This is a worrying statistic and one that deserves further attention. Unfortunately, as a community, I don’t think we are doing enough to help the poor and the marginalized.
Milind Teckchandani
There are numerous online Sindhi shows being telecast these days. Almost every major Sindhi organization runs a live show every week on Facebook. One of the shows that I watch every now and then is a live chat show titled “Sindhi Anmol Ratan”. The show invites prominent Sindhis from India and all around the world to know more about them as well as discuss future of Sindhiyat. The Host team includes prominent Sindhis like Shri Peter Dhalwani (Pune), Shri Murli Adnani (Mumbai), Shri Gurmukh Jagwani ( Jalgaon), Shri Mohan Soni ( Santiago, Chile) as well as Dr. Bharti Chhabria. It is one of the few shows where the discussions are insightful and the host team seems to be committed to creating a framework to harmonize various efforts to preserve and promote Sindhi identity. Dada Gurmukh in particular is an eloquent speaker and a pleasure to listen to. A pediatrician by training, Dada migrated to India from Karachi in 1987 and is now settled in Jalgaon. Given his upbringing in Sindh and Sindhi taleem (Education), he regularly recites Shah, Sachal and Sami verses on the show. At the same time, having active connections in Pakistan as well, he is well aware about the challenges faced by the community on both sides. What I like about the show is that there is an effort to make a difference in the lives of ordinary Sindhis which I believe is quite lacking in the community.
I have always been curious about likely population of Hindu Sindhis around the world. This is not an easy exercise especially for a scattered community like ours. A fellow Sindhi, Nischay Kalra,* back in 2018 analyzed the census data (2011) published by the Indian government and concluded that there are around 2.7 Million Sindhis in India. These are the individuals who marked Sindhi as their mother tongue during Census recording. I personally think this number is underestimated as given the current state of Sindhiyat and disappearing Sindhi boli, it is likely that many Sindhis would have marked Hindi/ regional language as their primary language. An interesting statistic highlighted by Nischay is that as per the data, other than Manipur & Mizoram, there are Sindhis in all other states/Union Territories in India. This statistic does show that the entrepreneurial Sindhi is spread all across.
In one of the recent episodes of “Sindhi Anmol Ratan” show, I heard Dada Jagwani estimate that there are around 8-10 Million Hindu Sindhis in India, around 2.5 Million in Pakistan and another 2.5 Million Hindu Sindhi diaspora spread throughout the world. I think these numbers sound more realistic as I am sure that Hindu Sindhi population is India will be more than twice of that in Pakistan.
More importantly, he also mentioned that roughly 30% of Hindu Sindhi population in India is Below Poverty Line (BPL) / Economically Weaker Section (EWS). This means that roughly one in three Sindhis is economically backward. This to my mind is a worrying statistic and one that deserves further attention. Unfortunately, as a community, I don’t think we are doing enough to help the poor and the marginalized. Over the past few decades, most of our community efforts have centered around identity and culture preservation. There are little/no organized efforts to provide economic and financial assistance to less privileged Sindhis in a meaningful manner. It should therefore not come as a surprise that in Sindhi dominant areas like Ulhasnagar, one often hears about increasing religious conversion of Hindu Sindhis into other faiths (primarily Christianity). I hear from friendly sources that easy access to livelihood opportunities, sustenance allowance etc. play an important role in the conversion. To be honest, for someone who is not able to make daily ends meet, cultural identity, religion etc. are plain “abstract” concepts and serve no useful purpose.
The financial inequality existing in the community is quite disappointing. On one hand, we have community members regularly being listed amongst the wealthiest in the world whilst on the other hand, we have a sizable number within us who find it difficult to make ends meet. As a community, we do lack organized efforts to provide regular meaningful assistance to our fellow community members. Whilst I appreciate the efforts of many Sindhi Sansthans who in their own little circle of influence are doing a commendable job and it is not the intention of this post to criticize or pass judgments on philanthropic activities being carried out by individuals and/or organizations, however, I do think we need a larger cohesive game plan to tackle this anomaly. In the neighborhood Sindhu Samaj, I understand that Sindhi widows are given some allowance by the Samaj. If I am correct, it used to be INR 500 per month which has now been revised to INR 1,000 per month. Quite frankly, this is woefully inadequate as in today’s day and times, we need to provide at least 10X this amount for individuals to be able to afford a basic meal on a daily basis. Similar is the case with Migrant Sindhi refugees who are left all alone in these difficult times as most of the assistance received from sources is ad-hoc and grossly inadequate. I must also add that a comprehensive assistance plan should also include helping these individuals find suitable job opportunities as well. For a number of migrants, getting access to even low end jobs proves to be quite a daunting task.
I do hope Dada Gurmukh and the team succeed in their mission and are able to create a platform via which meaningful assistance can be rendered to needy Sindhis. The community along with cultural and heritage preservation also needs to take care of its members as without them all efforts to preserve Sindhiyat will be irrelevant.
I end with this link to a delightful dance performance by Mrs. Anshu Alimchandani Dudia on “Haan Maan Sindhi Aayan” sung by dear Mohit Lalwani. I hope you enjoy this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lu8L2zuNTM
_______________
Courtesy: Sindhi Chokro Blogs
Photo Courtesy: Facebook
