Sindh Is Not a Piece of Territory: Sindhi Belonging in India, 2019-2021

This article was published on the anniversary of India's Republic day in January 2021 for the well-known online publication The Leaflet's special issue on citizenship, for a non-academic audience. The article traces a history of the Sindhi refugee diaspora in India in the aftermath of the partition of India, the absence of a linguistic and ethnically defined territory to which they could claim belonging, and the implications of this for their resettlement in India. The article looks back at how religion, ethnicity, and caste intersected with a lack of territorial belonging to produce Sindhi citizenship in India and the refugees' own struggles to claim belonging in India.<p>In 2017 the Sindhi Hindu brothers Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja from the Shikarpur region of Sindh topped The Sunday Times' Rich List of the UK's wealthiest residents. Sindhi Hindus form the world's most widespread if not the most numerous South Asian diaspora. They have a long history of travel for trade and banking, for which evidence is available from the sixteenth century (although historians suggest that they were a highly mobile community even before this). They established more permanent roots outside of Sindh after the 1947 partition of India. When the British divided their Indian empire in 1947, unlike Punjab, Bengal, and Assam, they did not partition Sindh (today a part of the Muslim-majority country of Pakistan), despite the minority campaign for a partition of the region. Sindh's 'partition' in 1947 was thus a deterritorialised and demographic one, producing over a million 'non-Muslim' refugees who resettled in India and abroad, including the United Kingdom. Sindhis have played a significant role in the UK's economic, political, legal and social histories, however the origins of this diaspora remain relatively unknown in the UK and even in India. Often mistaken for Punjabis and Gujaratis in both countries, they tend to keep a low-profile. They do not follow orthodox Hindu religious or caste practice; their faith is a blend of Sikh, Sufi, and Hindu traditions and they are therefore difficult to 'fix' in 'place'. However, Sindhis continually reappear on the fringes of discussions about religion, ethnicity, and territory. Their post-partition history needs to be recovered. The main objective of my fellowship will be to publish my research on the Sindh diaspora in the United Kingdom and India for both an academic audience and the wider public. It will illuminate a history of British partitions from Sindh, a region that witnessed a movement for autonomy within the empire much before the partition of 1947. It will demonstrate the influence Sindhi nationalism had on British administrators as far away as Palestine and partition plans there. It will trace the paths of Sindhi refugees after 1947, particularly to the United Kingdom, where they have made a huge but understated economic and social impact. I will collect data on the dates of arrival of this diaspora in the UK from Sindh and India; the sorts of businesses they established in the UK, and the relative rates of success of these businesses after partition. My research will also address the question of how heterodox South Asian religious traditions survive or have been threatened in the aftermath of partition and how this relates to Sindhi Hindu commercial and organisational support for militant Hindu nationalism in India and the UK.</p>

本文于2021年1月印度共和国日之际发表，刊载于知名在线出版物《The Leaflet》的公民身份专题特刊，面向非学术受众。本文梳理了印巴分治后印度境内信德族难民侨民群体的历史，探讨了该群体缺乏可宣称归属感的语言与民族专属领土这一状况，及其对他们在印度重新定居的影响。本文回溯了宗教、民族与种姓如何因缺乏领土归属感而相互交织，塑造了印度境内信德人的公民身份，以及难民群体为在印度争取归属感所经历的种种抗争。
2017年，来自信德省希卡布尔地区的信德印度教兄弟斯里昌德与戈皮昌德·欣杜贾登上《星期日泰晤士报》英国富豪榜榜首。信德印度教徒是全球分布最广（若论规模未必最多）的南亚侨民群体。他们拥有悠久的贸易与银行业跨境经营历史，相关史料可追溯至16世纪（尽管有历史学家指出，早在该时期之前，信德人就已是高度流动的社群）。1947年印巴分治后，他们在信德省之外建立了更为稳固的定居点。1947年英国解散其印度殖民帝国时，尽管当地少数群体发起了信德省分治运动，但英国并未像对待旁遮普、孟加拉与阿萨姆那样对信德省实施分治——如今信德省属于穆斯林占多数的巴基斯坦。因此，1947年信德省的“分治”实则为非领土化的人口结构调整，催生了超过百万的“非穆斯林”难民，他们在印度及包括英国在内的海外地区重新定居。信德人在英国的经济、政治、法律与社会发展历程中发挥了重要作用，但这一侨民群体的起源在英国乃至印度都鲜为人知。在英印两国，信德人常被误认为旁遮普人与古吉拉特人，且他们大多行事低调。他们并不遵循正统的印度教宗教仪轨与种姓制度；其信仰融合了锡克教、苏菲派与印度教传统，因此难以被“固化”在某一单一范畴之内。尽管如此，信德人始终在宗教、民族与领土相关讨论的边缘地带反复出现。他们的分治后历史亟待被发掘与梳理。本学人项目的核心目标，是面向学术群体与普通大众，发表本人针对英国与印度信德侨民群体的研究成果。该研究将阐明来自信德省的英国殖民分治历史——早在1947年分治之前，信德省就已在殖民帝国内发起自治运动。研究还将揭示信德民族主义对远至巴勒斯坦的英国殖民官员及其当地分治计划的影响。本研究将梳理1947年后信德难民的迁徙路径，尤其是前往英国的群体——他们在当地产生了巨大却未被充分认知的经济与社会影响。本人将收集相关数据，包括该侨民群体从信德省与印度抵达英国的时间、他们在英国创办的企业类型，以及分治后这些企业的相对成功率。本研究还将探讨如下问题：分治后，非正统的南亚宗教传统是如何存续或遭遇威胁的？这与信德印度教徒在印度及英国为激进印度教民族主义提供的商业与组织支持存在何种关联？