Keralites nearly make half the number of Sindhis when it comes to being in top 50 and yet we see Keralites holding greater influence than Sindhis in UAE.
By Sindhikshatriya
Last week (in September 2018) I was in Lullu Hypermarket, it is a large chain of the supermarkets in UAE owned by a Keralite. I wasn’t able to find a product so I asked a helper who was standing along with his coworkers, speaking in Malayalam to them and after helping me he went back to his buddies and continued his chatter.
I went to the checkout counter and again noticed a Keralite guy checking my stuff out, and it was passed on to another helper, who looked like he was from South India, and he packed things up and gave it to me with the receipt.
When Kerala was flooded last month, the King of UAE offered Indian government for any kind of humanitarian and monetary aid, to which the Indian government thanked but denied. But the point is, the UAE king offered to help one state of India which was flooded this year, and there are many states that keep getting flooded every year in India. So why did the Sheikh only offered help when Kerala was flooded?
I was visiting a friend in Sharjah, and as I walked towards his apartment, I saw a large dustbin and it had three segments: For plastic waste, organic waste and liquid waste, and instruction on the dustbin were written in English, Arabic and guess the third language? You guessed it right. It was Malayalam.
So how is that the Malayali Samajam has so much influence in UAE, while Sindhis who have contributed so much to the economy of UAE do not hold as much of an influence?
If we look at the top 50 richest Indians in UAE, 15 of them are Sindhis, that’s 30% of the top 50 and the list is topped by Mr. Jagtiani, owner of the Landmark group. Keralites nearly make half the number of Sindhis when it comes to being in top 50 and yet we see Keralites holding greater influence than Sindhis in UAE.
So why is that?
The reason seems to be in their numeric strength. Like I mentioned above, I have seen instructions written in the Malayalam language on many things implying Keralites are the largest number of all the Indian immigrants in UAE. And the reason they are the largest number is that Keralites help one another in migrating to UAE. When a Keralite becomes successful in UAE, he/she pulls with themselves tens and hundreds of other Keralites to share their success with.
Lullu hypermarket is just one example. There are many large and small hyper and super markets owned by Keralites, and a lot of the workers in those supermarkets are Keralites. GEMS schools are leading chain of schools in UAE as well owned by a Keralite, and a large number of teachers in GEMS school are from Kerala. And the list goes on and on.
And if one compares them with Sindhis who own supermarkets here: Day to Day chain, Choithram and sons, Centre Point, etc. and if one visits these markets, there is no Sindhi soul to be found. And these are the same people who make a great public outcry that Sindhi culture is dying. How can a culture not die when there is no ecosystem to support it? And what is the ecosystem if not large number of people from same community gathered at same place, practicing its customs. Aren’t there enough Sindhi youth both in Sindh and in India, who fall under lower middle class and poor category? Won’t such small opportunities help them in a big way and also help the cause of Sindhyat?
How easy it is for Malayalis to find one another in UAE and proudly communicate in their own language. I am yet to see Sindhis meet one another in public in UAE and speak in Sindhi, such is our nature.
The driver in our company is a Malayali, and he once told me that if a Keralite visit UAE for job search, he is bound to get a job somewhere or the other if he has the required qualification. The reason he stated is: Keralites are well connected amongst one another and they are eager to help one another. Unfortunately, I do not see such level of commitment and connection by the Sindhis, not even close.
A few young Sindhis whom I follow on social media describe the community as follows:
One of them wrote on differences between Gujarati and Sindhi community
“If you look at the families in Anand and other parts of Gujarat, you will notice that one Gujju’s progress often percolates to his extended family and sometimes neighborhood, thus uplifting a lot of people. On the other hand, a large fraction of well-off Sindhis are status hungry who take a sadistic delight in being better off than their peers and secretly guard that status. Socio-economic status differences lead to a lot more family issues in Sindhis than in other communities, from whatever little I have observed – since it’s pretty common to collude entirely based on status, and let old relations fade away based on status differences.
Gujjus have community guest-houses, hostels, colleges all over India where they heartily welcome fellow Gujjus. Being from Gujarat, I have found an incredible amount of support and help from unknown Gujjus wherever I travelled, especially overseas. Such an ecosystem is completely missing in the Sindhi community. The only community work Sindhis like is one where the men can claim important sounding titles for doing no work at all. The community functions are all about old men on stage in front of a large bored audience followed by lots of boasting, self-appraisal, mutual worship with absolutely no community work or progress to talk about. If someone else within the community does make some progress, depending on the state of the organizing team’s ego, they will either love to public bask in that person’s glory and proclaim it as the community’s progress or completely ignore the person’s existence”
And the following is written by a Pakistani Sindhi based on her observations abroad:
“Don’t you think Sindhis create a lot of problems for other Sindhis? A lot jealousy, competition, lack of progression etc. Punjabis are doing so much for their land, helping each other move abroad, and same with Pashtuns. Sindhis are very lacking in this quality so it hardly feels like a community.”
And I couldn’t agree more with both of them. Sindhi community hardly feels like a community.
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Courtesy: Sindhikshatriya (Published on September 25, 2018)
