Book on Sindh released

While there was a collective suffering experienced by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs during the Partition, a museum as suggested by someone to remember the travails would not work, historian Ramachandra Guha said.

Speaking at the launch of the book, ‘Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland’ by Saaz Agarwal, Guha said, “In those cases, the perpetrators are clear; the victims are clear.

But in the case of the South Asians, the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were simultaneously the victims and the perpetrators. And it is impossible, within the confines of a museum, however sensitive and objective and broadminded you wish to be, not to spark a new conflict.”

 Speaking about the experiences of the Partition in the Sindh province and the experience of Sindhi Hindus, Guha said, “The Sindh story has been largely forgotten. The literature on the Partition, the films, stories, plays, poems, novels, works of history are largely about two provinces – Bengal and the Punjab. But the Sindhis suffered doubly. In India, they did not have a province; so they had to disperse. And in Pakistan, they were reduced to a minority in the province of Sindh.”