives of the party and would go along with it to the last and make whatever sacrifices were required of us. However, so far as the elections in Sindh were concerned, it was necessary to narrate the causes, which had led to the impasseThe Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 3)
THE CONDITIONS IN SINDH
None of those who knew even a little about Sindh could deny the fact that the legislators returned to the provincial Assembly in 1937 were not suitable for the task either from the point of view of social welfare, administrative probity, moral rectitude or loyalty to the Muslim League, there was nothing new in it for me. I did not come to that realization because the Central Parliamentary Board had not given party tickets to some of my special friends. The fact was that during the eight years past, not only myself but also every Sindhi had been pained at the situation in the Province. I present here a portion of the letter I had then written to the Quaid-e-Azam:
"… It may be seen that the plaint we are mating and the anxiety that has been created in us is neither recent nor born of personal reasons.
"The Corruption and repression that is rampant have Proved that the present Ministry has become a constant menace for, and an intolerable burden on the people of Sindh. Anyone, who questions the veracity of this charge, can himself look into the state of affairs on behalf of the League. It is unfortunate for the people of Sindh that those sent here by the League High Command (to probe things) have never taken the trouble to visit the interior of the province. Nor have they tried to find out what are the feelings of the people there about the Ministry. They just come to Karachi and, therefore, their knowledge of Sindh is limited to that city. The Cabinet is corrupt and so are people serving in top positions. The subordinate bureaucracy is also following in their footsteps. People have to spend millions of rupees every year in order to meet the ever-increasing demands of those running the government machinery. The other evils born of graft need not detain us here.
"The situation in the countryside it alarming. There is no law and order and the people, especially the Muslims have lost all hope. The syndicate created to control wheat prices has created disaffection among the growers who have already been ruined by the exorbitant rates of abiana (water charges). All this is in violation of the promises the League had made to the people and has created a general feeling of hatred for the party. The government’s policy towards the bureaucracy is so weak that the latter has gone berserk. People feel that instead of a representative government, some ancient tyrant is ruling them. The Cabinet has embarrassed its own supporters. In view of all this, how strong can the party emerge in the future? Such a government should not be allowed to stay in power another minute.
"I have raised this issue at different forums on several occasions. I apprised Nawab Mohammed Ismail Khan and Chaudhry KhaliQuzzaman of the situation when the two were last here, Under these circumstances, how can it be said that the step we have taken after two years is the result of a sudden suspicion or conspiracy? Keeping such a Ministry in power will result in the loss of prestige for the party which can gain in popularity and prestige only if it works for the welfare of the Muslims.’ "Here I wish to refer to the political behavior of some important people who were favored by the League’s Central Parliamentary Board. The then Prime Minister of Sindh, Sir Ghulam Hussain joined the League in 1938 and left it a year later. Not only that. He issued statements against the party and Pakistan itself. When the Sindh Governor dismissed the late Mr. Allah Bux in 1942, Sir Ghulam Hussain realized that it would he difficult for him to become Prime Minister without joining the Muslim League. He did so accordingly. In spite of being a Leaguer, he had Khan Bahadur Maula Bux Soomro elected from the Shikarpur constituency and made him Revenue Minister and removed him only when we accepted his terms. Likewise, Khan Bahadur Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur and Pir Illahi Bux kept shuttling in and out of the party. It is an open secret that when the Hindus of Hyderabad offered Mir Talpur the presidency of the District Local Board, he left the League for the sake of that petty office. It is significant that the Central Parliamentary Board should have given tickets to these gentlemen and their supporters some among whom were not even paying members of the part. Some had joined the party only a month or so ago, some had always betrayed the League and there were others who came in because they had things to hide from the people. Some were totally illiterate. On the other hand, those ignored had always been loyal to the party, had been helping it or were highly educated and were greatly popular.
"It may be recalled here that whenever we protested against the situation in Sindh, we were assured by the central party that the best candidates would be chosen for the Sindh Assembly for the new elections. Pinning its hopes on this assurance the Muslim League Council, Sindh hall, appointed members of its choice on the provincial parliamentary Board at its annual meeting in 1945. When the Quaid visited Karachi in August that year, Khan Bahadur Mr. Ghulam Ali Talpur, Khan Bahadur Mohammed Ayub Khuhro and his friends told him that the Parliamentary Board appointed by the council was not acceptable to them because most of its members had a majority in the Sindh League Council. They wanted equal representation on the Board.
"Earlier, Mir Ghulam Ali Khan Talpur had created quite a rumpus through his letters and statements and he was aided and abetted by Ayub Khuhro in his attempt to get not even parity but a majority representation on the Parliamentary Board. Khan Bahadur Ghulam Ali Khan announced that he would field his candidates under the flag of the Baloch Party. He also started a campaign against the Muslim League candidates, The Council was of the view that if members belonging to conflicting groups were put on the Board, electoral work Would not be able to proceed satisfactorily and the League would not be able to field deserving candidates in the elections. Therefore, when the Quaid came to Karachi, the above facts were presented to him. The Quaid expressed the opinion that the Board should be reconstituted and the views of Mir Ghulam Ali Khan Talpur and Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro and others be given due consideration. But these gentlemen wanted that their representation on the Board should be larger than the Council’s. This was brought to the Quaid’s notice as well as the difficulties that such a course of action would entail. However, these gentlemen assured the Quaid that their members would act honestly and justly in the selection of the League’s candidates. Accordingly, the Board was reconstituted under a Council resolution. Mir Ghulam Ali Khan Talpur and Pir Illahi Bux represented the Council while Khan Bahadur Mohammed Ayub Khuhro represented the Sindh Assembly Muslim League. Thus the new Board was constituted on the basis of conciliation.
"When the Quaid left Karachi, the Sindh Muslim League President invited applications from prospective candidates and laid down rules of procedure in consultation with the members of the new Board.
"The new Parliamentary Board was constituted in the hope that it would work impartially. However, no sooner had the Quaid left Karachi than its members started to indulge in factionalism Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur began making efforts to get his men returned to the Assembly. He lost no time in contacting Sir Ghulam, Hussain along with others and in collusion with Pir Illahi Bux and had ‘consultations’ with him over the nomination of candidates. It was also decided to help Shahmir Khan Kachi against the President of the Sindh Muslim League in his bid for election to the provincial Assembly. The Makhdoom Sahib of Hala also attended these parleys. He was made to write to all his followers in the League President’s constituency to help the party President’s opponents. The Quaid was apprised of this. These gentlemen also proposed that they should field their own men against some important members of the League who did not see eye to eye with them.
"Even before the Parliamentary Board had met, the Makhdoom of Hala, Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, Pir Illahi Bux and Ayub Khuhro started writing to various people and began working for their own men. Talpur went especially to Nawab shah to work against Khair Shah who was a member of the Board. Khuhro toured the province together with Yusuf Haroon and spoke in favor of the latter and Qazi Fazlullah at several meetings. He also wrote to several people, seeking support for Seth Yusuf Haroon.
"All this happened when the matter of selecting candidates had not yet come up before the Board. Talpur told a meeting of the Balochis in Karachi that if a Baloch was riot given a party ticket for the Lyari constituency, he would unit the League, Pir Illahi Bux was party to the plan hatched against G.M. Syed. These gentlemen worked for increasing the rift between the Bhutto and Khuhro ‘parties’ At the same time, they had changes made in the wards in the Shikarpur constituency in complicity with Khan Bahadur Maula Bux and to the latter’s advantage Likewise, Sir Ghulam Hussain, using his official Position, had those officials appointed in Sukkur District for whom Khan Bahadur Muala Bux had requested. Sir Ghulam Hussain also helped Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur in his doings. Secret meetings were held and factionalism promoted. "The activities of these four gentlemen were found to create doubts in the minds of the prospective candidates thus pushed against the wall. As many as 25 members of the council moved an application on October 1, 1945, in which it was demanded that the above facts be presented before an emergent meeting of the Council. Such grave charges had been leveled against the four gentlemen that the President of the Provincial League adjourned the meeting of the Parliamentary Board. After the adjournment, these four gentlemen met at the house of Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro where candidates were awarded party tickets in violation of the rules, which had been agreed upon beforehand. Some of the people thus favored were not even two-Anna members of the League. These four gentlemen, Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, Khan Bahadur Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, Pir Illahi Box and Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro issued a joint statement to the Press which was published 6y the Daily Gazette in October 1945. They said that Mr. G.M. Syed’s statement had pained them greatly. They alleged that the statement had been made at the behest of those to whose tune I was dancing. They said I was annoyed because the candidates of my choice had not been awarded party tickets in Tharparkar and Hyderabad districts by the majority of the Parliamentary Board in whose view they did not deserve them nor had they any chance of winning! They claimed that they were working only for the candidates who were likely to win. They alleged that I wanted to get tickets at all cost but when they saw that a good many of the Board members had stuck to their scruples and were not willing to play their game, they secured a wrong ruling from the League President. They even floated a canard to score their point against the Sindh League Council that Mr. Rashdi was leading the Council astray at the behest of forces inimical to the Central League.
"It may be noted here that the Parliamentary Board had set the following criteria for eligibility for awarding tickets:
Chances of success.
Loyalty to the League and record of national service.
Educational qualifications.
In case of a tie on the above conditions, preference to be given to one who had been a member of the Assembly previously.
Minimum six months of League membership. This condition was to be ignored if a candidate was an all-India or all-Sindh personality and if the rival candidate for a ticket did not stand a chance of securing 25 percent of the votes.
"It was also decided that all decisions taken by the Board should be unanimous. Where this was not possible, the majority view should prevail, If the vote was 4-3, the decision should be left to the Central Board.
"However, in the first two meetings, these criteria were thrown overboard. This was proved by the decisions taken about Khan Bahadur Ghulam Mohammed lsran, Mr. Nabi Bux Bhutto and Mr. Allahdino Shah Rashdi.
"The Provincial League Council met on October 14, 1945, and passed a motion of no-confidence against some members of the Parliamentary Board by 35 votes to 5. The Council also appointed five of its members to advise the Central Board on matters relating to the elections. They were:
Mr. G M Syed.
Syed Khair Shah
Agha Ghulam Ali Khan Pathan
Syed Mohammed Ali Shah
Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgari
"Shortly afterwards, I called on the Quaid-e-Azam when he came to Karachi He expressed great displeasure at my attitude and said he was not prepared to tolerate it. HE said once again that the time for a parting of the ways had arrived I tried to convince him and apprised him of the Council’s sentiments The Quaid said that the Council would not be allowed to act like ‘a herd of cattle’. At this, I said nothing more. "The members of the Central Parliamentary Board remained in Karachi for 12 days. It was expected that they would consult the five members appointed by the Council, summon prospective candidates and review the situation generally but they did nothing of the sort. Tickets were awarded to those, a reference to whom has been made above. In fact, the Central Board endorsed the decisions taken by the four members of the Provincial Board who had met at a private house to award party tickets. I consider it necessary to state here that members of the Central Board did not take a step Out of Karachi to ascertain the sentiments of the ordinary Muslims is of Sindh. The recommendations sent to the Central Board by the five Council members which were meant to reconcile various factions and groups were also ignored, especially those which were not acceptable to the four favorites of the Provincial Board.’
"I was summoned by the Quaid and asked whether the decisions taken by the Central Board were acceptable to me. Since I didn’t know what these decisions were, I refused to accept them unless they were endorsed by a majority of the Provincial Council. At this, I was handed over a sealed envelop containing those decisions Now the question was: were the decisions taken by the Central Board acceptable to the ordinary Muslims of Sindh and would those selected as League candidates be able to do anything for the betterment of the. Muslims who were in anguish at the Situation in the province? I wanted to ascertain the wishes of the Muslims of the province before deciding what to do. But this was not meant as a parting of the ways. It was in a spirit of combativeness that the provincial Muslim league fielded its candidates and we got busy with election work. During this period, efforts were made for reconciliation between the League High Command and us. The Punjab leadership also tried their hand but all efforts failed. I received letters and telegrams from all over India from league workers and friends. All of them praised my sincerity and service and agreed that the High Command had been unfair to me but requested that I should bow to the latter unconditionally.
Before filing my nomination papers, there was an agreement between me and Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and Qazi Mohammed Isa who both came to Sindh for the purpose. However, when I went to Dadu to file my nomination papers, I came to know that the Central leadership had canceled tickets of the four members of the progressive group. Only I had been spared in the group. This action of the High Command brought matters to a head and I resigned from the All India Muslim League Working Committee and the Committee of Action. Returning my ticket, I issued a statement on October 16, 1945 in which I explained my decision and defended my position. Excerpts are being presented here:
"Alas, that which I had feared has come to pass. All progressive elements have been eliminated from the list of candidates approved by the Central Muslim League, including the four originally selected. This has been done in violation of the pledge given to me by the Chairman of the Central Parliamentary Board and one of its members, Qazi Isa, that this would not be done. I am convinced that the decision has been taken at the behest of those who want to use the League to further their own interests. In spite of that, I had agreed to approve the list of the selected candidates in view of the above pledge and I had also hoped that by doing so, I would be helping to promote unity in the party. But the action of the central leadership has come as a painful surprise to me. I felt betrayed. The four tickets withdrawn have been given to those who are not even members of the party of to those who had not even applied for them, How inappropriate is the central party’s decision can be gauged from the fact that a man with a criminal record who is even now facing trial, has been preferred to a man as talented as Mr. Mohammed Ali Shah.
"Everyone knows that I was once a member of the All India Congress but when that party ignored the welfare of the People of Sindh and began interfering in the internal affairs of the Province, I left it along with my friends and joined the Muslim League. We did so because we hoped that our action would enable us to save the Muslims from the clutches of the capitalists and the bureaucracy and make the achievement of an independent Pakistan that much easier. We have struggled hard and made every sacrifice to achieve the high objectives of the party so that we should be able to work for a better deal for the Muslims of Sindh. But this was a vain hope. Instead of being allowed to work for the welfare of Muslims, we were forced to ensure that the domination of Muslim capitalists, gentlemen with big titles and the chosen ones of the British bureaucracy should continue. The idea was to replace bloodsucking Hindu capitalists with their Muslim counterparts as the lords and masters of ordinary Muslims who should remain in a perpetual state of bondage and nothing should be done to ameliorate their lot. The main reasons for our differences (with the central leadership) are as under:
We have been ordered in season and out to forget about the welfare of the poor people of Sindh because of the unclear, incoherent and dubious policies of the central leadership. Those who belong to the Muslim minority provinces determine the policies of the All India Muslim League. Our friends keep claiming that they want to free the Muslims of Hindu bondage. In fact, they want that Sindh and other Muslim majority provinces should remain under their tutelage. To keep central leadership in their own hands, they not only helped the reactionary elements in Sindh but also helped them to maintain their stranglehold over the poor people of the province.
Mismanagement and corruption stalk the province. Nothing has been done to rid the League of these evils. On the contrary, everything has been done to promote them, and everything done for the betterment of poor Muslims is, therefore, nullified. Anti-Hindu propaganda is resorted in order to divert the attention of the people from these shortcomings. All this has prevented us from being of any help to the people. Only the Nawabs and the landlords are being strengthened when these people do not simply have it in them to resist the British. We are, for this purpose, being prevented from fighting the Raj. Al the same time, differences between the Congress and the Muslim League are increasing every day, which will not only hamper the struggle for the independence of India and Pakistan but also create problems for similar struggles elsewhere in the East.
In order to maintain the hegemony of the rich, the League High Command wants us to return deadwood to the Sindh Assembly. When such ignorant, selfish and bloodsucking parasites are elected to the constituent assembly, they will continue to serve the interests of the feudals and the capitalists even after the creation of Pakistan. We are being asked in the name of democratic unity among Muslims to overlook all this. When anyone asks them whether we are trying to achieve Pakistan for the Khan Bahadurs, the Nawab Bahadur, the Sardars and the capitalists, he is threatened into silence and told not to raise such questions till after the creation of Pakistan. Similarly, when we are asked which class will prosper in Pakistan, we are accused of being anti-Islam in order to silence us, The League capitalists are clever in the extreme. Honesty and truth are virtues unknown to them. If the President of the Sindh Muslim League raises his voice in favor of the downtrodden peasantry, they put him in the straitjacket of rules and regulations. Nothing is low enough or mean enough or crude enough for them when they want to eliminate their opponents.
"In spite of all this, we are ordered by the Central leadership to trust such people and to continue helping them to enhance their power and prestige. In fact, the reasons for parting company with the All India Muslim League had existed for a long time but we continued to try for an honorable settlement in Smith but, unfortunately, these elements are afraid of the unity for which we had worked so hard. It is apparent now that when Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan and Qazi Isa arrived at a settlement with me, they had no intention of honoring it because they gave all the tickets to their toe tickers in violation of all party rules, aims and objectives and by completely ignoring the President of the Sindh Muslim League All this was done to a loyalist like me who kept the dignity of the All India Muslim League alive in spite of criticism from the ordinary Muslims of Sindh. Under these circumstances, I am constrained to take the following decisions with the greatest of regret:
I am returning the party ticket awarded to me so that my opponents may do as they please and make such use of this ticket as they want. These friends have already set their lackeys at work against me and I don’t want that there should be any hurdle in their way.
I am resigning front the All India Muslim League Working Committee and the Action Committee.
So long as the leadership of the All India Muslim league is in reactionary hands, the Sindh Muslim league shall work as an independent and autonomous party.
Only the Council of the Sindh Muslim League will decide whether to maintain the list of ticket awardees approved by it through a resolution or amend it or recall it and issue fresh tickets.
"I have written to the All India Muslim League regarding these decisions. The following candidates will contest the elections as the Sindh Muslim League nominees from the constituencies mentioned against their names:
Nawab shah North: Hon’ble Syed Mohammed Ali Shah.
Nawab shah West: Syed Hassan Bux Shah.
Nawab shah last: Syed Khair Shah.
Nawab Shah Northwest: Pir Qurban Ali.
Hyderabad North: Pir Baqadar Shah.
Hyderabad South: Pir Aali Shah.
Hyderabad East: Mr. Ghulam Nabi Memon.
Tharparkar West: Mr. Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgri.
Tharparkar North: Syed Ghulam Hyder Shah.
Dadu South: Mr. G.M. Syed.
Karachi East: Pir Ghulam Hyder Shah.
Sindhi Landlord: Mr. Ghulam Rasool Bhurgri.
More names to be announced later.
"I cannot hide from my ordinary Muslim brethren the anguish with which I had to take the decision to take the. Sindh Muslim League out of the central party. I was forced to do so because of the central party’s current policies and attitude. The central leadership’s attitude towards the Sindh League or for that matter any other Muslim majority province is more or less the same, It wants the capitalists to continue to dominate and exploit poor Muslims. Men with big titles, real estates or large farm lands men who want ministerial office, men who put self above everything else, help in such exploitation of the poor. I know it fully well that they are men of great power but 1, too, will continue to fight this policy with all the strength at my command, no matter what the cost I am Sure that if this noble effort, I will have the support and sympathy of the poor That is why I am sure that God will crown my efforts with success. There will be many hurdles in the way and many difficulties but since I think that my Struggle is lost and since God is always with it just, I hope and pray that I will have His support. Amen."
Immediately after the publication of this statement on December 26, 1945, the League High Command decided that disciplinary action should be taken against me and should be expelled from the League, The High Command at the time was extremity repressive. It sent goondas to take Over the Sindh League office but we did not take retaliatory measures because we were determined 10 prevent violence, But their action showed how afraid the Nawabs and the feudals were of progressive elements. We stood firm on our democratic path. We depended on the peasantry and other downtrodden sections of society. We wanted to inform them of the stakes involved, and become conscious of their rights. We stood convinced that the people would wake up to the truth and respond ably to the challenge in due course.
We fielded 16 candidates against the Central League nominees in the elections held on January 21, 1946. The reactionaries used religion against us. People were told that if G.M. Syed and his colleagues succeeded, Islam would be in jeopardy. We were called Hindu agents. We also exposed the misdeeds of the League Ministry in every nook and corner of Sindh, but such was the power of their propaganda and pelf that only four of our candidates could win while Haji Maula Bux’s independent group secured three seats. After an alliance with the latter, I was elected leader and Maula Box the deputy leader of the enlarged group. The party position was like this:
Muslim League (central)
27
Congress
21
Sindh League plus independents
7
Labor
1

We decided to form a coalition with the Congress and the labor member. This could have given us strength of 29 and we could have formed the government. But for the sake of the larger interests of Sindh, we thought that a Congress League settlement would be more advisable and could lead to the formation of a strong ministry. But Mr. Hashim Gazdar tried for a coalition between the Muslim League and our group. Later, we tried for a League-Congress settlement when Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Sardar Patel visited Sindh, so that the communal issue could be resolved. We assured them of all possible help in this regard. This is proved by the speech Mr. Hashim Gazdar made in the Assembly. We were willing to stay out of the Ministry in case there was a settlement between the League and the Congress. Mr. Gazdar lauded this spirit of political accommodation in his speech. However, Sir Ghulam Hussain was not willing for this. He had the support of the Muslim League High Command in the name of the so-called unity of the Muslim nation. Hired propagandists were used against us who declared us anti-Islam. Even the Sindh League President was not spared and goondas were sent to threaten him.
We could have formed a government in coalition with the Congress. The new Governor of Sindh, Sir Francis Mudie, summoned me. I gave him a true picture of all parties but he advised me to join the Central Muslim League. His view was that we were harming Muslim interests by being outside the Muslim League fold. I was amazed at the way the British Governor, instead of performing his duties, decided to become a patron of the Muslim League. I refused to do his bidding but was astonished when the Governor invited Sir Ghulam Hussain to form a government even though his party did not command a majority in the House. He also asked the European members to support the Ghulam Hussain Ministry- Thus gradually we came to understand as to why Mr. Jinnah himself persisted in his preference of time-servers to the progressive elements. We gave notice of a motion of no confidence against the government during the budget session at which the Leaguers retaliated in an unexpected manner.
Qazi Mujtaba was a noted communist but was at the time in the Muslim League under the influence of the Haroon family. He was made to go on a hunger strike unto) death at my door. Apart from this, poisonous speeches were made against me and my group at the Eidgaah Maidaan in Karachi every night.
When the Assembly’s budget session began, we moved a no-confidence motion against the Government. Explaining my party’s stance during discussion in the house, I made the following speech:
"No-one can deny that I have always been associated with the Muslim League, In fact I have played a considerable role in strengthening the League in Sindh. The responsibility for my present position into which I have been forced ties with those who tried to throw the progressive group out of the party during the last elections. It was only after my progressive colleagues had been thrown out one after another, that I returned the League ticket. This was considered an unpardonable sin and I was expelled from the party. During the elections, every kind of propaganda was used against us. We were declared enemies of Islam and the Muslim nation. It was charged that we had sold out to the Hindus In spite of all this, we forgave those who had or maligned or otherwise harmed us and said let bygones be bygones. But an unconditional surrender was demanded of us, as if we had committed a big sin because of which we were being reluctantly expelled from the party, It was also claimed that the criticism against us was clean and pure. In spite of this, when I realized that my group leads only four members, I made an appeal, through a statement, to both the Muslim League and the Congress to form a united and honest government committed to the welfare of Sindh. I had also offered to help them in this regard. But the Sarkari (official) Muslim League talked neither with the Congress nor with us on the formation of a Ministry. After this we were left with no option but to negotiate with other parties so that together they should save the Constitution from being Suspended.
"At the time of coalition formation, I had said in a statement that I still subscribed to the basic principles of the Muslim League and I stick to what I had said. The Hon’ble Mr. Gazdar made his attempt when a coalition party had already been formed under my leadership. Only an all-party government could be formed then, provided its leaders had been unanimously elected. But the Muslim Leaguers did not accept any of the several proposals made to them for reasons known only to them in spite of the fact that except for the European members I had, and continue to have, the support of a majority of the Assembly members. It is true that after becoming Prim - Minister, Sir Ghulam Hussain did indeed ask only the Congress to nominate two Hindu members to the Cabinet. However, as a seasoned politician, he should have realized ‘ that the Congress Could not do so because it had already formed a coalition with the nationalist group of the Muslim League and Haji Maula Bux’s independent group In the circumstances now prevailing, neither we nor the Congress can be of any help to the Muslim League Ministry until it is dissolved and then reconstituted in consultation with, and the consent of, all groups.
"In this regard, I wish to inform the House of a fresh development of which I came to know rather late. The clay the motion of no confidence was moved, some members of the Treasury Benches and a European member appealed to our party to arrive at some settlement with them in the larger interests of Sindh. Keeping this in view and after consulting my party, I called on Sir Ghulam Hussain at his residence And I came to know through reliable sources that Sir Ghulam Hussain and the deputy leader of the League, Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro had sent a telegram to the Muslim League High Command, requesting that in the interests of the province and the Muslim masses, the ban on G.M. Syed and his group’s entry into the party should be lifted.
"The response from the High Command reflects its mentality. It is willing to form a coalition with the Congress and the Mahasabha which are against the very creation of Pakistan but will not deal with sincere and principled people who are flesh of their flesh and bone of their bones. These were the telegraphic exchanges, which took place:
From Mr. Jinnah to the Sindh Premier
Received your telegram. In my view the ban on Syed and others cannot be lifted. They should apologize and offer unconditional obedience. For as long as he is with the enemies, there can be no talks with Syed under any conditions.
Jinnah
From Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan to Sir Ghulam Hussain.
Received joint telegram from you and Khuhro. Syed must offer unconditional obedience and apologize for violating party discipline and decisions and offer loyalty in future, Only then can the lifting of the ban on him
Liaquat Ali Khan
"This is the policy of the High Command which it thinks will lead to Muslim unity and which it hopes will persuade us to assist the Muslim League Ministry. The Muslim League Press may do whatever it wants to tarnish my spirit or me but the people at least should know that my followers or I do not hanker after office. Pursuit of power is not for me and my past record shows it. I don’t have to say anything more to satisfy the people.
"We shall not oppose the League if it reshuffles its Cabinet-on its own and chooses the best Ministers it can find to serve the people. To subscribe to the League does not mean liberty to play foul in the name of the party. I stand for an end to bureaucratic corruption, for law and order, for communal harmony and for better economic and educational opportunities for the people. I hold these objectives above the party’s mere name. Expulsion from the League and other repressive measures cannot make me leave the path I have chosen for myself. My conscience is clear. I shall never stop from serving Sindh and its people. I have not left the League; I have been forcibly expelled. I can’t help saying that no honest, self-respecting and principled individual can be made to leave the righteous path through bluff and bluster. If there is truth in what the Leaguers say and if they have any respect for their party (for which I struggled so hard), they should make immediate changes in the Ministry and replace incompetent and needless Ministers with honest and able people. After that, I’ll have no dispute with them. However, if their ultimate aim is power, let them stick to it for as long as they can but then let no one expect any help from me. Under these circumstances, I have no option but to support the motion of no-confidence."
The motion failed by 30-29 with the European member making the difference. However, before the session ended, Mir Bande Ali Talpur moved a cut motion in which the Government was defeated. However, instead of asking Sir Ghulam Hussain to resign, the Governor summoned Mr. Bands Ali Talpur, had him made a Minister and thus saved the day for the Government! This was the moral rebuff to the League High Command’s attitude towards us. We were penalized while those who abused the League and kept on shifting loyalties were rewarded with Ministries. Perhaps in the eyes of the League leaders, rules and regulations and principles were only for the Progressives while they and their cabinet could do pretty much as they pleased no matter how wrong or how reprehensible.
The Cabinet Mission appointed by the British Government arrived in India on March 24, 1946, to work out the modalities of the country’s independence and to arrive at a mutually agreed interim arrangement for the period of transition. I was called to Delhi in my capacity as the leader of the Congress opposition coalition. I presented my group’s views on all-India problems to the Commission an April 2, 1946. We demanded the right of self-determination for every state together with full autonomy. This was, in our view, the only solution for India’s increasing political problems and communal frenzy. I may explain here that although I had my differences with the League High Command, I was not against its basic objective, Pakistan. That’s why I Supported the Pakistan idea before the Cabinet Mission. I supported even the Muslim League in my speech. However, there was one difference between my standpoint and the League-s- 1 was for an independent India with complete autonomy for the provinces, it meant that there should be two federations, one for the provinces with Hindu majorities and the other for Muslim majority provinces, which two should, for specific purposes, act as a confederation on the basis of equality of members and Ministers. This scheme was, similar to the Cabinet Mission’s Regional Plan.
On April 3, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made his proposals to the Commission, which included independence, a constituent assembly and the formation of an interim government. In his view, the Congress was totally opposed to the partition of India and stood for a federal government with only three subjects - defense, foreign affairs and communications. Mahatma Gandhi met the Commission in his personal capacity and declared that the Pakistan idea was a bad idea. He said that the two-nation theory was inimical to the interests of the country. He proposed that the first chance for forming a government should be given to Jinnah, and the Congress should be invited to do so only after Jinnah did not accept the offer.
Mr. Jinnah appeared before the Commission on April 4 and told it that, under the circumstances, partition was inevitable. Further talks could be possible only when partition had been agreed upon in principle. The leader of the Liberal League, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, stressed the need for the immediate formation of an interim government and expressed the fear that partition would lead to grave results.
Parlays with the Cabinet Mission were continuing when Mr. Jinnah summoned a meeting of the legislators who had been elected on League tickets. Around 400 persons participated. He wanted the legislators to pass a resolution demanding that Assam, Bengal, Sindh, Baluchistan, the NWFP and the Punjab should constitute Pakistan. The legislators obliged him. The resolution also called for a separate constituent assembly and warned that if any other solution were forcibly imposed; it would be resisted at all cost. This resolution was against the Pakistan Resolution passed in Lahore in 1 940 which had called for the creation of independent and sovereign States in the north west and east of India in provinces with Muslim majorities. But the Delhi resolution called for the creation of a single/central government. This was not only against the 1940 Resolution but was also against the spirit of the resolutions passed by the Sindh Muslim League Conference in 1938 and the Sindh Assembly on March 3, 1943. The 1 938 and 1 940 resolution can be seen in Appendix 4.
In the meantime, the Cabinet Mission held several meetings with the Congress and the Muslim League on the future of India. On May 12, 1946, both parties held meetings but they could not arrive at a settlement. However, the Cabinet Mission continued its efforts. At last on May 1 6, the Commission came out with a lengthy statement in which it made its final proposal saying that an interim government would be set up in India tinder a)) circumstances. The following is the text of the Cabinet Mission statement:
Cabinet Mission’s Recommendations as to the Basic Form of Constitution
On 16th May 1946 the Cabinet Mission made its own decision and recommended that the constitution should take the following has form:
There should be a Union of India, embracing both British India and the States, which should deal with the following subjects: Foreign Affairs, Defense and Communications and should have the powers necessary to raise the finance required for the above subjects.
The Union should have an Executive and a legislature constituted from British India and State representatives, Any question raising a major communal issue in the Legislature should require for its decision a majority of the representatives present and voting of each of the two major communities as well as a majority of all the members present and voting.
All subjects other than the Union subjects and all residue powers should be vested in the Provinces.
The States will retain all subjects and powers other than those ceded to the Union.
Provinces should be free to form groups with executives and legislatures, and each group could determine the provincial subjects to be taken in common.
The constitutions of the Union and of the groups should contain a provision where by any province could, by a majority vote of its Legislative Assembly, call for reconsideration of the terms of the constitution after an initial period of ten years and at the yearly intervals thereafter.
In our view, this grouping proposal of the Cabinet mission was unjust because it militated against Sindh’s independence due to domination by the large province, the Punjab. The scheme rejected the right of self-determination to the provinces, which is to say, states. On November 6-1946, Mr. Jinnah had this scheme approved by the Muslim League Council but with certain pre-conditions. The Council also authorized Mr. Jinnah to hold talks with the Viceroy. Therefore, by forcibly accepting the grouping scheme, Mr. Jinnah in effect put aside the Lahore or Pakistan Resolution of 1940. This showed which direction the League was taking politically and how Sindh’s interests were being sacrificed in the name of the so-called Muslim nationhood. Others, too, had realized this for quite some time but no one had the courage to oppose it. Sindh’s leadership was in the hands of selfish and incompetent people who did not have the ability to expose a foreign conspiracy. As a result, non-Sindhis had started settling in the province to the disadvantage of the locals, particularly with respect to land and jobs. They were largely responsible for creating communal tension. Fanning communal sentiments among the Leaguers and the creation of disunity among the Muslims was also the handiwork of these outside elements. Thus the way was clear for outside conspiracies to flourish in Sindh. The outsiders did their best to establish their control over the province by promoting communalism in the name of Islam and Pakistan. Our group was trying its best to stem all this.
During my stay in Delhi, progressive Leaguers from the Punjab, Mian Bashir Ahmed and Mian lftikharuddin, tried to resolve the differences between us and the party High Command but in vain, because of the latter’s egoistic attitude and because of our refusal to compromise on basic principles. Hence all the efforts of our sincere friends failed. Our fears and feelings were expressed in a poignant article that was addressed to me by Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi on June 2, 1946. The newspaper ‘Qurbani’ published this article on June 13, 1946. It was titled ‘Sindh Jay Siyasi Zindagi jo Nazuk Daur’ A critical phase in the political life of Sindh). This phase started after the Cabinet Mission had announced its plan. One era was at an end while another was due to begin. Who would give shape to the new phase? Who would run it and how? How beneficial would it be for Sindh? I would like to make a brief comment on the Cabinet Mission proposals in order to throw light on all these issues. According to these proposals, the Center was to manage foreign affairs, communications and defense on behalf of the provinces. All other matters were to be in the hands of the sub-federations. These sub-federations were to be three in number one comprising the Punjab, Sindh, Frontier and Baluchistan, the second comprising the rest of India including Central India and the third was to include Bengal and Assam. In our sub-federation, the Punjab, because of being the majority province, would dominate. In the constituent assembly, Sindh was to get four seats (including one for a Hindu) in a House of 38. The Sindhi members would have been under the central high commands of their respective parties. The result was inevitable: the Punjabis would make a constitution of their own choice on the strength of their majority and Sindh would be subjugated by them This would have curtailed the Sindhis’ independence, autonomy and disregarded their aspirations. All this would be as inevitable as night follows day. Was all this acceptable to us? The Punjabis would have run the sub-federation in the name of Allah without being accountable to anyone.
Having studied the Cabinet Mission proposals carefully, I came to the conclusion that it was a plan for the cremation of Sindh and that Sindh should reject it for several reasons. For one thing, Sindh had been a distinct geo- graphic, historic, cultural, linguistic and social entity and, apart from periodic losses of sovereignty, had always been independent. Sindh and India had been two separate countries down the ages. Sindh had never accepted subjugation lying down. Were the Sindhis prepared to lose their heritage? The Cabinet Mission proposals spelt disaster for the future of Sindh. Nature bad given Sindh everything, fertile soil, the Indus River and its barrages and the nearest air link with Europe in the sub continent. If only we could keep Sindh independent and free of alien intervention, we could transform it into a happy land of plenty. Nothing could have been impossible of achievement if, instead of a selfish leadership, Sindh had honest and sincere people at the helm.
If the Sindh Ministry had been accountable to the people, we could have generated an income of Rs. 400 million from the Port Trust and Customs. Add to this income tax, postal and railway revenues, and Sindh could have had Rs. 1,000 million at its disposal every year, All this money could have been used to mechanize farming, set up industry, send students abroad for higher education, job generation for hundreds of thousands of Sindhis to the exclusion of non Sindhis and for securing employment for Sindhis in the Indian Union. In the event of total independence, Sindh could appoint its own ambassadors, trade agents and maintain its army. All this would have raised Sindh’s political status and enabled its people to prove their mettle in the comity of nations.
All this would have enabled us to raise the standard of living of our people and enabled us to provide a free health cover to them together with free education. For all this, however, total freedom was an essential concomitant together with an end to communalism which, among other things, divided us and rendered us an easy prey to all-alien depredations and slave existence.
Now, the other side of the picture. What would have happened had the Cabinet Mission plan been accepted? Sindh would have had to forget its past, forget about all its development hopes and its national identity, accept a constitution imposed by aliens, surrender its productive resources to them and generally agree to become a Punjabi colony. There would have been the same illiteracy and the same communal strife. The Sindhis had to keep both sides of the picture in mind before deciding which way to go. On the question of Sindh’s independence, I came to the firm conclusion that the province should not join any of the two federations and that it should refuse to contribute a single penny to either, but work out its own constitution and remain independent, I also felt that Sindh should refuse to become a Punjabi colony and resist all attempts aimed at usurping its independence. It was my view that in any union, it should not cede more than defense and foreign affairs, pay its part of the expenses for the two subjects and keep the rest of its resources to itself.
The Muslim communalists of Sindh were nursing the delusion that after union with the Punjab, they would be rid of Hindu hegemony while the latter thought that after accession with India, they would be freed of the unjust Muslim domination However, both groups were forgetting the fact that such a feeling of mistrust and fear arose out of a situation when either the Muslims or the Hindus got more than their due share, and, that in either of the two cases, each conceived for itself that there would not be any economic competition nor any further communal differences between them. But these doubts and fears would have persisted for as long as a third group was amongst us. Once this group was out of our body politics, unity among the Sindhis would have been restored once again. For as long as the Sindhis ruled themselves, Hindu-Muslim unity was never in doubt. Now, whether the third group amongst us is of British origin or comprises Indian Muslims or Punjabi Muslims, they are all the same for us.
It would be unwise for us to hand over the reins of government to others just because there is no unity in our ranks. The coming generations will never forgives us for that. If we hand over the control to other hands, which are stronger than ours, it would amount to setting fire to our house in order to kill some rats.
No plan for the economic development of Sindh would succeed unless the province achieves independence for itself. Once we surrendered our means of production to the others, we would have lost them forever. This was a critical situation and we had very little time left with us. The Sindhis, I felt, had to decide for themselves. Anyhow, when the Congress rejected the Cabinet Mission Plan of May 16, 1946, Mr. Jinnah termed it a violation of the promises made to the Muslim League. Be that as it may, having failed in its interim government plan, the Cabinet Mission left for England on May 29.
Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru was elected the Congress President in place of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad on July 6, 1946. He made it clear at a meeting that the Congress could accept the Cabinet mission plan only to the extent of joining the constituent assembly. It had nothing to do with the rest of the scheme. It said the Congress would be free to do what it wanted to do inside the constituent assembly. He also said that his party would oppose the inclusion of the NWFP in the western sub-federation. Nor would the inclusion of Assam in the eastern sub-federation be acceptable to it. Later, the Muslim League decided to abandon constitutional means and launch a movement. Elections to the constituent assembly were held towards the end of July 1946. A special session of the Sindh Assembly was called for the purpose on July 11th . The Muslim Leaguers came over to us and we had the support of 31 members in the House. We decided to reintroduce a motion of no confidence against the Ministry but the Governor prorogued the Assembly the day it was to take up the motion for discussion. The purpose was nothing but to save their favorite Ministry by the British. It may be added here that Sir Khizar Hayat Tiwana’s Ministry was facing a similar motion in the Punjab where the League was in the opposition. There, the Punjab Governor did not prorogue the House and allowed the discussion on the no-confidence motion to take place. This shows how the British patronized their own agents in the Muslim League.
We wrote against the Sindh Governor’s unconstitutional act to the Governor General and the Secretary of State for India, but justice was denied us. From July to September 1946, the Governor and the bureaucracy did everything in their power to secure a majority for the Muslim League in the Sindh Assembly. On September 5, the Assembly met to approve supplementary grants. All possible methods were used to win over the loyalties of the members but the League still fell one vote short of the required majority. Finally, the day the House was to meet, Speaker Miran Mohammed Shah was persuaded to resign to gain temporary reprieve for the Ministry. This forced us to ask the Deputy Speaker, Miss. Jetty Sipahimalani to do likewise. Now the two side, were locked at 30-30, creating a constitutional deadlock, obliging the Governor to postpone the session. The Ministry failed to have the supplementary grants approved by the House nor could it succeed in getting a new Speaker elected. Under these circumstances, the Governor should have invite us to form a ministry but since he was partisan, it was futile to expect this of him, Later, when some other members also turned against the Ministry, the Governor dissolved the Assembly and ordered fresh elections. All manners of irregularities were resorted to which would have put even Hitler to shame. Some of these irregularities are being detailed below:
In selected areas officials friendly to the League candidates were appointed who not only helped their favorites but also harassed their opponents.
Many of our important workers were implicated in false cases under Sections 107 and 110 of the Frontier Crime Regulations, and some of them were jailed.
Polling stations were changed and set up in the bungalows of the League’s polling agents and such other places and our voters were not allowed to go there.
Presiding and polling officers handed over ballot boxes and books to the League candidates.
Ballot papers were torn out of books in large numbers, thumb-marked and handed over to the Leaguers. These ballot papers were cast late at night, long after polling time. The objections made by our polling agents were ignored.
Section 144, Cr. P.C. was clamped on large parts of Sindh to prevent the opponents of the League from making speeches or canvassing for their candidates. However, the Leaguers were free to do as they pleased.
Ministers, officials and important League workers were allowed entry into the polling booths where they snatched ballot papers from the voters and cast them for their party.
The presiding and polling officers were either the supporters of the League candidates or their relatives and chief workers.
At some polling stations, help was provided to presiding officers and polling officers and League agents through the police, rangers and army personnel.
Bogus voters and bad characters were brought from other parts of India.
Where the local people were aware of these tactics and where there were comparatively fewer chances of irregularities, the league’s agents used obstructive tactics under advice from presiding officers, and hundreds of our supporters could not vote.
Votes of those who had died or were in jail or were otherwise absent were cast despite our protests.
When bogus voters were detected, caught and presented to the presiding officers, they were let off at the recommendation of the League candidates.
The Prime Minister, other Ministers and collectors and deputy collectors visited the polling stations and encouraged people to cast bogus votes. Not only that. They did so themselves as did those who were under their influence.
The League disseminated made-up photographs and cartoons full of malice.
The League opponents were deprived of their gun licenses and shops.
The League opponents were deprived of irrigation water and their land allotments were canceled.
Ballot boxes were opened and bogus votes were cast or those cast in favor of the League opponents were disfigured.
When votes were being counted, bound bundles of ballot papers were found in the boxes.
Under these circumstances, the results were a foregone conclusion. Only two of our candidates could succeed Haji Maula Box Soomro (on a joint Hindu-Muslim seat) and Khan Sahib Sardar Khan Khoso who won only by 16 votes. The, mean tactics employed to defeat me need not be recounted here. I am only reproducing (Appendix 5) a copy of the decision of the Election Tribunal published in the official gazette on the basis of which my rival, Qazi Mohammed Akbar, and two of his colleagues, Pir Illahi Bux and Pir Mohammed Shah were disqualified from contesting elections for a period of six years in 1949The Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 4)
In the light of this decision, Pir Illahi Bux was removed from premiership. In the Assembly born out of these irregularities, Khan Bahadur Ayub Khuhro of the League had the support of 25 out of 35 members but the Party High Command, which is to say Mr. Jinnah, ordered that Sir Ghulam Hussain be retained as Prime Minister and this is how it happened. Before this, he had the support of the British Governor, Now he had the blessings of Mr., Jinnah also. The British were about to quit India but they were leaving Sir Ghulam Hussain behind as a ‘democratic legacy’. The conspiracies hatched by the British in order to keep India one included the Cabinet Mission’s three-zone plan which, as we have seen, failed. There were many reasons for this, the main among them being Assam’s refusal to join the Eastern Zone and the decision of the Congress not to go into the constituent assembly with any pre-conditions. At this, Mr. Jinnah went back on his decision to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan and started to plead for partition with renewed vigor and ordered direct action on August 16, 1946. This order was undefined and the Muslims did not know exactly what to do. As a result, Hindu-Muslim riots erupted on a large scale in Bengal, Assam and Bihar in which about 5,000 people lost their lives and more than 100,000 were rendered homeless. In view of this, the Cabinet Mission admitted that it had failed and the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, left for home at the completion of his term. Lord Mountbatten, a member of the British royal family, replaced him; He brought with him the partition plan. Although the British had accepted the partition plan, Lord Mountbatten did try to keep India united for some time at least and for this purpose, he held parleys with the Congress and the Muslim League, but by that time Mr. Jinnah had gone too far and had gained immeasurably in confidence. He told Mountbatten that evens it Pakistan was as small as a matchbox, he was determined to get it, and he must get it even if it was confined to the Thar Desert. Things having gone thus far, the British had no option but to partition India. The Congress, on the other hand, was of the view that until the communal issue was sorted out within a united India, the British must continue their efforts to keep the country one. However, the Second World War had weakened the British financially and, moreover, they were under pressure from the U.S. to free India. Another reason for their impatience in the matter was that there were signs of rebellion in the British Indian armed forces, which had manifested itself in the naval uprising and strikes in Bombay and Karachi. Fearing a bloody revolution in India, the British announced the partition formula on June 3, 1947. Its salient features were:
I. India’s division into two States. 2. The two States were to form their own constituent assemblies. 3. There would be a referendum in the NWFP to decide whether it wanted to join India or Pakistan. 4. There would be no fresh elections in the NWFP but the people of the province would be asked whether they wanted to join Pakistan or India, 5. The provinces of Bengal and the Punjab would be partitioned. 6. In Assam, the people of Sylhet would, through a referendum, be asked which country they wanted to join. 7. India would get Calcutta while Lahore would be part of Pakistan. 8.A boundary commission would be appointed to demarcate the frontiers between the two countries. 9.A commission would be appointed to divide financial and military assets between the two countries. 10.British sovereignty ending over India, the princely states would be given the right to choose which of the two countries to join. 11.The British would hand over power to the two States in August.
The Congress and other nationalist parties as a solution to the communication problem accepted the partition plan but it only exacerbated it, and Hindu-Muslim riots assumed all-India dimensions during which hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives including innocent children. Countless women were raped, and property worth millions was destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to migrate from the land of their ancestors, Love was replaced by hatred and terrorism, Sindh was no exception, and the Sindhis were divided into two with around 1,300,000 people leaving their homes and hearths for India, with the rest mourning their departure along the banks of the Indus.
We were helpless against this flood tide of madness. Therefore, we sat back to think what had Pakistan, for achieving which we had given the best years of our lives, in store for us. Was this the independence for which countless people across India, including the Sindhis, sacrificed their lives? The independence we had been dreaming of meant a life of beauty and happiness. What we got instead was death and hatred and murder and terrorism. How to save our simple and innocent people from all this? This was to be the core of my political struggle thence.
Here I would like to ruminate whether the demand for Pakistan was the part of an immediate but well thought-out strategy or an outcome of a series of accidents in history and a British gift for the Muslim League which it did not deserve because it did not have the ability to protect, preserve and manage it. Since the latter is the case, Pakistan has been and will continue to live from crisis to crisis. I would thus like to analyze the demand for Pakistan from three points of view historical, religious and Britain’s India policy.
Historically, no such country as Pakistan existed before August 14, 1947. Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, a Punjabi Muslim who was a student at Cambridge in 1930, and was used by him in several pamphlets, coined the word. No Hindu or Muslim politician in India had taken it seriously, so much so that Mr. Jinnah, the moving spirit behind the Pakistan Movement, had not considered the word or the demand implicit in it worthy of comment. This is proved by the fact that when the leader of the Muslim delegation to the Round Table Conference was asked what it thought of Rehmat Ali’s Pakistan scheme, he had described it as childish. Mr. Jinnah was present at the conference. A telltale documentary evidence is presented here. In the fifth preliminary meeting of the Indian Round Table Conference, Mr. Jinnah had explained the term ‘the Dominion of India’ thus:
I say the cordial principle which will guide us through the deliberations of this conference is that India wants to be mistress in her own house, and I cannot conceive of any constitution that you may frame, which will not transfer responsibilities of the Central Government to a cabinet requisible to the legislature. (Indian Round Table Conference, 12th November, 1930 _ 19th January, 1931 proceedings)

Similarly, the learned author of Jinnah’s Tragedy, Kailash Chander, says-
At the first round table conference, when a joint deputation of the Muslim League & Muslim Conference was giving its evidence before Indian Constitutional Reforms Committee, a member of the Committee, Sir Reginald Graddock, put a question as to "what the Muslim League and Muslim Conference thought about the Pakistan Scheme." The leader of the two deputations replied, "As far as I know it is only a students’ scheme. No responsible people have put it forward. So far as we have CONSIDERED IT, CHIMERICAL and UNPRACTICABLE. It means the federation of certain provinces,
On being further pursued by Sir Reginald the deputation replied, "Perhaps it would be enough to say that no such scheme has been considered by any representative gentleman or association so far." Most of the present day supporters of the Pakistani idea had condemned it in most severe language. Mr. M.A. Jinnah was also opposed to it. At the very first speech that he delivered at the Round Table Conference, he thought of a United India.
He was thinking in terms of Dominion status for India when at the 5th plenary meeting on 20th November, 1930, Mr. Jinnah said, ‘the cardinal principle is that India wants to be a mistress in her own home and I cannot conceive any constitution that you may frame, which will not transfer responsibility in the central Government to a cabinet response to the legislature.
Jinnah Sahib was himself the member of a federal structure committee and did not oppose the idea of an Indian federation. The Pakistan idea would have died its natural death, but it got some sympathetic response in some notorious die- hard quarters in England, in time of the second R.T. Conference (Tragedy of Jinnah pp. 221-22)
Yet further and detailed evidence is provided by Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, in his book, ‘India Divided in the following words:
In 1933 for the first time a Punjabi Muslim, Chaudhri Rehmat Ali (an undergraduate of Cambridge) who gave the movement a shape and a form called the Muslims, hitherto called a minority community, ‘a nation’. He propounded the idea that the Punjab, N.W.F.P (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sindh and Baluchistan should be formed into a separate Muslim State called Pakistan. This proposal was different from that of Dr. Iqbal in that while Dr. Iqbal proposed the amalgamation of those provinces into a single state forming a unit of the All Sindh Federation, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali proposed that these provinces should have an independent federation of their own. Leaflets advocating Pakistan were distributed by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali to the nuclei of Parliament as members the Round Table Conference, no Indian, Hindu or Muslim, took interest in them. Muslim witness described the Pakistan scheme in August 1933, to the joint parliamentary select committee as follows.
" A. Yusuf Ali: As far as I know it is only a student scheme, no responsible people have put it forward."
"Ch. Zafarullah Khan: So far as we have considered it, we have considered it chimerical and impracticable."
"Dr. Khalifa Shujauddin: Perhaps it will be enough to say that no such scheme has been considered by any representative gentleman or association so far."
Leaving everything aside, even Dr. Iqbal, who is regarded as the author of the Pakistan idea, had no clear concept of what he meant by it. In his presidential address to the All India Muslim League in Allahabad in 1 930, he had said that the Rehmat Ali scheme would be harmful for the Hindus and Muslims of India as well as for the British themselves. Saying that Dr. Iqbal was not in favor of the Pakistan plan, Edward Thomson writes in his book, Enlist India for Freedom:
"On my vast undisciplined and starving land, Pakistan would be disastrous to the British Government, disastrous to the Hindu Community, disastrous to Muslims. But I am president of the Muslim League and therefore it is my duty to support it."
Let us move from here and review the Muslim League performance. It had never seriously regarded Pakistan as the Indian Muslims’ objective but as a pressure tactic against the Congress. There was a dialogue between Mr., Jinnah who was the League President in 1939, and his colleagues Sir Zafarullah Khan, Sir Yamin and Dr. Sir Ziauddin, which has be ‘ en described lucidly by Sir Yamin in his book, Nama-I-Aamal. (P 725) The upshot, of which dialogue is that late in 1939 and early in 1940, the Quaid-e-Azam was not in favor of the partition of India. It wag’ later in reference to a document delineating a detailed Plan of division of India worked out by a Committee of which Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr was also a member, and yet more at the insistence of Seth Haji Abdullah Haroon that the Quaid agreed to accept the partition plan, (Khatoot, p.99, by Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mehr)
In the biography of Mr. Jinnah The Leader, which was commissioned by the Government of Pakistan, Hector Bolitho quotes from M.H. Sayed’s book, Jinnah: A Political Study, to the effect that Mr. Jinnah, writing on March 9, 1940 in Time and Tide, had used the term ‘two nations’, and urged that the Constitution of India should be so drafted as to be acceptable to the ‘two nations’ living in India, their ‘common motherland’. This was the last time Mr. Jinnah used also the term ‘common motherland.’ Two weeks later, he presided over a meeting of the All India Muslim League in Lahore on March 23, 1940. The question here is: how could a man who was the President of the Muslim League and who, until March 13 and, according to Ghulam Rasool Mehr, right till the beginning of his party’s Lahore session, was opposed to the partition plan become a proponent of the division of India? Not only did he become a proponent of partition but was also convinced that the target was achievable when till not very long earlier, he had dismissed the same idea as childish. How did he bring himself round to becoming such an implacable champion of partition? History is cruel. With the passage of time it exposes hidden faces, intentions and secrets. Seemingly pious personalities then emerge as ugly tools. In all this drama, Jinnah and his followers do begin to look like British lackeys. Jinnah did become adamant in his demand for Pakistan but not for the benefit of the Muslims of India but at the behest of the British. There is enough documentary evidence to support this. Here only two examples would suffice. First, it was under the Lord Linlithgow move that Sir Zafarullah Khan prepared a draft for the partition plan. The British feared that the Muslims of India would not accept a scheme authored by a Qadiani. Therefore, a copy of the scheme was sent to Mr. Jinnah under the suggestion that it would be presented to the Muslims as part of the League manifesto. This, a bit of a feeler, was later to provide the basis for the Pakistan Resolution. For evidence, excerpts are being reproduced here from Wali Khan’s book, Facts Are Facts, to show what was the British view of the Pakistan idea:
The Viceroy of India, Lord Linlithgow, told the leaders of the Muslim League that the Government of Great Britain would not tolerate negative politics. This view was conveyed to the Muslim League Working Committee through Sir Sikander Hayat. Therefore, various sub-committees started preparing a concrete plan of action. The Viceroy wrote to the Secretary of State for India that Chaudhry KhaliQuzzaman had suggested to Lumley, the Governor of Bombay that India should be divided into three dominions. It seems that KhaliQuzzaman wanted to create one dominion each for Hindus, Muslims, and Rulers of Princely States.
The Governor of Northwest Frontier Province, Sir George Cunningham, wrote to the Viceroy that, upon his return from the Muslim League Convention, Sardar Aurangzeb reported to him:
‘The scheme, which they Muslim League were now contemplating, would involve the creation of 6 or 7 Indian dominions.... and that this novel scheme now holds the field to preference to the original Pakistan proposal.’
Lord Zetland, Secretary of State for India, had detailed discussion on the above subject with Sir Feroz Khan Noon. He suggested that the northwestern part of India should be separated from the rest of the continent, in a manner similar to Burma, and a new country, Pakistan, should be created. The Secretary said that he saw ‘almost insuperable difficulties in the way of our acceptance of such a policy’. Feroz Khan Noon’s response to this was, ‘If it was so he would not himself encourage it when he returned to India.’ [Letter dated 13 December 1938].
These were different schemes. Chaudhry Rehmat All, a student of Cambridge, had an esoteric scheme for Pakistan. Sir Muhammad Iqbal proposed yet another format. What remained to be seen was what the British had up their sleeves?
The Muslims were hatching the above schemes; the final decision rested with the British. When the British saw that their objectives could not be met by the schemes presented by Sikander Hayat Khan or the Muslim League Working Committee, they unilaterally rejected all the proposals submitted by the Muslims. Chaudhry Zafarullah, a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, was asked to submit a map of two dominions. On that subject, on 12 March 1940, Viceroy Lord Linlithgow wrote to the Secretary of State for India:
‘Upon my instruction Zafarullah wrote a memorandum on the subject, Two Dominion States. I have already sent it for your attention. I have also asked him for further clarification, which, he says, is forthcoming. He is anxious, however, that no one should find out that he has prepared this plan. He has, however, given me the right to do with it what I like, including sending a copy to you. Copies have been passed on to Jinnah, and, I think, to Sir Akbar Hydiri. While he, Zafarullah, cannot admit its authorship, the Muslim League with a view to giving it the fullest publicity has prepared his document for adoption.’
The Viceroy explains this further. Since Zafarullah was a Qadiani he had to be cautious. The Muslims would become irritated if they found that a Qadiani prepared this scheme. The Viceroy said that Jinnah had been given a copy to make the Muslim League adopt it and publicize its contents. Sir Akbar was given a copy because he was responsible for fund-raising. The dates take on a special significance, The Viceroy’s letter to the Secretary of State was written on 12 April 1940. The Pakistan scheme had been dispatched earlier. Twelve days later the Muslim League adopted this very proposal at their Lahore Annual Meeting. It was called Pakistan Agreement,
Sir Zafarullah’s term on the Viceroy’s Executive Council was expiring in March. Due to his loyal service, however, the term was extended. Two days after the Muslim League had adopted this proposal, on 25 March 1940, the Viceroy wrote:
‘The Congress is putting forward a preposterous claim, which they know is incapable of being accepted. He (Jinnah) will put forward just as extreme a claim, of the impracticability of realizing which he is probably just well aware; but the existence of which, will, while reaffirming the Muslim attitude of hostility to the Congress scheme, take away some, at any rate, of the damaging charges which are hitherto being leveled against them [Muslim League] that they have no constructive ideas of their own.’
When the Muslim League accepted the Viceroy’s proposal [author, Sir Zafarullah, the British were convinced of their dependability. It was natural, then, for the British to refuse to recognize the existence of any party other than the Muslim League. During those days, a large representative gathering of nationalist Muslims was held in Delhi. The Chief Minister of Sindh, Allah Bux Soomro, chaired the Assembly. The Secretary of State, Lord Zetland, asked the Viceroy to report on this gathering. On 14 May, 1 940, the Viceroy wrote:
‘I attach no particular importance to the Delhi Conference of the Muslims, which took place a few days ago. It has been well organized and the Congress press machine has written it up admirably.... We both are, of course, aware that there is a not unimportant Muslim element outside the Muslim League.... Indeed, I am sure that Jinnah remains the man to deal with on the Muslim side.’
The British deliberately ignored those Muslims, who, along with the Congress, were struggling for freedom. Their very faith was called I questionable’. More than 100 representatives, who had gathered together under the leadership of an elected Chief Minister, were totally disregarded. The Viceroy did not mince his words when he wrote to the Secretary of State that ‘Jinnah is our man and we accept him as a representative of all Muslims.’
The Khaksars were in a peculiar position. The objection to other Muslims was that they were not assisting the British but the Khaksars, who, in all humility, had offered help! On 24 May 1940, the Viceroy wrote, "Meanwhile the Khaksars have formally renewed their offer to me of 50,000 men to help in the war."
Their offer to fight for the British in the war against Germany was rejected due to Jinnah’s negative attitude. ‘Jinnah accepts no responsibility for Khaksars or their activities since they have declined his advice.’ The Viceroy adopted the following stand:
‘Considering the present attitude of the Khaksars in Punjab, it would not be advisable for me to enter into any correspondence with them or their leaders, and I propose, accordingly, to leave the telegram unanswered.’
The British were trying to make it very clear to every Indian Muslim that except Jinnah and the Muslim League, they were not ready to accept any other party. To gain British support, the Muslims were obliged to join the Muslim League. Earlier, the British had severed relations with the Congress because they were not prepared to assist them in the war against Germany. Their inconsistency becomes evident in their refusing the help of 50,000 Khaksars, while at the same time, rejecting the Congress because they did not offer 50,000 men to fight the same war’
Second, In 1941, Ayub Khuhro told me that the Punjabi President Sir Sikander Hayat was in Karachi and that I should meet him. Accordingly, I called on Sir Sikander Hayat in the company of Ayub Khuhro, Allah Bux Soomro and Sheikh Abdul Majid Sindhi at the Carlton Hotel. Among other things, the Punjab Premier told us that it would be better if an all parties government was formed in Sindh under Allah Bux Soomro’s leadership, He told me that I had done well to work for the establishment of such a government in Sindh because it would enable us to get laws protecting the rights of the people such as debt relief, the tenancy act, etc., passed by the Assembly. During the course of our discussion, Sir Sikander Hayat advised Soomro to join the Muslim League at which the latter said that he would not do so because he considered the very existence of the League detrimental to the interests of the Muslims of India, to Sindh, to the rest of the sub-continent and to Islam itself.
Sir Sikander Hayat told Soomro: ‘Look, I am in League Myself ‘Allah Bux Soomro retorted by saying that Sir Sikander Hayat had criticized the Pakistan plan in the Punjab Assembly only a few days ago. How was it possible to be in the Muslim League and be opposed to the Pakistan scheme? he asked. ‘At least my conscience does not allow me to indulge in this kind of two-timingness," he added. He also said that in his view, Pakistan would be detrimental to Muslim interests and be deadly for Sindh. At this, Sir Sikander Hayat said even the central President of the League, Mr. Jinnah, was not in favor of Pakistan and the proceedings of the Round Table Conference were proof of that. He had opposed the Pakistan idea in the light of Jinnah’s views, he added. Allah Bux Soomro said he was not capable of that kind of hypocrisy. Only Sir Sikander and Mr. Jinnah could do it. Later, Sir Sikander left for Cairo when Rommel was threatening to take over the Suez Canal for Germany. Gen. Montgomery who was lea ‘ ding Sikh and Muslim troops from the Punjab, was facing the Germans. Sir Sikander Hayat had gone to Egypt to boost the morale of the Indian troops. He performed this duty with great loyalty. Shortly afterwards, the German advance turned into retreat. At this, Winston Churchill met Sir Sikander in Cairo and personally thanked him for having helped the British in their hour of trial while the Congress had added to their problems Therefore; the Congress did not deserve British attention or friendship. He said that the British could not ‘ remain in India in the face of opposition from its 400 million people. He asked Sir Sikander Hayat to assure Mr. Jinnah that in order to teach the Congress a lesson, the British would quit the sub-continent soon after the War but only after having created a ‘Muslim India’ in India. Mr. Jinnah need not be afraid, and he could have this pledge verified by the Viceroy of India.
Sir Sikander Hayat left Cairo for Bombay where he met Mr. Jinnah and conveyed Mr. Churchill’s message to him Mr. Jinnah had the promise made by the British Prime Minister verified by the Viceroy through the Governor of Bombay. The Viceroy then summoned Mr. Jinnah to Delhi and told him that a framework for the division of India was already on the anvil and he could check on this from Sir Zafarullah Khan, on the condition that he would not enter into any settlement with the Congress. Jinnah agreed to do so and began to work against the Congress with renewed vigor. It is possible that at this may yet be regarded as not fully established. Therefore, I am citing an excerpt from Syed Nor Ahmed’s book, "Martial Law Se Martial Law Tak" in which he says that even after the passage of the Lahore Resolution, Sir Sikander Hayat was not mentally prepared to accept the Pakistan plan because he believed in provincial autonomy. However, he was in favor of partition because of autonomy for the Muslim nation, which was the basis of the Lahore Resolution. However, he wanted that the Punjab should remain united. He wanted partition to take place in such a manner that the martial races of the Punjab should be free of the influence of the pundits and Brahmins of the majority party in the center. He probably thought that the Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs would agree with his point of view. He made a strange effort towards this end over and above the heads of the League leadership. At the request ‘of the British Government, he visited the War theaters once again to buck up the Indians, which is to say, Punjabi soldiers. In the winter of 1941-42, he had the occasion to meet Churchill in Cairo. On his return home, he told some of his Cabinet colleagues, including Sir Chotu Ram and other friends that apart from other things, he had discussed India’s constitutional problem with the British Prime Minister and had tired to make two points clear to him.
He had tried to impress upon him the fact that only the martial races of the Punjab had contributed to the British War effort with loyalty and it would be a travesty of justice if they were made subservient to the Congress and the Brahmins who would be in majority at the center in a free India.
A loyal Punjab deserved to be the leader of a separate dominion, which should include Sindh, the NWFP and Baluchistan. This could be easily achieved provided the British statesmen were convinced of its advantages. Such a federation would be loyal to the British under all circumstances. The defense of the new dominion and the rest of India should for some time, be joined under British supervision. Later, a mutually agreed formula could be evolved for the purpose. The new dominion would be economically self-sufficient.
Is it too difficult to surmise what effect this proposal had on Churchill? Obviously, this is exactly what Churchill wanted and it is for this reason that the proposal had been made. It is interesting to note that six months after his talks with Sir Sikander Hayat, Churchill sent a member of his War Cabinet, Sir Stafford Cripps, to India with a plan for Indian independence under which any province could opt out of India if it so desired and the British Government would give it separate dominion status. If this plan was the result of Sir Sikander Hayat’s efforts, he must have been disappointed when both the Congress and the Muslim League rejected it. Nevertheless, the demand for Pakistan gained strength to the extent that the British offer had brought the concept of partition to the realm of practical politics. (Martial Law se Martial Law Tak, pp 204-5, with the author quoting Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan who was in Lahore in 1948), This excerpt raises two points. As I have stated, the partition plan was offered by Churchill himself with the assurance that it would be implemented while the excerpt given above shows that the author of the scheme was Sir Sikander Hayat which was not only approved by Churchill but he also sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India as a practical proof of his approval.
The second point is that under the Sikander Hayat Scheme, the new federation was to have been led by the Punjab because it had been loyal to the British. Isn’t the present Pakistan exactly what he had demanded? Then how does the author of the book cited above say that Sir Sikander Hayat was disappointed? We would, therefore, be right in saving that the British imperialists staged the whole drama and our politicians were mere actors in it. For as long as Mr. Churchill was Prime Minister, Mr. Jinnah played his role in the drama well but when Churchill was defeated and Attlee became the new Labor Prime Minister, Mr. Jinnah suddenly changed his stance on partition when he saw the mood of the new Government in London. He accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan which could not be put into effect because it was rejected by the Congress, forcing Jinnah to revert to his old demand because he had been assured by his friends that the British would not remain in India for long. Mr. Jinnah took this to mean that the Labor Government did not want to reverse all of Mr. Churchill’s policies and considered the partition of the sub-continent necessary to keep British influence intact in the region, Pakistan was a gift in return for the loyalty with which the Punjabis had served the British and is cause of all our problems. In this regard, I cite former Prime Minister Feroze Khan Noon’s book, "Chashm Deed" in which he says that the Punjabis had played a major role in the British victory in the First World War and were rewarded with the Government of India Act of 1935, The Punjabis fought equally bravely and loyally during the Second World War and lost the best of its youth in Africa and Europe. ‘ In gratitude for this loyalty, the British gave them Pakistan.’ It may be added here that Sir Feroze Khan Noon wrote the book cited here after he had left office. I have always believed that Pakistan was created by the British to maintain their domination by creating bases in different parts of the world. But nature wreaked a terrible vengeance on the British for their treachery against the People of India because their world domination ended after the Second World War and the bases established by them fell into the hands of American imperialism.
I am certain that just as British imperialism vas drowned in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the order established by their agents too will be swept away by the Arabian Sea. Religion was used as a weapon for the creation of Pakistan. It was said that the new country would be a sanctuary for the Islamic order. It was also said that since the Muslims were a better people among other peoples, they had the right to lead the rest of the world and this right would accrue to them through Pakistan. However this concept was based on a non-political, non-religious and inhuman fraud because the Muslims are neither the chosen people nor the best in the world nor yet has any nation come into existence on the basis of a marriage between politics and religion. Apart from the first few years of Islam, there might have been Muslim nation-States but none of them has ever been an Islamic State. They did not have popularly elected governments but were ruled by despots or were the personal fiefs of despotic kings and were based on barbaric murder and mayhem and had nothing to do with Islam. The Prophet of Islam, Mohammed (May peace be upon him) was a social and spiritual guide for mankind and not a despotic ruler who conquered territories by force. There are clear guidelines from the Holy Prophet (May peace be upon him) on stagecraft which indicate that he had nothing to do with mundaneness of State power. In this regard, I wish to recall an incident from history. In A.H. 5, a group of Muslims, led by Hazrat Jafar Tayyar, fleeing from the repression of the people of Makkah, sought refuge in Habasha. The group took a letter from the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) in which he had asked the King of Habasha to accept Islam. The king agreed to do so. Later, the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) allowed him to continue as king and never asked him to step down from the throne and accept him as his leader. Nor did he ask him to change his system of government. (Seeratun Nabi by Shibli Nomani, Part I)
This shows that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) never wanted to wrest the independence of other nations or to force them to change their system of governance. He wrote letters to several kings, asking them to embrace Islam. These letters invariably ended with the sentence: "Accept Islam and live long" (twice). Explaining this sentence, Maulana Hifzur Rehman Seharwi, the noted religious scholar and freedom-fighter, says that its repetition meant that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) wanted the recipient of the letter not only to retain his throne but also to prosper in the Hereafter (Albalaghul Mubeen, Darul Mussanefin, Delhi).
The early history of Islam shows the battles fought by the Arabs after the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) were motivated by expansionism and a lust for territory and not for establishing the Islamic order in conquered countries. It is another matter that the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) had gained control over the Arabian Peninsula during his lifetime and he persuaded people to accept the Islamic way of life voluntarily. That is why I think that to choose a piece of land and call it Pakistan in the name of Islam is against the teachings of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him). The Arabian Peninsula has acquired a certain amount of sanctity because it is the birthplace of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) and because the Holy Qura'an was revealed to him there but in spite of it, he did not rename it ‘Pak Astaan’. As Maulana Abul Kalam Azad writes in his book, India Wins Freedom:
I must confess that the very term Pakistani goes against my grain. It suggests that some portions of the world are pure while others are impure. , Such a division of territories into pure and impure is un-Islamic and a repudiation of the very spirit of Islam. Islam recognizes no such division and the Prophet says: ‘God has made the whole world a mosque for me.’ (p. 142)
‘It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society, which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades, or at most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslim Countries into one state on the basis of Islam alone.’ (p. 227)
Pakistan came into being on the basis of the two-nation theory but, history has proved that those who used the Muslim nation and Islamic order slogans, had deceived the Muslim masses in order to protect their own class interests, The concept of Muslim nationhood is wrong and Pakistan’s solidarity and stability on its basis is impossible. An Islamic, which is to say, a religious order is a huge fraud. . This is not my view alone. Noted religious scholars and intellectuals are of the same opinion. Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi is a respected, Popular and political name in Sindh and the subcontinent. He left India shortly before World War I and lived for 27 years in Afghanistan, Turkistan, Russia, Turkey and the Hejaz, On his return to Sindh, he used to say that the Indian Muslims had a dreamy notion about their identity, which had no basis in practical life. They had been thinking in terms of a party and a nation about which they had no clear-cut idea in their minds. They had confined themselves to a dream world and had isolated themselves from the struggles for independence in other Muslim countries. Also, they did not have any agreed concept of a practical ideology or way of life in the modern world (Malfuzat-i-Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi).
The conclusions arrived at by Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi can be summarized as under:
1. Muslims all over the world have no clear concept of a true Islamic society and no Muslim government is being run on the basis of such a concept.
2. Because of the current international situation and the backwardness of the Muslim countries, no pan-Islamic movement is possible. Therefore, Muslim countries will run themselves on the basis of modern nationalism.
3. The peoples living in the sub-continent are different nations on the basis of their ancient geographic boundaries, language, culture and politico-economic interests.
In this regard, the noted scholar of Sindh and my spiritual mentor, Allama 1. I Qazi was against the creation of Pakistan on the basis of religious hatred. One of his statements was published by me Sindhi paper, Qurbani, on January 22, 1939, parts of which are being excerpted here:
"We have been brought to the Muslim League platform. We had hoped that we would be able to work shoulder to shoulder with each other for doing good work. Sadly, it does not look as if this hope would be realized. The Organization is like the man who gathers all people together and throws bombs on them to kill everyone at one go. Bringing the Muslims of India on one platform is a matter of some concern but more tragic is the fact that not only are the Muslims of India being destroyed but the standards and objectives of the Holy Qura'an are also being obliterated. This will be a loss not only for the Muslims but also for all humankind. It is being said that efforts will be made to save the Islamic order through Pakistan. But what has the Holy Qura'an to say on Pakistan and our concept of it? Consider the following injunctions:
1. Spread in all corners of the world.
2. Step out and see the world around,
3. The world is a wide-open place. Go everywhere to serve the people.
4. (The Muslims) will set examples for all of humankind.
5. You (the Muslims) are the righteous Ummah for and among all humanity.
According to these injunctions, the Muslims were to be an example for the rest of the world to follow. They bad to spread to the four corners of the world and give the lead to other peoples everywhere, Until the fifteenth century A.D., the Muslims did exactly that and spread to the four corners of the world. They were above personal considerations, and food, I housing, comfort and security aside, they were not afraid even of death. It his to be kept in mind above everything else that in doing their duty, they did not look at things from majority-minority considerations and were never afraid of the superior strength of their foes. The ‘Pakistani’ isolationists should pause and ponder over the fact how far removed they are from the Quranic objectives. Pakistan is being created so that Muslims from here there and everywhere should take refuge in it and save themselves from death and other losses. But to leave a place only for fear of death and other losses is nowhere near the Islamic concept of life. Had Alberuni and Ibn Batuta been alive today, what would have they thought of this tendency to run away from fear)? The entire policy of the Muslim League has been based on the fear of the Hindus. A Muslim today trembles at the very mention of a Hindu. Since the day we went over to the Muslim League, we have been shouting that we are afraid of the Hindus and that they would do us in, any moment. Are these the Muslims who used to claim that they were not afraid of death? The principle used to be if you are true, challenge death. Will the present leader of the Muslims, Mr. Jinnah, tell us whether he is of the opinion that the Muslims today have nothing to do with the spirit of Islam and that they are no longer capable of spreading to the four corners of the world and that their security lies in bringing them to a protective home or orphanage? Does he think that the Muslims are so sick and poor that if they are not brought together at one place, their spirit will die, and since they are sick, they need constant nursing? Does he think that they are mentally retarded and physically ill, and that they have lost wisdom and courage and have become weak and lazy, and that they are constantly awaiting death? If such indeed is the state of the Muslims, then even the fortress of Pakistan cannot save them. For instance, let us look at the Sindhi part of Pakistan. Is this an example of the protective house called Pakistan? The situation that has been created here is amazing. Instead of becoming a protective home or Pakistan, Sindh has been turned into a graveyard in which every Quranic precept is being trampled underfoot. It appears as if the colorful and attractive name of Pakistan is being used only to hide the real facts. It is like calling a sickhouse a hospital or naming a sweeper the Mehtar (the Chief). If by Pakistan we mean what has been created in Sindh, then there will be no chance for inmates of this sickhouse even in the new country. And they (the Sindhis) will perhaps be obliterated. To make the demand for Pakistan for fear of the Hindus is against all tenets of the Holy Qura'an. (Pakistan, Mazi, Haal Ain Mustaqbil, p. p 22-27
The wise and far-sighted persons quoted above are known not only in the sub-continent but also in the entire Muslim world. There can be no two opinions about their sagacity, capabilities and the sacrifices they have made. They are recognized by friends and foes alike. They have never served as agents of any foreign power or otherwise been on its payroll. On the other hand, those who have appointed themselves as custodians of Islam and the Muslims have been ruthlessly exposed by history. On top of the list are Allama Iqbal and Mr. Jinnah. Let us first have a look at Allama Iqbal. His morals were not in any way worthy of emulation by the Muslim masses. He was well-versed in western philosophy and an excellent poet but he was to the end of his days a recipient of largesse from Bhopal, a small Muslim princely state in the sub-continent whose Nawab Habibullah Khan was his patron. One need not go into the moral aspects of his life at length. Only three examples will suffice here.
1. Abdul Majid Salik says in his book, Zikr-i-Iqbal: "Before his second marriage, family elders were trying that the Allama should settle things with his first spouse. However, Iqbal was under great mental strain, which is proved by the letter he wrote to Atiya Begum in which he said that he did not want to do any work. All he desired was to leave India as soon as he could. These were the feelings of a person who had written: Sarey jahan se accha Hindustan hamara. Only one thing, he wrote, had prevented him from running away from India. He was, he said, under such a debt of gratitude to his brother that he could not leave the country. His life had become hell for him because his relatives wanted to impose his wife On him. He told Atiya Begum that he had written to his father telling him that he had no right to marry him, especially when he had refused to accept the girl he had chosen for him. He was willing to pay living expenses to her but was not ready to torture himself by living with her. As a human being, he had every right to happiness and if society or destiny denied him this right, he would rebel against both. He had only two options: either to leave the ill-starred country for good or to seek solace in alcohol which made it easy to commit suicide.
Look at the man of letters and philosophy, and his views on books: "The dead and desolate pages of books can give me no happiness," he says. ‘My soul has gone so far ahead that I want to burn all these books together with society and its traditions. - April 9, 1909," Zikr-i-Iqbal, Abdul Majid Salik p.p. 73-74).
This shows of what disposition was the man who is called the creator of the Pakistan idea. Abdul Majid Salik writes at another place that final Iqbal decided to marry again. But he did not bring his second wife home because he had received letters alleging that she was a woman of easy virtue who had had relations with several people. The Allama had his own doubts and he had decided to divorce her. ‘But in case he had to marry the same girl again, what would he do?’ This was the question worrying him! And for this purpose, he sent Mirza Jalaluddin to Hakim Nur Din in Qadian, (Nur Din was Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s first ‘caliph’) to find out the religious implications of the matter. The Maulvi advised that mere intention to divorce did not constitute divorce. However, if he had any doubts, he should go in for another ‘nikah’ (marriage license). At this, the Allama called a maulvi, had another nikah performed and took the girl to Sialkot. He came back after eight days and told Mirza Jalaluddin that he was feeling so good that he felt he was in heaven.
Abdul Majid Salik concludes this account saying that Iqbal was no different from the other young men of his time. He always lived as a fly lived for sugar but never as a bee for honey. Many of his old friends must still be around whom must be cherishing the memory of those colorful days and nights. Iqbal himself has admitted that he was for a long time a devotee of Eros and the requirements that went with it but it was his wish to die in Madina!
[I spent a long time clinging to the breasts of beautiful damsels and their curly locks. I drank both with the moon and silver and put out the light of my redemption]. (Zikr-i-Iqbal, p. 7 1 - 7 2).
2. Allama Iqbal’s father had married him when he was 19 to Karim Bibi who was a homely type. But he began ignoring her and started to think in terms of a second marriage. However, he did not divorce her first wife nor did he pay her household expenses. He had two children from her, son Aftab and daughter Metal Bibi who were not mentioned in his will, Iqbal’s brother asked them to institute a case for the restitution of their rights after the Allama’s death. The two children and their mother lived in poverty all their lives and no one knows them in relation to Iqbal today. One of Iqbal’s admirers, Syed Hamid Raze Jalali writes in his book, "Allama Iqbal our Unki Pehli Bivi", that he (Allama) wrote a letter to his father, saying that he was not satisfied with his (first) wife and by marrying her to him he had done grave injustice to him. Iqbal wrote this letter to his father in 1909 while he had been married in 1893. After 16 years of marriage, which could not have taken place without his consent, and after having had two children whom he had named himself, the Allama, poisoned by the evil European influences, deserted him. One may say nothing out of respect to the Allama but if his first wife had any failings, he should have revealed them. However, if being, older to Iqbal was her only crime, the Allama himself was 40, when he was complaining about her to Atiya Begum. It was reprehensible on his part to abandon his wife and children and look for young girls at that age. His conduct was unbecoming of a man of letters. It Vas neither just nor gentlemanly nor wise. Islam permits four marriages, no doubt, but there are restraints for that and when a man divorces his wife, he must pay her alimony and give her other rights. If he does not do so, he has no moral right to marry again, at least not a man like the Allama. If it was under European influence that he did what he did, then European education must be condemned a thousand times. One can understand that the colorful life he had led in Europe had created in Iqbal a certain type of way wardens which made him sick not only of his wife but also of his country which he wanted to leave soon after his return home. ‘Iqbal Ki Pehli Bevi’ Syed Hamid Raze Jalali, President, Majlis-i-Mohibban-i-Iqbal, Pakistan, June 1967, Anjuman Press, Karachi. Some Persian lines from the poet of the East and Hakimul Ummat are being presented here:
(Pani Manjh Pasaah, Sher Mohammed Khuda Bux Baloch, retired Secretary, Irrigation, Governments of Sindh and West Pakistan, p. 70) Iqbal does not meet even the minimum standards so far as love and concern for the Muslims are concerned. This is so because when the imperialists were trampling the Muslim world underfoot in 1914, the Caliphate was being looted away and holy places of Islam were being attacked, lovers of Islam and freedom fighters like Maulana Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammed Ali, Abul Kalam Azad, Sheikhul Hind Maulana Mahmud Hassan, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and others were either in jail or in exile, Allama Iqbal was celebrating British victory in the company of Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Khan at a meeting of the War Council summoned by the Viceroy in Delhi and singing the following hymn in praise of the British:
(Weekly Vakil Amritsar, Sitara-i-Subh, May 8, 1918. It has also been referred to by Abdul Majid Salik in his book, Zikr-i-Iqbal, P. 87).
Now, let us take a look at the character ‘of the second important personality of the Pakistan Movement, Mr. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who regarded himself as the sole leader of the Muslims and who was always working to exhort the latter to work for the establishment of the Islamic order. There are many anecdotes about his personal devotion to Islam but let it suffice here to quote from books written by his British patrons:
"He loves oysters and caviar, champagne, brandy and good claret." Freedom at Midnight, P. 101)
"He drank, ate pork, religiously shaved his beard each morning and just as religiously avoided the mosque each Friday. God and Koran had no place in Jinnah’s vision of the world His Political foe, Gandhi, know more verses of the Muslim Holy Book than he did." - (Freedom at Midnight, P. 1 02).
It is clear that he was not a traditional Muslim, nor was his language, his bearing, his character or morals Islamic. He knew nothing of the Holy Qura'an or Hadith, He was ignorant of the spirit of Islam. He know no Eastern language except Gujarati. It is said that one day he offered his prayers in order to hoodwink the Muslims but he really had no idea of the manner and method of offering prayers. He was fond of the Western way of life. I myself had the opportunity to work with him over a long period, but here the two quotations from Larry Collins and Dominique la Pierre’s book, Freedom at Midnight cited above are sufficient. They show what respect the Quaid-e-Azam of the Muslims of India had for the Shariat. His own physician confirmed his addiction to alcohol when he said that for three years, Jinnah ‘lived on whisky, will power and cigarettes."
He took lightly even the common human virtues. He was power hungry and in love with himself. Here I am citing two instances which will show to what extent this lust for power undermined his own objectives and how even his British friends were disillusioned in him,
1. Sir Zafarullah Khan, the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan, wrote that when the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, presented the Indian independence scheme to Parliament, he was present in the visitors’ gallery. The speech was quite clear but he was surprised, Zafarullah said, when Attlee announced that Lord Mountbatten would be governor-general of both the dominions after independence, but unfortunately, Mr. Jinnah did not agree with the proposal. Zafarullah did not like this expression of regret on Attlee’s part because it was not needed. He could have just said that the proposal fell through. By naming the Quaid, Attlee made it appear as though he had a personal grudge against him. Subsequent events confirmed this, (based on Tehdis-i-Nemat, by Zafarullah Khan, p. 499).
The same author says that Mountbatten also wanted that the Congress and the Muslim League should accept him as the joint governor-general. The Congress did agree to his appointment as free India’s first governor-general but the Quaid refused to do so.
Mountbatten was certain that the Quaid would have no objection to his appointment, much to the former’s embarrassment. He came down to threatening the Quaid. At a meeting held between the two on July 2, 1947, he warned Mr. Jinnah that his refusal would cost him dear. The latter said he knew that Pakistan probably have to lose millions of rupees out of its share of the assets of undivided India. Not millions, Mountbatten told him harshly, but all assets and Pakistan would lose its future, and left in anger. (Mountbatten’s Report No. 11, Tehdis-i-Nemat, Zafarullah Khan, pp. 511-17).
Jinnah’s refusal led to district Gurdaspur being given to India through the Radcliffe Award and the Indian Government refused to hand over Pakistan’s part of the assets. These assets were later given to Pakistan only after Gandhi went on a fast unto death over the issue, All this happened because Mr. Jinnah wanted to become governor-general at all cost. His sister, Fatima Jinnah, went a step further. At the function held to celebrate independence, she could not bear to see Lady Mountbatten on the stage (c.f. Freedom at Midnight). This was against all social norms and against all rules of protocol.
The Muslim League, the Muslim masses and their struggle for independence had no value in Mr. Jinnah’s eyes. He regarded the creation of Pakistan as the proof of his own personal ability and acumen. After the creation of Pakistan, the Raja Sahib of Mahmoodabad requested Mr. Jinnah that something should be done to reorganize the Muslim league, and the Muslim Leaguers should be properly recognized and looked after This annoyed Mr., Jinnah and he said angrily: "Which Muslim League? Pakistan has been created by me and this typewriter of mine.’ (Raja Sahib Mahmoodabad as quoted by Qudratullah Shahab in his book, Shahabnama). I have already spoken at length about his dictatorial ways and his contempt for discussion and dialogue. A major Punjabi historian, Ghulam Rasool Mehr, who said that Iqbal’s poetry, has corroborated my views and Mr. Jinnah’s politics did greater damage to the Muslims than Changez Khan and Hulaku Khan.
The Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 5)
Your Honor!
I wish to state categorically here that the partition of the sub-continent on the basis of the two-nation theory was unnatural, inhuman and unrealistic. Partition was effected to serve British imperial interests. The British wanted that tension between India and Pakistan should serve as a permanent guarantee for their imperial interests in the subcontinent. Realizing the danger, the Indian Government gave the country a democratic and secular constitution. Democratic institutions have become so strong with them that there has never been an unrepresentative government in India since independence. On the other side, the principles on the basis of which Pakistan had been created have been thrown overboard and the constitutional institutions of this unnatural country have always been weak over the past 45 years. A look at the past will show that the principles enunciated in Dr. Iqbal’s presidential address to the All India Muslim League meeting in Allahabad in 1930, the Sindh Muslim League Resolution of 1938, the 1940 Lahore Resolution and the Sindh Assembly Resolution of March 3, 1943, have all been abandoned. The independence and sovereignty promised to the states joining Pakistan have been denied. Their individual geographic, national and historic milieu has also been rejected and they have become colonies. Politically, economically and otherwise, they are under Complete Punjabi domination, of those of them specifically who were loyal to the British. The promise by the founders of Pakistan that an Islamic order would be established in the new country was nothing but a fraud. First, such a system is nowhere in existence in the world. Second, the founders of Pakistan themselves knew nothing about Islamic teachings. They had raised the Islamic order slogan because of their lust for Power. Had this not been so, Mr. Jinnah would have had no need to make his speech of August 11, 1947, to the Constituent Assembly, in which he had said:
"…..I cannot emphasize it too much; we should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority community- the Hindu Community and the Muslim Community - will become things of the past, because, even as regards Muslims, you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias Sunnies and so on. Among the Hindus you have Brahmans, Vaishnavities, Khatries, also Bengalies, Madrasies etc., soon will vanish indeed, If you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain its freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long ago, No power can hold another nation and especially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection, no body could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, no body could have its hold on you for any length of time, but for this (Applause), Therefore we must learn a lesson from this.... You are free; you are free to, go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state (here, here)....
We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another.... We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one stale (loud Applause),
Now I think you should keep that introit of You as our ideal, and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state." (From Jinnah to Zia - pp. 29-30).
On the face of it, the speech shows that Mr. Jinnah had a democratic and secular bent of mind. But in my view, it was an attempt to convince the British that Pakistan would not be a fundamentalist State but remain loyal to them. Thus, this speech was meant to hoodwink the British on the one hand and to renege on the promise of establishing an Islamic order, a mere slogan that he knew had, in fact, no basis in reality. India gave itself a democratic and secular constitution but the Pakistan rulers did not even care for the views expressed by their so-called Quaid-e-Azam in the first Constituent Assembly of the country. Everyone in power and out of power has been raising the shout for Islamic order without caring to say or even know what it actually means. What is the Nizam-i-Islam or the Nizam-i-Mustafa? Pakistani rulers at best are blank about it. The best example of this confusion is to be found in the inquiry report on the 1953 disturbances in the Punjab. This report prepared by Mr. Justice Munir and Mr. Justice Kayani was presented to the Government of Pakistan on April 10, 1954. Excerpts from it are presented here:
Keeping in view the several definitions given by the ulema, need we make any comment except that no two learned divines are agreed on this fundamental. If we attempt our own definition as each learned divine has done, and that definition differs from that given by all others, we unanimously go out of the fold of Islam. And if we adopt the definition given by any one of the ulema, we remain Muslims according to the view of that alim but kafirs according to the definition of every one else.
APOSTASY
Apostasy in an Islamic State is punishable with death, On this the ulema are practically unanimous (avoid the evidence of Maulana Abul Hasanat, Sayyad Mohammed Ahmed Qadri, President, Jami’t-ul-Ulama-i-Pakistan, Punjab; Maulana Ahmed Ali, Sadar Jami’at-ul-Ulama-i-islam, West Pakistan; Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, founder and ex-Amir-i-Jama’al-i-islami, Pakistan; Mufti Muhammad ldris, Jami’ Ashrafia, Lahore, and Member, Jami’t-ul-Ulama-i-Pakistan; Maulana Daud Ghaznavi, President, Jami’at-i-Ahl-i-Hadith, Maghribi (western) Pakistan; Maulana Abdul Haleem Qasimi, Jami’at-ul-Ulama-i-islam, Punjab; and Mr. Ibrahim Ali Chishti). According to this doctrine, Chaudhri Zafarullah Khan, if he has not inherited his present religious beliefs but has voluntarily elected to be an Ahmadi, must be put to death. And the same fate should befall Deobandis and Wahabis, including Maulana Muhammad Shafi Deobandi, Member, Board of Talimat-i-islami attached to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, and Maulana Daud Gaznavi, if Maulana Abdul Hassanat Sayyad Muhammad Ahmed Qadri or Mirza Raze Ahmed Khan Barelwy, or any one of the numerous ulema who are shown perched on every leaf of a beautiful tree in the fatwa, Ex. D. E. 14, were the heads of such Islamic State. And if Maulana Muhammad Shafi Deobandi were the head of the State, he would exclude those who have pronounced Deobandis as kafirs from the pale of Islam and inflict on them the death penalty if they come within the definition of murtadd, namely, if they have changed and not inherited their religious laws.
The genuineness of the fatwa, Ex. D. E. 13, by the Deobandis which says that Asna-Ashari Shies are kafirs and murtadds, was questioned in the course of inquiry, but Maulana Muhammad Shafi made an inquiry on the subject from Deoband, and received from the records of that institution the copy of a fatwa signed by all the teachers of the Darul Uloom, including Maulana Muhammad Shafi himself, which is to the effect that those who do not believe in the sahabiyat of Hazrat Siddiq Akbar and who are qazif of Hazrat Aisha Siddiqa and have been guilty of tehrif of Qur’an are kafirs. Mr. Ibrahim Ali Chishti who has studied and knows his subject also supports this opinion. He thinks the Shies are kafirs because they believe that Hazrat Ali shared the prophet hood of our Holy Prophet. He refused to answer the question whether a person who, being a Sunni changes his view and agrees with the Shia view, should be guilty of irtidad so as to deserve the death penalty. According to the Shies the Sunis are Kafirs and Ahl-i-Quran, namely Persons who consider hadith to be unreliable and therefore not binding, are unanimously kafirs, and so are the independent thinkers. The net result of all this is that neither Shies nor Sunnis nor Deobandis nor Ahl-i-Hadith nor Barelvis are Muslims and who change from one view to the other must be accompanied in an Islamic State with the penalty of death if the Government of the State is in the hands of the party which considers the other party to be kafirs. And it does not require much imagination to judge of the consequences of this doctrine when it is remembered that no two ulama have agreed before us as to the definition of a Muslim. If the constituents of each of the definitions given by the ulama are given effect to, and subjected to the rule of "combination and permutation": the form of charge in the Inquisition’s sentence on Galileo is adopted mutatis muandis as a model, the grounds on which a person maybe indicted for apostasy will be too numerous to count.
In an earlier part of this report we have referred to the proscription of "Ash-shahab" , a pamphlet written by Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani who later became Sheikh-ul-islam-i-Pakistan. In that pamphlet the Maulana had attempted to show from the Qur’an, the Sunna, the ijma’ and qayas that in Islam the punishment for apostasy (Irtidad) simplicity is death. After propounding the theological doctrine the Maulana had made in that document a statement of fact that in the time of the Caliph Siddiq-i-Akbar and the subsequent Caliphs vast areas of Arabia became repeatedly red with the blood of apostates. We are not called upon to express any opinion as to the correctness or otherwise of this doctrine but knowing that the suggestion to the Punjab Government to proscribe this pamphlet had come from the Minister for the Interior we have attempted to inquire of ourselves the reasons for Government’s taking a step which ex hypothesis amounted to condemning a doctrine which the Maulana had professed to derive from the Qur’an and the sunna. The death penalty for Irtidad has implications of a far-reaching character and stamps Islam as a religion of fanatics, which punishes all independent thinking. The Qur’an again and again lays emphasis on reason and thought, advises toleration and preaches against compulsion in religious matters but the doctrine of Irtidad as enunciated in this pamphlet strikes at the very root of independent thinking when it propounds the view that anyone who, being born a Muslim or having embraced Islam, attempts to think on the subject of religion with a view, if he comes to that conclusion, to choose for himself any religion he likes, has the capital penalty in store for him, With this implication Islam becomes an embodiment of complete intellectual paralysis. And the statement in the pamphlet that vast areas of Arabia were repeatedly bespattered with human blood, it true, could only lend itself to this inference that even when Islam was at the height of its splendor and held absolute sway in Arabia there were in that country a large number of people who turned away from that religion and preferred to die than to remain in that system. it must have been some such reaction of this pamphlet on the mind of the Minister for the Interior, which prompted him to advise the Punjab Government to proscribe the pamphlet. Further the Minister who was himself well-versed in religious matters must have thought that the conclusion drawn by the author of the pamphlet which was principally based on the precedent mentioned in pares. 26,27 and 28 of the Old Testament and which is only partially referred to in the Qur’an in the 54th verse of the Second Sure, could not be applicable to apostasy from Islam and that therefore the author’s opinion was in fact incorrect, there being no express text In the Qur’an for the death penalty for apostasy. On the contrary each of the two ideas, one underlying the six brief verses of Surat-ul-Kafiroon and the other the La lkrah verse of the second Sure, her. merely to be understood to reject as erroneous the view propounded in the "Ash-Shahab". Each of the verses in Surat-ul-Kafiroon which contains thirty words and no verse of which exceeds six words, brings out a fundamental trait in man entrained in him since his creation while the La lkrah verse, the relevant portion of which contains only nine words, states the rule of responsibility of the mind with a precision that cannot be surpassed. Both of these texts which are an early part of the Revelation are, individually and collectively, the foundation of that principle which human society, after centuries of conflict, hatred and bloodshed, has adopted in defining one of the most important fundamental rights of man. But our doctors would never dissociate chauvinism from Islam.
Your Honor!
The partition of the sub-continent did Not mean an exchange of Population on the basis of religion. But this unnatural partition resulted in one of the largest migrations in history, which led to the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of religion, and forced countless others to leave their ancestral homes and hearths. The two new countries were drenched in blood. The migration created gigantic problems for both countries, which have still not been resolved. It is difficult to say exactly how many died or were forced to migrate but the estimates made by different authors are presented here:
"According to Pakistan the death toll of Muslims ranges between one and a half million and of displaced persons about 12 million. Khosla in his "Stern warning" puts the number of non-Muslims who lost their life between 2,00,000 and 2,50,000. Moon who was an I.C.S office stationed in west Punjab gives the number of killed on each side, 1,20,000, while Ian Stephen in his "Pakistan" and Michael Edward in his "last days of the British Raj" give their estimate of casualties as 5,00,000 and 6,00,000 respectively. "From Jinnah to Zia" Muhammad Munir- P-17)
Sir!
I have reviewed Sindh’s role in the struggle for the freedom of the sub-continent, analyzed the Muslim League’s performance and shed some light on the different personalities and actors in this great tragedy. This would have given you some idea as to how the struggle for independence ended in the horrible partition of the subcontinent on the basis of communalism. As the partition had taken place on the basis of religion, Sindh was also affected by it. Instead of reverting to its independent status of 1843, it became part of Pakistan. My political colleague and an enlightened intellectual of Sindhi Pir Ali Mohammed have painted our dire situation thus:
"The first half of the twentieth century was full of change and turmoil. It saw two world wars. Kingdoms came to an end. Dictators rose and we ‘ re )ad to the gallows, atomic bombs were used and the British left Sindh and India. India got independence and Pakistan got Sindh. There was intellectual turmoil in several countries. Men had their beards shaved off, chaste women tore off their chaddars (shawls), First only the eunuchs used to dance. Now, the descendants of Darya Khan and the great General Hosh Mohammed’s successors have joined them in all distress, in all shame(vol. 1).
This excerpt gives some indication of the intellectual rot and the cultural chaos of the political workers of Sindh at the time. We were at a loss to understand as to how the journey had begun and where it had ended. We belonged neither here nor there. As we looked back, we saw that even the footprints left behind by the caravan had been obliterated. When we looked ahead, we saw that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. The struggle had gone down the drain. So, I began anew. The circumstances were forbidding, there were little or no resources at my command, I had no one to come along with me on the journey. Even so, to leave my nation at the mercy of aliens was against my grain. Therefore, shouldering a historic responsibility as my duty, I undertook the task in spite of the fact that apart from a handful of friends, no one was willing to join hands with me. Because of a general lack of knowledge, the people were still under the influence of the Muslim League’s religious sentimentalism. The Pakistani rulers were drunk with power after their successes. Even so, I undertook an arduous Political task, keeping in mind Shah Latif’s call for struggle:
Bhittai’s Poem
"None, used to the ease and comforts of life need keep me company;
Those whose soul is afire alone would venture to forage the mountains".
This phase of my struggle started with a letter that I and my political colleague and great freedom fighter, Abdul Majid Sindhi, wrote to the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan. We said that we were willing to forgive and forget what had happened in the past and put our political and intellectual energies in the service of the people of the new country, Pakistan. The offer was unconditional so that the country’s development could take place in an atmosphere free of confusion and confrontation. We never received a reply. It looked as though the Pakistani rulers, power-drunk as they were, had reached a stage from where it was difficult for them to come down and consider the situation on the ground with any degree of realism. It was as if they were angels and we were mortals of mud with whom they had no desire to have any dialogue on any issue. Here we were trying to adjust ourselves to the new situation in order to be able to do something for the welfare of the people of Sindh and there were the rulers Who had started from day one to try and deprive the Sindhis of their land and other resources. They were to give evidence of their rapacity soon enough.
Immediately after the creation of the new country, the Government of Sindh invited the Government of Pakistan to establish its capital in Karachi. This offer was accepted gladly by the Pakistani rulers. After the establishment of the capital, Karachi was separated from Sindh and handed over to the central Government. This separation took place under orders of the governor-general, Mr. Jinnah at 11 a.m. on July 23, 1948. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution against this decision and the Sindhi public opinion also turned against it. Ayub Khuhro also opposed the move as did the Sindh Muslim League. A Muslim League delegation comprising Syed Ali Akbar and others called upon Mr. Jinnah in Ziarat and told him that the Sindh Assembly, the Provincial Muslim League, Chief Minister Ayub Khuhro and the people of Sindh were against the separation of Karachi from the province and, therefore, it should be reviewed. Mr. Jinnah was greatly annoyed -and he told the delegation angrily that the Muslim League was nothing but a mob. Pakistan was his creation and the Muslim League had played no part in it. Therefore, the Muslim League’s opposition to his decision carried no weight with him. He would do what he wanted to do. It has to be admitted here that Chief Minister Ayub Khuhro stood up to the Quaid bravely and did his best to stop the flow of refugees into Sindh. However, the Pakistani rulers paid no heed to his opposition. Rather, he was removed from the Chief Ministership after having been implicated in false cases and replaced by Pir Illahi Bux. Poor Khuhro had betrayed us on a number of occasions in order to prove his faithfulness to Mr. Jinnah who rewarded him by removal from office. I also opposed the separation of Karachi from Sindh from the floor of the provincial Assembly at which the Governor had me put under house arrest in my ancestral village under the Maintenance of Public Safety Act in June, 1948. Anyhow, the rulers, on the basis of their strength,’ went ahead with the separation despite massive public opposition and Karachi was declared the central capital. The refugee Prime Minister, Mr. Liaquat Ali, thus did grievous harm to the Sindhis in three ways.
I Financial loss: The Sindh Government had been promised that it would be paid Rs. 1 2,000 million in lieu of the houses, land and other works in Karachi. This was never done despite repeated reminders. But when the demand for compensation became more and more strident, the then refugee Prime Minister became angry and rejected the demand out of hand. This showed what the rulers thought of Sindh not as a voluntary partner with a Proud historical and cultural past but as a conquered territory. We had seen through the League intentions in 1946. What could have been the feelings of Mr. Ayub Khuhro and Sir Ghulam Hussain, who had sworn loyalty to Mr. Jinnah up to 1947 and beyond and maintained their faith in the context of Sindh that the demand for Pakistan was being pushed through merely in order to put pressure on the Hindu vested interests to relent on specific economic and social reforms! In this regard, Mr. S.M. Sharma says in his book, Peeps in Pakistan, that he met the Sindh Prime Minister, Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah after the partition plan had been announced on June 3, 1947, acid the premier was beside himself with rage and lost all self-control It appeared as if he would cry any moment, and he said he had made the offer to Mr. Jinnah to make Karachi the capital of Pakistan purely in a spirit of traditional hospitality, but the latter had jumped at it as if Karachi was there only to be swallowed up as a greasy morsel! "The Sindhis would never forgive me for this", he bemoaned. About Ayub Khuhro, Mr. Sharma writes that he was convinced to the last that the demand for Pakistan was only a pressure ploy to arrive at an honorable settlement with the Congress and that the partition of India would indeed be a big blunder. After independence, these two gentlemen became respectively the Governor and the Chief Minister of Sindh.
Sir Ghulam Hussain was the Governor of Sindh when Karachi was hoped away from Sindh: he looked on in surprise but could not do a thing about it. And on my opposition to the separation, I was put under house arrest. under his orders, a copy of which is given below for keeping the record straight.
GOVERNMENT OF SINDH, Home Department (Special), Order No. S.D. 521, Sindh Secretariat, Karachi, 18th June, 1948.
ORDER
Whereas the Government of Sindh is satisfied that with a view to preventing Mr. G.M. Sayed from acting in a manner prejudicial to the public Safety and the maintenance of public order;
Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by clause © of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Sindh Maintenance of Public Safety Act, 1948 ( XV of 1948 ), and the Government of Sindh is pleased to direct:-
that the said Mr. G.M. Sayed shall proceed to his native village Sann, district Dadu, if he is not already there, immediately, and
that the movements of the said Mr. G.M. Sayed shall be restricted to a radius of three miles from the said village, Sann, for a period of three months from the date of this order.
BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR OF SINDH,
(J. BOOTH)
CHIEF SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT.

WITNESS MY HAND AND SEAL THIS 18TH DAY OF JUNE, 1948.
To,
G.M. Sayed,
I cannot say that my arrest and Khuhro’s dismissed were Ghulam Husain’s personal decisions but they must have had his tacit approval. This was the first act of central interference in provincial affairs after the creation of Pakistan.
2. Cultural loss: After culling Karachi out of Sindh, Liaquat Ali Khan turned it into a colony for refugees from U.P. and C.P. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were brought by land, air and sea and settled in Karachi where the Sindhis were turned into a minority and the city was made a center of the refugees’ culture)
As a result, the refugees from U.P. and C.P. who took over its control with the help of Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan ravaged Karachi, which had been called the Queen of the East by Charles Napier. Earlier, communal riots were engineered on January 3, 1948, the sole purpose of which was to terrorist the Hindus out of Sindh so that the refugees could take over their houses, schools and other property. The operation was successful because 1.3 million Hindus fled to India from Karachi and other parts of Sindh and more than two million Indian Muslims came to the province. The employees of the -Sindh Secretariat, who had been arrested for rioting had Liaquat Ali’s support, who did his best to have them released, but Chief Minister Ayub Khuhro refused to do so and had to pay for it later. In the meantime, the influx of refugees from India continued into Karachi.
3. Educational and linguistic loss: After Karachi had been separated from Sindh, hundreds of Sindhi schools in the city were closed down and Sindhi language was banished from the University. The Anjuman-i-Taraqqi-i-Urdu and the media tried their best to ignore Sindhi and promote Urdu, When the Sindh Muslim League President, Syed Akber Shah, called on Liaquat Ali Khan at the head of a delegation to protest against all this, the Prime Minister spurned them. Thus it was that he tried to cut Karachi off from Sindh culturally, educationally, linguistically and financially to turn it into a buffer zone for the refugees. This was the first gift that leaders of the country, created in the name of Islam, gave to Sindh. We decided to make every sacrifice for our motherland and defeat all conspiracies against it. Although we had been defeated time and again in our effort to save Sindh, we had also achieved some successes. Repeated setbacks never made us abandon our convictions. In fact, every reverse made us more determined than ever before to carry on our struggle with renewed zeal. Every defeat gave new courage and new strength. The separation of Karachi from Sindh was apparently another defeat for us, but we did not lose heart and continued to struggle to regain Karachi for Sindh. In 1953, when I was a member of the Sindh Assembly I had a memorandum to the Governor endorsed by the House under Rule 115 of the rules of procedure. (seeAppendix 6)
The memorandum contained detailed facts and figures about the losses suffered by Sindh which were not only disregarded but a conspiracy was also hatched to abolish Sindh’s provincial status and merge it with the Punjab under the One Unit scheme. This was the time when the Sindh Assembly had initiated several projects for the cultural and economic development of the province within the framework of Pakistan. These included a cultural center at Bhit Shah, the Sindh University, a radio station in Hyderabad, the setting up of a committee of experts to prepare a Sindhi dictionary, the collection of Sindhi folklore, anti-famine measures in Thar, water supply for Kohistan, a plan to move the Federal Court for the return of Karachi to Sindh, etc. We thought that there was no reason why the oppressed, yet simple people of Sindh who had suffered for centuries could not be given the benefits of modern life provided the’ limited resources of the province were properly harnessed. But things were moving in the reverse direction. The Pakistani rulers were determined to punish Sindh. Instead of repaying it for the role it had played in the Pakistan Movement, it was being trampled underfoot. It was as if Sindh had been included in Pakistan for the benefit of the Punjabis and the refugees. For this purpose, the One Unit scheme was introduced in 1954 in order to face the numerical majority of East Pakistan. Under this plan, Sindh, Balochistan, Pakhtunkhawa and the Punjab, which had been distinct cultural and geographic entities for centuries, were to be merged into a so-called West Pakistan, which could then claim parity with East Pakistan. I opposed the scheme the was announced and exhorted members of the Assembly to wake up to the dangers that lay ahead. proceeded to warn the Sindhi nation of the threat existence through a series of meetings and a Conference. As usual, the rulers had me arrested in Among other things, ) was charged with being anti-Pakistan and a foreign agent- It was amazing to find myself being called a foreign agent by those who were internationally known foreign agents themselves and were forcibly merging my country, Sindhu Desh, into the One Unit. By denying the existence of Sindh as a national entity, they were demonstrating their anti-Sindh proclivities. I had merely cried out in protest against their exploitative greed in order to save my poor people. A copy of the order under which I was sent to jail is reproduced in Appendix 7.
Your Honor!
It is an irony of history that thieves and murderers mask their faces with innocent and pious words while deciding the fate of rightful owners and legal successors. This has happened in every age and God knows for how long more this dreadful deceit will continue and for how long further humanity will have to suffer. Abul Kalam Azad says that countless righteous people have been killed in Asia for political reasons under the holy garb of religion. Here the pen of the Mufti had been under the command of the executioner’s sword, All people of integrity killed thus lost their lives as much to the pen of the Mufti as to sword of the rulers. This has been happening in Pakistan from the beginning. ‘Because this country was created in the name of religion, its rulers combined in themselves the authority of the Mufti and that of the executioner. I have been the victim of this double authority time and again.
The Sindh Assembly was made to pass the One Unit resolution at gunpoint. I have already stated why One Unit was created. The idea was to subvert the Bengali majority and establish Punjabi hegemony in West Pakistan. There were other objectives, too, but before throwing some light on them, let me produce a secret document which was disclosed in the West Pakistan Assembly by one of the then Ministers of West Pakistan Government, Sardar Abdur Rashid Khan see Appendix 7, for record)
In my view, the reasons behind the creation of West Pakistan were as under:
Pakistan was demanded on the basis of Muslim nationhood. Ideologically, it was easy to regard it as one but practically it was difficult to turn centuries-old entities, which were now part of it into one. One Unit was an attempt at such a unity.
River Sindhu (the Indus) and its canal systems were the lifeline of Sindh, the NWFP, Balochistan and the Punjab. Therefore, unification of the four provinces was considered advisable for uniform development and for enhancing production.
The eastern part of the country was more populous than its western part and should have been in power on the basis of majority rule. This would have endangered Punjabi-Refugee interests. Moreover, there was a strong national sentiment in East Bengal but the Punjabis and the refugees (Mohajirs) were economically privileged and more dominant. Bengali ‘majority rule would have threatened this dominance. To prevent this, parity was created between the two wings of the country. One Unit was an attempt to protect Punjabi-Mohajirs interests through central planning ‘because the Punjabis and the Mohajirs were in majority in the bureaucracy and the armed forces.
There were four nations and four provinces in the western part of the country with distinct languages, literatures and cultures. Urdu and U.P. culture were imposed upon them to unify them - The Punjabis were in majority in the western part. Under One Unit, the par square mile pressure of population in the Punjab was sought to be reduced by colonizing other provinces and utilizing their land and other resources.
In the western part, every province was using its resources for its own people because it had its own administrative structure, This was against the long-term interests of the Punjabis and the Muhajirs. For them, it was necessary to merge them into one entity so that they could be ruled by the central government with total power and through Urdu.
Apart from the provinces there were princely states in the western part which had their own administrations. Under One Unit they had been put under central rule. Bahawalpur alone had an area of 17,602 square miles. After merger with the Punjab, it could be colonized fully by the Punjab to reduce its population pressure and to exploit that neighboring state’s resources.
For achieving these objectives, the golden snares of Islam and Pakistani unity were used. The manner in which the One Unit scheme was put into effect is summarized below.
The leader of the gang of conspirators, Malik Ghulam Mohammed, the governor-general, who had the backing of the army and the civil service, dismissed the Prime Minister, Khwaja Nazimuddin in spite of the fact that he commanded a majority in the Constituent Assembly. The Pakistan Ambassador in the U.S., Mohammed Ali Bogra, was then summoned home and made Prime Minister and elected President of the Pakistan Muslim League and a majority was secured for him in the Constituent Assembly. Thus were democratic conventions thrown to the wind by the new government.
Pirzada Abdus Sattar was the Chief Minister of Sindh. He commanded a majority in the provincial Assembly. He initiated several development schemes. He had to lose his Chief Ministership because he was opposed to One Unit. Ayub Khuhro who had been disqualified for seven years under PRODA, was rehabilitated and made Chief Minister in spite of the fact that he was not a member of the Sindh Assembly. His Cabinet included Pir Ali Mohammed Shah Rashdi, Haji Maula Bux Soomro and Qazi Mohammed Akbar. Khuhro was utilized to press the feudal members of the Assembly, who were selfish and without conscience, in the presence of the Rangers and the police to vote for the One. Unit scheme. Those who opposed the scheme were sent to jail, including myself. I was kept this time in prison till June, 1955.
The Chief Minister of Bahawalpur, Syed Hassan Mahmud, was dismissed.
The NWFP Chief Minister, Sardar Abdur Rashid, was cajoled into persuading the provincial Assembly to pass a resolution in favor of One Unit, but when he saw that the promises made to him were being violated, he started to oppose the One Unit scheme. He was then removed from office.
Leaders opposed to One Unit, such as Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Khan Abdus Samad Khan, Qazi Faiz Mohammed, Hyder Bux Jatoi and others were sent to jail. Thus was the voice of dissent suppressed.
The Constituent Assembly, by then, had drafted a constitution for the country which only needed the Governor General’s assent. But Ghulam Mohammed, thinking that the Constitution would imperil the One Unit scheme, dissolved the Constituent Assembly. The Speaker of the Assembly, Maulvi Tamizuddin, who filed a writ in the Sindh High Court that declared the governor-general’s action illegal, challenged this illegal order. However, the Punjabi Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Mohammed Munir, accepted the Governor-general’s appeal and set aside the Sindh High Court’s decision.
After this, the governor-general foisted Chaudhry Mohammed Ali on the country as Prime Minister End a new Constituent Assembly elected through undemocratic means, It passed the 1956 Constitution with One Unit as its basic feature. Its main Points Were:
All provinces of West Pakistan were merged into One Unit, in violation of the Indian Independence Act, 1947.
West Pakistan, being a minority province, was given parity with East Pakistan, which had a larger population, in violation of all universally accepted democratic norms.
Such people were put in the West Pakistan Assembly who had been handpicked by deputy commissioners and had to be always willing thus to do the Government’s bidding.
Resolutions by both the provincial assemblies of the Western and Eastern Wings, and a two-third majority in the National Assembly were declared essential for undoing the One Unit. Police and the army were used against the opponents of One Unit. The media was used to brainwash the people.
Why was the establishment of One Unit wrong? My views on the matter are enumerated Here:-
One Unit ended the separate national identity of Sindh, and thus its right of self-determination was violated.
One Unit’s establishment was against the spirit of the Lahore Resolution of 1940, which recognized the principle of the independent status of all component units of Pakistan.
One Unit was against the Sindh Assembly Resolution of March 3, 1943, which had recommended autonomous status for the province.
One Unit, it was feared, would slow down the pace of economic development in Sindh.
Intellectuals in Sindh, Pakhtunkhawa and Balochistan feared that the Punjabi-Mohajirs imperialists would conspire to distort and then destroy their distinct entities.
The damage done to Sindh by the creation of One Unit is summarized below
Valuable and fertile land commanded by the Kotri and Guddu Barrages constructed at huge cost, as indeed elsewhere, was allotted to civil and military officers most of whom were Punjabis and Pathans.
Many senior Sindhi ‘officers’ rights were usurped while junior Punjabi and Mohajirs officials were promoted. The latter were appointed deputy commissioners and superintendents of police. They were used to suppress any voice raised in favor of Sindhi interests.
Projects for the development of the Kohistani (hilly) or desert areas for which Rs. 3,30 million had been set aside by the Government of Sindh prior to the creation of One Unit, were rejected and the funds earmarked for were appropriated elsewhere. Likewise, the Punjab’s debt of Rs. 1,000 million also became West Pakistan’s liability. Even the office furniture of Sindh Secretariat was transported to Lahore. When the staff of the Sindh Secretariat was put on a special train to Lahore, it appeared as if hostages were being taken away from their ancestral homes under duress.
Reducing the grants to the Sindhi Adabi Board and the Shah Latif Cultural Center thwarted cultural activity which were put under bureaucratic control.
The former Sindh Government’s plan to set up a high schools at Tehsil, and a college and a hospital at district-level every year was shelved, and the scheme for universal primary education in the province was also rejected.
The 1945 Punjab-Sindh water accord was rejected and new barrages and dams were constructed upstream for the benefit of the Punjab.
Non-Sindhis were given vast powers in policy making to the detriment of Sindhi interests.
Institutions such as WAPDA, PIDC, etc. were set up under non-Sindhis to plunder the economic resources of Sindh.
Of the Rs. 2,000 million spent by the PIDC on development schemes, Sindh’s share was just Rs. .200 million.
Wholesale trade and exports were organized and factories set up in such a fashion even in Sindh that the y became non-Sindhi monopolies.
Non-Sindhis were employed in hospitals, schools, colleges, and markets, railway stations and other places to the great detriment of Sindhi traditions and economic interests.
Urdu was made the national language and Sindhi was banished from the Karachi Municipal Corporation and the University of Karachi under iniquitous conditions for the Sindhis.
Anything said or done in favor of Sindhi interests was dubbed regionalism, anti-Pakistan, pro-India, anti-Islam, and fissiparous, and was suppressed.
The State machinery was used to suppress and subvert the distinct cultures of Sindh, Balochistan and Pakhtunkhawa, so as to get them overwhelmed under the imperialist Punjabi-Mohajirs culture.
Urdu script was used at the railway stations, for road signs, shop signboards, voters’ lists, etc., to reduce the status of Sindhi and to denigrate it.
Non-Sindhis were given jobs in factories, banks, and markets, shops that not only increased unemployment among the Sindhis but also changed the ethnic balance in the province.
The pirs, mirs and landlords of Sindh together with traders and bureaucrats were brainwashed into abandoning the Sindhi cause.
The non-Sindhis held the majority in the West Pakistan Secretariat. The few Sindhis who were there were harassed to the extent that many of them resigned. Those that remained had to work under extremely trying circumstances.
It became a sin and was held as breach of law to use the name ‘Sindh’. It was even removed from the Hyderabad Sindh as the part of its name Railway Station.
All this was done in grave violation of the agreement the Government had arrived at with Khan Bahadur Khuhro when the One Unit scheme was on the anvil. I present here the accord the Central Government had arrived at with the Khuhro Ministry:
"Sindh will accept the One Unit scheme on the following conditions:

I. The rights given to Sindh should be incorporated in the Constitution and made justice able.
The revenues generated by Sindh should be spent in Smith.
The Provincial government will protect Right of the Sindhi people to all government jobs in Sindh.
Land in Sindh will be given to landless Haris. After this has been done, there would be no objection to land being given to landless Mohajirs and other non-Sindhis.
Should some land remain undistributed after the above has been done, it will be distributed among those who owned pieces of land smaller in size than the minimum prescribed holding.
Sindh will have a quota in all central jobs.
After One Unit came into being the Center shall retain only three subjects defense, foreign affairs and currency.
No injustice will be done in the distribution of the Indus waters.
There will be no reduction in the funds being spent on the development of Sindhi language and culture.
Sindh will have its due share in the armed forces.
No law pertaining to Sindh shall be passed unless it had the approval of a majority of the Sindhi members (of the West Pakistan Assembly). ("Uhai Deenha Uhai Sheenha" pp. 409-11, Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi.)
According to this settlement, One Unit came into being on October 14, 1954, and the Sindh Assembly voted for it on December 11, 1954. Given here are the names of those who voted for and against the One Unit resolution. In a House of 110, those who voted for it, numbered 98 while only four voted against it. Some members were on leave while the others abstained. I was in jail at that time.
Those who opposed the move were: Abdul Hamid Khan Jalalani, Ghulam Mustafa Khan Bhurgari, Pir IThe Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 6)
In Favor
Abdullah Khan Maehashi, Abdul Fattah Memon, Abdul Majid Khan Jatoi, Qazi Abdul Memon, Jam Bashir Ahmed, Dahar, Mir Ahmed Khan Talpur, Ahmed Khan Rajpar, Ahmed Khan Bhutto, Mir Ahmed Khan Pathan, Thakur Aidana Singh, Begum Aisha Aziz, Ali Asghar Shah Shirazi, Mir Ali Ahmed Khan Talpur, Ali Bilal Khan Domki, Sardar Ali Gohar Khan, Ali Gohar Khuhro, Ali Hassan Mangi, Ali Mohammad Rashdi, Ali Nawaz Khan Dharejo, Mir Ali Nawaz Talpur, Pir Aali Shah, Mir Allah Bachayo Khan, Khan Allan khan Leghari, Amir Bux Mehr, Jam Amir Ali Khan, Agha Badruddin Durrani, Mir Bande Ali Talpur, Dharam Das Motu Mal, Dost Mohammad Hakro, Faiz Mohammad Sandal, Faqir Mohammad Unar, Haji Fazal Mohammad Khan Leghari, Haji Ghulam Ali Memon, Haji Khan Mohammad, Syed Ghulam Hyder Shah, Haji Pit Shah, Syed Ghulam Haider Shah s/o Nawab Shah, Ghulam Qadir Narejo, Ghulam Nabi Daharaj, Ghulam Rasool Jatoi, Pir Ghulam Rasul Shah Gilani, Ghulam Rasul Kehar, Syed Gul Mohammad Shah, Haji Gul Mohammad Khero, Gullji Mehngwar, Hamid Hussain Farooqi, Mir Allah Bux Talpur, Mir Jafar Khan Jamali, Jan Mohammad Bhai Khan, Qadir Bux Tunyo, Syed Kararo Shah, Syed Khair Shah, Khan Mohammad Bozdar, Mehbub Shah, Pir Rasool Bux Shah, Mamun Khan Malkani, Syed Mehr Ali Shah, Haji Maula Bux, Syed Mubarak Ali Shah, Qazi Mohammad Akbar, Sardar Mohammad Qamar Ali Shah, Mohammad Ashfaq Siddique, Mir Mohammad Box Talpur, Mohammad Box Khan Sarki, Haji Mohammad Hassan Bux, Syed Mohammad Hassan Shah, Haji Mohammad Hayat .Junejo, Sardar Jafar Khan, Syed Mehdi Shah Jhandeywaro, Mohammad Yusuf Chandio, Makhdum Mohammad Zaman Talibul Maula, Syed Qamar Zaman Shah, Baqadar Shah, Hall Najmuddin Leghari, Nasir Ahmed Khan, Sardar Nor Mohammad Khan Bajarani, Nor Mohammad Rahmunr, Syed Nur Mohammad Shah, Rahim Bux Soomro, Rasool Bakhsh Junejo, Roop chand Chelaram Luhano, Haji Sadiq Ali Memon, Dr. Saeeduddin Saleh, Saifullah Khan Magsi, Pir Saleh Shah, Sobhomal Lahano, Sawai Singh Sodho, Shahnawaz Pirzado, Nazar Hussain Shah, Shahid Khan Khoso, Malik Squander Khan Halani, Mirumal Kirpal Das, Sultan Ahmed Khan Chandio, Sardar Mir Sunder Khan Sundrani, Begurn Tahira Agha, Mr. Tenumal Togahi, Nor Mohammad Nohri, Usman Khan Malkani and Nawab Zahid Ali.
I have already shown how the One Unit settlement was violated. Here on Point I on the issue of land distribution and inheritance, instead of saying anything on my own, I present an excerpt here from the Punjabi intellectual Prof. Azizuddin's book, Kaya Hum Ikatthey Reh Saktey Hein? Barrage Zaminen Aur Ghair Abadkari. The text is in Urdu and the excerpt is front Pages 347 to 350.
Azizuddin gives the following account of the barrage lands and their plunder by non-Sindhi settlers in his book.
"After the Sukkur, two more barrages were constructed, Kotri (Ghulam Mohammad) and Guddu- Both these barrages came up after the creation of Pakistan and the invasion of land-hungry non-Sindhis. This time, the number of civil and military officials was larger than ever before. These official s were either Punjabis, Mohajirs or Pakhtuns. There was hardly any General who did not obtain barrage land. These officials included Gen. Ayub Khan, Gen. Musa Khan, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, and Gen. Tikkah Khan et al. political and non-political settlers were all among the land-grabbers. The facts and figures that we have are incomplete and several years old. Some future writer may perhaps paint the true picture with close access to the relevant record.
The Sukkur Barrage irrigated 2,868,562 acres. This made it the largest barrage in Sindh. The allotment of the land commanded by this barrage had started before the creation of Pakistan. When, One Unit came into being towards the end of 1954, only 642,460 acres remained, We do not know who were the people who got the 2.2 million acres of land before One Unit came into being. Most of the land allotted after One Unit went to the non-Sindhis. During 1955 58, non-Sindhis got 1 53,620 acres while the Sindhis got 123,586 acres. The civil and military officials headed the list of the allottees. The teal plunder came after the imposition of Martial Law. From October 1958 to March 1963 75 out of every 100 allottees were non-Sindhis (54,789 acres for the Sindhis and 21 3,679 acres for non-Sindhis). This was only natural because the military government was not as accountable as the civilian one. During the years of dictatorship, the bureaucracy had a free hand and they plundered land with both hands. 1963 had allotted most of the Sukkur Barrage land. Of the total land, non-Sindhis got 367,000 acres while the Sindhis got 1 78,000 acres (which is to say less than half).
"Six years before the creation of Pakistan, the Huts of Sindh rose in revolt against the British under the leadership of Pir Pagara's father, Pir Sibghatullah. They caused extensive damage to government property, especially the railway line. This earned them the wrath of the British. Sibghatullah was hanged for treason and the land around the Makhi Lake, which the Hurs cultivated, was confiscated.
"After independence in 1947, not only this land should have been restored to the Hur Mujahideen but they should also have been even otherwise rewarded, Nothing of the sort happened and the Hot lands were reserved for allotment to ex-servicemen. They were the same military men who had fought to serve the British imperial interests during World War 11. Consequently, 150,000 acres of land was allotted to these ex-servicemen virtually for a song. The terms under which these allotments were made show as if they had been made in recognition of the great services they had rendered during the war. These terms were:
Land ownership was given at Rs. 50 per acre. One fourth of the amount was received in abiana while the rest was taken in 15 equal installments.
Every military man was given the concession to have one crop free (of all revenue dues).
The Ministry of Defense undertook to pick up the land development bill,
The expenditure to be incurred on digging near canals in the area and building roads together with labor charges was debited to the provincial government.
Constructing irrigation channels was made the responsibility of the new owners.
The construction of public buildings in the larger villages was made the responsibility of the provincial government
"Thus, under these terms the land belonging to those who had fought the British were given to non-Sindhi ex-servicemen. Not only that, the Cost to be incurred on their settlement was debited to the Central and provincial governments.
"In the meanwhile, the Hurs demanded that their lands Should be returned to them. At last in 1957, the government decided to settle the Hurs. However, they were given C class land while their original holdings were A- class On January 28, 1957, Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgri asked in the West Pakistan Assembly whether the government was willing to develop the C class land. Finance Minister Nawab Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot replied that land development was not the task of the government, He was asked whether the land allotted to the servicemen had been developed with foreign aid or not. He was told that this indeed was the case. Foreign aid and equipment had been given to the servicemen but the issue had nothing to do with the administration.
"So was this fertile tract of land developed by the provincial government with the help of the taxes paid by the Sindhi together with a foreign loan which had to be re-paid with interest. The land was allotted to military officials and others while the Hurs were pushed into uninhabited land.
The Punjabis have always dominated the armed forces. The Makhi Lake and the barrage lands were given to these very Punjabi servicemen. Land was snatched from the deserving locals while influential people who were members of the power drunk bureaucracy in the Punjab settled on this land. The manner which these people treated ordinary folk in the Punjab itself can will give one an idea how they must have treated the people of Sindh. They not only secured land through unfair means but had it developed at government expenses.
The Kotri Barrage is the second largest in Sindh. After completion in 1956 the barrage and its canals commanded 1,653,281 acres in Hyderabad and Thatta. In June 1958 the Land Utilization Committee was formed to gobble Lip the barrage, land Represented on it were the Federal Government and the armed forces. Locals were kept out of it. The formal sale of land began the same year but the generals had been allotted tracts two years earlier. Questions were asked in the West Pakistan Assembly about the allotment of land to the Haris fill about a year after the formation of One Unit because the previous government had set aside 300,000' acres for the Purpose. However no policy could be formulated to allot land to the Haris for a long time. The issue was raised in the Assembly time and again. For instance, on January 29, 1957, the questions raised in the Assembly were like this:
"Begum Tahira Ejaz Hussain Agha (MPA) : Will the Minister for Irrigation kindly answer:
(a) When will the Ghulam Mohammad Barrage irrigation scheme become fully operational?
How much land the barrage will irrigate?
How will the Government distribute land to the cultivators? What will be its methodology?
Have any tracts of land already been allotted? If so, to whom and on what terms? Let does the Government plan to give land to the landless?
"In answer to these questions, the concerned Minister, Qazi Fazlullah, gave details about the 100,000 acres reserved for the Army. He said more than 25,000 acres had already been allotted. Some of the allottees he named were (figures in acres):
1. Gen. Mohammad Ayub Khan 247
2. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Musa 250
3. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Umrao Khan 246
4. Brig, Said Ahawas 242
5. Col. Muzaffar Khan 153
6. Col. Hyder 130
"The Minister also revealed that the land had been sold at Rs, 250 per acre to the army men and that although the previous provincial government had set aside 300,000 acres for the Haris, the West Pakistan Government had yet to evolve a policy in this regard. He added, however, it would be framed soon and presented to the Cabinet. The other questions in regard to the land allotted to the armed forces personnel would not be out of interest here. They were:
G.M. Syed: I would like to ask the Honorable Minister whether it has been brought to his notice that these army officers have started to harass the locals so that they are forced to leave these areas. Qazi Fazlullah: I have no knowledge of this. If any of my friends has substantive proof in this regard, I'll certainly have the matter investigated.
G.M. Syed: Is it not a fact that a delegation of these (harassed) people has already called on the Honorable Minister?
Qazi Fazlullah: It my friend is referring to the delegation led by Ghulam Haider Bhurgri. my answer would be in the affirmative. It has made a representation to me but I have not been able to investigate the matter.
G.M. Syed: Can I ask the Minister whether even an acre of land has been allotted to anyone except the servicemen?
Qazi Fazlullah: No, Sir.
G.M. Syed: What is the reason for allotting land only to the servicemen and riot to the locals? Qazi Fazlullah: Khuhro Sahib who is sitting on the other side of the House can answer this well.
Mohammad Ayub Khuhro: Is this not a fact that the Sindh Government had reserved land for the servicemen but it has been allotted after the creation of West Pakistan?
Qazi Fazlullah: No, Sir. This is not so.
G.M. Syed: Can I ask the Minister why land has not been allotted to the locals so far?
Qazi Fazlullah: I have already answered this question. A scheme is under consideration in this regard.
G.M. Syed: How long will it take to materialize?
Speaker: He (the minister) has already told us that the matter will come up before the Cabinet soon.
Mohammad Ayub Khuhro: Is it not a fact that 300,000 acres of land were reserved for the Haris. Why has it not been distributed so far?
Qazi Fazlullah: Sir, I have already stated that the Cabinet will take a final decision in this regard at its next meeting.
Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan: Will you tell us when was the decision to give land to the Haris taken?
Qazi Fazlullah: the former Sindh Government also took this decision before Mr. Khuhro brought it down.
Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan: May I ask the Honorable Minister what are the insurmountable difficulties which have prevented the Government from taking a decision in this regard even after 15 months?'
The excerpts given above throw light on the following facts:
Land irrigated by the Kotri Barrage was first of all given to serving army officers virtually free of cost.
These army officers started to harass the locals as soon as they got possession of the land. Their attitude towards the locals was so harsh that their delegation represented to the government against it.
Land was also earmarked for the Haris but no formula could be worked out to allot it to them even after the passage of a long period of time.
It was inevitable that there should be a clash of interests between the civil and military allottees of land and the locals. The civil officers wielded a lot of power, and after Ayub Khan came into power in 1958, the military officers also rose in importance These officers were given all types of concessions to develop their holdings They Misused these concessions and this led to a confrontation between them and the locals.
"Further, in the Kotri Barrage, outsiders got more land than the locals Ostensibly, the West Pakistan Government had decided to make the allotments on a 50 / 50 basis but till 1963, land had been distributed in the following manner (figures in acres):
Land distributed: 1, 124,2 50
Locals: 345,388
Locals (mechanized farms) 128,000
In other words the locals got less than 475,000 acres out of 1,1 24,250 acres.
Kotri land was allotted to people belonging to all provinces. Apart from the Mohajirs, the Punjabis, the Bengalis, the Pathans and the Balochis all got their share. A small number of Bengalis were settled in Sindh to give the people impression that the entire Country had shared the land.
"Around 150,000 acres of land in Kotri Barrage was reserved for a number of categories of people, These categories were:
Affectees of water logging and salinity.
People of mountainous areas.
People living in barani (rain fed) areas.
People with small holdings.
People belonging to the lower classes.
The Pushtuns were the second most numerous allottees of land thus distributed after the Punjabis.
Land reserved (acres)
Punjabis 107,000 Pushtuns 34,000
"The worst land went to the Balochis because their share of political power was the lowest. Many of them refused to accept this land. "Apart from the above categories, wrestlers, sportsmen and singers were also given land.
"Land was also distributed in the Kotri Barrage under the Tractor Scheme. Vast tracts of it went to civil and military officers. The justification was that these people had the financial resources to develop land. Around 275,000 acres were allotted under this scheme. Government officials benefited from this scheme with gay abandon. They included top army, navy and police officers, Session Judges, engineers and railway officials, They got land not only in their own names but also in the names of their kith and kin. We give here names only of those officers together with their ranks who received more than 350 acres (12 squares) till 1963. Looking wistfully at this list of loot by the civil and military bureaucracy, one member of the (West Pakistani Assembly said: 'Why is the (Revenue) Minister embroiling himself in this land dispute. We have so much land in Sindh that if You don't allot it to civil and military officials, we can give it to every cultivator in West Pakistan.'
Name and rank Land (acres)
Major Ayub Ahmed Khan (KEMC) 500
Col. Ziaullah (Professor KEMC) 500
Col. Nor Elahi (QHQ) 497
Col. Akhtar Hafiz (Sialkot Cantt.) 489
Capt. Feroze Khan, Maj Amir 243
Gulistan (father, son) 253
Lt. Col. Bashir, etc. 500
Maj. Khizir Ahmed 479
Group Capt. A.M. Murad 496
Commander M. Afzal Khan 303
Col. Yaqub 487
Maj. Ghulam Faruq (in wife's name) 304
- 98
- 56
Maj. Muhammad Latif, etc. 500
lbadullah Rehman Khan (Dy. Suptd. Distt. Jail, Multan) 487
Dr. G.A. Asghar (Mental Hospital, Hyderabad, in son's name) 544
Subh Sadiq (a civil servant's son) 401
"The land allotted under the tractor scheme previously belonged to tenants. It is said that allotments under this scheme displaced around 400,000 Haris.
"There is no moral justification for allotting land to outsiders in a province in which hundreds of thousands of landless Haris get kicked from one place to another with no-one to help them. To allot land to members of the civil and military bureaucracy is to be condemned even more. As a member of the West Pakistan Assembly once asked: 'As being a general and being a farmer are two whole time jobs, how will the farmer perform these two jobs at once? The generals and other officers get salaries when they are serving and they are put on the pension list after retirement, where is the justification in rewarding them with tracts of land?'
"In fact, the pillage of the country by the civil and military bureaucrats which began right after its creation included land grab in Sindh, The manner in which this land was secured and the way in which the settlers treated the locals, sowed the seeds of hatred. The crop of this hatred is now ripe. The civil and military officers blinded by their unprecedented lust for land are responsible for the feelings of agony and anger, which exist against the Punjab in Sindh today.
"After granting the best land in Kotri Barrage to the servicemen, some land was given to the Haris in 1959 after much bad blood had been created. The land given was lower in acreage than that previously decided. More or less given towards the end, the land that the Haris got was of inferior quality, was uneven and had small hillocks and depressions, Situated at the tail-end of the canal it received inadequate water and last of all. The echo of the problems of the Haris who were allotted this land was heard till 1986. That year, steps were taken to cancel the allotments of 1 50,000 Haris. Non Sindhi settlers transferred the burden of the credit they had received under the bulldozer scheme to the Haris. Nonpayment meant cancellation of their land allotments. However, this plan could not be implemented because of the efforts made by the Sindhi Hari Tehrik.
"In the Kotri Barrage, 24,000 acres were set apart for sale through auction. The poor local ban or farmer was in no Position to buy this land. In many districts of the Punjab, an acre had more units than in Sindh. Therefore, several people in the Punjab sold their holdings and bought much larger ones in land auction in Sindh. People from village after village in the Punjab settled in Sindh. So most land went to the civil and military officers of the Punjab through allotment. Land sold by auction also went mostly to the Punjabis. Those who bought land also imported tenants from the Punjab. As a result, Punjabi and to an extent Pushtun population in Sindh began to grow by leaps and bounds.
Your Honor!
Under these circumstances, we tried somehow to get Sindh out of this One Unit stranglehold and save its resources from plunder and use them for the good of the people of the province, so that they could benefit .from modern science and technology. For this purpose, we decided to launch the movement against One Unit in the Assembly rather than take it to the streets. At the time, the republican Party was in power in West Pakistan and the Muslim League was in opposition, while we held the balance of power. My colleagues and I decided to use our position to dismantle One Unit and to serve Sindhi interests. We made overtures to the Muslim League and proposed that if it helped us pass a resolution against One Unit, we would help it topple the Republican Government. The League group agreed and consequently an accord was reached. Party leader Sardar Bahadur Khan, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Khan Abdul Qayum Khan and Ayub Khuhro represented the League, while myself, Rais Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgri, represented us. We all signed the agreement. Accordingly, a resolution demanding the dissolution of One Unit was moved in the House However, the Republicans, instead of agreeing to a vote on it, conspired with the Speaker to have it talked out We and the Muslim League retaliated by deciding to block the passage of the supplementary grants. Fearing defeat, the Republican Ministry resigned and the province was for some time put under the Governor's rule. Having been out of power for a while, the Republicans were getting more and more restive to get back into the saddle. When they approached us, we offered them the same terms we had given to the League but with the proviso that whatever agreement was hammered out, it would be presented to the National Awami Party for their approval, If the NAP approved the accord, we would help the Republicans. Sardar Abdur Rashid, Col. Abid Hussain Shah and Sir Feroze Khan Noon, the leader of the party in the National Assembly, signed the accord on behalf of the Republican Party. (Appendix 8).
The accord was arrived at with the knowledge and approval of lskander Mirza. It brought back the Republicans into power in West Pakistan and a resolution demanding the dissolution of One Unit was passed on September 17, 1957. Rais Ghulam Mustafa Bhurgri moved it. Mr. Suhrawardy was then the Prime Minister. It may be recalled that Mr. Suhrawardy and his party colleagues had opposed the creation of One Unit in the National Assembly. But now the Punjabi civil and military bureaucracy put such pressure on the two that lskander Mirza and Mr. Suhrawardy issued a joint statement that they would not allow One Unit to be undone. It is also necessary to recall here that the then Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army, Gen. Ayub Khan, had played a key role in the creation of One Unit. In fact, he claimed the authorship of the scheme. He wrote in his autobiography, Friends, not Masters (p. 1931 that he was in London when relations between Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Boqra and governor-general Ghulam Mohammad became tense and he had felt that the latter was about to take some important steps and put him into politics about which he was not very keen. Ayub Khan goes on to say that one night he could not go to sleep While he was thinking about Pakistan and its problems, an idea struck him and he wrote it down on a piece of paper. The idea was that the provinces of West Pakistan should be merged, This was his program and he had to implement it.
Ayub Khan realized that the West Pakistan Assembly had passed the anti One Unit resolution by a comfortable margin and that when the resolution was put before the National Assembly, it would be endorsed with the help of Bengali MNAS. This would have jeopardized Punjabi and military interests. Therefore, he decided to block the constitutional process. He consulted with lskander Mirza and imposed Martial Law and dissolved the assemblies. I was arrested on October 10, the same year.
Your honor!
Political activity was also then banned by the Martial Law regime. Political parties too were sent home. Politicians were disqualified under black laws like EBDO. The Punjabis and the Pathans were allowed to plunder Sindhi lands, jobs, factories and other resources as they pleased. No protest was allowed against all this because the freedom of speech, expression and association had been-suppressed. As in the rest of the country, there was complete lull in Sindh, which continued to be exploited. Sindhi lost its compulsory status in educational institutions. The vernacular final examination in Sindhi was discontinued. This Martial Law was withdrawn after four years and a limited political activity was allowed to resume. Then the assemblies were restored under Ayub's basic democracies system. However, he himself remained all-powerful.
Quite a major portion of Sindhi legislators, true to their salt, excelled themselves in sycophancy to protect their own interests. They were traditional time-servers. One of them went to the extent of saying that Ayub Khan's status was higher than that of Salahuddin Ayubi and Abraham Lincoln. He said that had Shah Latif been alive, he would have supported One Unit and garlanded Ayub Khan for it. These were the words of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then the Foreign Minister, and they were meant for the worst dictator-patron of his time at the Urs of Bhit Shah.
These words were used for a man who had not only imposed military rule on the country in order to preserve One Unit but had also done everything in his power to colonize Sindh During the One Unit days, there was no-one to raise his voice for Sindh. Members front the province were busy licking Ayub's toes and polishing shoes of the bureaucrats. Sindh continued to burn and the people continued to suffer. Land grabbing by non-Sindhis continued, cities were occupied while the pirs, the mirs and the waderas continued to bow before the powerful The following Sindhi lines describe the to an apt nicety of the times:
Poem of Abdul Hakeem Arshad
[Free expression was under lock and key, free thought lay interned, there was a ban of speech. If by chance one came across a sympathizer, he would, like a dumb man, use the sign language].
Even in such days of dark depression and dispossession, I and my colleagues did not lose hope and did whatever we could to achieve independence for Sindh, The weapon we used was the pen. We conveyed our observations and opinions to the people in the shape of books. However, the Government did not tolerate even this. Books were banned, printing presses were put under surveillance, the Press was gagged by censorship, an effective weapon in the hands of the Government, beside. the one-sided propaganda that all the time remained on top gear for its political opponents. As Saadi says,
[How ill begotten are the people of this village They have chained the stones and set the dogs free]. Pp159
In such an atmosphere, I and my friends decided that, leaving the thorny field of politics alone, we should create awareness among the people through literature, culture and language promotion. We did so because on numerous occasions, nations had been defeated politically and economically but their intellectuals, working from the fastness of civilization, literature and culture, not only converted political and economic defeat into victory but also overcame their victors. For this struggle, we chose three fronts on the cultural front, there was the Bazm-i-Sufia-i-Sindh; on the literary front, there was the Sindhi Adabi Sangat; and on the social front, we attempted to arouse political and social awareness among the students.
During all this while (October 10, 1958 to March I 1, 1966), 1 was in prison or detention (for seven-and-a-half years). After my release in March, 1966, 1 founded the Bazmi-Sufia-i Sindh on April 1 8 and went on a four of the province during which I kept away from all political turmoil I started a series of addresses on the basic social problems of man, social growth, the rise and fall of societies, independence and slavery of nations, and similar other philosophical issues of a fundamental nature, at the mausoleums of venerable Sufis on the occasion of their annual Urs. The first such conference was held on June 23, 1966, during the annual URS of Syed Aali Sheerazi. Part of the speech I made on the occasion is being presented here to prove that our struggle was entirely peaceful:
"History has numerous examples which correspond to our travail and for the resolution of which there are three ways:
Bang your heads against the walls and commit suicides
Sit back in the vain hope that the Situation will take a turn for the better, and die a slow death or resign to a life of servitude,.
Bring Your creative abilities to promote national reform and reconstruction through viable means
"In the history of the Muslims there were several instances of a similar nature. During the civil war in the Omayyid and other periods, when national confusion, moral decay and self-interest were in the ascendance, a few Muslim thinkers realized that they should devote their lives for moral reconstruction by keeping aloof from political strife. In Sindh, during the last days of the Sammas and in the early years of the Mughal empire, our men of political acumen also thought likewise. We in the present times were in the same situation. We had neither national awareness nor unity. We were a minority in the country. We could not secure our rights through constitutional means nor could unconstitutional methods avail us to achieve our goals. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that, under such circumstances, a group of dedicated workers should operate on the lines of the Servants of India Society by keeping themselves out of the political strife and devoting themselves to achieving national unity, patriotism and self-awareness. For the achievement of these objectives, I made some proposals for the consideration of those present at the conference-These were:
Our cultural centers and also Khuddam-i-Sindh (Servants of Sindh) should provide us with a single Platform from which people belonging to different religious, political or social classes should, while maintaining their identities, consult with each other through open debate to work out a plan of action for promoting the cultural and national interests of Sindh.
Efforts should be made to launch a Public campaign for the elimination of such failings as timidity, psychological and moral decline, selfishness, personal prejudice and betrayals.
To promote unity, peace and progress, the lives and works of the Sufis and other national heroes should be used as beacon lights. This would lead to love, religious and social tolerance, nationalism, and enkindle a spirit of sacrifice among the people.
Every district should have an active cultural center for the achievement of these objectives.
Groups should be created among the people, students, teachers and other educated classes to carry Out specific jobs".
We started work on the basis of these principles and began to disseminate our message to the people during Urs celebrations at various mausoleums by holding literary conferences, poetical and musical soiree and cultural shows. This continued for a year during which we held ten literary conferences and cultural shows in Thatta, Hyderabad, Sanghar, Khairpur Mirs, Tharparkar and Dadu districts. These attempts were not well received to begin with, but gradually, men of letters, poets, intellectuals, teachers, students and the people in general began to flock to these gatherings and the nation was well on its way towards achieving its goal. Although we were totally peaceful, the government could not tolerate even this effort. I was put under house arrest for a year in my village on June 23, 1966. But by then I had escaped from the cage of despondency. We had refit the lamps of the conscience of Sindh on a cultural basis. These lamps were now shining from Karachi to Khokharapar to Kashmoor. The new generation of Sindhis comprising enthusiastic and concerned poets, men of letters, intellectuals, teachers and students had closed ranks for a new struggle. A Sindhi poet, Niaz Humayun, has described this period thus!: Sindhi Poem:
'There was a time when even to take the name of Sindh was a major crime.
Those who went to prison for Committing this crime; it is all today the result of their wailing cry
'Sindh is awake, Sindh is awake!
No one shed a tear for her until yesterday, no one had any sympathy for its privation and pain.
'Today, everyone is willing to shed his blood for her and embrace the gallows for her love.
'Sindh is awake, Sindh is awake!
Let anyone continue with his fraud or force and keep Sindh either unconscious or in frenzy.
'But now they are all doomed to failure, and no-one can kill Sindh or appropriate it
'Sindh is awake, Sindh is awake!'
I was fully associated with the activities of the Adabi Mahaz and the Sindhi Adabi Sangat. The struggle against One Unit from these two platforms by Sindhi writers, poets and artists has few parallels in recent history. During this period, the foundations of Sindh historiography were laid on national lines; stories and novels were written on national heroes; the mental and physical constraints clamped on writers under the political situation then prevailing were overcome, giving birth to exquisitely sensitive expression in our prose and poetry. In this literary struggle were associated some of our inestimable colleagues whom Sindh can never forget or ignore. Among these were Comrade Hyder Bux Jatoi, Comrade Ghulam Mohammad Leghari, Qazi Khair Mohammad, Shaikh Ayes, Abdul Karim Gidai, Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo, Mohammad Usman Diplai, Rasul Bux Paleejo, Niaz Humayuni Munshi Ibrahim and several others. Our cultural and literary fronts created great fervor not only among the common people of Sindh but also in that most sensitive community the students. This fervor found its first expression on March 4, 1966 in Hyderabad. It was to prove to be a milestone in the students' struggle for the dissolution of One Unit. It was this incident which forced the Government again to detain me. The reasons given for my detention order, among others, were the activities of the Bazm-i-Sufia-i-Sindh and my association with the students and my cooperation with the Sindhi Adabi Sangat.
The March 4, 1966, incident is chronicled in my book on the politics of the sub-continent, Jadid Siasat ja Nava Ratan.
Here I would like to reproduce the letter of ml/ detention, to exculpate itself, if it may.
Government of West Pakistan ORDER No. B-4-H-Spl-1/59:
WHEREAS credible and reliable information has been placed before the Governor of West Pakistan that Mr. Ghulam Murtaza Shah son of Muhammad Shah Sayed (known as G.M. Syed) resident of village Sann Taluka Kotri District Dadu has indulged in prejudicial activities by writings, speeches and by other means, inciting one group of persons against the other leading to the disturbances particularly the students riots in the Districts of Dadu and Hyderabad and thereby disturbed the public order and invaded the public safety and interest.
WHEREAS credible and reliable information has been placed before the Governor of West Pakistan that the said Mr. G.M. Syed is likely to indulge in the same aforesaid prejudicial activities, disturbing the public safety, maintenance of public order and public interest.
WHEREAS the Governor of West Pakistan is satisfied from the said reports and all other attending circumstances that the said Mr. G.M. Syed did indulge in the above mentioned prejudicial activities and is likely to Continue to indulge in the said prejudicial activities.
AND WHEREAS, with a view to preventing the said Mr. G.M. Syed from acting in the aforesaid manner, it is necessary and desirable to control his activities.
NOW, THEREFORE, the Governor of West Pakistan, in exercise of his powers under Section 5(1) of the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960, does hereby issue the following directions to the said Mr. Ghulam Murtaza Shah (G.M. Sayed) son of Muhammad Shah Sayed:-
(1) That he will reside within the limits of his village Sann, Taluka Kotri, District Dadu.
(b) That he will abstain and refrain directly or indirectly from associating himself with the activities of Bazam-e- Sofian-e-Sindh and Sindhi Adabi Sangat and also shall refrain and abstain from delivering speeches at any gathering, writing and publishing any article which are calculated to prejudice the public safety or disturb the public order or threaten the public interest.
This order shall remain in force for a period of three months from the date of service on the said Mr. G.M. Sayed.
BY ORDER OF THE GOVERNOR OF WEST PAKISTAN
Sd/-
Dated Lahore (MASOOD NABI NUR) S,K. CSP
SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT, WEST PAKISTAN
HOME DEPARTMENT
STAMP
HOME SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT
WEST PAKISTAN LAHORE
GROUNDS FOR ORDER PASSED UNDER SECTION 5(l) OF THE WEST PAKISTAN MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC ORDER ORDINANCE, 1960 PASSED BY THE GOVERNOR OF WEST PAKISTAN ON 14TH OCTOBER, 1967 AGAINST MR. GHULAM MURTAZA SHAH S/0, MUHAMMAD SHAH SAYED (KNOWN AS G.M. SAYED) A RESIDENT OF VILLAGE SANN, TALUKA KOTRI, DISTRICT DADU.
That under the cover of Bazam-e-Sofian-e- Sindh You are disseminating ideas and doctrines, which have disturbed the maintenance of public order, prejudiced the public safety and injured the public interest.
That you have written a book known as "Jadid Siyasat Ja Nau Ratan" published in June, 1967 in which you have expressed the ideas, details of which are given below, which are prejudicial to Public safety, maintenance of public order and public interest:-
You praised the Congress Leaders who fought ruthlessly against the creation of Pakistan; such as Mr. M.K. Gandhi, Mr. Jawahar Lal Nehru, Mr. Valab Bhai Patel and Mr. Abut Kalam Azad, whereas you have criticized the great Muslim Leaders like Allama lqbal and Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan.
The comparative studies of the lives of the two Leaders namely late Quaid e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (who has been listed by you as last number in that book) and Mr. M.K. Gandhi is likely to result in tension among the persons residing in West Pakistan.
You have compared Mr. M.K. Gandhi with Prophets of main Religions of the world which is likely to create tension in the West Pakistan" which is inhabited mostly by the Muslims (Page 26 of the Book).
You have praised the efforts of Mr. M.K. Gandhi for trying to save Hindustan from partition (Page 26 of the book)
You have decried Ali-Garh University as center of English worship and communal education (Page 32 of the book).
You have decried the partition of Hindustan on the basis of two Nations Theory (Page 38 of the book).
You have described the partition of the Country "as a loss" (page 40 of the book).
You have described Mr. Jawahar Lal Nehru's acceptance of partition of Hindustan on the basis of two Nations' theory as a mistake (Page 63 of the book).
You have tried to justify the policies of Mr. Jawahar Lal Nehru on Kashmir issue, which is the most sensitive issue in Pakistan particularly in West Pakistan (page 64 and 65 of the book).
While writing about Maulana Abul Kalam Azad you have indirectly criticized the construction of Mausoleum over the resting place late Quaid-e-Azam by spending crores of rupees on it and further have compared it to the grave of Maulana Abut Kalam Azad in the City of Delhi (Page 72 of the book).
You have severely criticized those Muslims who fought for the creation of Pakistan (Page 83 of the book).
You have made a serious attempt to create hatred against a particular set of persons living in West Pakistan (Pages 98 and 99 of the book).
You have indirectly expressed hope that Pakistan would again unite with Hindustan (Page 102 of the book).
That before your movements were restricted by the District Magistrate, Dadu, by his order dated 23rd of June, 1967, you had been busy visiting various places, meeting students and persons of other walks of life, with a view to prejudicing public safety, disturbing public order and injuring public interest.
That you have established an institution, which is known as Bazam Sofia-e-Sindh. This organization is really a camouflage for your prejudicial activities. Your main purpose in establishing this organization is to exploit the students community and to create turmoil and unrest in the country.
That as a result of your writings and other activities you created feelings of disaffection between the Sindhi and non-Sindhi students which resulted in violent clashes between the two groups, the last of which took place on 19th June 1967, late in the evening in the New Campus, Jamshoro, in Dadu District.
That during the peak hours of student's disturbances you met the ringleaders of the students namely Muhammad Yousuf Leghari and Jam Saqi in the month of May, 1967. These leaders have been spearheads of the students agitation resulting in violence. There have been attacks and counter attacks between the two groups of students in the New Campus of Sindh University situated at Jamshoro, District Dadu.
That on 4th March, 1967, the students took out procession in defiance of the order under Section 144, Cr, P.C,. in Hyderabad, This procession had started from the Sindh University (New Campus) situated in Dadu District and after crossing Indus river entered in Hyderabad District- The situation so created by the students as a result of your aforesaid activities was alarming and compelled the Police to resort to lathi charge after the use of teargas failed to disperse the rioting students. About 210 students were arrested under the various provisions of law. On the same day another students- procession was taken out in the City of Hyderabad. Public Transport buses were stoned, causing damages to the public properties.
That the situation continued to worsen and the problem of maintaining law and order became acute in the Districts of Hyderabad and Dadu. Consequently the University of Sindh, Colleges and Hostels at Jamshoro in the District of Dadu were closed down for an indefinite period.
That you have been creating sectarian feelings by setting one group of people against the other citing imaginary injustices to them,
That the aforesaid activities of yours have prejudiced and are likely to further Prejudice the maintenance of law and order in the Province and excite feelings of hatred and enmity amongst the various sections of the population.
You are at liberty to make representation against the above order under section 5(5) of the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public order Ordinance, 1960.
Sd/- (MASOOD NABI NUR) S,K. CSP. SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT WEST PAKISTAN, HOME DEPARTMENT, Sd/- G.M. Sayed. 20.10.67 8.30 P.M.
NO: J / 597 of 1967
Camp Kotri dated: 23-6-1967
0 R D E R
Whereas credible information has been received by me in this behalf.
And whereas I have considered the same in all its aspects and am satisfied that it is desirable to control the activities of Ghulam Murtaza Shah s/0 Muhammad Shah Sayed (popularly known as G-M Sayed) resident of village SANN Taluka Kotri, District Dadu with a view to preventing him from acting in a manner prejudicial to the Public Safety and the maintenance of public order.
Now therefore in exercise of the powers vested in me under section 5(1) of the West Pakistan maintenance of public order ordinance 1960, I Mazhar Rafi C.S.P. District Magistrate Dadu, do hereby issue the following directions to the said Ghulam Murtaza Shah s/o, Muhammad Shah Sayed:
1. That he shall reside within the limits of village SANN, Taluka Kotri.
2. That he shall abstain directly or indirectly from associating himself with the activities of Bazm-e-Sofia-e-Sindh and Sindhi Adabi Sangat and such other pseudo literary or political organizations and also shall refrain from delivering speeches at any gathering or writing and publishing any article.
This order shall remain in force for a period of two months commencing from the date of service of this order on him. Given under my hand and seal of the Court this 23rd day of June 1967.
Sd/- Mazhar Rafi C.S.P. District Magistrate Dadu.
An intellectual once said that we should let the people speak because if you put a ban on the freedom of expression, bullets would give birth to bullets and daggers will give birth to daggers. That is why I tried to have One Unit dissolved through the Assembly in order to restore the national identity and dignity of Sindh. But the rulers, in order to suppress our voice, dissolved the assemblies and clamped Martial Law on the country. The Constitution they imposed on us in 1962 closed the doors on all constitutional and democratic political endeavor. When we took the Sufistic road of love and peaceableness to communicate with the people, we were not allowed to do that. Our efforts to reach the people through literature were similarly thwarted. Here I wish to narrate an interesting incident. Shaikh Ayes, the noted Sindhi poet, wanted to dedicate a collection of his national poetry to me. He sought my permission to do so. In view of the circumstances then prevailing, I warned him through a letter that he was welcome to dedicate the book to me but tie should be prepared at the same time for the consequences which could include the confiscation of his book and his arrest.
In this oppressive atmosphere when constitutional redress had been denied, young men, writers and poets in whose hearts the torch of truth was burning gave the lead to a massive protest against One Unit and hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. Jails began to fill up. Young people started to go on hunger strike and the anti One Unit strike launched by the Sindhis assumed all Pakistan proportions.
In the meantime, in face of rising opposition, the rulers arrested Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in the Agartala Conspiracy Case. He and his colleagues were put in torture cells, and as a result of brutal torture, one of Mujib's colleagues, Capt. Mansur, died. This inflamed the people of East Pakistan. They violated curfew regulations and came out in the open in protest.
This was the time when one of Ayub Khan's darlings who called him 'daddy', Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, a Sindhi politician left the Federal Cabinet ostensibly in protest against the Tashkent Agreement. Using blackmail and the Punjabi bureaucracy, he tried to convert the movement for national self-determination into a public campaign against Ayub Khan. The truth is that Bhutto had incited Ayub Khan into war against India in 1965 and had assured the President that in view of the world situation, India would not retaliate on a large scale and Pakistan would be able to capture Kashmir. With this intention, the Pakistani rulers sent commandos to Kashmir to wage a guerrilla war against India. Bhutto's assurances notwithstanding, India internationalized the Kashmir war by opening a huge front from Sialkot to the Rann of Kutch and captured considerable territory in the Punjab.
During the war, the entire Pakistan Army devoted all its energies to save the Punjab and did nothing to defend East Pakistan. This provided an opportunity to Sheikh Mujibur Rehman to present his Six Point Formula. One of these six points was that every province, would have the right to maintain a part military militia for its defense. The Sheikh's Six Points guaranteed total autonomy to every province, which was not acceptable to the Punjabi rulers, and they arrested Sheikh Mujib for conspiring against the country Except for a brief period, I was under house arrest all this while. The movement against One Unit gathered momentum in Smith and there was great pressure on Ayub Khan to resign and release political detainees.
Ayub Khan released several politicians and started to prepare for a round table conference. However, I was not released At that point, people in Sindh unanimously demanded that if the round table conference had no Sindhi representation, its decisions would not be acceptable to them. Speaking at Gari Khata Chowk in Hyderabad, Sheikh Ayes told a milling crowd that Smith would reject any round-table conference at which G.M. Syed was not present. In the face of mounting public pressure, the Government released me on February 26, 1969.
After my release, I called a meeting in Hyderabad on March 9, 1969, to resurrect and reactivate the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz, The meeting was presided over by that intrepid Sindhi nationalist leader, Sheikh Abdul Majid Sindhi. In his inaugural address he said that after conquering Sindh in 1843, the British merged it with Bombay for administrative Purposes in 1847. "Sindh was freed from Bombay after a protracted Struggle in the wake of the Government of India Act, 1935," he continued.
"Sindh had its separate Legislative Assembly and Ministry in 1937. This lasted till 1954 when One Unit was foisted on the province. The role played by Sindhi members for various selfish motives was known to everyone, One Unit was the creation of mutual differences and the self-interest of Assembly members. But now the students and the people in general had brought about a change in the situation, and big changes were afoot in the central Assembly. Local politics was about to embark on a new phase. We had committed many blunders in the Past and efforts should be made to avoid them in the future. So far, Our upper classes had had but one goal self-interest and quest for power, This would have to be replaced by public service. The following goals had yet to he achieved:
The dissolution of One Unit.
Ridding national Politics of power hungry property grabbers, to the maximum extent possible.
To hand over the leadership of political parties to selfless People who were capable of making sacrifices and who had the good of the masses at heart.
We had to be above Personal prejudices and old new Sindhi squabbles to seek the support of every Sindhi who was willing to fight against One Unit.
People who had not been able to attend the conference, had not kept out deliberately. To err is human. To ignore individual errors was in the best national interest.
After Smith had attained freedom, the Mahaz would have three-fold objective: nationalism, economic justice and democracy.
"We had to put leadership in the hands of the people in the future and had to see to it that divisive tendencies did not prevent us from achieving our objectives before One Unit had been dissolved".
The meeting elected me President of the Mutahida Mahaz to plead the Sindh Case at the Round Table Conference called by Ayub Khan. But before we could begin our political struggle, the round-table conference failed as a result of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Maulana Bhashani's boycott and jalao-gherao tactics.
Although I did not attend the round-table conference, my point of view was fully explained by the Awami League leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and Khan Abdul Wali Khan and Ataur Rehman of the National Awami Party. After the failure of the round-table conference, Ayub Khan resigned and was replaced by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Gen. Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan who became the President and the Chief Martial Law Administrator, However, political activities were not banned and we were able to continue our struggle. Our objective was not only the dissolution of One Unit but also the attainment of the maximum autonomy for the province under which the center could not interfere in provincial matters. My efforts in this regard were two pronged. First, I brought Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhawa round to support the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz's anti-One Unit demand and two, I tried to come to a settlement with the Awami League which was demanding greater authority for the provinces. In this regard, when Sheikh Mujibur Rehman came !o Sindh, I organized a grand reception for him on behalf of the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz and held a function in his honor at the Hotel Metropol, Karachi, on August 10, 1967. I reproduce here parts of my welcome speech:
"We want to bring it to your notice that One Unit is a callous, impracticable but well thought-out constitutional fraud which is evident from the objectives of its authors and which were expressed in the notorious document X. We are opposed to this 13-year-old scourge for several reasons, some of which are:
This relationship has continued under different governments for the last 1 3 years but everyone knows that the One Unit scheme has backfired and that it has failed to achieve the objectives of its authors.
One Unit has embittered relations among the peoples of Pakistan, and, as such, has undermined national unity. To keep it alive by force will only erode mutual trust and, therefore, it will not be wise to continue with this relationship We should not lose sight of the fact that under the One Unit scheme, many constituents of the State are feeling helpless, mentally defeated, angry, sick and friendless, Without going into details, let us say that One Unit has injured the self-respect of the people of Sindh, has deprived them of the blessings of freedom. In fact, freedom becomes meaningless when the citizens of a free region do not have the right to run even their municipal affairs.
One Unit has given birth to several administrative evils with the result that the bureaucracy today is corrupt, incompetent and irresponsible. Sindh has become a haven for petty-minded, stupid and impudent officials who are accountable to no one.
The One Unit experiment is devoid of the democratic spirit and the people of Sindh have unanimously rejected it.
Under the One Unit dispensation, Sindh's Position is lower than it would have been under the home rule the Indians had demanded from the British 70 years ago.
The One Unit relationship negates the twentieth century concept of self-determination, which guarantees that power should belong to the people without interference from any quarter. Therefore, One Unit is against the Lahore Resolution of 1940, the Sindh Assembly resolution of 1943, the United Nations Charter, Mr. Jinnah's 14 Points, the Objectives Resolution, 1949, and the resolution passed by the 1957 National Assembly".
Addressing Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, I said, "You know Sheikh Sahib, that we had approached your party on numerous occasions for this purpose (dissolution of One Unit). Your great leader, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy had assured me of his full support when 'he was staying at my bungalow in Karachi. Unfortunately he is not among us today but we turn to you as his true successor and through you, we appeal to our elder brothers in East Pakistan to honor the pledge of their departed leader. We wish to make it clear that the 1956 Constitution is not acceptable to us under any circumstances because it was the handiwork of an undemocratically chosen constituent assembly. The solution to all problems faced by the smaller provinces and East Pakistan lies in unity among us. The people of the small provinces have high hopes in you. The demand for giving East Pakistan representation on the basis of its population together with total autonomy is as just as is ours. You and we are in the same boat. We will support you in every manner and we expect the same of you."
An agreement to this effect was signed between the Awami League and the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz on the occasion. On October 5, 1969, we assisted in the creation of the Baluchistan Muttahida Mahaz in Quetta. Our thinking was that if united, the people of the smaller provinces could succeed in having the One Unit dissolved. They could also help evolve a constitutional framework, which would make similar follies impossible in the future and eliminate tension among the people of different parts of the country.
While we wanted unity to solve constitutional issues, the rulers tried through their lackeys to divert public attention from substantive constitutional and political issues to petty squabbles. )n this regard, they used two powers with consummate skill, In West Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was made the hero of the Ayub Khan debacle and paraded as the conqueror through wide publicity and propaganda. Maulana Bhashani was selected to play a similar role against the Awami League in East Pakistan. However, Bengali nationalism had the better of the Maulana and he surrendered to the increasing popularity of the Awami League. But here in West Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto played the role with the help of the army and the bureaucracy with great dexterity. He adopted an aggressive posture against the Sindhi nationalist forces. Unfortunately, this strategy worked on the young workers of the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz and they started to work against it. Yahya Khan cleared the field for Bhutto by breaking up the One Unit, which was the sole election-winning weapon then in the hands of the oppressed provinces of West Pakistan. With the help of one Presidential Ordinance, he dissipated our struggle and legalized the 14-year-old plunder of Sindhi land and other resources by the Punjabis and called for snap elections. As a result, Sindhi nationalists could not get a single seat in spite of my last ditch efforts to break free of the new bondage. I held meetings, I wrote to the newspapers and I used the single opportunity given to me to address the people on radio and television to exhort them to use their critical faculties but all in vain. Once again, we lost a battle we had won. Even so, I hoped that with the Awami League winning absolute majority in the National Assembly and with the nationalists meeting with considerable success in Pakhtunkhawa and Baluchistan, I would be able to play some role in securing provincial autonomy and national integrity. For this purpose, I made contacts with the Awami League and Baloch and Pakhtun leaders. But the Punjabi rulers had decided to get rid of East Bengal in order to maintain their control over Sindh.
They started work on this project in 1970 through Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. I have said just now that the Punjabis were looking for an opportunity to get rid of the Bengalis from the very start. I am not saying this on my own. I present here corroborative evidence from a Punjabi intellectual, poet and CSP officer, Fazal Ahmed Karim Fazli, who served in East Pakistan in various capacities for 20 years. How did the feeling grow in East Pakistan that it was being treated as a conquered territory? To explain this would require a separate volume. But to cut a long story short, the responsibility for the disillusionment with Pakistan lay with successive central governments. Fazli says he had personal knowledge of all this. Just two or three years after the creation of Pakistan, some West Pakistani officers who were later to play important roles in making and breaking governments, started to say that one day or the other, the Bengali majority would get itself recognized and they would, as a result, lose power. To forestall such an eventuality, steps should be taken to stoke the embers (if Bengali separatism into a roaring fire. As Fazli was regarded one of the most influential officers at the time in East Pakistan, his advice was sought in the matter. He bitterly criticized the Punjabi officer who had sought his views, and told him that would be an open rebellion against Pakistan and that such thinking had in it the seeds of the country's destruction.
But who listens to the dervish? The plans for Bengali separation moved ahead. The One Unit in West Pakistan was created for this very purpose. (weekly Zindagi, Lahore, February 11-17, 1971, quoted in Jadid Sindh Ka Masail Ka Hal by Mohammad Musa Bhutto, pp. 154-55).
The role played by the Sindhi politician Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto for the success of the fell plan was that of a small mind hankering for power and, I think, the ignobly of it was without parallel in our history. It led to the loss of three million lives. A massacre of this magnitude takes place only during major international wars but such a terrible loss of Muslim lives within the space of a few months was shameless in the extreme and a blot on the fair name of Islam.
It was during the civil war in Bengal that I came to know that while on a shooting trip on the Drigh Lake in Larkana, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and some army generals decided never to allow the Bengalis to rule in a united Pakistan. For this purpose, Bhutto was given a specific task. It was also foreseen that hundreds of thousands of people could be killed in East Pakistan, but the Awami League was never to be given power. When I came to know of this plan, I met the NAP President, Khan Abdul Wali Khan, in Peshawar and told him that we should assist the Bengalis and reconstitute Pakistan on the basis of the Awami League's Six Points in order to save the national rights of other provinces from Punjabi majority rule and the Army depredations for ever. At this, Wali Khan told me that he could not help the Awami League because one of its Six Points proposed that each province should have a currency of its own. This would require a reserve bank in every province to stem the flow of one Province's currency to another. This would, Wali Khan said, be detrimental to Pashtun interests because a million Pathans lived in Sindh, If each one of them was earning five rupees, it came to Rs. 5 million. The families of these Pathans lived in the NWFP and they would starve. How could then he support the Awami League? he asked.
Wali Khan's response disappointed and saddened me because I saw it was against the truth on the ground and amounted to supporting the Punjabi majority interests. It also smacked of Punjabi-Pakhtun collusion in try Plunder of Sindh. Having despaired of Wait Khan, I went to Dhaka on February 6, 1971, and called on Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and told him of the generals' plan I was of the view that if the Awami League came into Power, we could have constitutional arrangement which could safeguard the interests of the oppressed Sindhi Baloch and Pakhtun nations and they could live with honor in a multi-national union.
The Sheikh told me that he was aware of the generals' plan and that he would try everything Possible to remain with his people and turn Pakistan into a true union of independent nations with the help of peoples' power. He felt that if he left his people at this stage, they (the army would take to murdering them and setting every house on fire. But Sindh was different from Bengal. The Sindhis spurned the nationalists and tried to live under the self-serving Punjabi pimp, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
The Sheikh advised me to leave Sindh for a while because the military action in Bengal would have its repercussions on me. It was necessary, therefore, that I should leave the country, I accepted the Sheikh's advice and went to Saudi Arabia to pay homage at the mausoleum of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) and visit the Khana-i-Ka'aba. From there, I tried to get in touch with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan by post in Kabul where he was staying in those days, but, unfortunately, we could not change the course of events. We could not prevent the largest massacre in South Asian history, the migration of 10 million people and the rape of thousands of women.
I returned to Sindh after a brief stay abroad and the moment I set foot on the Sofi of my homeland, Yahya Khan's men arrested me. During my absence, several of my colleagues such as Shaikh Ayes, Qazi Faiz Mohammad and Ghulam Mohammad Leghari had already been arrested. The country was once again in the grip of terror and repression. In this atmosphere , the generals and the bureaucrats declared war on India on the advice of Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, at the end of which Gen. Niazi of the Eastern Command surrendered to Gen. Arora of India by laying the Pakistan flag and his cap at his feet on December 16, 1971. This put the seal of approval on the Punjabi's desire to seek the separation of the Bengalis. Earlier, an attempt was however made by Yahya Khan to hoodwink world public opinion by restoring a so called civilian government in which Mr. Nurul Amin was made the' Prime Minister and Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister without calling any assembly to session. In this capacity, Bhutto went to the United Nations to prove that the program in East Pakistan and the arrest of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman were just both from the moral and Islamic points of view! Bhutto tore up the last attempt to keep Pakistan one - the Polish resolution and made a Pakistani defeat in Bengal certain. He did so because he wanted to come into power as the leader of the majority party in West Pakistan with the help of the Army Chief, Gen. Gul Hassan, and other military top brass. In this, he was entirely successful and on December 20, 197 1, he took over as the world's first civilian Chief Martial Law Administrator. Thus did the Sindhis, the Balochis and the Pashtuns lose a strong friend, Bengal.
Sindh fell once again under Punjabi domination. Bhutto, realizing that his international image had suffered, took some steps to rectify the situation. These included the lifting of the ban on the NAP, the release of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and the removal of restrictions on all political workers except myself.
Early in 1972, I celebrated my birthday, which was attended by hundreds of workers and thousands of other people from all over Sindh. Speaking on the occasion, I made certain proposals to the Chief , Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to save what remained of the country and on its constitutional structure. During my speech, I recounted the events, which led to the loss of East Pakistan.
During the course of my speech I also outlined the causes for the break-up of Pakistan and the myriad Problems facing the new country. It was time, I said, that keeping in view our experiences of the past 24 years, we should introduce basic changes in our polity.
The foremost among such changes was that we should say farewell to the concept of Muslim nationhood and accept Pakistan as the home of five nations with each of them having the right of self-determination. On this basis, if the people of Fast Bengal wished to remain independent, we should recognize Bangladesh. The remaining four nations in Pakistan should be given complete internal autonomy and then asked to join a new federation under which the central government should have only three subjects defense, foreign affairs and Communications All other subjects should be with the federating units. If we didn't do this, it would be difficult to overcome the country's internal turmoil.
Again, we should be quite clear in our minds about the religious order. Nowhere in the world is such an order in force nor is there any likelihood of this materializing in the future. Successive governments in Pakistan have been paying lip service to this concept, which is impossible to implement. Therefore, there has been a contradiction in their words and deeds. This contradiction had enabled the diehards to indulge in anti-government propaganda and to consolidate their strength. Most nations of the world had secular constitutions. Therefore, it looked almost impossible that we should be able to choose a different (religious) order for ourselves. If we did not do some plain talking on this subject right now, progressive elements would find it difficult to cope with the fundamentalists in the future. Therefore, the President was requested to have a clear mind on the issue and give the country a secular set-up. If this was not done, regressive forces would put all sorts of hurdles on the road to socialism and public welfare. Unfortunately, vested interests did not allow the establishment of democracy from the very beginning That was why the country had not been able to give itself a constitution through elections. Vested interests had made a habit of changing governments whenever it suited them. In the beginning we used to have assemblies which were elected only in name but then we gradually slid into dictatorship which took more than half of our years of independence. The dictators maintained their stranglehold in the name of controlled democracy, basic democracy and a strong center.
For the first time, now, the people had the opportunity to rule through their elected representatives. It was possible that the forces, which used to thwart the democratic process might try to subvert the new attempt at People's rule yet again. Therefore, every citizen owed it to himself to frustrate any such attempts. This would be possible only if the provincial governments were allowed full autonomy. No [farm would be done if the convening of the National Assembly was delayed but the provincial ministries must be established without loss of time. Keeping this principle in view, the People's Party should be in power in the Punjab and Sindh while coalition governments should be formed in the NWFP and Baluchistan. The governors should belong to the ruling parties, otherwise provincial autonomy would become meaningless. The country should be run on the basis of the Government of India Act, 1947. The future constitution should have the consent of the units and it should be on the basis of the parliamentary form of government. The center should have only three subjects. It was time the President moved quickly in this direction, or the reactionaries would once again sabotage the democratic process.
History was witness to the fact that vested interests had subverted the constitution making process and the establishment of a popularly elected government for the last 24 years Today, we had a popularly elected President after much trials and tribulations. It was likely that the vested interests might try to remove him. Therefore, it was necessary, in order to save the country from their exploitative clutches, to block the means through which they had acceded to power again and again Nations did not attain prosperity in a few months. The examples of the Soviet Onion and China were before us. They had taken years for their reconstruction but they were as yet nowhere near the completion of their task. Long years were required for the purpose. It was, therefore, necessary for the President to take such measures as would perpetuate popular rule. AP efforts would have been in vain if he was removed after introducing a handful of reforms. Therefore, he should consider the following causes, which bring the vested interests repeatedly into power:
a. A strong central government gives the armed forces and the bureaucracy a chance to bring undue influence to bear upon the administration. b. The concept of Muslim nationhood allowed vested interests to exploit smaller nations and to usurp their rights. c. All this talk about the Islamic order was diverting the people’s attention from their real problems and helping the vested interests to continue to exploit them. d. Confrontation with neighboring countries gave the government a chance to impose a state of emergency to Usurp the fundamental rights of the people. Therefore, if the President wanted to implement his program, he should seek a settlement with India, recognize Bangladesh and give autonomy to the four nations of West Pakistan and try and break the hold the mullahs and the pirs had on the minds of the people. After doing this, he could slowly embark upon national development through five-year plans. The continuation of martial law, the strengthening of the central government, the acceptance of the concepts of Muslim nationhood and Islamic order and the continuation of confrontation with neighboring countries not reduce the influence of the armed forces and the bureaucracy on the government nor would he be allowed to continue long in office. e. Enmity with India and Afghanistan had been the common policy of successive governments and for this it had been considered expedient to maintain a large army and to enter into military agreements with imperial Powers This had led to three wars and the large size of the army gave it an opportunity to interfere in the political affairs of the, Country which ultimately led to the establishment of dictatorships. If one took a deep look into the matter, one could fathom that all this had led to the politics of hatred. It was necessary for Pakistan’s survival that it should have friendly relations with its neighbors. The vested interests would never want this to happen. These were some of the problems a satisfactory resolution of which could take Pakistan out of the grave situation in which it found itself.
I had some proposals to present to the intellectuals of Sindhi too, which, I thought, could help solve many of the problems facing the nation And, therefore, I. I penned a detailed explanation of the above points separately to bring about a mental change in the people. They should have benefited from it. 2. They should have presented their proposals to the President and tried to bring public opinion to their way of thinking. 3. They should have created teams of devoted servants of Sindh. I think that under the leadership of the new President the intellectuals of Sindh had one last opportunity to solve national problems. If they didn’t, Pakistan would disintegrate, The President was surrounded by a certain set of odd persons. Therefore, serious problems would have to be conveyed to him through the voice of the people. With the separation of East Bengal, the balance of population, among other things, had tilted in favor of the Punjab which had, during the last 24 years, exploited Bengal and other provinces with the help of its army and bureaucracy. To hope for any good to accrue from them (the Punjabi majority) and to expect justice from them was like wanting to have fruit from a barren tree, But at a time when the Punjab lay defeated, when thousands of its soldiers were prisoners in India and when a lot of its territory was under Indian occupation, I thought that some change might have taken place in its Jingoistic thinking and that it would be willing now to settle matters with the other Provinces on the basis of brotherhood and equality. I, thus made one last attempt at unity, and forwarded the above proposals to President Bhutto to end the crisis and provide justice to the suffering nations and provinces. However, the qualities of Justice, equality and brotherhood were as absent in Pakistani rulers as the upper teeth in a cow. Instead of accepting my proposals, he sent me a letter through the Minister of Presidential Affairs. It is being reproduced here.
Regd: Ack: Due Minister of Presidential Affairs Government Of Pakistan Islamabad Dated the 5th February, 1972
Dear Mr. G.M. Syed, It has been brought to the notice of Government that on the occasion of your birthday celebrations on 17th January 72, at Sann, District Dadu, you delivered a speech in the course of which you said the following:- i. That the two-nation theory was of a temporary nature and you disapproved of it; ii. that it should be accepted that the peoples of 5 provinces of Pakistan constitute 5 different nations and that they should be brought together in the form of a Confederation of 5 states; iii. that in order to achieve your objectives you would start a movement through an organization to be called Khudam-I-Sindh, which would serve a two-fold purpose, namely, to prepare public opinion and to train personnel for guerrilla warfare. 2. Government have also been informed that some other speakers at your instance and under your patronage made speeches calling upon the people to declare the independence of Sindh and launch a guerrilla warfare for the same. The Government was warned that any interference on their part would be resisted with force of arms and that the water in the Indus river would be reddened with the blood of those who resisted the movement. 3. Your attention is drawn to the fact that there are laws existing in Pakistan carrying severe punishment for activities designed to promote secession or disintegration of the State and particularly by resort to violence. 4. I must now ask you to inform me whether the report, as mentioned above, is correct and whether you had associated yourself on that occasion with speakers who made such speeches.
Yours Sincerely, (J.A. Rahim) 22872 Mr. G.M. Syed, Sann, Distt: Dadu, S I N D.
I sent a detailed answer to this letter in which I said that I had no desire to create any problems for what remained of Pakistan or for its President. The people had one last chance of securing their rights. From the very beginning I had tried to secure proper rights for the provinces in that part of South Asia which was called Pakistan so that the people could live under a new relationship. My proposals were nor only rejected in 1972 but similar advice I had been offering to the rulers since the very inception of Pakistan, which every time is being dismissed with contempt.
It is said of me that I indulge in opposition for the sake of opposition. Nothing could be farther from truth, However, as a Sindhi, I owe a debt of gratitude to my motherland and it is my life’s mission to safeguard its culture, its language and its people. Despite everything, I have been offering suggestions to the Pakistani rulers from time to time. In this regard me and my political colleague Abdul Majid Sindhi wrote a joint letter to Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. (Appendix 9)

llahi Bux and Sheikh Khurshid Ahmed
The Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed’s deposition in court (Part 7)
Your Honor!
This letter was not even acknowledged. A similar letter was sent to Liaquat’s successor, Khwaja Nazimuddin, but being a Bengali, he was under the total control of the Muslim league High Command the Punjabis, the army and the bureaucracy. (Appendix 10). He could hardly do anything on his own, I therefore; he refrained from arriving at any meaningful political settlement with us on the provincial problems. After Khwaja Nazimuddin’s departure, the civil and military bureaucracy took complete charge of the Country. Politicians became puppets with their strings in the hands of army officers and top civil servants. They either danced to their tune or fought with each other at their instigation. This fight had its origin in the sectarian riots in the Punjab and the army got its first opportunity to rule Pakistan when Lahore was put under martial law to bring the anti Qadiani riots to an end in 1953. It is amazing that Pakistan, which was brought into being to solve the communal issue, gave birth to new communal issues. Five years after the creation of Pakistan, various sects committed the type of violence as was witnessed in Assam and Bengal in the last days of United India. Two judges of the Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Mohammed Munir and Mr. Justice Rustam Kayani were appointed to look into the causes of these riots. I have already referred to their report on the riots. Here I wish to add that these riots were part of the conspiracy to remove Khwaja Nazimuddin from Prime Ministership. Afterwards, I made several attempts to contact lskander Mirza and Ghulam Mohammed only to find that these rulers were also under the control of the civil and military bureaucracy who regarded the country as a conquered territory which they wanted to plunder. After lskander Mirza, Ayub Khan became an absolute ruler for ten years and more. Since he regarded himself as the author of the One Unit scheme, he thought it would be an act of treason to even contact those who were opposed to it. The only truly elected leader after Ayub Khan was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto about whom I spoke in my speech at Dadu on January 17, 1972 and whose reaction to my proposals had also been given in the shape of a letter written to me on February 5 the same year, and received by me through the Deputy Commissioner, Dadu on February 19. The text of the D.C’s covering letter is reproduced below:

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER DADU No PA,’ 44 of 1972
Dated the 19th February, 1972
Dear Shah Sahib,
I am directed by Government to request You to kindly meet the President of Pakistan on 22nd February, 1972 at I2.30 p.m. at Rawalpindi and favor me with your consent so that I may inform the Government accordingly.
Yours Sincerely
(Hamidally Memon) PCS
Mr. G.M. Syed, Zamindar, SANN.
In reply, I wrote to the D.C. as under:
Sann, 19-2- 19 72
Dear Mr. Hamidally,
Your letter of today to hand. I am grateful to the President of Pakistan to have invited me to meet him at Rawalpindi on 22nd February 1972.
1 feel honored to get such invitation and would have willingly responded to such call. But owing to bad health and short time at my disposal it will not be possible for me to meet the President on the date and time fixed for the purpose.
Therefore I would request you to convey my request to the President to fix some other time if possible in Sindh. It the President is not likely to come to this side in near future then any date fixed after 10 Muharram, 25 February 1972 will be welcome. Please convey my request to the President.
With best wishes
Yours Sincerely,
G.M. Syed
I then received a telegram from the Military Secretary to the President on March 2, 1972, which read:
NO 30 N 248 RPINDI 229/230=
G M SYED HAIDER MANZIL PP NISHTAR PARK MUSLIM COLONY KARACHI-AUDIENCE WITH PRESIDENT FIXED FOR SUNDAY FIVE MARCH AT RAWALPINDI ( . ) REQUEST CONFIRMS YOUR AVAILABILITY-MILITARY SECRETARY.
Afterwards, the President requested me to help him improve Pakistani’s ties will) India and that, on the basis of my relationship with the Nehru family, I should meet Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. I promised the President that I would he very glad to do anything in my power to improve Indo-Pakistan relations. The correspondence, which took place between me and the Foreign Office in this regard, is reproduced in (Appendix 11).
I felt that either Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did not have the ability to secure the rights of the smaller provinces or he was so afraid of a defeated Punjab that he could not move in the matter. So much so that he probably thought that the Punjab would look askance at my meeting with Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Therefore, I considered it advisable to get back to my routine and proceed to a situation which may expose Bhutto as a man who was willing to sacrifice all Sindhi interests to remain in power. After the birth of Pakistan, it has been our demand that Sindhi should be given the status of a national language and made the sole official language of Sindh. No government in Pakistan, including Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s, had considered this demand, and the language problem has dragged on. The provinces comprising Pakistan did not have a common tongue. In spite of this, the rulers declared Urdu as the national language, at which there were riots in Bengal in 19 54 and the rulers were obliged to declare Bengali as the second national language. Urdu was not the language of any province in Pakistan, but Bengali was also not the language of the entire country. Therefore, our stand was that all regional languages should be given national status. However, even as the rulers continued to exploit the country socially and economically, they simultaneously indulged in lingual exploitation. Bhutto’s coming into power had given us some hope that while he would attempt to solve other problems, he would also try to find a solution for this old issue facing the oppressed Sindhis. However, instead of tackling the issue at the national level, he had an incomplete resolution moved in the Sindh Assembly through his cousin, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, who was then the Chief Minister of the. province. The resolution merely stated that Sindhi would be the language of the province, without specifying whether it would have official status or nor in spite of the fact that Sindhi had this privilege even in the British period. There is historical evidence to prove this. In 1848, the governor of Bombay, Sir George Clerk had made Sindhi the official language of Sindh, and officials were accordingly asked to learn the language within 18 months and pass an examination for the Purpose. In 1851, the Commissioner of Sindh ordered that all public servants should pass a proficiency test in the language because all official correspondence would be in Sindhi in future. European and other non-Sindhi officers were also asked to pass a Sindhi language examination, and it was directed that Sindhi schools should be opened.
The directors of the East India Company decided unanimously to make Sindhi the administrative and judicial language of Sindh. In this regard, the Commissioner of Sindh issued an order to all the collectors in the province on March 27, 1857, directing them to use Sindhi in all offices and courts. As a result the Collectors of Karachi, Hyderabad, Shikarpur and the Political Agent of Upper Sindh were informed that Sindhi was to become the language of revenue offices and courts of law by December 3, 1857. This was the state of affairs till August 13, 1947 and it continued till the passage of the 1972 Bill. However, the Government of India Act, 1947, and the constitutions of 1956 and 1962 made no mention of Sindhi, but this did not affect the status of Sindhi which remained the administrative and judicial language. The 197 2 Bill did not meet the Sindhis’ demand in full but only served the purpose to a degree. The passage of the Bill enraged the Urdu-speaking people of Sindh and language riots erupted all over the province. The Government failed to protect the Sindhis in the urban areas despite all the resources at its command. In order to control the riots, Mr. Bhutto summoned the representatives of the Sindhis and the Urdu-speaking people. I was also invited but I refused to attend the meeting. Had the meeting been called to put an end to the rioting, I would have certainly attended it, but decided to do nothing with if it was called to amend the i972 Bill as passed by the Sindh Assembly.
In this regard, I sent a telegram to the President that since he wanted a Bill passed by the elected representatives of the people to be trimmed up through non-elected people, I would refuse to accept this undemocratic act and that I was strongly opposed to it. To bow to pressure from street urchins and irresponsible elements and reject or amend a Bill passed by a majority in the Assembly would be a travesty of justice. I told him that I wanted to register my protest not with him but with history and refused to attend the meeting. In spite of this, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali had the Bill trimmed and Sindh was left to all appearances a bilingual province. Both Urdu and Sindhi were made official languages. The Governor of Sindh issued an Ordinance to this effect. This was a grave injustice to Sindh. Although Urdu had been imposed from above, it was never an official language of the province. This was in violation of the 1954 Civil Court Rules, Section 33/4, which clearly stipulated that Sindhi was the court language of Sindh. Section 33/4 lays down that all claims to district and subordinate courts, if valued at Rs. 5,000 or above, should either be in English or Sindhi, and that if the original is in Sindhi an English language copy should be attached with it. Rule No 82 lays down that the proceedings of all cases should be in Sindhi or, if the law permits, in English. Rule 95 relates to notices and summons, and it also declares Sindhi as the court language Moreover, according to Rule 181 of the 1952 Sindh Civil Service Classification Rules, every non Sindhi civil servant had to acquire a working knowledge of Sindhi within two years of getting employment, Rule 101 requires all gazetted and non-gazetted officers to pass a Sindhi language examination held under the supervision of the provincial Public Service Commission within two years of getting appointed If they failed to do so, they would be removed from service. This two-year period could be extended under certain conditions but during the extended period, the employee concerned would neither be a beneficiary of rules applicable to other employees nor be eligible for promotion. By the Ordinance proclaimed by the Governor, Urdu-speaking employees of the Government of Sindh were given 12 years to learn Sindhi. The British had fixed 18 months for the purpose,. while the Pakistan Government had extended the period to two years, but Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had raised the time-limit for learning Sindhi to those who had been living in the province for 25 years to further 1 2 years. Not only this. Mr. Bhutto also put forth an impression that he had agreed that in case the Chief Minister of Sindh was a Sindhi, the provincial governor would be Urdu-speaking. Likewise, in case the deputy commissioner of a district was a Sindhi, the superintendent of police would be Urdu-speaking. This principle was also extended to the Public Service Commission. This proved that even if a Sindhi attained the highest office in Pakistan, he was still a hostage in the hands of the Punjabis and the Muhajirs, unable to enact proper legislation for the benefit of the Sindhis.
Mr. Bhutto’s accession to the highest office in Pakistan was the zenith of Sindh’s constitutional struggle. In spite of this, however, he continued to be only a second fiddle to the Punjabis, the Muhajirs and the civil and military bureaucracy. Therefore, he could only act as a traitor to his own motherland, Sindh. He could get a turban but only after lowering his head in return. We were now despaired of getting our rights through constitutional means within the federation. Total despair gives birth to the desire for total change. It was in this state of total despair that we decided to prepare the people to work for the total independence of Sindh and the creation of Sindhu Desh. For this we decided on a meet-the people program to apprise them of the handicaps they had earned by the proclamation of the language Ordinance.
Accordingly, a meeting of the office-bearers and workers of the Muttahida Smith Mahaz, like-minded people, nationalist workers, intellectuals and students was held on June 18, 1972, at Hyder Manzil, my residence in Karachi. We founded a new party, the Jeay Sindh Mahaz by merging the Sindh Muttahida Mahaz, Jeay Sindh and the Naujawan Mahaz. It was decided to launch the next phase of our struggle under its banner. In this regard, I hold a Press conference at my Karachi residence on July 31, 1972, to announce and explain my all Sindh tour program and its objectives. I told the Press that Smith had been exploited by the vested interests for years and the province had been driven to a point where it had to struggle for its survival Efforts were being made to break up the geographic entity of Sindh. Under these circumstances, it was my duty to warn the people of Sindhu Desh of the dangers to their very existence and to work out a strategy against these perils. I made it clear that the enemies of Sindh would not be allowed to succeed in their nefarious conspiracy against the country. The Urdu imperialists had not accepted the true objectives for which Pakistan had been created nor had they any regard for Sindh whose land and people they had pillaged for 25 years. It was such pillage that had separated Bangladesh from us. Had they not tried to impose the Urdu language as the sole national language on the people of Bangladesh, Bengali blood would not have flowed on Bengali soil, and Bengal would not have separated from us. These elements had also made Sindh the target of their similar anti human, communalist desires. The language riots were unnatural and criminal. The language Bill had been endorsed by 51 of the 62-member Sindh Assembly. The people of Sindh had expected that Sindhi would be accepted as the sole official language of the province, But even this Bill, weak and incomplete as it was, was not acceptable to the Urdu-speaking people and they resorted to suppress the just struggle of the Sindhis through goondaism. But even more surprising for us was the fact that in order to save his Presidency, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto succumbed to the enemies of Sindh and other vested interests.
The Ordinance proclaimed by the provincial Governor under instructions from President Bhutto had done a great deal of damage to Sindh, and several valuable lives had been lost. Sindh was to all purposes made a bilingual province, something, which could not be acceptable to any self-respecting Sindhi. President Bhutto gave the Urdu imperialists an opportunity, which they could use to seek the separation of Karachi from Sindh. This was not me feeling alone- The explanatory statements on the agreement and the language Ordinance between the government and the Urdu-speaking clique of imperialists Altaf Hussain Qureshi and Shah Faridul Haq, lent credence to my analysis of the situation. The President’s collusion with, at best, his submission before the enemies of his own motherland also confirmed our fears that autonomy did not reside in the Sindh Assembly but was in the hands Of goons. Bhutto we, guilty of treason against the people of Sindh. By bowing to pressure from the fissiparous elements, he had paid a heavy price indeed to save his office. They wouldn’t give him two months to function as President. The Urdu imperialists who could abandon their own motherland and who could betray those who had sustained them for 25 years, could not be loyal to anyone.
I told the Press conference that grave dangers were looming ahead for Sindh. The province would be in great turmoil when the issue of recognizing Bangladesh was put before the National Assembly. In my view, Bhutto would take steps to placate the reactionaries in order to secure a positive vote on Bangladesh. Bhutto’s policies showed that in order to please Urdu imperialists and to secure their cooperation, he was about to take certain steps. By giving in to the goondas, he had already shown that he was on a weak wicket. They could make further use of him by employing the same tactics.
Even before this, we had, through a resolution of the Jeay Sindh Mahaz, passed on July 23, 1972, warned that these people wanted to launch a movement to bring Biharies from Bangladesh to turn the Sindhis into 6 minority in their own province. They aimed at becoming themselves the rulers of the province. I had, in fact, feared that Mr. Bhutto might have entered into some agreement with the Urdu imperialists over the issue. The Sindhis had already suffered a great deal at the hands of the Urdu imperialists. They would, under no circumstances, allow the Biharies to settle in Sindh. Even now I believed sincerely that the Sindhis should not be burdened beyond their endurance because this could have disastrous consequences. I was pained to learn that poor, Bengali public servants in Pakistan were dismissed from service just because they had expressed the desire to go back to Bangladesh and that they were even otherwise tormented. Several letters and articles had appeared in the Press according to which Bengali public servants, with their salaries having been stopped, were driven to starvation and ill health. It would be a tragedy indeed if they were not provided with the means to keep body and soul together. L demanded at the Press conference that everything should be done by the Government to give sustenance to such people. Failure to do so would bring us a bad name worldwide, especially in our neighboring countries. The events in Bengal and these dismissals had already soiled our reputation and we were not willing to allow anyone to add to this ignominy.
I told the Press conference that I was confident that the Sindhi nation was getting out of the dark night of ignorance and would now thwart all conspiracies against it. They would no longer be misled by traitorous means they had suffered enough and the sun of a new era had already risen on the ancient land of Mohen-jo-Daro. It was our right to demand exclusive official language status for Sindhi and we were determined to get this right. It was no longer possible to deceive us any further, Any conspiracy to create a new province in Sindh would be crushed. There would be no Israel or Mohammed Put or Mirpur on our sacred sail, My tour of Sindh, I told the Press, was aimed a ‘ t warning the people of the province against the conspiracies being hatched against them. It was possible that the Government, afraid of these facts, might proceed against me. ) did not care about it. The standard that I was holding aloft would be carried forward by others and they would struggle to keep this standard aloft and heartily and bravely honored to the last.
After the Press conference, I started a tour of Sindh on August 1, 1972, exhorting the people to struggle for their rights. I told them that their lives, their culture, their language, their civilization and their economic and Political interests were not safe within the framework of Pakistan and that they should struggle for the political, cultural and economic independence of SINDHU DESH. During the tour, t expressed my disappointment and distrust of the federal structure because years of experience and the separation of Bangladesh had proved that the Pakistan rulers were not prepared to give the small and oppressed provinces their due. I had expressed similar views in Hyderabad on March 4, 1972, during the language riots. I declared that SINDHU DESH was the central point in the future struggle of the Sindhis. My tour of Sindh was part of this struggle I was, however, not allowed to complete my province-wide tour and was put under house arrest in my home village Sann, on August 8, 1972, 1 was not allowed to meet, nor correspond with anyone. A long letter, enumerating the causes for the action against me was handed over to me by the Sindh Home Department (Appendix 12).
The causes for my detention enumerated in the letter betray the scheming mentality of the bureaucracy because nowhere during my tour of Sindh, did I ask people to take up arms or to create a law and order situation. I have always been a votary of non-violence and have never regarded violence as the means for solving human problems. I have seen so many dead bodies and bloodshed in my life that I can’t stand any further mayhem. However, I had indeed said that the rulers were hostages in the hands of the Punjabis and the Muhajirs and, as such, they could be of no service to the people of Sindh. Bhutto was, I had said, the nominee of the army, an army that had failed to save the country ‘ It was because of the incompetence of the army that about two thirds of a district fell into Indian hands in 1971. It is obvious when army invades any area, lives are lost there, its wealth is plundered, its women raped. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of than people migrated to India. An army, which could not defend itself, was not worthy of being maintained. But Bhutto had to do so because his power rested on the bayonets of the soldiery. He was spending Sindhi resources on the army instead of the people of the province. Having despaired of the Pakistan assemblies, the rulers and the bureaucracy, we had decided to struggle for the independence of Sindhu Desh. I had realized that the Punjabi leaders would use the leaders of the smaller and oppressed nations and then throw them away as sugarcane peels or used socks. It was in the light of this that I wrote a historic letter to Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in which I warned him that in the long run, the Punjabis and the Muhajirs would get rid of him to perpetuate their vested interests. Therefore, he should, instead of following them and serving them, work for the independence and emancipation of Sindh because independence would bring many advantages to the province. Some of them are enumerated here:
Sindh would be rid of the Muhajirs-Punjabi imperialism for good.
Income tax, customs, excise duty and sales tax would give Sindh an income of Rs. 3500 million and from other sources it would be of the order of Rs. 500 million. With these resources at its command, Sindh would make rapid progress.
Language and education would develop at a very fast pace.
With all their problems to solve and all public works to execute by the Sindhis themselves, unemployment among them would come to an end rapidly.
The Sindhis’ standard of living would improve rapidly because with a small population but plentiful land, business and industry, the people of the province would prosper.
If the Punjab reduced water supplies to Sindh, we could retaliate by clamping duties on Punjabi exports.
We would be able to defend ourselves.
We would put the country (Sindhu Desh) on the road to democracy, secularism, nationalism and socialism and be in a position to have friendly relations with India and Bangladesh,
I regret to say that Mr. Bhutto paid no attention to my views and the result was the same as had been foreseen by me. Later, Mohammed Khan Junejo, Benazir Bhutto and Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi were used and thrown out of power but in a manner some what different from that which had been employed to get rid of Mr. Bhutto. He had not only to lose power but also his life. The other three could at least come back home in safety. But it looks as though these three did not learn any lesson from history. Perhaps their lust for personal power blindfolded them. In spite of the fact that they did not learn any lesson from the past, I have become more and more confirmed in my view that neither the federation nor Sindh have a safe future. That is why I have been waging a struggle since 1972 (for Sindhi independence) and consider it our duty to make it more broad based and to intensity it.
Sir,
In my view, the greatest anti-Sindhi act by Mr. Bhutto was the 1973 Constitution, which reduced Sindh into a small component of the Pakistani federation and abolished its national entity.
The 1973 Constitution made Sindh a haven for settlers F from the Punjab, the NWFP, Bihar, and other Indian regions, Bengalis and Indians from Kenya, Uganda and other African countries.
The 1973 Constitution took even those powers away from the Sindh Assembly, which had been bestowed upon it by the Government of India Acts of 1935 and 1947, and Sindh became a small and subjugated constituent of Pakistan. The 1973 Constitution, I must say without going into details, made Smith into a vassal state for the Punjabi-Muhajir vested interests.
I considered it a duty to oppose such a constitution. I asked the national workers to devote their entire energy towards launching a mass protest against the constitution, It is on record that when the vice-chancellor of the Sindh University, Ghulam Mustafa Shah, was conferring a doctorate of law, honorees causa, on the author of the 1973 Constitution, Mr. Abdul Hafiz Pirzada, the young workers of Sindh national movement organized a great protest. In this manner, I continued to organize popular protest against all anti-Sindhi activities, but after 1973, 1 was under detention for long periods of time. I was not allowed to contact people. Such action on the part of successive governments has only tended to increase the pace of disintegration.
Eventually, the rulers sent Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to the gallows. In order to prevent any adverse reaction among the youth in Sindh, strict Martial Law rules were imposed, many people were arrested, some were beaten to death in torture cells, some were maimed. No consideration was given to age or sex. All this was done to crush the will of the people and to smash the Sindhu Desh independence movement. But when the will of the national workers and young people refused to break, Rangers, F.C. and police were deployed on roads and universities and indiscriminate firing was often resorted to in which villagers and our workers were martyred State terrorism was seen at its worst when the short-sighted leadership of the MRD brought villagers to the streets. People reading the Holy Qura'an were treaded under trucks, air raids were carried out, whole villages were put to the torch, even women’s processions were fired upon.
Although I did not join the MRD nor did I consider it of any use for Sindh’s interests, I could not bear this bloodshed. Therefore, I wrote to world organizations like the United Nations and Amnesty International, appealing them not to ignore Sindh. I also wrote to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India to use her influence to end the pogrom in Sindh. At this, Indira Gandhi expressed her concern over the Sindh situation in the Indian Parliament. Even the MRD massacre did not assuage the rulers’ thirst for blood. On October 17, 1984, a Jeay Sindh convoy was fired upon near a railway crossing close to Manjhand in Dadu district. Five students died and hundreds were injured or arrested. Pakistani rulers were not sorry at all this. On the contrary, those responsible for the massacre were awarded medals and given other rewards. The impact the incident had on me was expressed in a speech I made on my birthday in Sann on January 17, 1986, where Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was present. I said all of Sindh lay in fetters and for the last 24 years, imprisonment, lashes, bullets, the gallows and all other means of torture had become our fate. I recounted the events that had taken place before, during and after the MRD campaign. They have already been catalogued. Sindh was being brutalized in an age when the world had entered a new era, in which the powerful communist block lay scattered and in which such nations which, because of ideological shackles, could not even dream of independence, had emerged free. Under the pretext of suppressing the dacoits and urban disorder, the Government deployed armed agencies in increasing numbers to break the spirit of the people of Sindh. Such brute force was used as had not been resorted to even by the imperialists. Bacha Khan agreed with my views. Mr. Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, who was present on the occasion, sought approval for my views from the thousands of people who were attending the function. The multitude raised its hands in total agreement.
Here I wish to present excerpts from the speech I made at Nishtar Park in Karachi on the occasion of my 89th birthday on January 17, 1992, during the course of which I said My sisters and brothers, Today, after having completed 88 years of my life, I am stepping into the 89th year. For the celebration of my birthday as all of you having assembled in such a large number in Karachi, the capital of Sindh, I therefore feel overwhelmed by your love and sincerity and am thankful to each of you for your noble and appreciable gesture.
When I peep into the past, I feel convinced of the fact that there has been an eternal bond between me, my ancestors and an august land of pristine glory and culture. This majestic land is beyond doubt the land of Sindh. My love for my motherland-and the love of my ancestors has not only been natural but unbroken too. This undying love has forced me to take part in the politics of this par’. of the world, to work for the welfare, prosperity of this region and to struggle for the fundamental rights of the people of this land. Challenge howsoever grave it may be with or any danger howsoever grave it may be with shall never extinguish the fire of love for my motherland which my heart is lit with. Those of you who know my past history are aware of the fact how much I have suffered by way of imprisonment or internment at the hands of different rulers since the days of British imperialism till today’s Punjabi imperialism. Very often I am dubbed as a traitor and a persona-non-grata but, for the sake of Sindh and Sindh alone, I have borne the worst kind of suffering and humiliation.
At the outset of the present century, I had witnessed Sindh yoked with the Bombay presidency. In fact such an annexation Sindh had never seen at any stage in its history. Bombay, the capital, had been far off from Sindh. To reach Bombay, either one had to travel by sea or one had to cross Run-Kutch and the plateau of Rajasthan. For their vested interests, the British rulers were bent upon developing Bombay to such an extent that the interests of Sindh were of no consequence to them. As a result, Sindh remained completely neglected for decades.
Then there came a time when it was realized that such a conjoint was not only unnatural but highly detrimental to the people of Sindh. Therefore, the crying need of the hour was to pull apart Sindh from the Bombay presidency. Even at that time, I was among the first sons of Sindh who started the campaign for its liberation. It was after a long struggle that in 1936 Sindh was released from the cruel clutches of Bombay presidency. But, for that liberation, we had to pay a heavy price. The nature of debt of the Sukkur Barrage, the vested interests of the Sindhi Hindus, the opposition of the upper classes and confrontation with the British rulers were the issues for which we had to seek support from certain parties, who wee incorrigible in their obstinacy. The effects of their support are still persisting and none can predict as to how long its harmful effect shall continue to pester us.
Before the partition, India was a sub-continent. The climate of its different regions varied. Clans aid races of different appearance, color, faith and languages inhabited it. Some of India’s parts were dominated by the Hindus, and in some parts d it Muslims were in majority. Certain regions of India depended for their irrigation on natural rainfall while in many parts canals existed for the provision of water. There were densely populated parts aid certain regions were with thin population. The Hindus had their descent from both the Dravidians and the Aryans. They constituted the majority. But despite their large numbers, the Muslims occupied a big chunk of Indian Territory and had kept almost the whole of India under their occupation. Afterwards, the British replaced the Muslims and consolidated their hold on India. In the olden times, Asoka, Vikramajit and Akber had endeavored to keep India united. but whereas their efforts bore no significant fruits, the British did succeed in keeping India united during the tenure of their rule. Afterwards, movements for freedom of India were launched and the British had at last to quit India willingly or unwillingly.
Sindh, in its history, has for a long time been an independent and sovereign state. When the British occupied it, Sindh was an independent country. But as I have stated earlier, after the occupation, it was forcibly annexed with the Bombay presidency. Therefore, for its liberation we had to get the support of such parties, including the Muslim League, on such conditions which proved detrimental to our interests in the long run. Those conditions darkened our future. One of these was the two-nation theory of the Muslim League. The two-nation theory strangulated the noble feelings of nationalism, and divided the Indians into religious compartments. Another condition was the accursed separate electorate by which politics was intermixed with religion. On the basis of religion, the Muslims were made to believe that they were a separate nation and were to be governed under the Islamic jurisprudence. Our circumstances unfortunately forced us to accept willy-nilly those conditions. But the greater misfortune for us that in spite of being well-educated, secular-minded and progressive in outlook, the British patronized the reactionary Muslim League for their imperialistic rule and ulterior motives. As a result of that, we became on one hand the victims of the intrigue of the upper-class Hindus who had their vested interests and we had to be subjected to the special powers of the Governor of Sindh owing to the debt incurred on the Sukkur Barrage; and on the other hand we had to side with the Muslim League and follow its two-nation theory which was contrary to the course of history. Consequently, the separate identity of Sindh as a nation came to naught, and in subsequent years we had to confront other formidable problems. In the name of Pakistan, the Punjabi imperialism enslaved us. However, we are fully determined to do away with this slavery. We are nearing our goal and, God willing, that yoke of slavery shall soon be cast off.
The untold sufferings brought about by the two great world wars created such havoc and such enormous problems that we are facing today the challenge of a "New World order. Today, the democratic order, the capitalistic way of life, the communistic ideology and the preferences U.N.O. have lost their significance. The communist countries have bowed down to the upsurge of nationalism, while the capitalistic block has made the U.N.O. a mere puppet and subservient to its interests, aiming at controlling the world. But the fast changing scenario of the world will not allow this block of nations its monopoly of power for long. If a super power like the Soviet Union cannot resist disintegration, the capitalistic block too cannot survive long so as to exploit the backward nations of the world and keep them in captivity. Time will prove these perceptions into reality soon.
If small nations like Brunei, Bahrain and Maldives can be the members of the U.N.O., why can’t Sindh become a member of that world forum? Considering its area, population and income, Sindh is bigger and more potential than 70% of the present members of the U. N.O. How long would Sindh be ruled by brute force and against the wishes of its people. The slavery of Sindh, I am confident, Shall not last long.
The New World order is very much in the air today and some members of the U.N.O. have tacitly given their approbation for this order. There is no denying the fact that the present structure of the U. N.O. was hurriedly designed on the ravages of the Second World War. Therefore, in its structuring no serious ear and thought was given to the prevailing situation. In the initial stages, four big powers were allowed the right of ‘Veto’, the Communist China was kept at bay for a considerable length of time, and then it was not only admitted to the world forum but was given the veto power. Similarly, some other countries too were deprived of membership. A much better shape of the U.N.O. would have been there, if instead of entrusting the veto power to a few specific countries, countries representing blocks had been given that right. For example apart from the USSR all the rest of the countries believing in the ideology of communism would have been treated as a single community: and given the right of a veto. Similarly, the groups of thickly populated countries and the group of countries with thin population hard also enjoyed that power. At present five countries namely America, France, Great Britain, China and Russia (after the disintegration of the Soviet Union) are the levers of power and as such they enjoy the monopoly, but countries like India, Indonesia and Bangladesh with much bigger population are deprived of that right. In the developing situation, it is not only desirable but also expedient that drastic changes are made in the highest world forum and that veto power should be given to nations as referred earlier. But before the U.N.O. is re-shaped and re-designed, efforts should be made that all such peoples which are languishing under the yoke of foreign domination are made free. To these suppressed nations, an option may also be offered to join any of the said groups. In South Asia, there are certain nations like Sindh, Baluchistan, Siraiki Desh and Pakhtoonistan, which should be given complete freedom. Later, these nations should be given an option to join the Muslim countries having common spiritual values or to join the group consisting of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Burma etc. After attaining freedom, the people of Sindh have a right to opt for any group.
In my considered opinion, the only way to avoid confrontation and atomic holocaust and to ensure a permanent world peace, the unity, brotherhood and co-existence of the nations of the world, is the crying need of the hour, may be promoted on the lines of suggestions as I have given.
On this occasion of my birthday I have a special message for the people of Sindh to pledge themselves fully and totally to the struggle for making their land free and themselves an independent nation - a land which is the cradle of peace in the world and a nation which serves brotherhood of man and human civilization to the utmost limits of its physical and spiritual being.
Long live Sindh! Long live humanity!!
Your Honor!
I have referred to an independent Sindh or to Sindhu Desh on numerous occasions in my deposition and have declared it as my life’s mission. I have struggled for its establishment, in several ways and from various platforms. This does not mean that I want to acquire the territory of another country in my lust for power. My only objective is to restore a country, which has existed on this globe with all its shortcomings, its qualities, its prosperity and its uniqueness for centuries to its original status. Keeping the ancient era aside, I am outlining only the post-Islam history of Sindh as an independent and free country here.
The Prophet of Islam (may peace be upon him) was born in A.D. 570. Sindh had an independent government 120 years before his birth and was ruled by the Raj dynasty whose hold extended to almost all of the present Pakistan, parts of Rajasthan and some areas of Afghanistan. It lasted till A.D. 632. It was replaced by a Brahmin dynasty, which lasted from A.D. 632 to A.D. 712. It covered the entire lifetime of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him), the duration of the Holy Caliphate and till quite some decades of the Umayyds. When Muslims were cutting each other’s throats and digging each other’s graves, Sindh had a free, peaceful, well-organized, prosperous and civilized government. The Arab invasion of A.D. 712 destroyed all this and threw Sindh into an era of lawlessness, confusion and slavery. An interesting fact may be noted here. The Pakistani rulers say that Pakistan was created the day Mohammed bin Qasim set foot on Sindhi soil, which means that they are the successors to Qasim, and Pakistan is a replica of his rule. You know that Mohammed bin Qasim was a barbaric and cruel ruler who came to Sindh as a representative of Waleed bin Abdul Malik’s Governor, Hajjaz bin Yusuf. About Hajjaj bin Yusuf, all historians of Islam are agreed that on the day of judgment, if all tyrants of the world were to be put on one side of the scale, and Hajjaj bin Yusuf is presented by the Muslims on the other side he alone would outweigh them all. The Umayyed rule started with the martyrdom of the Ahl-i Bait and amid great disaffection and confusion among the Muslims. The number of the righteous ulema, huffaz and noble people put to the sword would perhaps exceed the massacre of such people in any other era, If we demand our rights from the Pakistani rulers and they retaliate by killing our freedom-fighters and by indulging in loot and plunder of our land, does that not mean that they are following in the footsteps of Hajjaj bin Yusuf?
The Ghaznavids brought the Period of Arab barbarism to an end and after the latter had left, the native Soomros ruled Sindh in great freedom from A.D, 1053 to A.D. 1350. The Soomros treated their people well and there was much prosperity during these 300 years. Sindh’s romances were born during this era and were later to form the basis of much of our classical poetry. During the last days of the Soomros, repeated Khilji forays into Sindh led to much distress and confusion and the country’s central government came to an end, but local rulers did not altogether lose control over several parts of the realm. The native Sammans picked up the pieces once again and ended the period of turmoil and chaos. They ruled exactly for two hundred years (A.D. 1351 - A.D. 1 551). During this period, education, the arts, poetry, architecture, textiles, stonework, agriculture, gardening, book writing, Sufism and selfless patriotism received a great fillip and Sindh became a haven of peace and security. I wish to give two examples of the Sammans sovereigns’ sense of justice here.
1. One day, Jam Khair Din saw some human skeletons in a ditch while he was out for a ride. He told his companions that these were the remains of innocent people who were now demanding justice from him. On inquiry it was discovered that seven years back, a caravan of Gujarati traders had been waylaid by dacoits who had killed the traders and looted their property. Jam Khair Din not only recovered the looted property and had it returned to the families of the victims but also meted out stern punishment to the culprits. It was this Jam Khair Din who defeated the powerful Delhi King Feroz Tughlak near my village Sann and made him fide from Sindh.
2. The second incident relates to Jam Nizam Din, alias Jam Nindo. He is the same famous ruler of Sindh who ruled for as long as Emperor Akbar did over India. About Jam Nizam Din, the noted Sindhi historian Mir Ali Sher Qani writes that as he patted his horses every day, he used to pray: May the day never arrive when I may invade a neighboring country and bring grief to its people. It was during the rule of this sovereign that the first invasion of the Mangols down the Bolan Pass was halted at Sibbi and the enemy driven away across the mountains by the armies of Sindh. This Sammans dynasty came to an end in A.D. 1551.
The depredation let loose in Sindh after the death of Jam Nizam Din, by the Arghuns, the Tarkhans and the Moghuls was without precedent and books of history are full of them. The rulers committed this period fasted 1 75 years in which every single act of cruelty that the human mind can conceive of. Every attempt was made to obliterate the people of Sindh and their culture. However, great sacrifices for national independence were also made during this period in which the immortal son of Sindh Makhdoom Bilawal was crushed to death in an oil-expeller, Doolah Darya Khan was martyred along with his sons. My forebear, Shah Hyder Sanai was forced to go into exile. From Sann to Kutch, one could hear only one sound- the clash ‘ of swords and the echo of the hooves of horses tearing away at great speed.
Sindh was never free of arson and bloodshed during the reign of Arghuns and Tarkhan and Moghuls. Nevertheless the Sindhis, fighting all along for their honor and dignity, regained total independence in A.D. 1736. This new period of independence continued under the Kalhoras and the Talpurs till 1843. I have narrated all this to show as to why I am demanding a free Sindhu Desh and why I am in the dock today. I did not discover Sindh. History is my witness and I beckon everyone whether he is in power or not to history.
Your honor,
The country, which I call Sindhu Desh, has lived by this name for centuries. I had presented Sindhu Desh as the objective for the people of Sindh at an evening the students of the University of Sindh spent with me on March 31, 197 3. I outlined the destiny and uncovered the goal line -in my presidential address on the occasion presented there.
The people of Sindh, I had said, were lingually, historically, politically and economically a separate nation. Therefore, they must have the right of self-determination to pursue their economic, political and cultural preferences themselves, and for which they must get Sindhu Desh, which has existed as a separate entity in the sub-continent for thousands of years. The difference between Sindh and Sindhu Desh is that the former may mean a country comprising the entire Indus Valley while the latter means a country confined to the present boundaries of Sindh, just as East Bengal means Bangladesh but Bengal means united Bengal comprising both East and West Bengal.
Angered at my speech, the Government put me under detention for six months in 1973 and served the order on me on May 12 that year. The order, which contains parts of my speech, is being reproduced here:

GOVERNMENT OF SINDH
HOME DEPARTMENT
KARACHI, dated 12th May, 1973
MEMORANDUM OF THE GROUNDS OF DETENTION
You, Mr. G.M. Sayed s/o Mohammed Shah; resident of village Sann, District Dadu, have been ordered to be detained for a period of three months by the Provincial Government under Clause (bill) of sub-rule (1) of Rule 32 read with Rule 21 3 of the Defense of Pakistan Rules 1971 vide its order No. 9053, dated 6th May, 1973 with a view to prevent you from actions in a manner prejudicial to the security, the public safety, interest and defense of Pakistan and the maintenance of peaceful conditions in the province of Sindh, on and for the following grounds and reasons:-
(1) That on 31st March, 1973, you made a speech in the Sindh University at Jamshoro, which is as under:- (The order gave the text of the speech in the original Sindhi. Parts of it are being presented here in English):
Dear Friends:
......It is time to talk and to listen. I had told you on March 4 that you would be asked to shoulder big responsibilities soon and that you had to be ready for them. Only the able and the competent can pass this test To go to prison or to face batons is easy enough. But to carry the burden of accountability is a difficult task. For this purpose, you will have to create a cadre of dedicated workers capable of understanding the political, social and economic problems of Sindh. After having made their minds clear about their task, the number of like-minded workers should grow, You have to arrive at correct conclusions after considering the following problems:
National ideology: After considering several theories about national ideology one has to select one. After much cogitation I have reached the conclusion that since people of Sindh are a separate nation on the basis of language, culture, history, traditions and Political and economic interests, they have, on the basis of the principle of self-determination, the right to make their own political, economic and cultural decisions.
Sindhu Desh, as an ancient historical entity in the subcontinent, reserves the right for itself to determine its future like the other countries.
Language: Sindhi is the oldest and most wonderful language in Pakistan and is being spoken since times immemorial. Therefore, it has the right to be our official and national language.
Before tackling the constitutional issue, it shall have to be decided what should be the basis of our constitution. Under the present dispensation, the Sindhis have been reduced into a minority, always dependent on the majority province. No constitution can be imposed on the people of Sindh without their consent. Under the one-nation theory, the majority province, on the basis of its population and strength in the civil and military services, shall always dominate Sindh.
Under the above scheme, Sindh shall not be able to rid itself of the ideology of Pakistan, the Islamic order and a strong center the ostensible reasons for hegemony over it.
The present scheme gives authority over every subject to the central government apart from defense, foreign affairs and currency.
Imperial interests: We have to understand the vested interests, which exploit us. It requires no great imagination to find that the Punjabi-Muhajir vested interests have usurped our political independence, they are in control of our economic resources and even our culture. We shall have to think how to counter this.
While resolving the constitutional imbroglio we shall have to accept that it should be based on the principle of self-determination for nations. On the basis of historic traditions and our political and economic interests, we have the right, as a separate nation, to decide our own future. Pakistan and the Islamic ideology and a strong center are in the interest only of a part of the country, but hurdles in the way of Sindhi national interests. Imperial vested interests have been harping on the Islamic order just to divert the people’s attention from their real problems. All this means that they intend to run the government on the basis of Mullahism instead of reason and intellect. Most of these Mullahs are working as agents of the capitalists and the rulers.
What is real democracy? Real democracy should be based on the following principles:
No nation should be able to exploit another on the basis of its numerical strength, ability or violence.
No one class should exploit another. , All people should have equal rights.
There should be a ban on interference in political affairs by the moneylenders, the capitalists, the mullahs and the pirs.
Secularism: For this purpose, all means of production should be under the control of a popularly elected government which should use them for the common good of all and all loopholes for personal and class exploitation should be plugged. Secularism is based on facts and intellect Religion gives protection to individual and class interests, and because religion impedes the achievement of a just society, no such thing as Islamic socialism is possible.
Islamic constitution: Every country’s constitution is based on its social needs and the circumstances prevailing during a certain period in time. Those who talk of an Islamic constitution are guilty of fraud or are stupid because no such thing exists.
What is Sindhu Desh? It means the territory within the boundaries of present-day Sindh. This country has maintained its own identity for thousands of years. The difference between Sindh and Sindhu Desh is that while Sindh stands for all Sindh Valleys, Sindhu Desh is confined to the present boundaries of Sindh. It is just like this: Bengal means both East and West Bengal but Bangladesh mean only independent East Bengal. So by Sindhu Desh, we mean the independence, economic prosperity and cultural development of the piece of land now called the Sindh province.
The development of the Sindhi nation: It is a fact that the people of Sindh have the right to be considered a separate nation. But it cannot be denied that we have not been able to create that national fervor which is necessary for the formation of a self-respecting and united nation. We shall have to remove all hurdles in the way of rekindling this spirit of nationalism. Among these hurdles are the mullahs, the pirs, the waderas and the majority of a slavish middle class.
Pakistan and Sindh: Sindh can survive without Pakistan but Pakistan cannot survive without Sindh. The continued existence of Pakistan depends on the attitude of the Pakistani rulers towards Sindh. If they don’t accept the existence of Sindh and Sindhis and do not give them their due rights, no power on earth will be able to keep Sindh in bondage.
Among the political parties in Pakistan, all except Jeay Sindh and the Khudai Khidmatgars, subscribe to the ideology of Pakistan which denies the separate identity of Sindh and other provinces. Joining them would be like signing the death warrant for Sindh.
Government policies! The Sindhis will have to assess the policies of each government after fixing some criteria for the purpose and then decide accordingly. In my view, you can assess government policies on the basis of the following points:
Any government believing in the Pakistan ideology can never be of any benefit to the Sindhis.
Any government, which believes in a strong center, has to be anti Smith.
Any government believing in the Islamic order or the Islamic system of government will be harmful for Sindh.
Those who sacrifice principles for power can never be the friends of Sindh.
A government, which refuses to recognize Sindh’s separate entity, and which denies Sindhu Desh can be regarded as anti-Sindh.
Beneficial foreign policy for the Sindhis: In order to serve global interests of the U.S. and Israel, a war between India and Pakistan is considered expedient. Western Countries have an aggressive arms sales policy, which, in view of their anti-Russian stance, favors the domination of Pakistan by the Punjabi ‘‘mujahids’’. China has adopted anti-India policies in order to dominate Asia and for this purpose, it follows U.S. imperialism. The Sindhis will, therefore, find friendship with such countries useless. Friendship with India, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran and Arab countries would be in the interest of Sindh.
Pan Islamism: This concept is now obsolete and future relationships with other countries will have to be on the basis of secularism. To believe in pan-Islamism would be tantamount to ensnaring the Sindhis.
Political morality: It is necessary to lay down important principles in politics and then to follow them. It must be remembered here that it is futile to expect principled morality from a man who is not personally a man of principles. Timesaving and deceit may benefit some people for some time but they are harmful for the long-term interests of nations.
Intellectual ability and competence: Individuals, groups and nations devoid of intellectual ability and competence cannot manage affairs of State. And even if they get into power, their authority is bound to be transient and brittle. Therefore, if you want to inherit this earth, create in yourself moral and intellectual excellence.
Varieties of politicians There are two types of politicians. First, there are practical politicians who throw all principles overboard to make temporary gains or to attain power, Then there are the idealists who follow a principled course in the larger national; interest and exhort others to do so. They spurn transient gain and power at the cost of principles.
"These are some of the issues, among others, about which you will have to make your minds clear. Do not get out into the open to work for or against governments or political parties. It would be better for the students to utilize their time in seeking intellectual clarity and the pursuit of knowledge. I invite groups of 1 2 students to stay with me at Sann for a week each to talk about national problems and to learn to distinguish between political ideologies and morality, through discussion and dialogue."
After quoting from the speech, the order continues:
That by your above speech you propagated the establishment of an independent Sindhu Desh and attacked the Two Nation theory on which the Pakistan was created.
In para 6 of your speech, you stated that Muhajirs and Punjabis had usurped the rights of Sindhis and thus promoted feelings of enmity and hatred between the old and new Sindhis;
That your said speech was prejudicial to the security, the public safety, interest and defense of Pakistan and the maintenance of peaceful conditions in the province of Sindh;
That in view of your past prejudicial activities in the last Language Controversy during the month of July/August 1972 for which you were detained, there is real danger that you are likely, if set at liberty, to act in a manner prejudicial to the security, the public safety, interest and defense of Pakistan and the maintenance of peaceful conditions in the province of Sindh.
The above grounds of detention are being communicated to you as required by Article 9(5) of the Interim Constitution of Pakistan to enable you, if you wish, to make a representation against the order of you detention.
(GHULAM RABBANI) PCS.,
Deputy Secretary
Home Department

Sindh has been named Sindhu Desh in history books again and again. I will give only a few instances here.

Map Of Present Sindh

Noted historian Dwarka Parshad Sharma in his book, Sindh Ka Prachin Ittehas (part 1), gives researched and Vedic references to prove that all land around the River Sindh was called Sindh. The Vedas and other scriptures make it clear that the land around the River Sindh was called’ Sindh and the rest of the Arian settlements were called Sapt Sindhu Desh, To the south of Sindh was the sea. Sharma has given maps of Sindh dating back to the Vedic era in India around five thousand years past. The delineated territory in the maps is called Sindhu Desh. Photocopies of these maps are being reproduced here:


Map of Vadic period of India
Again, the noted British diplomat, linguist and historian, Richard Burton who came to Sindh during the reign of the Mirs, gives the exact geographic location of the country in his book Sindh and the Races that Inhabit the Valley of Sindh.
A former President of the Sindh Muslim League and noted scholar, Syed Ali Akbar Shah of Mehar wrote an article, Hamara Sindhu Desh, which appeared in the Sindh Azad Number of Al-Wahid on June 16, 1936, in which he said that Sindhu Desh is a pre-historic country with a glorious past. The Aryans coming into India from the Khyber Pass saw a huge river, which they named Sindh. (Al-Wahid, p. 126).
Another noted scholar and historian of Sindh, Shamsul Ulema Umar bin Mohammed Daudpota wrote a letter in Makhzan Mehran (inaugural issue under the title Adabi Sangat on August 31, 1945, in which he had called Sindh as Sindhu Desh. Mehran is the ancient name for Sindh whose muddy but holy water assuages the thirst of Hindus, Muslims and others alike.
Your Honor!
All references to history prove that Sindhu Desh is the oldest constituent of this region, to secure independent status for which my party and me are struggling. I am not the only one who has talked of independence for Sindh. Before me, another devotee of Sindh and a great freedom fighter of the sub-continent, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi also had said that the only solution for the communal problems of India was complete independence for Sindh. The Maulana said:
"It is necessary to explain here that we want a permanent government of Sindhis in Sindh, We shall not permit any religious issue to arise here We regard Sindh as a permanent entity. We shall determine our relationship with the other countries of the sub-continent in our capacity as a separate country." (Khutbaat-i-Obaidullah, p. 1 63)
At another place, the Maulana said:
"We shall create a dominion in Sindh and decide to be part of the British Commonwealth." Khutbaat-i Obaidullah, p. 156).
Once again, the Maulana said:
"Our party, the Sindh Sagar Party, is willing to cooperate with any other party which is in agreement with our basic tenet which is that Sindh is for the Sindhis alone." (Khutbaat-i-Obaidullah, p. 165).
Shaheed Allah Bux Soomro waged the same struggle when he tried to rid Sindhi politics of Congress and Muslim League interference.

The struggle that I am waging is in continuation of these elders of Sindh and those who laid down their lives for the motherland before them That is why I am in the dock today. It is a strange fact of history that often times people of stature and intellect beyond standing limits of time and space are put in the narrow docks of courts of law, while the rulers try to destroy universes from their small rooms with the help of small minds. But can those who know the secrets of nature confine themselves within such small worlds? However, I have seen that from Christ to Gandhi, the symbols of universal reality have been brought to narrow docks.
Small people have punished big people but those who punished are not even pebbles on the shores of time. I don’t say this for myself but for Such great people as Socrates Galileo, Ghaffar Khan, Abul Kalam Azad and Castro who were put in the dock. Convicted by men with small minds, they became brighter than stars and attained heights of glory What greater good luck can be fall a man than that he should become as immortal as this universe? I am happy to state that this man who was born to a Syed family in a hilly village of Sindh stands at a place where once Christ, Galileo, Gandhi Azad, Ghaffar Khan and Castro stood. I am happy at the" great good luck that has befallen me. I wish that the power hungry leaders of Sindh could understand its importance.

In the end, I wish to borrow here excerpts from a deposition of a contemporary scholar and statesman, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad made before a magistrate. He had said:
Your Honor!
I won’t take further time of the court. It is an interesting and fateful chapter of history in the preparation of which we both are at work. For me is this dock and for your goodself is the judge’s chair. I admit that the chair is as necessary as the dock. Let us make haste to complete this historic task which will give birth to an interesting fable in the future, Time awaits us. I will come here again and again for some one to adjudicate, This will go for some days until the doors of only one court shall remain open for me and that will be the court of Divine Law where Time is the Judge. Its judgment will be final."
Your Honor!

Whatever your judgment, I will gladly accept it for my ideology, for my objectives and with reference to Sindhu Dash, because my struggle for independence is right. If this struggle for independence is a crime, I will continue to commit it today, tomorrow and for countless days to come and I plead guilty even today. Jeay Sindh!