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Sindhis (Sindhi: سنڌي, Sindhi Devanagari: सिन्धी, Sindhī) are a socio-ethnic group of people originating from Sindh, historically a part of India and now a province of modern day Pakistan.

After the 1947 partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan, many Sindhi Hindus fled to India and some later settled in other parts of the world.

Pakistan and Indian independence

After the partition of Pakistan and India on 14–15 August 1947, the majority of the minority Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan fled to India while the Muslim migrants from India settled down in Pakistan. Approximately 6 million Hindus and Sikhs fled to India while nearly an equal number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan from India. Hindu Sindhis were expected to stay in Sindh following the partition, as there were good relations between Hindu and Muslim Sindhis. At the time of partition there were 1,400,000 Hindu Sindhis, though most were concentrated in cities such as Hyderabad, Karachi, Shikarpur, and Sukkur. However, because of a genocide in that Muslim country, a sense of better opportunities in India, and most of all a sudden influx of Muslim refugees from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Central Provinces, Hyderabad State, Rajputana (Rajasthan) and other parts of India, many Sindhi Hindus decided to leave Pakistan.

Problems were further aggravated when incidents of violence instigated by Indian Muslim refugees, broke out in Karachi and Hyderabad. According to the census of India 1951, nearly 776,000 Sindhi Hindus fled to India. Despite this flight of Hindus, a significant Sindhi Hindu population still resides in Pakistan's Sindh Province where they numbered around 2.28 million as of 1998 , while the Sindhi Hindus in India numbered 2.57 million as of 2001 .

The responsibility of rehabilitating them was borne by their government. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis. Many people abandoned their fixed assets and crossed newly formed borders. Many refugees overcame the trauma of poverty, though the loss of a homeland has had a deeper and lasting effect on their Sindhi culture. In 1967 the Government of India recognized the Sindhi language as a fifteenth official language of India in two scripts. In late 2004, the Sindhi diaspora vociferously opposed a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India, which asked the Government of India to delete the word "Sindh" from the Indian National Anthem (written by Rabindranath Tagore prior to the partition) on the grounds that it infringed upon the sovereignty of Pakistan.

Resettlement of refugees

Adipur

Soon after the partition of Pakistan from India in 1947, a large group of refugees from Sindh of Pakistan came to India. Adipur was founded by the government of India as a refugee camp. Its management was later passed onto a self-governing body called the Sindhu Resettlement Corporation (SRC). The person credited with the formation of this settlement was Bhai Pratap Dialdas, who requested from Mahatma Gandhi this land for the (mostly Sindhi) immigrants from Pakistan. 15,000 acres (61 km) of land was donated by the Maharaj of Kutch, His Highness Maharao Shri Vijayrajji Khengarji Jadeja at the request of Mahatma Gandhi; it was felt that the climate and culture of Kutch resembled that of Sindh. Adipur, like Gandhidham, was built on this land donated by Maharaja of Kutch, to rehabilitate the Hindu Sindhi refugees coming from Sindh (now in Pakistan). The Indian Institute of Sindhology established at Adipur, Gandhidham (Kutch), is a centre for advanced studies and research in the fields related to Sindhi language, literature, art and culture.

Ahmedabad

The city population increased dramatically when hundreds of thousands of Hindu refugees from Pakistan settled in Ahmedabad.

Gandhidham

Maharaja of Kutch His Highness Maharao Shri Vijayrajji Khengarji Jadeja, at the advice of Mahatma Gandhi, gave 15,000 acres (61 km2) of land to Bhai Pratap, who founded the Sindhu Resettlement Corporation to rehabilitate Sindhi Hindus uprooted from their motherland. The Sindhi Resettlement Corporation (SRC) was formed with Acharaya Kriplani as chairman and Bhai Pratap Dialdas as managing director. The main objective of the corporation was to assist in the rehousing of displaced persons by the construction of a new town on a site a few miles inland from the location selected by the Government of India for the new port of Kandla on the Gulf of Kachchh. The first plan was prepared by a team of planners headed by Dr. O. H. Koenigsberger, director of the Government of India's division of housing. This plan was subsequently revised by Adams Howard and Greeley company in 1952. The town's foundation stone was laid with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi, and hence the town was named Gandhidham.

Ulhasnagar

Ulhasnagar is a municipal town and the headquarters of the Tahsil bearing the same name. It is a railway station on the Mumbai-Pune route of the Central Railway. Ulhasnagar, a colony of migrants in the aftermath of the partition of Pakistan and India, is 61 years old. Situated 58 km from Mumbai, the once-barren land has developed into a rich town in the Thane district. Originally, known as Kalyan Military transit camp (or Kalyan Camp), Ulhasnagar was set up especially to accommodate 6,000 soldiers and 30,000 others during World War II. There were 2,126 barracks and about 1,173 housed personals. The majority of barracks had large central halls with rooms attached to either end. The camp had a deserted look at the end of the war and served as a ready and ideal ground for Partition refugees. Sindhis, in particular, began life anew in the new land.

Sindhi Colony, Cox Town, Bangalore

Sindhi Hindus from Hyderabad fled to Bangalore through Mumbai and Goa. A community housing society was created with a temple, Sindhi Association and a Sindhi Social Hall, a community hub for celebrations, marriages and festivals such as Holi and Guru Nanak Jayanti. The immigration of the community resulted in the introduction of Sindhi culture and cuisine to the city.

Sindhi Colony, Secunderabad, Hyderabad

Sindhi Colony is a major suburb of Secunderabad, India. It was founded to house returning Sindhis coming from Sindh Pakistan after Partition of India.

Official status of the Sindhi language

Although Sindhi was not a regional language in a well-defined area. There were persistent demands from the Sindhi-speaking people for the inclusion of Sindhi language in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities also recommended the inclusion. On 4 November 1966, it was announced that Government had decided to include the Sindhi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. As of the 2001 census, there were 2,571,526 Sindhi speakers in India.

Sindhi people

The Sindhi people live mainly in the north-western part of India. Many Sindhis inhabit the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh as well as the Indian capital of New Delhi. In India, Sindhi is the local language in the Kutchh region of Gujarat. Most Sindhis of India follow the Hindu religion (90%), although Sindhi Sikhs are a prominent minority (5-10%). There are many Sindhis living in various cities in India, including Ulhasnagar, Kalyan, Mumbai, Pune, Gandhidham, Adipur, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Bhavnagar, Bhopal (Bairagarh), Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Kota, Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Raipur, Indore, Gondia, Nagpur,etc.

Sindhi festivals

One of the oldest civilizations of human history, Sindhi's have a rich and clearly distinct cultural heritage and are very festive. Their most important festival is Cheti Chand, the birthday of Lord Jhulelal. Besides this, they celebrate Akhandi (Baisakhi) and Teejri (Teej).

Sindhi Sikhs

With the teachings of Guru Nanak during one of his travels to Sindh, many Hindu Sindhis adopted Sikhism. Many Hindu Sindhi ladies learned Punjabi script to enable them to read the Guru Granth Sahib. Many Amils, a sect of Hindu Sindhis, adopted Sikhism. There used to be a time when to say one was a non-Muslim Sindhi was the same as saying one was a Sehajdhari/Nanakpanthi Sikh.

During the early 1900s, the Chief Khalsa Diwan of Amritsar sent out missionary groups once a year to Sindh to work among the Sehajdhari Sindhis. Over a period of 30 years with scarce resources this missionary's activity resulted in an increase from 1000 Keshdhari Sindhis in 1901 to over 39,000 in 1941 a significant number in those days.

The bond of the Sehajdhari Sindhis with Sikhism is legendary. Like the Sikhs of Punjab, the Sehajdhari Sikhs of Sindh also left behind their homeland and are now dispersed all over India and abroad. There are about 50 million Sindhis in Sindh province of Pakistan and about 2.5 million in India. Their main pilgrimage centres are Nankana Sahib and Dehra Sahib in Pakistani Punjab, and Sadh Bela near Sukkur in Sindh. Sadh Bela is an Udasi shrine built in 1823.

Notes

1. Rita Kothari, Burden of Refuge : Sindh, Gujarat, Partition, Orient Blackswan
2. Markovits, Claude (2000). The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947. Cambridge University Press. p. 278. ISBN 0-521-62285-9.
3. ^ http://www.sindhology.org/sindhiyat.asp "Maharaja of Kutch on advice of Gandhiji, gave 15000 acres of land to Bhai Pratab, who founded Sindhu Resettlement Corporation to rehabilitate Sindhi Hindus uprooted from their motherland."
4. Discovering the heart of Sindh in Cox Town, 6 July 2013

• Sindhi diaspora
• Sindhi people