Communal Politics, Sindhi Separatism, and the Creation of Pakistan 1920-1951

Abstract

This thesis explores and explains the roles that communalism, Muslim, nationalism and Sindhi ethnic identity performed in the Sind during the period 1920-1951. In particular, the argument is presented that in the case of Sind, a regional, ethnic identity was as significant a factor as the 'Islamic response' in mobilising the support of the Muslim provincial elites for the Pakistan demand. It will be explained how the changes which colonial rule brought to Sind's economic and political infrastructure prompted the response from the Muslim elites of demanding the separation of the province from the Bombay Presidency in the first decades of the twentieth-century. The granting of the Sindhi Muslims' separatist demands by the British in 1932 represented the legitimisation of their entwining communal and ethnocentric issues, and resulted in furthering the development of a distinctive Sindhi Muslim political identity. The subsequent structuring of state institutions under the provisions of provincial autonomy served to politicise religious identity. Combined with the legacy of the Sind Separation movement, state structures encouraged the communalisation of provincial politics. Although the establishment of the provincial government in 1937 offered Sindhi Muslims the opportunity to govern the province, they were consistently outmanoeuvred by Hindu members in the Assembly. Failed attempts by the land-owning Muslim leaders to use an Islamic discourse to control political action in the public arena, and the strengthening of Hindu political power, demonstrated the need for assistance from the All-India Muslim League. By 1943, the establishment of a strong Muslim League provincial government formed a watershed in Sindhi politics. The catalyst for the popularity of the Pakistan movement came with the definition that it was to mean the creation of the sovereign state of Sind. Ethnicity as well as religious identity shaped the Pakistan movement in Sind as it became the vehicle for the Sindhi Muslims to achieve their goals which the Sind Separation movement and provincial autonomy had failed to deliver.