On January 24, 1950, the day the Hindi version of the first stanza of a Bengali song composed by Rabindranath Tagore was adopted as India바카라s national anthem, Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first president, told the Constituent Assembly that it was 바카라subject to such alterations in the words as the government may authorise as occasion arises바카라. Sixty-eight years later, there바카라s indeed a debate over one of the words in the anthem바카라Sindh, a land that no longer belongs to the country. Earlier this year, Ripun Bora, a Congress MP from Assam, moved a private member바카라s resolution in the Rajya Sabha seeking to replace 바카라Sindh바카라 with 바카라Northeast바카라. But Jaipur-based Bhagwan Atlani, a 73-year-old Sindhi writer and former chairperson of Rajasthan Sindhi Academy, believes it can바카라t happen. 바카라Sindh has been there and it will remain there. Let them shout, nothing will change,바카라 he says.
In Search Of A Lost Home: Sindhis In India Are Struggling To Save Their Language
Having lost their land of origin, saving their language is proving tough for Sindhis in India
Atlani was three in 1948 when a pogrom forced Hindus in Sindh, a state in newly formed Pakistan, to seek refuge in India. His family had to leave their home in uptown Larkana and board a steamer from Karachi. Like thousands of Sindhi families, they ended up at the Kalyan-Ulhasnagar camp on the outskirts of Bombay (now Mumbai) and had to start their lives from scratch. That바카라s how the Indian population came to include a community that carries the name of a state across the border as one of its many legacies. Relatively untouched바카라unlike the Bengalis and the Punjabis바카라by the violence that accompanied Partition, the Sindhi Hindus now found themselves in a country that didn바카라t include Sindh. Sindhi speakers in India numbered around 25 lakh in 2001, when the population of India was around 100 crore, according to that year바카라s census.
바카라The community chose to downplay their culture, language and identity after Partition. They would learn the local language of the places they settled in,바카라 says Nandita Bhavnani, author of The Making of Exile: Sindhi Hindus and the Partition of India. Without the hope of ever returning to their homes, they embraced not just the language and traditions of the places they migrated to, but adopted their food habits as well. 바카라When I interviewed people whose families settled in Gujarat after Partition, they told me neighbourhood kids would often refuse to play with them as they ate non-vegetarian food. So the families turned vegetarian just to gain social acceptance,바카라 says Bhavnani.
A linguistic minority, the Sindhis are struggling to hold on to their language as it gradually loses its resonance, and perhaps, even relevance among the youth, who can barely hold a conversation in their native tongue. The government recognises both the Perso-Arabic and Devanagari variants of the Sindhi script. But as the Centre-run Sahitya Akademi recognises only a single script for every Indian language, it바카라s Perso-Arabic for Sindhi.
바카라So only those who write in the original Perso-Arabic script, which has a standardised vocabulary, qualify for awards,바카라 says Atlani. 바카라A major problem with Sindhi written in Devanagari is there바카라s no standardisation of the script. Wherever the Sindhis stayed, the local language influenced the pronunciation of Sindhi words, so what I write in Devanagari Sindhi today might be right or wrong바카라there바카라s nobody to judge that. And what could be the basis of that judgement?바카라 Consequently, young writers mostly acquainted with the newly minted Devanagari script feel discouraged from pursuing a career in Sindhi literature due to a lack of state patronage.
The language spoken by a community is intrinsically related to its identity, and for the Sindhis in India, a threat to their native tongue has posed a challenge to the fundamentals of their existence. With a gradually dwindling population of Sindhi speakers and writers in the country, the current generation experiences a sense of alienation from their roots. A part of this may be attributed to the rapidly disappearing Sindhi medium schools and Sindhi language courses from institutions in India.
바카라The only identity that the Sindhis have in the country today is their language. Whatever else we want to claim would have been claimed before us by the local people of the region we have settled in,바카라 says Sindhi poet Vimmi Sadarangani, a professor of the language at Tolani College of Arts and Science in Adipur, in Gujarat바카라s Kutch region. Adipur is one of the towns that had been designated to house refugees from Sindh during Partition.
The scholar fondly remembers her introduction to the fascinating world of literature in her mother tongue when she was in the eighth standard, and had just moved to a school that offered Sindhi as one of its subjects. After pursuing postgraduation in economics, Sadarangani says she could no longer resist exploring the vast richness of Sindhi literature. 바카라I went on to do an MA and PhD in Sindhi and have been teaching the language for 23 years. But the current generation does not think learning the language is profitable. Of the 550 students in my college, only five have taken up Sindhi,바카라 she says.
A Sindhi language class in progress at a Mumbai college
Vishu Bellani, professor of Sindhi in Delhi University바카라s Deshbandhu College, shares this concern over the declining interest in Sindhi. Originally from Ajmer, the 65-year-old is preparing to retire, rather reluctantly, from what seems to be the last teaching position for Sindhi in the university, at least for some time to come. 바카라I know how I have singlehandedly managed for 40 years. I hope the university finds a replacement in the next six months so the students aren바카라t stranded midway like this,바카라 says Bellani.
The fact that Sindhis바카라now one of the most affluent business communities in India바카라run numerous schools and colleges across India has not prevented their language from facing rejection at premiere institutions. Sindhi writers and artistes have gradually been reduced to one-man shows who self-publish and distribute their own work. 바카라We write, publish, circulate and read our own books. There바카라s no publisher or bookstore for our books. Can you imagine what that feels like?바카라 says Sadarangani.
바카라Sufism is inherent in the outlook of the Sindhi community and enables a stoic acceptance of reality,바카라 says Saaz Aggarwal, author of Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland. Their peculiar situation of being foreigners to the land associated with their language has ensured that success in business did not help the Sindhis consolidate the vibrant and age-old legacy of the community in India. 바카라We were the sacrificial goats during Partition. We could easily have been given three districts from Gujarat, but that never happened. It바카라s impossible to have a future without land,바카라 says Sahitya Akademi awardee Lakhmi Khilani, one of the founders of the Indian Institute of Sindhology in Adipur. Not a single Sindhi writer has been conferred with the prestigious Jnanpith Award in literature till date.
The performing arts have followed suit, with Sindhi cinema, dance and music falling prey to a fast eroding bank of cultural riches. As stories are being written by a handful of budding talents, they need to be adapted into forms that can be performed and not just read, as few in the current generation can follow the script. 바카라We need to do 바카라cool바카라 things to get the youth interested in Sindhi culture,바카라 says 21-year-old Dirven Hazari from Ulhasnagar, who runs a YouTube channel named 바카라Sindhionism바카라 for exclusively Sindhi content. With a growing tribe of followers, currently over 71,000, Hazari바카라s success crossed a milestone last year when Sindhionism got shortlisted by YouTube as one of its 12 finalists for YouTube NextUp, an annual interactive event conducted by the video-hosting giant that brings together promising content creators.
바카라In 2017 we made the world바카라s first Sindhi web series called Two Nights Three Days. It바카라s about the kind of pressure faced by students during exams,바카라 Hazari says. The young YouTuber admits not having any interest in his language and culture until two years ago, when he saw some social media posts accusing the Sindhi youth of being uninterested in their histories.
바카라There are very few with the drive needed to save our culture,바카라 says Mumbai-based Sindhi singer, Kaajal Chandiramani, whose body of work spans over 30 years and more than 10,000 shows. And yet, only a handful in the current generation seem to have heard of her. 바카라Nothing is being done in Sindhi now. When I started, there were such good composers, poets and lyricists. Now, people only perform the same songs they were singing 30 years ago. Since nobody knows the language today, the new generation doesn바카라t even know me. People only want Bollywood songs. They want to dance to 바카라Baby doll main sone di바카라,바카라 the singer sighs.
Additionally, the performing arts in Sindhi are totally deprived of state patronage in the form of awards. To this day, there바카라s only the Sindhi Sahitya Akademi, which honours works of literature alone 바카라The Maharashtra Akademi, the Gujarat Akademi, the Sindhi Akademi or the National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language...nobody gives awards to performing artistes,바카라 says Anila Sunder, 67-year-old choreographer of Sindhi ballets. 바카라We are invited to perform when others are winning awards, but we never receive them.바카라
As the global Sindhi citizen from India continues to travel and settle all over the world, the community back home carries on fighting for a secure platform to showcase its legacies. Sindhi entrepreneur Asha Chand has been petitioning for an exclusively Sindhi television channel in India since 2007. 바카라A channel is quite important for learning the language and giving the artistes a platform,바카라 says Chand, who runs the Mumbai- and Dubai-based NGO, Sindhi Sangat. 바카라You can learn a language only when you speak and hear it. If there바카라s a programme on a channel, people will pick up Sindhi words from it.바카라
As the government-funded coffers for the Sindhi arts start to run dry, artistes from the community have begun to express their disappointments through their performances. Kishen Ramnani, a 40-year-old theatre actor from Ulhasnagar, has been associated with the stage for over two decades. He says one is compelled to pursue Sindhi theatre as their passion, and not profession, as the stage provided by the state isn바카라t enough to sustain them. 바카라Where is the stage? Where is the support? That is what we ask in our upcoming video,바카라 says Ramnani.
Jeetu Vazirani, a Sindhi actor often spotted in Hindi shows like C.I.D. and in minor roles in films such as Om Jai Jagadish, shares the sentiments of fellow artistes from his community. Having worked in five Sindhi films and around 15 Sindhi telefilms produced by Asha Chand, Vazirani believes acting in his mother tongue has been an effective launchpad for his career in the Hindi entertainment industry. 바카라Hindi serials are my bread and butter, but Sindhi actors are gradually gaining a footing in India, especially in the past 10 years. We won바카라t stop working until we are able to fully sustain ourselves by doing work only in Sindhi,바카라 says the artiste. Sindhi films in India are mired in funding and distribution issues, as no theatre can guarantee them a profitable run.
바카라It바카라s unfortunate that most Sindhi youngsters don바카라t speak the language anymore. It바카라s difficult to convert Sindhis into a linguistic majority,바카라 says veteran lawyer and politician Ram Jethmalani. One may have been tempted to use the word 바카라impossible바카라 in such a situation, but for a community of iron-willed survivors like the Sindhis of India, a difficult feat is perhaps never too impossible to achieve.