In the Indian Subcontinent, the last quarter was a main watershed in the history of British colonisation. Simultaneously, it was the time of the apex of British colonisation, which was incarnated by the viceroy Lord Curzon, and also of the birth of a pre-national feeling among the educated elites of India. Furthermore, many communities were going through deep reconfigurations of their legacies regarding both their representation of the world, and the social process through which dominant classes were producing and controlling the knowledge. The clash produced by the violence of colonisation was such that new issues were emerging, which were shared by an array of ethnic groups and religious communities. One of the main consequences was the questioning of the religious and cultural legacies.

Sindh had been conquered by the British army led by General Napier, who was then the first governor of British Sindh. After his departure in 1847, Sindh was integrated into the Presidency of Bombay. As a colonial power, the main goal of the commissioner in Sindh was to control the people so that it could take control of the regional economy. Consequently, the colonial power was instrumental in the first phase. Aiming at controlling the various segments of local society, it took interest in its literature, firstly in Sufism. The topic was selected both by the colonial power and later on, by the new elite as being the core of Sindhi culture, and identity.

The spread of reformism among the Muslims and the Hindus

Due to colonisation, both the Muslims and the Hindus reevaluated their religious legacy, and for different and sometimes opposite reasons, they were convinced their religions were to be reformed with the significance of being ‘purified’ from alien accretions. A mainstream process of rationalisation was through the suppression of superstitious or magic-like beliefs and practices. Using Max Weber’s concept, the ‘dis-enchanting’ result was not the recession of religion, as it occurred in Europe, but rather a new discourse on what was religion. Among the Hindus, a main trend was to reshape Hinduism as a universal religion for a new humanity, as expressed by charismatic leaders like Rama Krishna or his follower Vivekananda. Among the Muslims, the discourse was to establish the existence a homogeneous Muslim community in India, which was itself a part of the Ummah, the universal Muslim community.

The following excerpt is taken from the paper, ‘The New Elite and the Issue of Sufism: A Journey from Vedanta to Theosophy in Colonial Sindh’ by Michel Boivin

The universalisation of the Hindu ideology met the new generation of Amils in Sindh. One of the most significant samples is that of Sadhu Hiranand of Hyderabad, tagged as ‘the soul of Sindh’ by his biographer. He was born in a Khudabadi Amils family and his father was Nanakpanthi. Hiranand was attracted by the Brahmo Samaj. He travelled to Calcutta to meet Keshab Sen, another follower of Rama Krishna. He wanted to dispatch a New Dispensation, or Nôbibidban, which was incorporating pieces from Christianity and Vaishnav Bhakti. The New Dispensation was opposed to the caste system and it ‘invented’ new rituals which were to be performed by all the Indians who identified themselves as Hindu.

In the meantime, a Sindhi Sabha was created by Dayaram Jethmall. It aimed at fostering the unity of the Sindhis. A few years before, the Indian National Congress was founded in 1885, and was qualified by a Sindhi literati as a “quasi political association”. Nonetheless, the farewell address to Lord Ripon presided by Hassan Ali Effendi was the last event before the break of the Sindh Sabha into two organisations: the National Mohamedan Association and the Sindh Hindu Sabha.

As a matter of fact, Muslim reformist movements pretending to modernise Islam were simultaneously at work in Sindh. The National Mahomedan Association created in 1877 by the Bengali Sayyid Amir Ali was influential. After Amir Ali visited Karachi, Effendi started a Karachi branch of the National Mohamedan Association. The Aligarh movement led by Sayyid Ahmad Khan was also influential all over India. Effendi went to Aligarh to meet him and was quickly convinced of the key role education had to play for the improvement of the Indian Muslims’ situation. It was concretised in the creation in 1885 of the Sindh Madrassatul Islam by Effendi.

Beyond the impact of colonial rule on local society, it is important to point out the role played by missionaries in the shape of organising intellectual debates in Karachi. One of the most influential priests in this respect was Reverend Bambridge, who was the head of the Church Missionary. In August 1885, he started the Literary Society for English-speaking educated Indians. The main objective of the Society was the “intellectual and moral improvement of its members,” and there were 74 European and 207 Indian members. Among them, six Indians graduated, five Hindus and one Muslim. The majority of the Indians were Hindu, then Parsi and then Muslim. A number of lectures were proposed on topics such as the prevention of child marriage or the re-marriage of widows. The lectures were published in the Sindh Times, edited by Sadhu Hiranand which was the official journal of the Sindh Sabha. The lectures organised by Reverend Bambridge mirrored the interest for comparative religions which was developing in the West. In Sindh, the lectures led to a revival of religious and theological studies.

At the end of the 19th century, Sindh was consequently a hub where many intellectual debates were flourishing. The main focus was the issue of modernising religious spirituality. Modernisation was understood as being both, a process of rationalising religion for instance through a critical approach of the sacred sources, but also in using a number of technical tools like printing. Among the Sindhi elite, Sufism was more and more represented as incarnating Sindhi identity. In this context the literati wanted all the classes and creeds of the province to have access to the ‘message’ of Sufism, especially as expressed by the Shah jo risalo. A new phase of exegesis of Shah Latif’s work thus started with publications devoted to the lexicography of poetry.

Sindh through the
Centuries-II:
Proceedings of 2nd
International Seminar held at Karachi in March, 2014 by Sindh
Madressatul Islam
University
Compiled by Dr. Muhammad Ali Shaikh
SMI University Press, Karachi
ISBN 978-969-9874-02-4 436pp.