Pakistan's Sindhi Ethnic Nationalism: Migration, Marginalization, and the Threat of "Indianization"

Abstract

It is a measure of the political system of Pakistan that Sindh is the most developed province in the country, while its indigenous people are, after the Baloch, the most marginalized. In no other region of Pakistan is the divide between urban prosperity and rural deprivation as wide as it is in Sindh. Due to the concentration of commerce and industry in its capital city, Karachi, Sindh has the highest per capita income in Pakistan, while its rural inhabitants are among the country's poorest.¹Such a striking disparity has made Sindh a hotbed of various kinds of nationalism ranging from separatists and right-wing autonomists to socialist intellectuals and left-wing peasant groups. An interesting characteristic of Sindhi politics, however, is that since the first free national elections in 1970, Sindhis have overwhelmingly voted for a federalist party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), founded by Sindhi politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. His daughter, Benazir Bhutto, now leads the PPP.