As was the case in other areas of the Indian Subcontinent, the British greatly strengthened the already existing feudal system in Sindh as well. In 1843, when the East India Company captured Sindh, it granted jagirs to all such individuals in the province who had helped them with their colonial conquest; or to the people who aided and abetted in connection with the regulation and administration of the province. The British authorities were fully aware that they would indeed have to strengthen such people in order to stabilize their own control over Sindh. This was the reason that they organized a strong class of landlords which guarded British interests right until the last days of their dominance. When the people of Sindh initiated a rebellion against British imperialism, the colonial government in 1901 allotted approximately 500,000 acres of Sindh’s land to the soldiers and higher officers of the local army which had crushed this rebellion with great ruthlessness. Their objective were:
On one hand to further stabilize the loyalties of those who crushed the rebellion by granting them gifts;
To create a strong class of foreign landlords and landowners in Sindh in addition to the local landlords for the security of their usurping power.
The British ended up creating one of the worst feudal systems in Sindh for the sake of their interests. Increases in agricultural production in Sindh ceased due to this. Therefore in order to increase their income in Sindh, the British government decided to increase agricultural production; and work began on the project of the Sukkur Barrage in 1923. This project costing a huge amount of 40 million rupees was completed in a decade, after which the agricultural lands which were cultivated by canal water increased by 171 times.
Completed in 1932, the Sukkur Barrage was originally called the Llyod Barrage
Now the problem presented itself before the British government: what to do with these cultivable lands? It could not run the risk of distributing these among haris and peasants. So hundreds of thousands of acres of this gold-spewing land of the Barrage were allotted by the British to their favourite landowners. And instead of employing local cultivators on these lands, farmers from elsewhere were brought and settled in Sindh.
The ‘Allottee’ Movement run by the Sindh Hari Tehreek was a reaction to this very situation. This movement had two objectives: one, that all unpopulated lands of Sindh be distributed among peasants; and second that the peasants who were living on the lands of the Sukkur and Kotri Barrages for many years should be allotted these lands on easy terms.
Image of a peasant from Sindh, 1868
Now the problem presented itself before the British government: what to do with these cultivable lands? It could not run the risk of distributing these among haris and peasants
Like the Batai (division of crop) Movement, the Allottee Movement was also severely opposed by the landlords and waderas of Sindh. They ran a propaganda campaign that the people demanding giving the custody of lands to peasants are playing in the hands of foreign powers. Therefore if land is given to any peasant, they should not accept it. But despite this, peasants participated in the Allottee Movement in thousands and this movement ended when the government promised that the unpopulated lands would indeed be allotted to peasants; though very little action occurred on this promise.
In the decade of the 1960s, the government of Pakistan systematically accepted the British law where at least there is a mention of peasant rights for the imposition of which the Allottee Movement and other movements were initiated. According to the Sindh Tenancy Act, if a peasant cultivates any piece of land for three consecutive years, they then have a fundamental right to it for cultivation. Then the landowner can neither evict the peasant from that piece of land nor allot it to another. In the event that the land is sold, the right of cultivation indeed belongs to that hari who has been cultivating for three years.
But like other laws, the Sindh Tenancy Act is also not being acted upon. Even today everything related to the hari is at the mercy and kindness of the wadera. Whenever he wants, he can have any hari evicted and arrested. So much so that recently the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) discovered dozens of private jails where hundreds of peasants (men, women and children) had been kept chained.
The ‘Begar Band Karo’ (Stop Bonded Labour) Movement was also active in Sindh. Ched and Begar are principles devised by waderas which were hated by the peasants in every era. Many times movements were initiated against them, but despite this, the system of begar and ched continues even now in every area of Sindh.
There are many such landlords and waderas of Sindh who have lands from 100 up to 500 acres cultivated by ordinary peasants without payment. The full right to the ready crop cultivated on bonded labour indeed goes to the wadera. The wadera exploits the peasant in the name of bonded labour, earns hundreds of thousands of rupees.
Like other parts of the world, many of the youth who were born and trained in feudal homes in Sindh dedicated themselves for revolutionary struggle
The practice of bonded labour is not of today; it has carried on for hundreds of years. In it, a wadera orders his peasants that it is compulsory for one person from every home to participate. In every stage from sowing seeds to the preparation of the crop, bonded labour is made use of. In the same manner, the peasant does indeed get one-half of the cultivation upon which they are a hari. But they get no compensation over the bonded labour crop obtained from hundreds of acres of land.
In addition to bonded labour, ched is also an exploitative system of the same sort under which peasants are made to dig water courses. That is the source of bringing water from the barrage to the fields; it is like a canal. Hundreds of peasants work for its preparation at every stage. Not only the preparation of the watercourse but the digging of old watercourses and annual cleansing, etc are also done by the peasants without compensation.
The Sindh Hari Conference that we are talking about was founded in 1930. This group was established at that time to struggle for distributing unpopulated land located in the suburbs of Sukkur Barrage among haris. Comrade Abdul Qadir was an important and founding member of this conference (which later on took the shape of the Sindh Hari Committee). He kept went on being chosen the president or General Secretary of the Hari Committee till his death. In this period among the founders of the Hari Committee were Jamshed Nusserwanjee, Jethmal Pursram, Shaikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi, G. M. Syed and several other members. G. M. Syed separated from the Hari Committee when Qadir Bux Nizamani and Noor Muhammad Palijo gave the hari struggle the direction of a class struggle.
After its inception, very influential movements were initiated against the landlords of Sindh in Tando Jam and other areas under the leadership of the Hari Committee and in 1936 a march was organized towards Hyderabad city. This Kisan March shook the rich and landowning classes of Hyderabad city. Sindh Hari Committee was connected to the All-India Kisan Sabha from the very beginning. In 1936, under the leadership of Comrade Abdul Qadir, the following demands of the peasants were presented to the government from the Sindh Hari Committee:
ll the cultivable fallow lands be given to peasants for cultivation. Advance payments and other taxes should be reduced by half. In case of inability to pay debt and rent because of some difficulty, a guarantee of security from legal or illegal pressure should be given to peasants. Peasants should be gradually freed from debts; and should be ‘immediately’ delivered from the curse of interest. All peasants should be given permanent and perpetual rights of cultivation. Bonded and compulsory labour, and government rent, should be declared unlawful. The prices of produce from crops should be fixed on an official basis in the very days of the seasons. The feudal system should be ended to distribute all lands among the peasants. All laws of cruelty and oppression over the peasants should be ended. All political prisoners and the house-arrested should be immediately released. Arrangements should be made for giving mass and free education to children of peasants.
Today in the 21st century the demands of the peasants of Pakistan are the same. Martial laws came and went; Islam was imposed, or not; democracy came and went; the founding peasant leaders and workers died behind bars, painfully, on the gallows or shot by bullets. But these basic problems of the peasants remained as they were.
Those who worked with comrade Abdul Qadir included a great pool of peasant and communist leaders like Mohammad Amin Khoso, Qadir Bux Nizamani, Arbab Noor Muhammad Palijo and Maulvi Nazeer Hussain Jatoi. And after 1945, the now legendary Comrade Hyder Bux Jatoi took part.
Like other parts of the world, many of the youth who were born and trained in feudal homes in Sindh dedicated themselves for revolutionary struggle.
Hyder Bux Jatoi, who passed away 50 years ago on May 21 last week, was also one of these great people. He was a resident of the area Bakhodero of the Dokri subdivision of Larkana, near Mohenjodaro, thus making him the second great Sindhi revolutionary after his great contemporary Sobho Gianchandani to be born near that iconic ancient city. He was born on October 10, 1901 in the Jatoi tribe of the Baloch.
At the age of two years, he was deprived of the love and affection of his mother and brought up by his father and maternal aunts. His father’s name was Fakir Allahdad Khan Jatoi. There was no school in his own village, so he was admitted to the school of Pathan village a few miles away. He was eleven years old at that time. He used to come and go to the school riding on a mare.
Little Jatoi was a very hardworking student. It is said that once the collector of Larkana visited this school. He was so impressed by the intelligence of the child that he expressed a wish to meet his father Mr Fakir. The collector advised Mr Fakir to ensure that the child could study further.
After completing primary education, the child was admitted to the Sindh Madrassatul Islam school in Larkana. Jatoi came first in exams every year. In 1918 he attained the first position in the whole of Sindh and then in 1923 passed matriculation from Bombay University by achieving the first position in Sindh. Jatoi went to Karachi for further education; there he got admitted in D. J. Sindh College. In 1927 he graduated with honours; achieving a distinction in Farsi from Bombay University.
Right from the time of college he tried his hand at Sindhi poetry and it became very popular. During college education, he got the Sarasvati literary prize. He remained a scholarship holder during his entire studentship in Karachi and Larkana.
From the time of his youth, he had a sympathy for common people. He had reached the conclusion that the basic reason for the sorrowful plight of these common people is colonial and neo-colonial slavery, and the merciless exploitation by local landlords and capitalists.
Once he set off from home without informing anyone. During this journey he kept wandering in different parts of India in search of peace, quiet and happiness. He used to take refuge in the holy places of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Buddhists, where he observed very closely all the forms of religious rituals.
He wrote this brief poem in Sindhi:
“I have seen the path of God with great difficulty
Neither in the mosque, nor in the temple or church it will be
There is no place anywhere for argument and thought
Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader based in Lahore, where he is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached via email: razanaeem@hotmail.com and on Twitter: @raza_naeem1979
