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Title: Politics in Sindh, 1907-1940: Muslim Identity and the Demand for Pakistan by Allen Keith Jones ISBN: 0-19-579593-8 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Very informative but somewhat skewed
Comment: The book is based on Jones' PhD work at Duke university completed in 1977. Having earlier read an article contributed by the author on Sindh's Muslims for an encyclopedic Survey of Muslim Peoples (published in the 1980's), I didn't know what to expect from his upcoming book. The article appeared shallow; among other things, many "native" terms he used were actually not in the native Sindhi language; they were in Pakistan's official language, Urdu. [He learned Urdu in Lahore in 1972]

After reading the book, I think that it's a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning about the complex events of the time. An interesting observation the author repeatedly makes in the book is how uninterested Sindh's Muslim leaders were in all-India politics, which confirms claims by contemporary Sindhi scholars that following the 1936 separation of Sindh from Bombay presidency, Sindhi leadership was thinking more in terms of complete independence than any type of Muslim union. Even conservative Muslim leaders such as Abdul Majid Sindhi of communal Sindh Azad Party struggled to stay independent of Muslim League, while seeking support for his local agenda.

It appears that the supposed Hindu-Muslim conflict that arose was anything but a religious conflict. It was in fact a class conflict, with the predominantly Hindu urban upperclass on one side and the mass of Hindu and Muslim lower and middle rural classes on the other, the latter represented by an emerging Muslim middle class with rural roots. It would seem that Hindu leadership was hijacked and communalized by business interests of the urban upper class (which probably explains why surveys have shown resentment among diasporic Sindhi Hindus against their leadership - See Subadhra Anand, "National Integration of Sindhis", Vikas, 1996). The population distribution of the time (as shown by the 1931 census) is particularly revealing. Where Hindus did indeed form significant majorities of populations in many cities (except Karachi, Larkano, and Upper Sindh Frontier), the population distribution in the countryside was almost identical to the overall distribution of Hindus and Muslims in all of Sindh. In fact, the Sindh United Party which won the 1937 election, had a secular agenda with primary focus on economic uplift of the rural population. The party was led by Haroon, Bhutto and Hidayatullah. Even Sindh Muslim League leaders who formed government in 1940, Mir Bandeh Ali, Khuhro, Syed and Abdul Majid, went against All-India Muslim League policies such as separate electorates, to restore the communal harmony disturbed by Muslim League's tactics for removing Allah Bux government. Abdullah Haroon, the sole prominent Sindhi Muslim leader supportive of the League's all-India communal agenda, repeatedly failed to impose the same on Sindh's Muslim League leadership. Despite this, Haroon played an active role at the historic Muslim League gathering which passed the famous 1940 Lahore Resolution supporting Pakistan.

There are also small details in the book about things such as Shahnawaz Bhutto's reluctance to support separation from Bombay until when it was obviously inevitable. The rivalry between Bhutto and Hidayatullah, and the politics of personalities rather than parties, people switching sides because of personal rivalries, reminds one of what we continue to witness in Sindhi politics today. Though the author acknowledges a gradual political maturity evidence by leaders' commitment to either a Sindh focused or India focused agenda.

Something that I did not like about the book was the general tone; it almost appears that the author is rooting for Muslim League throughout the narrative and is lamenting the fact that Sindhis are too focused on Sindh and aren't taking interest in the larger Indian Muslim politics. With the benefit (or otherwise) of the knowledge of what eventually happened, and being under the impression that joining Pakistan was good for Sindhis (Jones' thesis work coincided with Z A Bhutto's rule, when Sindhis enjoyed sort of a respite), perhaps he is simply trying to emphasize how many opportunities were lost. But the way he fails to distinguish between the average Hindu and the exploitative urban upper class (which happens to be dominated by a small minority of Hindus) almost appears to suggest that the author has bought into the myth of "evil Hindus" perpetuated by Muslim League. For reading the objective facts themselves as late as late as 1930's, one does not get a sense of inevitability of Sindh's entrapment by Muslim League's egalitarian pretensions. It is also noteworthy that it was in the name of the suffering rural poor, rather than Islam, that Muslim League along with its dirty politics gained entry into Sindhi politics. By the time it was exposed, it was too late. Unfortunately, the book does not cover the last few years before 1947, which too witnessed events that could very well have changed the course of history; or at least a thorough discussion could have exposed British partiality towards Muslim League.

The book actually discusses events as early as 1885, and in fact the tentative title for the book publicised by Oxford mentioned the period 1885-1940. However, the discussion of the period preceding 1907 is very brief, which probably explains why the title was changed. The first chapter still has 1885-1935 in the title.

The foreward is written by Dr. Hamida Khuhro, who is daughter of one of Sindh's leaders during the 1940s. Mr. Khuhro became a Premier of Sindh after Indian independence and was sacked and arrested for trying to prevent anti-Hindu riots by Muslim refugees arriving from India and for resisting Pakistani occupation of Sindh's capital Karachi.