11 Oct 2006
A Good article about Sindhi in the late 19th / early 20th Century to put the Yagya story into perspective.
From; University of Illinois website, The Story of Sindh by K. R. Malkani with photographs from a different source. Given the sanctifying and sanitization of the Lekhraj Kirpalani story, I think this give a good feel of the environment the Om Mandali movement came out of and it is mentioned in this article. I wish there was more, accurate third party documentation of the movement like this and that the BKs were less interested in PR and whitewash.
From; University of Illinois website, The Story of Sindh by K. R. Malkani with photographs from a different source. Given the sanctifying and sanitization of the Lekhraj Kirpalani story, I think this give a good feel of the environment the Om Mandali movement came out of and it is mentioned in this article. I wish there was more, accurate third party documentation of the movement like this and that the BKs were less interested in PR and whitewash.
From Brahmo Samaj to RSS
WHEN the British took over Sindh in 1843, it was little more than sandy expanses on both sides of the river, interspersed with patches of green. Karachi was a small trading town and even Hyderabad, the capital, had housing that was little more than miserable hovels. There were no great monuments. And even the Mirs' "palaces" had nothing palatial about them. Life was poor and short, even if it was not nasty and brutish.
The Sindh of 1947 was a very different affair. It was something that old-timers - Hindus, Muslims and English alike - remember with nostalgia. It was "beautiful as a bride", says Pir Husamuddin Rashdi. This was not the doing of only great individuals. It was the cumulative result of the winds of change that blew in from all directions.
Unfortunately the Sindhi Muslims did not get - or did not take - any favourable wind. The Muslim-majority separate province of Sindh became a division of the Bombay Presidency, - with its Hindu majority. Bombay officialdom treated Sindh as the Shikargah (hunting ground) during their winter visits.
The Wahabi movement with its extreme emphasis on Islamic fundamentalism did not have many takers in eclectic Sindh, which delighted in its Pirs and graves and amulets. Wahabi leader Syed Ahmed Barelvi did come to Sindh; and he did help reorganise the Hurs as a fraternity madly devoted to their Pir in the cause of "Deen". But the Mirs of Sindh saw that the British were using the Syed to harass the Sikhs in their rear, in what is the North-West Frontier Province today. However, the Wahabi wars with the Sikhs did keep Ranjit Singh too pre-occupied to go and capture Shikarpur in Sindh, which had been ceded by Afghanistan to the Sikhs.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, British rule was very popular in India and Lord Ripon, the Viceroy, was particularly popular. In Banaras his carriage was pulled by the Kashi Pandits. All over the country thousands of welcome addresses were being signed by leading citizens to be presented to him. The Sindh Sabha also called a meeting in Karachi in 1881 to send him a memorandum signed by the leaders, appreciating his services. In this meeting Khan Bahadur Hassan Ali Effendi opposed the move and said a simple letter should do. Dayaram flared up and said that it would be a shame (lainat) if Sindh failed to honour Ripon like the rest of the country. An enraged Effendi walked out as he muttered "lainat! lainat!" in resentment. The Sindh Sabha duly sent a delegation - including Dayaram, Hiranand, Futeh Ali, etc. - which joined other delegations in honouring Ripon at a public reception in Bombay But Effendi did not join it; instead, he set up Sindh Madrassa for Muslim students the very next year in l885. Although the Madrassa was born in resentment against servility to the British, it grew up as an ordinary school with no particular impact on the political or literary life of the province. Much of the time it had English headmasters. The Muslim zamindars refused to help Muslim education; they feared that if their underlings, children went to school, they would cease to be their obedient servants!
Interestingly enough, even Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) did not have much of an impact on Sindh. The only AMU graduate who became a Sindh MLA was Mohammed Amin Khoso, who joined the Congress.
The Khilafat movement did affect Sindh much. Sheikh Abdul Majid Lilaram, Sheikh Abdul Rahim (Kripalani) and Obaidullah Sindhi (born Sikh) even got involved in the Silk Kerchief Case, inviting the Afghan King to "liberate" India. But the whole thing only earned them long terms in jail or exile. Thousands of Sindhi Muslims staged a hijrat to Afghanistan; but they too came to grief. The talk of Khalifa and Turkey did initiate them into West Asian affairs. But the Arab-Turkish animosity bewildered them. The emergence of Kamal Pasha as the saviour of Turkey thrilled them. But his war on mullahs, Arabic language and Fez cap left them cold. The anti-climax was complete when the leaders in Iran, Arabia and Turkey ridiculed the Khilafat movement and expressed themselves in favour of the freedom movement in India.
While the Muslims elsewhere in India gloried in Urdu and Iqbal, the better type of Sindhi Muslims ridiculed and rejected "Urdu" as "Phurdu". They marvelled at how Iqbal had praised Amanullah, King of Afghanistan, as also Nadir Khan, the British stooge who succeeded him. They viewed the whole thing as the limit of opportunism.
At one time conversions had provided an emotional boost to the Sindhi Muslims. But with the coming of the Hindu renaissance and the growth of the Freedom Movement, that too had stopped.
For years the Sindhi Muslims concentrated on the separation of Sindh from Bombay, to the neglect of everything else. It had been separate barely two years when World War II broke out, bringing in its wake political storms such as "Quit India" of the Congress and "Direct Action" of the Muslim League. The Sindhis just did not get time enough to settle down and think out their future. The Muslim peasants declared themselves "Lengi" and duly voted for the Muslim League. But their heart was not in it. Basically, they remained glued to their Pir - and attached to their Wadera. They protected the Bania as the hen that laid the golden credit eggs for them - and they respected the Amil Diwan for his accomplishments. The Sindhi Muslim was sound at heart, but the winds of change had left him almost unchanged. However, these winds had changed the Hindu beyond recognition.
When the British took over Sindh, Hindus were in a pretty parlous state. They held important offices as Dewans, and they made money as Seths. But even the highest Dewan and the richest Seth could be ruined by the lust of a Mir or the fatwa of a Pir. Hinduism had survived very much as Sanatan Dharma. The peregrinations of the Yogis and the pilgrimages of the laity had kept the ancient torch burning, even if not very bright. The stories of Raja Gopichand and Guru Gorakhnath gripped the people. Even Shah Abdul Latif had sung of "Vindura ja vana" (the trees of Vrindavan) and seen great virtues in "Ganjo Takar" the Bald Hillock (Ganjay mein guna ghana), which housed an ancient Kali temple. Mutts and marhis, amulets and bhabhooti, even myths and miracles, held the popular mind firm.
Rohri alone was supposed to have produced "sawa lakh sant" (one and a quarter lakh of saints). And then there were any number of local saints such as Bhai Kalachand, Bhai Dalpat, Bhai Vasan, Bhai Moolchand, Paroo Shah, Lila Shah and the great Swami Bankhandi Saheb who set up Sadhbela Mandir in Sukkur in 1823. Others such as Kaka Bhagavandas (1842-1922), Father of Acharya J.B. Kripalani, were beholden to Shri Nath Dwara of Udaipur. (On one occasion when a young Kripalani Cousin Jivat commennted on the hard texture of the Shri Nath Dwara Ladoo Prasad, Kaka chased him with a lathi for daring to comment on the sacred Prasad.) But, with all this, the fact is that when the British took over, Hindus could neither keep an idol nor ring a bell in what passed for their "temples". The rise of Sikh power in the Punjab did come as a moral boost to the Sindhi Hindus, who had promptly put up a few gurdwaras. But that was all.
The coming of the British opened vast new vistas. The merger with Bombay linked Sindh to Hindu India officially and intimately. Gujerati traders and Marathi and Parsi administrators came to Sindh in large numbers. The biggest school in Karachi, N.J. Government High School, was named after Narayan Jagannath, a Maharashtrian educationist. And the best school in Karachi was Sharda Mandir, a private Gujerati enterprise.
However, the old challenges to the Hindus of Sindh remained; and new ones came up. Islam had always been a challenge; and now Christianity also emerged as a challenge. My mother recalled that at the turn of the century, missionaries started visiting Amil homes to teach English to the little girls. The visiting missionaries were very nice. But the elders decided that their real objective was to convert them to Christianity. And so the girls started to hide under their string cots, to avoid their dubious benefactors. A leading Sindhi, Parmanand Mewaram, editor of Jyot and author of English-Sindhi and Sindhi-English dictionaries, actually changed his faith.
Even more serious, however, was the challenge of modernity. Contact with Bombay, Calcutta and London had shown what a stagnant pool was Sindh. Those were the days when Sindhi women lived in purdah; you could see 12-year-old mothers. Young men roamed about the streets without any education. Holi-time was taken up with drinking; Janmashtami- time, with gambling; and filthy abuses filled the air the whole year round.
Sikhism, which had been the solace of Sindhi Hindus in the last days of the Muslim rule, did not meet these new challenges. It continued to be very popular. Thousands kept night-long vigil for Guru Nanak birthday - something they did not do even for Janmashtami. They would go vegetarian on Gur-Parbh (Parva) days, when the Sikhs themselves take meat to "celebrate" the occasion. However, Sikhism was not the answer to the new challenges. But an answer had to be found, if society was to survive and grow.
Nobody faced up to these challenges as boldly as Navalrai (1843-93), the son of Showkiram Nandiram Advani, Mukhi of Hyderabad. By sheer dint of ability, integrity and devotion, he rose from a clerk to be deputy collector, the highest office an Indian could hold in those days, Navalrai founded the Sikh Sabha, consisting of leading Hindus, who all had faith in Guru Nanak. At the age of 26, he paid an unannounced visit to Calcutta and met Keshub Chandra Sen. What he saw in Calcutta, heard from Keshub, and experienced in the Bharat Asham, a community centre of the Brahmo families, answered all his questions about the reconstruction of Sindh. Navalrai returned home, the prophet of a New Sindh. The result, in the words of Rishi Dayaram, was "the miracle of modern Sindh".
Navalrai and his friends now renamed the Sikh Sabha as the Sindh Sabha. He plunged himself heart and soul into the task of educating boys and girls. He was so thrilled with the life and teachings of the Brahmos that he built a first-class Brahmo Mandir with his own money in Hyderabad. He sent his younger Brother Hiranand (1863-93) to Calcutta, where he lived much of the time with Keshub Chandra, as a member of his family.
In Calcutta, Hiranand was doubly blessed by the holy company of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, who once said of him and of Vivekananda: "Narendra belongs to a very high level. Hiranand too. How childlike his nature is! What a sweet: disposition he has! I want to see him too. " On another occasion he said: "If married people develop love of God, they will not be attached to the world. Hiranand is married. What if he is? He will not be much attached to the world."
Hiranand had completed his education in Calcutta in 1883 and gone back to Sindh. But in April 1886, when Sri Ramakrishna fell seriously ill - he died on 15 August, 1886 - Hiranand specially visited Calcutta to see the Master. Ramakrishna was delighted to see him. He called in Narendra and said: "I want to hear you two talk." At the end of their spiritual discussion Narendra sang for Hiranand the song: "Blest indeed is the wearer of the loin-cloth."
One day during that last visit, Hiranand was massaging the Master's feet and the latter said: "Suppose you don't go to Sindh. Suppose you give up the job. Why don't you live here?" Hiranand explained: "But there is nobody else to do my work." Hiranand invited Ramakrishna to visit Sindh. Ramakrishna was pleased but he said that he was too ill - and Sindh too far - for that. However, Ramakrishna reminded Hiranand to send him some Sindhi pajamas for easy wear, since his dhoti tended to slip away.
The two Brothers, Navalrai and Hiranand, put new life into Sindh. They started the Union Academy in Hyderabad, which later became famous after its founders' names as N.H. Academy. They started the first girls' school and got two Ghose Sisters from Lucknow to teach there. Hiranand took his two daughters to Bankipore in Bihar for education under Shrimati Aghor Kamini Prakash Roy, mother of Dr. B.C. Roy, who rose to be Chief Minister of West Bengal. Special attention was paid to the teaching of Sanskrit. One of their Sanskrit students was Roopchand Bilaram who rose to be the only Indian Judicial Commissioner of Sindh. They started a Leper Home in Karachi and an orphanage in Shikarpur.
Their campaign against child marriage even got them in a scrape. One Hundomal, a student of N. H. Academy, told his uncle, who was an official, that he would respectfully refuse to marry at that age even if his Father asked him. On the basis of this, a complaint was filed with the Director of Public Instruction of Bombay that Hiranand was fostering disrespect for parents! And the DPI duly asked Hiranand for his expla- nation. Hiranand had to rush to Bombay. And only a word from the Sindh officials saved him from censure!
Their campaign against drinking, gambling, and abusive language also made its mark on the Sindhi society. Unfortunately the two Brothers died very young - within months of each other, in 1893. But they had infused new hope in society - and provided it with models to multiply. When Keshub Chandra Sen was requested to visit Sindh, he said that Sindh, which had a Navalrai, did not need anybody else. Colonel Trevor, the Collector of Hyderabad, wished that Navalrai had been the Collector, and himself his clerk! And Mirza Kalich Beg, a Muslim savant of Sindh, said of Sadhu Hiranand: "He was more an angel than a human being."
Even after the demise of the Sadhu Brothers, Brahmo Pribhdas put up the Nav Vidyalaya High School and Brahmo Kundanmal put up what came to be known as the great Kundanmal Girls High School, both in Hyderabad. But the Brahmo Samaj movement was not an unqualified success in Sindh even in the days of Navalrai and Hiranand. When the Government wanted to transfer its own high school in Hyderabad to the Academy management, the people objected - on the ground that the Brahmos were half-Christian. This impression was unfortunately reinforced when Bhawani Charan Bannerji, a Sanskrit teacher at the Academy, became a Christian in 1892.
Earlier, Sadhu Navalrai's multi-religious musical procession on the inauguration of the Brahmo Mandir in !875, singing, among other things, "Allah-o-Akbar" and "Ya Allah il Allah", had elicited the sneer that it all sounded like Moharrum.
Divisions in the Brahmo Samaj - Prarthana Samaj, Sadharan Samaj, etc. - also took away the Brahmo steam. But more than these, it was its failure to combat conversions to Islam and project the power and glory of Hindu Dharma, that made the Brahmo Samaj a back-number well before Independence came. These dual inadequacies of the Brahmo Samaj were found remedied in the Arya Samaj. When, therefore, Moorajmal, Deoomal, Tharoomal and several other Amils became Muslim, and many more seemed to be on the verge of conversion, Sindhi Hindu leaders, under the guidance of Dayaram, sent urgent requests to Swami Shraddhanand in Lahore in 1893 for help.
The Punjab Arya Samaj promptly sent Pandit Lekhram Arya Musafir and Pandit Poornanand to Sindh. The two preachers did not stop at defending Hinduism; they started to ask any number, and all kind, of inconvenient questions about Islam and Christianity. The maulvis were unused to the new situation, complete with "Shastrarth" inter-religious debates. In sheer rage they got Lekhram murdered. Many other murders followed. But the message of the Arya Samaj had caught on too well to be drowned in blood. A regular tug-of-conversion-war ensued. Many Hindus, earlier converted to Islam - including the entire community of Sanjogis - were brought back to the ancestral faith. In the process, many Muslim girls also converted and married Hindus.
In this new atmosphere the old abuse of homosexuality was also challenged and resisted. In Jacobabad, Abul Hassan, a revered local Pir, went mad after Suggu, a handsome young Hindu, who used to act female parts in local dramas. The Pir fell off a window crying "Suggu! Suggu!", while seeing a Suggu rehearsal. The death of the Pir in these circumstances so enraged some local Muslims that they engaged an assassin who shot down ten Hindus with a 12-bore gun one May evening in 1929. Nothing like that had happened in Sindh before. Even Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya arrived on the scene to see things for himself. For days the market was closed. Sukhiya, a Parsi intelligence officer, was specially deputed to inquire. (Whenever a serious Hindu-Muslim situation arose in Sindh, an Englishman or a Parsi was sent in, to handle the issue impartially.) Sukhia did unearth the conspiracy of big landlords and maulvis. But they were not touched. In their place some fake accused were prosecuted and then duly acquitted. The actual killer was never nabbed.
In Upper Sindh, many Muslims visited Harijan women, advanced loans to their families, and later converted them. The local Arya Samajists hit upon an idea: they presented pigs to those Harijan families. The sight of pigs kept the Muslims away; and the income from pigs made Harijans independent of money-lenders.
To the extent that a tit called for a tat, the Arya Samaj played a useful role in Sindh. The Arya Samajists did not put up any colleges, or many schools; but they did organize many gyamnasia and Kanya Sanskrit Pathshalas. They gave the Hindus a new pride. Somehow, the Arya Samaj did not attract the classes in Sindh - as it did in the Punjab. Its leading lights were Tarachand Gajra and Swami Krishnanand. It was not chic to be in the conversion business; but Arya Samaj did influence Sindhi Hindu masses. It was a good service well performed.
Meanwhile another movement arrived on the scene to take care of the Sindhi elite in the wake of the eclipse cf the Brahmo Samaj. This was the Theosophical Society. It revived the basic Hindu thought in international idiom. This was doubly welcome to the educated Sindhi, who valued his Hinduism and who did not underrate internationalism. Stalwarts such as Jethmal Parasram and Jamshed Mehta became the pillars of Theosophy in Sindh. The Theosophical Lodges became non-denominational centres of intellectual and cultural activity. The Theosophical Society of Karachi was found to be the most active branch in the whole world. Dayaram Gidumal's son Kewalram became an active theosophist. He helped set up D.G. National College in Hyderabad, and Sarnagati, a research library in Karachi.
The universal appeal of Theosophy attracted not only Parsi leaders such as Jamshed and Kotwal but also Muslim intellectuals such as G.M. Syed, Hyderbux Jatoi and A K. Brohi. who have all been major characters on the Pakistani scene. The theosophists also joined hands with the Hindus to checkmate Christianity. Dewan Dayaram delivered fifteen scholarly lectures on the inadequacy of Christianity. And Dr. Annie Besant appealed to the Sindhis not to change faith. The convert Parmanand's mother asked her an obviously inspired ques- tion: "You advise the Hindus not to be Christian; how is it that you have renounced Christianity and become a Hindu?" Pat came Besant's reply: "I have done so because in my previous birth I was a Brahmin."
After that nobody heard of any conversions .
A very significant movement of spiritual revival was led by Sadhu T.L. Vaswani (1879--1966). A great scholar, he taught at D.J. Sind College in Karachi and Vidyasagar College in Calcutta. Later he was Principal of Dyal Singh College in Lahore, Victoria College in Cooch-Behar, and Mahendra College in Patiala. But more than a scholar, he was a saint. He represented India at the World Congress of Religions in Berlin in 1910. On his return journey he threw all the flattering press cuttings in the sea; he regarded them all a vanity.
His mother could not bear the thought of his renouncing the world; the farthest she could go was, not to force him to marry. However,the day she died in 1918, he gave up his silk suits, draped himself in white khadi, and resigned his princely job in Patiala. He now began to live on ten rupees a month, and lecture on religion to distinguished audiences. For years the world knew only three Indian names - Gandhi, Tagore and Vaswani. Vaswani set up Shakti Ashram in Rajpur near Dehra Dun, Shakti School for boys and Mira School for girls, both in Hyderabad. His poetical compositions compiled in the Nuri Granth make inspiring reading. As Partition approached, he visited the durgah of Shah Abdul Latif. "No spot in Sindh", he said, "can be more sacred than this Bhit (sand-dune) in the desert."
After Partition, some Muslims also came to respect him as Dada Darvish. But some others could not stand a Hindu religious centre in Pakistan. When Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah died, Sadhu Vaswani offered prayers, at the end of which, as usual, "Kanah Prasad" was distributed. But the fanatics said that he had "celebrated" the death of the Quaid-e-Azam. The sympathetic Muslim Collector of Hyderabad said that his life was too precious to be left to a fanatic's whim. On 10 November 1948 he left Sindh. Soon after, he established Mira School and College in Pune, where he was heartily welcomed by Maharshi Karve himself.
Sadhu Vaswani specially appealed to women, whom he initiated into simplicity and spirituality. Today his work is being ably carried on by his nephew, Dada Jashan Vaswani.
An unusual movement in Sindh that hit the headlines in India - and even in Japan - in the late nineteen-thirties was Om Mandali, now well known as the "Brahma Kumaris" organization. It was a socio-religious organization started by Dada Lekhraj Kripalani (1876-1969), who had been a jeweller in Calcutta.
The Om Mandali attracted mostly women - and that too only those belonging to the Bhaibund business community of Hyderabad. The unmarried among them refused to marry; and the married ones gave it in writing to their husbands that the latter were free to re-marry. Meanwhile many stories - ranging from mesmerism to merriment - spread about the Om Mandali. Public organisations such as the Congress and the Arya Samaj denounced the Om Mandali as disturber of family peace. And Dada Lekhraj in turn denounced the Congress as "Kansa". Under pressure of Hindu public opinion, the Sindh government reluctantly banned the Om Mandali, which went to court and had the ban order quashed.
Time has proved the Om Mandali as a genuine socio-religious movement. Obviously the Bhaibund ladies were particularly drawn to it because of their greater religiousity. Another factor in the situation was the fact that their menfolk spent six months in Hyderabad and the following three years abroad, anywhere from Hong Kong round the world to Honolulu. The Om Mandali filled a vacuum in their lives.
Sindh now was a regular garden with many singing birds. The Brahmos sang their melodies in their sylvan Mandirs. The theosophists discoursed on the "Masters in Tibet". The Arya Samajists rekindled the Yagna fires after centuries of blood and ashes. Sadhu Vaswani led the Mira movement, initiating once fashionable girls into Khadi, vegetarianism and Bhakti-bhava. Sant Kanwar Ram danced as he sang "O nallay Alakh Jay bero taar munhijo" ("Oh Lord, keep my boat afloat") Vishnu Digambar enchanted the people with "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" during his yearly visits. Nimano Faqir spread Sachal's message of love and benediction: "Rakhien munhja Dholana aiba no pholana; nangra nimaniya ja, jeeven teeven palna" ("Oh my Lord, you are my protector, you will uphold me, whatever my faults"). And Ram Punjwani enchanted his audiences on the "Matka" from college halls to Sufi Durgahs.
However, the movement that took Sindh literally by storm was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It was introduced in Sindh by Rajpal Puri (1917-77) of Sialkot, who came to be lovingly called "Shriji". Before RSS, the words "Sangh", "Sangathan", and "Sanskriti" were almost unknown in Sindh. Some at first even spelt "Sangh" as "Sung". But by 1942, RSS had spread to every nook and corner of the province.
Dr. Hedgewar, founder of RSS, had laid down a target of three per cent of adult male population to be recruited to RSS in the urban centres - the target for rural areas being one per cent. And Sindh had the unique distinction of achieving this target.
Shri Guruji's annual (1943--1947) visits to Sindh were major events in the public life of the province. Every time he visited both, Hyderabad and Karachi. He also visited Sukkur, Shikarpur and Mirpur Khas once each. During these visits he met leaders in different fields - including Sadhu Vaswani and Ranganathananda, religious leaders; Dr. Choithram, Prof. Ghanshyam and Prof. Malkani, Congress leaders; Lalji Mehrotra, Shivrattan Mohatta, Bhai Pratap, public-spirited businessmen; Nihchaldas Vazirani, Dr. Hemandas Wadhvani and Mukhi Gobindram, ministers; and of course leading lawyers and educationists.
During his first visit, when the train was crossing the Indus at Kotri Bridge, Shri Guruji pointed out to his private secretary, Dr. Aba Thatte, in Marathi: "Aba, Paha Sindhu"! (Aba, see the Sindhu!) Here were simple words, but they were suffused with a divine emotion, as for a long-lost mother.
Shri Gurmukh Singh was a Sikh Swayamsevak of Jacobabad. He used to wear a very big turban. In a question-answer session in Shikarpur, 1945, Gurmukh Singh said: "Guruji, you are carrying a very heavy burden on your head." Pat came Shri Guruji's happy response: "You are carrying an even heavier burden on your head.'' Gurmukh Singh and all others burst into laughter.
Shri Guruji's last visit to Karachi took place just nine days before Partition, that is on August 5. In a meeting with leading citizens, Shri K. Punniah, editor, Sind Observer, said: "Where is the harm if we gladly accept Partition? What is the harm, if a diseased limb is cut off? The man still lives!" Quick came the retort: "Where is the harm, if the nose is cut off? The man still lives!"
On one occasion when we went to see Shri Guruji off at the Hyderabad railway station we found a Sindh Muslim minister in the same compartment. The two were introduced to each other. Said the minister: "Sher, sher ko hi milna chahta hai" ("The lion likes to keep the company of only lions"). Thereupon Guruji laughed and said: "I am not a lion!"
RSS overcame all the earlier distinctions between the Amils and the Bhaibunds, the Hyderabadis and the non-Hyderabadis, the urbanites, the suburbanites and the ruralites, the Sanatanis and the Samajists - whether of the Arya or the Brahmo variety. Boys of both Congress and Mahasabha families, could be seen playing together and saluting the same Bhagwa Dhwaja. RSS further Hinduized the Sindhi Hindus. Formerly 90 per cent of students used to opt for Persian; after RSS came in, 95 per cent began to opt for Sanskrit Many even took up Hindi in place of Sindhi since, they said, they already knew Sindhi well enough. RSS politicized and radicalized the Sindhi Hindu youth. J.T. Wadhwani, president of Bharatiya Sindhu Sabha, and Hashu Advani, founder of Vivekananda Education Society of Bombay. were inducted into public life by RSS. Manhar Mehta, president of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, is a product of Sindh RSS. And a gem like Lal K. Advani is the gift of Sindh RSS to Indian public life. It was not for nothing that Janardan Thakur wrote of him in 1977 in his All the Janata Men.
"The man who has really helped gain a greater respectability for the Jana Sangh constituent of the Janata Party without ever projecting himself, is Lal Krishna Advani, by far the cleanest and straightest leader in Indian politics today. Clean, sophisticated, business-like, mild-looking, but firm when needed, the Minister for Information & Broadcasting is almost a freak in today's political world. Though never in the forefront, he stands bright as a candle of hope in an other vise dark prospect."
It was all these movements from the Brahmo Samaj down to RSS that transformed Sindh from a slimy backwater into a small but significant province. And it was these movements that provided the steam for the freedom movement.
