‘The Lost Homeland of Sindh Gallery’ at Delhi’s Partition Museum has been established by The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust and The Sindhi Culture Foundation in collaboration with Embassy Group
Delhi
The Sindhi Culture Foundation, the Embassy Group, and the Partition Museum invite you to step back in time and into the homes and lives of our ancestors. The Lost Homeland of Sindh pays homage to the resilient but, above all, enterprising forefathers and mothers who lost everything in the 1947 Partition and rebuilt their lives in new lands across the world, relying on their wits, skills, and business acumen. Weaving architecture, crafts, memorabilia, and oral history with archival material and contemporary art, the gallery provides a living discourse of a displaced culture, which went on to integrate and thrive in its new avatar across the globe.
This gallery is made possible by the Embassy Group, one of India’s leading real estate developers, The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT), which set up the Partition Museum, and The Sindhi Culture Foundation.
The festivities were graced with a musical performance by Kaajal Chandiramani, famously known as the Nightingale of the Sindhi Community.
“It fills me with immense pride to be associated with The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust and Sindhi Culture Foundation and witness their dedicated efforts in preserving and promoting our understanding of this crucial chapter in history,” said Jitu Virwani, Chairman & Managing Director, Embassy Group. “As part of the lakhs of families that were displaced during the partition of India, I’m honored to have contributed to the restoration of this significant monument and the creation of The Lost Homeland of Sindh gallery—a space that not only echoes architectural beauty but also resonates with memories of a cherished homeland.”
The Lost Homeland of Sindh offers itself as a bridge between generations—a memorial to those who have remained connected to their roots and an invitation to the ones who yearn to discover or revisit them
“When we, at The Arts And Cultural Heritage Trust, set up the world’s first Partition Museum in Amritsar in 2017, and later the second one in Delhi in 2023, we had deeply felt the need for a full-fledged Sindhi narrative — and it was crucial for us to create a space where the Sindhi community could come together to commemorate their lost homeland. We are very grateful that after years of struggle we have found wonderful partners in Embassy Group, with Jitu Virwani and the Sindhi Culture Foundation, with Aruna Madnani, to create the world’s first and only gallery dedicated to the Lost Homeland of Sindh. Just as other communities come to the Partition Museums to commemorate the world’s largest migration in 1947, we are sure that the Sindhi community will find healing and reconciliation and cultural recognition in this beautiful new gallery at the Partition Museum in Delhi.” added Lady Kishwar Desai, Founder, Partition Museum and Chair of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust (TAACHT).
Read: A Museum of Memories
The Lost Homeland of Sindh offers itself as a bridge between generations—a memorial to those who have remained connected to their roots and an invitation to the ones who yearn to discover or revisit them. “This is an attempt to share the tangible and in tangible heritage, the trials and triumphs of the displaced Sindhi community,” says Aruna Madnani, Founder – Managing Trustee, Sindhi Culture Foundation and Gallery Curator, “while offering the younger generation a way to connect and interact with their roots.”
Visitors are welcomed into The Lost Homeland of Sindh by a map of the River Indus, the heart of the Sindhi community, guiding them through vintage portals into a meticulously reconstructed Sindhi haveli. This space, built from the remnants of displaced heritage, showcases artifacts donated by former refugees. Ornate Shikarpuri carvings on Burma teak—door frames, railings, bannisters, and swings—evoke the architecture of ancestral Sindhi homes. The exhibition also highlights Ajrak, an ancient block-printing technique dating to the Indus Valley civilization, featured in a unique map of Sindh embroidered with mirror-work. A hand-embroidered Sindhi Global Banking and Network Map traces historical trading routes by land and sea, created by Katchchii tribes.
Read: Exhibition narrating Sindhis story of Partition opens at Amritsar museum
Windows to Sindh, a central feature, offers a 45-minute virtual journey through Sindh’s landscapes, religious sites, and historical landmarks, conceived by CAMP artists and vloggers from Sindh. The Freedom Fighters Panel, researched by Nandita Bhavnani and Saaz Aggarwal, showcases freedom fighters’ contributions, accompanied by a video by renowned artist group. Other notable displays include Reena Kallat’s poignant video in spired by Karachi’s 1932 directory, and archival footage of Sindh Pre-Partition. The exhibition delves into the Sindhi refugee narrative, with clips from Abana (1956), the first Sindhi-language film, capturing the refugees’ spirit of resilience. A highlight is the Ulhasnagar Matrix, which portrays the journeys of Sindhi refugees post-Partition through LED profiles, electronics, and hand written text, created by CAMP and collaborators.
Immersive multi-media displays, video interviews, films, talks, poetry readings, and festivals aim to bring alive a vibrant culture that has held on to their identity despite the mass displacement.
More than a repository of art and artefacts, The Lost Homeland of Sindh is a platform for dialogue and understanding.
Read: Sindhi Voices from the Partition
The gallery is located within the Partition Museum at the Dara Shukoh Library in old Delhi. Focusing on the national movement leading up to Independence and Partition, the mass migration of 20 million refugees, and the subsequent stories of survival and rehabilitation, each gallery in the Partition Museum features a collection of people’s oral histories, objects, and archival material. The museum was set up by TAACHT, led by the Founder and Chair, Kishwar Desai, under the Union Ministry of Tourism’s Adopt a Heritage scheme. The Partition Museums in Amritsar and Delhi are both people’s museums created through the generous support from the people to preserve this crucial part of India’s heritage.
The gallery will open to the public on October 6th, 2024
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A map of the River Indus, the fountainhead of the Sindhi community, ushers visitors through the vintage portals of The Lost Homeland of Sindh into the courtyard of a Sindhi haveli rebuilt from the fragments of dis[1]placed Sindhi heritage. Heritage objects and artefacts were donated by benefactors who were once refugees themselves. The artisanal Shikarpuri carvings on Burma teak door frames, balcony (muhari) railings, bannisters, and swings (pingas) are an unmistakable throwback to the ornate yet solid and functional Sindhi ancestral homes.
Ajrak, an ancient block-printing technique dating back to Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley civilization, highlights the regions of Sindh in an unusual map of the province, with the Indus rendered in signature Sindhi mirror-work.
The painstakingly researched Sindhi Global Banking and Network Map tracks the two primary trading routes used by Sindhi Hindu businesses over land and sea.
Rendered on fabric, the border has been hand-embroidered by 6 Katchchii tribes with origins in Sindh.
The artisanal Shikarpuri carvings on locked Burma teak doors, bannisters, and a quintessential double bed[1]sized swing (pinga) are an unmistakable throwback to the ornate yet solid and functional Sindhi ancestral homes.
Central to the exhibition is Windows to Sindh, a 45- minute journey into Sindh viewed through the archways of a Muhari—a carved wooden balcony—letting visitors virtually travel through Sindh’s natural landscapes and cities, syncretic religious sites and shrines, ancient, mediaeval, and colonial monuments and historical landmarks; conceived and compiled by the renowned artist group CAMP (Ashok Sukumaran, Shaina Anand, Rohan Chavan, and Zinnia Ambapardiwala), with images by vloggers from Sindh.
The Freedom Fighters Panel is representative of many freedom fighters who fought passionately for indepen[1]dence. The research was undertaken by writers Nandita Bhavnani and Saaz Aggarwal, and the video by CAMP.
Some of the other artwork on display includes Artist Reena Kallat’s evocative video, inspired by the directory of 1932 prominent residents in Karachi, which tells a story of life and loss and life after loss.
The history of Sindh and the refugee narrative post[1]partition is brought to life through archival film footage of Sindh in the 1930’s, the arrival and settling of Sindhi refugees in India, their literary and cultural footprint, and their efforts to get Sindhi recognized as a language by the Indian constitution while retaining the Perso-Arabic script as theirs. Clips from India’s first Sindhi Language film Abana (1956) depict both the exodus from Sindh using archival footage as well as the spirit and optimism of the refugees, who are seen singing and jiving their strife away, in the iconic Hede Hede Hede that was filmed in the Ulhasnagar camp.
The archival timeline is by the artist group CAMP and their allied archive, Indiancine.ma. Amongst the most compelling displays is a room that depicts what was possibly India’s earliest and most prolific refugee colony in Ulhasnagar, a World War II military transit camp that housed scores of Sindhi refugees post-Partition. The Ulhasnagar Matrix comprises journeys of people “via Ulhasnagar”—their movements, work trajectories, and social paths, rendered in LED profiles, custom electronics, and handwritten text. This was created by CAMP along with Vandana Govindani, Seema Menghani, Manthan Bachani, and Gurpreet Kaur
Read: ‘Lost Homeland of Sindh Gallery’ setup at Partition Museum in Delhi
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Courtesy: Hindvasi Weekly Magazine September 29, 2024 Issue
