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The Province of Sindh (now a state in Pakistan) is bordered on the east by the Thar desert of India and in the west by the mountains of Baluchistan; it boasts of the port city of Karachi as well as the remains of the Indus Valley civilization. Its history is chequered and is best known by the brief message ‘PECCAVI’ sent by its British conqueror Charles Napier to his superiors in the Bombay Presidency. Tracing its origin to the Indus Valley settlements of Mohen-jo-daro (itself a Sindhi word meaning the ‘gate/hillock of the dead’), Sindh was part of various Hindu kingdoms up to 712 AD when Mohammed bin Kasim conquered it and established Muslim rule. Various Muslim dynasties ruled over Sindh undisturbed until 1843 when the British decided that its strategic importance necessitated its conquest. The colonial policies of land and education tipped the economic and social balance. The Hindu minority of Sindh which had always been rich but unobtrusive, now cornered powerful positions in the nineteenth century, evoking a strong feeling among Sindhi Muslim leaders that they had not received their just desserts.
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