Sindhi Civilizational & Historical Research

By: Dr. Nisar Ahmed Solangi 

In the winter of 1026, somewhere in the marshes where the Indus breaks apart into a hundred sluggish channels before reaching the sea, a column of exhausted soldiers was dying by the roadside. They were not dying in battle. They were dying of thirst, of fever, of the sheer punishment of the Sindh desert — and they were carrying, on the backs of thousands of camels, one of the largest hoards of looted treasure the subcontinent had ever seen. Their commander was Mahmud of Ghazni, by then the most feared man between Baghdad and Delhi. And watching them stagger through the delta, from behind the reeds, were the people who lived there.

A Sultan Humiliated

Mahmud made it home to Ghazni with his life and most of his treasure. But something had cracked. For the first time, a scattered, folk community with non-dynastic, without capital, and no standing army had done what king after king had failed to do — bloodied him on the retreat, and gotten away with it.

He could not let his final chapter in India be written by a people he had never even bothered to conquer.

He could not let that stand. Late in 1027, in what chronicle tradition remembers as his seventeenth and last campaign into the subcontinent, Mahmud marched back — not toward another king, another fort, another temple, but toward the river itself.

An Empire Builds a Navy

What he did next was, for a man who had built his entire reputation on cavalry, almost bizarre. Arriving at Multan, Mahmud realized his horsemen were useless against people who lived on the water. So he built a navy — his first and only one — from scratch.

Chroniclers describe fourteen hundred purpose-built warboats, each armed with three iron spikes, one at the prow to ram and split an enemy hull, two along the sides to keep boarders off. The gunwales were raised and pierced with holes so archers could fire while staying under partial cover. Each boat carried about twenty men — bowmen, spearmen, and soldiers armed with fire-projectiles the sources simply call “rockets.”

The Jats, for their part, did not run. They moved their families and their stored wealth to a fortified island in the middle of the river, and put together a fleet of their own — somewhere between four and eight thousand small boats, according to the chroniclers, light and quick but built of reed and unarmored wood.

By the Numbers

1,400 — Ghaznavid warboats built at Multan

3 — iron spikes on each Ghaznavid vessel

~20 — soldiers per boat

4,000–8,000 — Jat vessels, by chroniclers’ varying counts

1030 CE — Mahmud’s death, three years after this campaign

These figures come chiefly from Ferishta’s account, written some six centuries after the battle from earlier tradition — treat them as the chronicle record, not an audited count.

The Trap on the River

It was, on paper, no contest — and Mahmud made sure it stayed that way. Before a single boat touched the water, he lined both banks of the Indus with cavalry and war elephants, sealing the channel so the Jat fleet had nowhere to run once the fighting started. It was less a naval battle than an execution with a river for a killing floor.

When the fleets met, the iron spikes did exactly what they were built to do — punching through hull after hull of unarmored reed boats, spilling fighters into the water. Those who kept afloat were met with arrows and fire. Those who tried to swim for the banks ran straight into the cavalry waiting for them there. The chronicle record describes what followed as closer to a massacre than a battle: most of the Jat fighters drowned or were cut down, and the island refuge — with its women, children, and hidden treasure — fell without a fight.

A Costly Victory

Mahmud got his revenge, and he recovered what had been taken from him the year before. But the river campaign seems to have cost him something he couldn’t recover. Chroniclers place the onset of the illness that would eventually kill him — generally described as malarial — right around this 1027 expedition. He returned to Ghazni already in decline, and died on 30 April 1030, three years almost to the day after his boats went into the water at Multan.

How much wealth changed hands across the whole affair is harder to pin down than popular retellings suggest. The figure most often repeated for the Somnath treasure — twenty million dinars — comes from Ferishta, writing in the early 1600s, six centuries after the fact; a handful of modern accounts put the real number closer to a tenth of that. No contemporary Ghaznavid ledger survives to settle it. What survives instead is the story itself, and the story is the point.

What the River Remembers

Ghaznavid court chroniclers filed the 1027 campaign away as one more pacification of unruly border tribes — a footnote to the real business of temples and thrones. Sindh remembers it differently. In the region’s own telling, this was the moment a community with no army, no fort, and no king looked at the most feared conqueror of the age and decided the river belonged to them, not to him — and made him pay in gold, in humiliation, and, in the end, perhaps in years of his own life, for disagreeing.

He built an entire navy to answer them. That, more than any tribute or title, is the measure of what the “Sindhi Jats” managed to do with nothing but boats built for shallow water and a river they knew better than anyone who came to take it from them.

A note on sources: the numerical details in this account — fleet sizes, crew counts, the Somnath treasure figure — derive chiefly from Ferishta’s early-seventeenth-century Tarikh-i-Firishta, itself compiled from earlier tradition, supplemented by Gardizi’s near-contemporary Zayn al-Akhbar and the Elliot & Dowson translations of the medieval chronicle corpus. Where the sources disagree — as they do on the exact scale of the treasure, and on which Rajput ruler forced Mahmud’s desert retreat — this piece has favoured the most widely repeated tradition while noting, where it matters, that certainty is not available.

Read: Lessons from the Indus Valley Civilization

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Dr. Nisar Ahmed Ali Nawaz Solangi is a distinguished Public Health Specialist with over 28 years of experience in primary healthcare, health management, and policy development. Throughout his career, he has served in leadership capacities, He holds MBBS from the University of Sindh and a Master of Public Health from Griffith University, Australia. He is a dedicated polymath committed to the intersection of ancient civilization and emerging technology. He is deeply engaged in the study of the Indus Valley Civilization—focusing on its maritime history, trade networks, and egalitarian governance. Currently based in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Solangi is a tireless advocate for the digital preservation and global dissemination of the Sindhi language and culture. He is actively involved in pioneering initiatives on social media” Our Digital World”. By bridging the gap between historical heritage and digital innovation, he aims to create a new paradigm for cultural representation in the AI era.

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• 2 Southeast Asian neighbors have disputed border lying across Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and north-eastern province of Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand
• Tensions have escalated since May 28 when a Cambodian soldier was killed allegedly in cross-border fire
• Two sides have downgraded their diplomatic ties to the lowest level in decades

Anadolu staff 

ANKARA

The Cambodian and Thailand forces clashed along the disputed border on Thursday, firing rockets, deploying fighter jets and downgrading their diplomatic ties to the lowest level in decades.

At least 12 Thais have been killed, and another 17 injured in the fresh flare up of tensions on a century-long border dispute, which has seen frequent clashes between the two armies in recent years.

Cambodia has not released any information on the casualties.

Thailand’s military deployed F-16 fighter jets allegedly hitting Cambodian military sites, while the latter responded with firing rockets, displacing hundreds of people on two sides of the border.

The two neighbors have a disputed border lying across Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and north-eastern province of Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand.

Tensions have escalated since May 28 when a Cambodian soldier was killed allegedly in cross-border fire.

The latest escalation on Thursday was triggered by laying of landmines along the disputed border, resulting in explosions and injuries.

Border tensions also led to a political crisis in Thailand, resulting in the suspension of former Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra after a leaked recording of a private phone call between her and Hun Sen, a former prime minister of Cambodia.

In the leaked recording, Paetongtarn called Hun ‘uncle,’ and passed disparaging remarks about a Thai military commander.

Colonial-era roots

Cambodia’s claim on certain parts of the border banks on a 1907 map created during French colonial rule in Cambodia. However, the map’s vagueness led to conflicting interpretations, and Thailand contested it.

The two sides tried to resolve the dispute diplomatically, but the issue was never settled completely, even after transnational bodies like the International Court of Justice intervened in 1962.

Clashes between the two forces began in 2008, with both sides accusing each other of starting the fighting.

The last time tensions turned deadly was seen in 2011, which killed at least 15 people and displaced tens of thousands of civilians.

The fighting focused on a jungle border area including ancient temples to which both sides laid claim.

The two nations declared a cease-fire after seven days of fighting.

Legal interventions

Thailand claimed demarcation had not yet been completed for external parts of the area adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple, which was adjudged to be Cambodian by the ICJ with a nine to three decision in 1962.

In 2011, a UN court ordered the two neighbors to withdraw forces and establish a demilitarized zone, but the court did not rule on who would control a larger disputed territory, where troops kept clashing.

Then in November 2013, the ICJ ruled that Cambodia has sovereignty over the entire territory of the Preah Vihear temple, and that Thailand is obligated to withdraw its military personnel from the area.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has now formally requested the UN Security Council to promptly address what he described as a “premeditated military aggression.”

“It is profoundly reprehensible that this act of aggression occurs while Cambodia is actively pursuing peaceful and impartial legal avenues to resolve outstanding border issues,” Hun Manet said.

He also approached the ICJ in the wake of renewed tensions on May 28.

Latest hostilities

The border conflict deteriorated again earlier in May after the two forces engaged in another skirmish, resulting in death of a Cambodian soldier on May 28.

The soldier’s death brought the relations between the countries to the lowest point in years.

A Thai soldier lost his right leg in a land mine explosion on Wednesday, which led to the two neighbors launching fresh attacks and downgrading diplomatic relations.

Read: Pakistan Supports Iran’s Self-Defense Right

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*Writing by Aamir Latif​​​​​​​

Courtesy: Anadolu Agency (Posted on 24.07.2025)

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Mirpur Khas/ Naoukot

A 3-kilometer protest march was organized on Saturday March 15 by the Awami Tehreek and Sindhyani Tehreek from Gulanji Mori to Khwaja Chowk in Naou Kot town of Mirpurkhas district, opposing the construction of six new canals from the Indus River and corporate farming projects encroaching on millions of acres of Sindh’s land.

The march saw massive participation from women, children, and civil society, with strong condemnation of the controversial canals, corporate farming, the so-called Green Pakistan Initiative, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), and the IRSA Amendment Ordinance.

Addressing the March, Awami Tehreek’s Central President Advocate Vasand Thari, Central Information Secretary Lal Jarwar, Mukhtiar Khaskheli, Advocate Ayaz Kaloi, and Sindhyani Tehreek’s Azmat Kaloi denounced the six new canals as a “genocidal plan” threatening 70 million Sindhis. They accused Punjab’s rulers of exploiting Sindh’s water resources for over 150 years through dams and canals, while President Asif Zardari was criticized for “brokering Sindh’s resources” by approving the canals during the July 8, 2024, Green Pakistan Initiative meeting (which he chaired) and endorsing the IRSA Amendment.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was condemned for selling Sindh’s lands and water for power, Leaders labeled the Sindh Assembly’s resolution on the canal matter as “fraudulent”—comparable to the disputed digital census, noting that the PPP-led Sindh government initially opposed the digital census but later approved it, a repeat of its earlier hypocrisy. They accused the PPP of playing the same deceptive game” aimed at undermining Sindh’s rights.

They added that Instead of new canals, Punjab’s “illegal” waterways, including the Taunsa-Panjnad and Chashma-Jhelum (CJ) Link Canals, must be shut down to ensure Sindh receives its rightful water share. Leaders highlighted that IRSA illegally diverts water to these flood canals. Despite Sindh facing over 50% water shortages, as per IRSA’s own data.  Protesters demanded legal action—including invoking Article 6 (pertaining to treason)—against IRSA members for issuing “fake water availability certificates” to Punjab’s Cholistan Canal while denying Sindh its due share under the 1991 Accord. “IRSA is conspiring against the federation by favoring Punjab’s elite,” speakers declared.

Leaders rejected corporate farming as a scheme to auction Sindh’s lands, asserting that “Sindh’s lands belong to its people, not governments or corporations.” They warned that the new canals would accelerate the “economic genocide” of Sindhis, exacerbating the region’s ecological collapse.  Severe water shortage have already turned fertile lands barren, destroyed livelihoods, and forced mass migration. The PPP-led provincial and federal governments were slammed for prioritizing corporate interests over Sindh’s survival.

Sindh must be compensated for losses stemming from Punjab’s violations of the 1945 Sindh-Punjab Water Agreement and the 1991 Water Accord. Although the 1991 Accord was forcibly imposed by the federal government and remains unfavorable to Sindh, Punjab’s ruling class continues to breach even this skewed agreement.

The protesters vowed to defend the Indus River until their last breath. Sindhyani Tehreek’s women leaders pledged to bury these canal projects just as we defeated the Kalabagh Dam.

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Kabul

Supporters of Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the resistance front against the Taliban, and Taliban representatives held their first meeting on Wednesday afternoon in the center of Parwan province to seek an alternative to fighting, TOLOnews.af reports.

The resistance front delegation was composed of 12 people led by Almas Zahid, a former Mujahideen commander, and the six-member Taliban delegation was led by Mohammad Mohsin Hashimi, the Taliban’s deputy leader of intelligence.

A representative of the resistance front, Mohammad Alam Ezedyar, wrote on his Facebook page that both sides agreed to not attack each other until the second round of negotiations is held.

The representatives met for three hours and then returned to their respective sides to share the discussed issues with their leaders.

“After three hours of discussion, it was decided that both delegations will share the message with their leadership and resume the negotiations to reach a durable peace in the country. It was also decided that the parties should not attack each other until the second round of negotiations,” wrote Ezedyar.

A member of the Taliban delegation, meanwhile, said that the Taliban wanted to discuss the issue of Panjshir, but Massoud’s supporters wanted to discuss the structure of the future government. Thus the negotiations had no tangible outcome, he said.

“The Panjshir delegation was more focused on the overall structure of the governance system. Since there were big differences between the two sides’ demands, both sides decided to take the messages to their leaders,” said Anamullah Samangani, a member of the cultural commission of the Taliban.

The negotiations followed both sides’ threatening to use military force.

“The discussions will bear results in the coming days. If the discussions have no results and they use another option (military), we will do the same,” said Noorullah Noori, a member of the Taliban’s political office.

“We are still waiting for the outcome of the negotiations. Despite this, we have all the military preparations as well,” said Hamid Saifi, a member of the resistance front.

Ahmad Massoud in a recent interview with the BBC said that if an inclusive and acceptable government for all is not established, Afghanistan will be isolated both politically and economically.

“We are negotiating with the Taliban. So far, several countries–like Canada–has said it will not recognize an exclusive government. If that happens the people will continue to suffer,” Massoud said.

The Taliban has said they will form an inclusive government, but the terms have still not been clearly defined.

Read: India becomes Taliban’s ‘significant regional partner’

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Courtesy: Central Asian Light (Posted on January 15, 2025)  

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