Sindhis

Sindhis are unlikely to take their political opposition to the level of rebellion, although radical organizations like the Jeay Sindh and the Sindh National Party have been accused of low levels of violence in the past. However, Sindhi protest is more likely, although the return of Sindhi-led civilian rule mitigates that risk significantly.. While inter-ethnic violence in the Sindh province has been a real problem in the past, intercommunal cooperation has grown since 2000, with fragile coalitions forming between Sindhis and Mohajirs, Baluchis and Pashtuns. With these ethnic groups banding together in protest against the Musharraf government, the risk for intercommunal violence is fairly low. However, it is still too soon to tell if these cross-ethnic alliances will endure with the return to civilian rule. Political stability in Sindh will depend on the continuance and growth of this alliance. The strengthening of this alliance could also facilitate meeting the sometimes desperate resource needs of both indigenous and immigrant populations in Sindh. Sindhis are the original inhabitants of the lower Indus River basin, including what is now the Sindh province, located in the southeastern corner of Pakistan, where they are still heavily concentrated (GROUPCON =3). The country’s most diverse state, Sindh is also the home of Mohajirs, Baluchs, Pashtuns and Punjabis. Traditionally Hindus, some Sindhis converted to Islam under the Moghul Empire. Upon partition in 1947, many remaining Hindu Sindhi emigrated to India, while Urdu-speaking Indian Muslims, called Mohajirs, took their place, concentrating in urban areas in the Sindhi province. Influxes of Punjabis from Pakistan’s overcrowded northeast, Baluchis from the underdeveloped west, and Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns from the northern territories have also crowded into Sindh, threatening Sindhi control of their own region. Unlike other non-Punjabi groups, Sindhis have led two national governments, under Z.A. Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto, through the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The execution of Z.A. Bhutto in 1979 by the Punjabi general Ziaul Haq further exacerbated tension between the two ethnic groups and led to a political situation that has counter-posed Sindhi-led civilian movements against a Punjabi-led military establishment for control of the Pakistan government bureaucracy. The corruption trials of Benazir Bhutto and her husband, instigated by the Punjabi Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the 1990s, have led to further disintegration of ethnic relations; in 2002, the registration of cases involving Ms. Benazir Bhutto continued to complicate relations. Sharif also began mass arrests of Sindh politicians in 1999, a situation that ended only with the military coup of Musharraf. Sindhi protest has closely mirrored the rise and fall of PPP-led governments, peaking during times of military (i.e. Punjabi) rule (PROT94-PROT97 = 3; PROT98 = 4). While the Musharraf coup was initially welcomed by opposition groups, including Sindhi political parties, those groups quickly became disillusioned by Musharraf’s promises to restore democracy. The honeymoon had ended by early 2000, and Sindhi protest has increased since then (PROT01-06 = 3). Some examples of protest include a 2001 protest against the building of a canal in the Sindh province and a 2003 hunger strike against the closures of a dozen Sindhi newspapers. While Sindhis are not responsible for all the protests in the Sindhi province, police in the Sindhi province reported that in the first 5 months of 2002, 1457 agitational activities took place in the province, 15 percent of which were by the Sindhis (The Pakistan Newswire, June 11, 2002). Between April and May 2006, Sindhi organizations organized several protest rallies against the state’s demolition of Sindhi villages in Karachi and Hyderabad (PROT06 = 3). Sindhis are fragmented in their political organization as well as religiously. Some Sindhis are Hindu, although