Alternative Engagements with 'Homeland'

Alternative Engagements with ‘Homeland’: Sindh as an Expression of Diasporic Sindhi Identity Mamta Sachan Kumar Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore Abstract The Anthem Controversy This paper is premised on a non-traditional under - A few years ago, controversy surrounding the word standing of the nature and role of the homeland in ‘Sindh’ in the Indian national anthem brought to light diaspora studies. For the Hindu Sindhis who were a the importance of understanding ‘homeland’ as more religious minority and forced to flee their ancestral than territorial space. The event makes a fitting start land of Sindh during the India-Pakistan partition of to this paper, which explores alternative modes of en - 1947, relative inaccessibility and lack of identification gaging the diasporic homeland beyond its physical with the primordial homeland has meant significant form and boundary. Sindh, the territory in question, detachment in the 65 years since. Sindh as purely an - became a province of Pakistan in the partitioning of cestral or as the actual province in present day Pak - British India, in 1947. Sindh’s Hindu minority was istan therefore holds little value in their everyday lives. forced to abandon their homeland when the imperial This paper shifts away from a conservative and literal rulers left the country divided by religious conflict be - reading of the homeland as territorially bound and tween Hindus and Muslims. It has since become nec - geographically distant, to an approach that sees the essary to distinguish between a largely Muslim homeland as manifest in the diaspora itself. This population that resides in Sindh, and a globally dis - homeland is mobile, mutable and multi-sited, and is persed Sindhi diaspora that is for the most part engaged through regular expression of Sindhi identity. Hindu. A large number of the diaspora resettled The two domains of religion and language are across the border in modern India’s cities, but as is ap - analysed as daily fields of engagement in which mem - parent from the anthem case at hand, their loss of an - bers of the Sindhi diaspora both sustain and struggle cestral land in Sindh remains a haunting and sensitive to keep alive their ethno-cultural heritage. In this con - issue to date. The case provides insight into the mean - text, it is argued that for the Sindhis who can no ings that members of the Sindhi diaspora attach to longer literally engage with their motherland in its Sindh, which in turn reflect how it makes sense to physical capacity, these alternative engagements allude them today. to and recreate forms of diasporic homeland in every - The incident began in January 2005, when a pe - day and momentous expressions. This is the home - tition filed by one Mr Sanjeev Bhatnagar of Delhi was land that is real and meaningful by its function in the admitted by the Supreme Court. According to cover - contemporary diaspora rather than just by discernible age in The Times of India online, the motion was to terrain or a utopic vision in the diasporic imaginary. remove the word ‘Sindh’ from the anthem, since above all else, it no longer geographically formed a part of post-partition India and so, had no business isa.e-Forum © 2012 The Author(s) © 2012 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of isa.e-Forum) 1 Kumar being privileged as such. In essence, ‘Sindh’, insofar Sindh and explores in discursive fashion, alternative as it was being defined territorially, was rendered modes of engaging the diasporic homeland, where meaningless. The motion continued: by revising the ‘homeland’ is similarly understood as existing beyond lyrics, Mr Bhatnagar also sought to amend an act that its physical conception, i.e. as more than just a terri - violated the sovereignty of Pakistan, since the province torially bound entity. This exploration builds on the of Sindh now rightfully belonged to the Islamic re - case of the global Hindu Sindhi diaspora whose con - public. On this was stamped the allegation that the ditions do not meet the requirements of literal en - anthem was guilty of textual fallacy. The issue was res - gagement with their ancestral land of Sindh. In this urrected with a similar plea made six years later, this regard, tangible measures of diaspora ‘engagement’ time on account of the alleged discrepancy between and ‘development’ – two growing sub-fields of dias - singing the word as ‘Sindhu’, and writing it as ‘Sindh’. pora studies – are replaced by other means of sustain - Both pleas were dismissed. ing diasporic Sindhi identity. Contemporary South Echoing the sentiments of India’s sizeable Sindhi Asian diasporas that are characterised by voluntary community, the court legitimated the retention of migration for better livelihood have yielded studies “Sindh” in the national anthem; they explained it to focused overwhelmingly on more direct and visible mean much more than actual land that fell outside forms of giving back to the home country. These in - the current national boundary line. Interestingly, the clude, for example, remittance flows, investments in news articles reveal that the anthem, though written infrastructure building, and social development in in 1911 for colonial masters of an undivided India, sectors such as healthcare, education and tourism. For was only ratified by the Constitutional Assembly in others, such as the Sri Lankan diasporic communities 1950. 1 In other words, the Indian parliament then particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom, po - saw no reason to change the anthem even after three litical reforms dominate the agenda in relations with years of Sindh’s assignment to Pakistan. ‘Sindh’, ac - the homeland. Growing recognition of the power and cording to both the bench and community leaders, potential of diasporas has also led to their influence stands for the centuries’ old Indus civilization, whose in informing recent state policies such as those of people are its living representatives both within Indian India (see for example, Devesh Kapur’s Diaspora, De - borders and beyond. It is also symbolic of the river velopment, and Democracy (2010)). Sindhu, along which this ancient civilization devel - None of these engagements or means of develop - oped. Furthermore, the authorities exalted ‘Sindh’ as ment however, apply to the Hindu Sindhi diaspora, resonant with the cause for Indian independence, of who neither recognise present day Sindh as their which the Sindhis were an indispensable part. Re - homeland nor are recognised by the Pakistani state as moval of this word carried much more weight than overseas citizens. They do not have a desire to recon - the word alone; it would translate into the unjust act nect and remain politically indifferent to the current of erasing a part of Indian history, and deeply wound state of affairs in Sindh. This, however, does not nec - a people already dispossessed of their original land. 2 essarily mean that ‘Sindh’ does not matter or figure meaningfully in the diaspora. ‘Sindh’ for the diasporic Sindhi, is more accurately conceived as an expression Beyond Territory: Sindh of the of their identity in their everyday lives. In order to un - Diaspora derstand the reality and function of ‘Sindh’, the no - ‘Sindh’ as river, a civilisation, a culture and heritage, tion of homeland needs to be decentered and a people and their history, is testimony to ‘Sindh’ reconfigured as it makes sense to these overseas com - being much more than ‘homeland’ in the sense of munities. ‘land’ per se. Its polysemy is evident in the variety of This paper puts forward the notion of a homeland interpretations provided and all meanings hold true. that is manifest in the diaspora itself; vulnerable to This paper takes on these multi-faceted expressions of change and therefore mobile just as the diaspora is. It 2 Alternative Engagements with ‘Homeland’ is an instrumental homeland that is expressed and interested in securing a political identity for them - conjured (and so exists) in various forms to serve dif - selves, the diasporic Sindhis’ highly interconnected ferent functions and hold multiple meanings for networks across far-flung regions sustained by their members of its diaspora. The core link here is that be - trademark merchantry, endogamy and social events tween the expression of ethnic identity and how such like the annual Sindhi Sammelan (‘gathering’), do en - expression creates, sustains and reinvents a sense of able and perpetuate a consciousness of being an ethnic homeland. By conceptualising a shift-able and multi- collective. This is in spite of their diverse establish - sited possibility, and therefore plural notion of home - ments in locations worldwide. land, this paper addresses the strong lateral Indeed, Sindhi communities comprise an evolved, connections amongst the multi-locale establishments multi-locale and multi-generational diaspora today. of the well-dispersed Hindu Sindhi diaspora, which Its members differentially straddle hybrid identities influence and mutually reinforce the production of which are productions of their host environments en - Sindhi identity (Clifford 1994). This approach ex - meshed simultaneously with a version of Sindhiness pands the understanding of the role of homeland in that is subscribed to. For instance, while personal ex - diaspora studies beyond its literal and conservative, periences of growing up in Sindh and the trauma of yet predominant confines. The definition of ‘home - partition inform the nostalgia and fading memories land’ is more than just territorially bound, no longer of the waning number of elderly Sindhis, the middle only centralised – as the untainted (and therefore un - and younger generations share no such historical con - changed) powerful symbol of utopia in the diasporic nection with their ancestral land that they can associ - imaginary, and limiting as sedentary and singular in ate with. Rather, for them, Sindh is more plausible as nature. While this traditional conception of home - the awareness of their forefathers’ tradition as Nanak land is not disputed, it is considered lacking and its panthis or ‘followers of Nanak’ – the Sikh guru.

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