ON June 18 Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro commented on the unbridled usage of the terms 'Interior Sindh' and 'Karachi and Sindh' and gave his ruling in the Sindh Assembly session saying “These terms are misleading and against the unity of Sindh. Hence these should not be used by any Member of the Sindh Assembly.”

Elaborating his remarks, he told the house “A person in Lahore does not speak of 'Interior Punjab', or the people in Peshawar never say anything such as 'interior Pakhtoonkhwa' and the Quetta residents do not use the term 'interior Balochistan'. So we, the Sindhis, should call areas by their names and not as 'interior' etc.”

Sindh was known by various names in the past. In the last 7,000 years poets, intellectuals, folk story tellers of united India use the term “ Hind and Sindfor Sindh and the rest of Indian subcontinent. The name Sindh comes from the Indo-Aryans. In Sanskrit it was called Sindhu, meaning the River Sindh and the people living on its banks.

The Assyrians (as early as the seventh century BC) knew the region as Sinda, the Persians as Hindush, the Greeks as Indos, the Romans as Sindus or Indus, the Chinese as Sintu, while the Arabs and English conquerers called it Sind. The government of Sindh added the letter 'h' to 'Sind in 1995 aimed at correcting its spelling as per its pronounciation

In history, all conquerors and rulers always called the areas by their names. When they thought of moving to Nairoon Kot (Hyderabad), Chandka (Larkana and Kamber), Sewstaan (Sehwan), Khangarhh (Jacobabad), etc., they never used the phrase 'interior Sindh', nor did they isolate or separate Karachi and Sindh

I hope that from now on all people, including opinion-makers and lawmakers, would discourage using such terms as would distort history and people's perception about Sindh.

DR AYOUB SHAIKH
Karachi