The highlight of the week was the swearing-in of Justice Rana Bhagwandas as the new Acting Chief Justice and Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council, at the Supreme Court Registry in Karachi on Saturday, March 24. He is the first Hindu and the second non-Muslim head of Pakistan's judiciary.
Many people were amazed to learn that Justice Bhagwandas besides being a Law graduate has done his master's in Islamic Studies. This fact almost overshadowed his reassuring statement after the swearing-in ceremony that "the judiciary would not disappoint the nation".
Some of us might have been impressed more by his degrees than the reassuring words of his formal statement. The specter of Justice Munir and his wretched "law of necessity" still haunts us because it has been used to legitimise the regimes of generals from Ayub Khan to Yahya Khan to Zia-ul-Haq to Pervez Musharraf. This law has virtually neutered the judiciary.
However, April 3, when the reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar M. Chaudhry will be heared by the SJC is eagerly awaited. In the meantime, let us look at the point that has amazed so many people, that Justice Bhagwandas has a master's in Islamic Studies.
A Hindu Sindhi is quite different from one's idea of a typical Hindu. The singular noun does not only describe Justice Bhagwandas, but the provincial minority community as a whole. Culturally they are Muslims, if I may say so. This phenomenon is not unique to Sindh but was normal throughout Muslim-dominated regions of the subcontinent. For instance, there was nothing except their names to distinguish Muslims from Hindus in the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad.
My first experience of this phenomenon was as a child when we were invited to the home of a refugee Hindu Sindhi in Pune (Maharashtra) to listen to Sindhi Music. The singers, also Hindu Sindhis were eunuchs.
The repeated refrain "O Allah" made me wonder if old mama, savouring every word and note, his eyes closed and his body swaying with the rhythm, was really a Hindu or secretly a Muslim. It was later in Pakistan that I learnt you cannot distinguish culturally between a Hindu and Muslim Sindhi.
In their ordinary speech you will hear words such as "Allah", "Khuda", "Insha Allah" and "Masha Allah" the same way as a Muslim would use them while speaking. It is not just words; the Hindu Sindhi has a demonstrably sincere interest in Islam. Few even among Sindhis know that the first Sindhi translation of the Holy Qur'an was by a Hindu teacher who wanted his students to know their Holy Book.
When we lived in PECHS we found it was not uncommon for one brother to be a Hindu and one to be a Muslim and for both to live together with their families under one roof in peace and amity. We were surprised one day when our Hindu neighbours sent us 'Sheerkhorma' on Eid.
The children who brought the sweet dish explained it was from their Chacha who was a Muslim. This, I think, is a peculiarity of our province. I have never heard of it from anywhere else in the subcontinent, although in the Punjab it is quite common for the same family to be partly Hindu and partly Sikh. Partly Hindu and partly Muslim has to be unique.
Interestingly, this type of Sindhi family has its roots in the practice of Law. In interior Sindh, litigation seems to be the chief passtime. Consequently, lawyers are much in demand. But in a Muslim dominated province, a Hindu lawyer has less chance of attracting clients, so that is perhaps why usually lawyers convert to Islam. The Chacha who sent us 'Sheerkhorma' is a lawyer.
While one cannot say for certain that Chacha (and may be others of his ilk,) became Muslim for the sake of his bread and butter, but undoubtedly he is not a fake Muslim. We would keenly observe Chacha and his family and can testify that they are practising Muslims, observing the five "Rukn" of Islam punctiliously.
Interest in Islam extends to the Hindu part of the family, too. Two of the Hindu brother's daughters studied Islamiat as a subject for their Matric exams. Whatever anyone else may think, my personal verdict is that such mixed-faith families are a fine example of religious tolerance.
One of these girls is my niece's best friend. She and the widow and daughter of late Gopal Acharia, scion of the Motandas family, one of Karachi's oldest Hindu Sindhi families, comprise our extended family. We cannot perceive a happy or sad event without them. These are not the only Hindu Sindhis we know on personal basis.
While most Hindu Sindhis are vegetarians, chicken has entered their diet. I wonder if this change is a consequence of Independence which depleted the Hindu population and increased the Muslim population of Karachi. Quite nonchalantly a chicken-eating Hindu Sindhi will say, "Well, yes, meat is forbidden, but I'll do penance later for eating the chicken".
An interesting development in Hindu Sindhi ethos after partition has been in the difference in attitude of Hindu Sindhis of Pakistan and those who migrated to India. While Pakistani Hindu Sindis continue to be culturally Muslim, the Indian Hindu Sindhis have consciously shed their "Muslimness". Nevertheless, Pakistani Sindhis who have attended Sindhi conferences in Bombay and Delhi report that the "Hinduization" of the Hindu Sindhis of India is hardly more than a veneer.
It is hard to get Sindh out of their systems. Politically they may be Indians but culturally they are rooted in the Province of Sindh. Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's verses sung in the Sindhi style, along with the refrain of "O Allah", continues to mesmerise them just as it did their fathers and grandfathers.
In Karachi inter-faith marriages have increased since partition. However marriages between Hindu Sindhis and people of other faiths including Muslims, Christians, Parsis, was unheard of until about two decades ago, except, perhaps, in the Hindu-cum-Muslim Sindhi families. I say "perhaps" because even among them it was rare. The caste system is very strong among all Hindus. But then, inter-faith relationships do not necessarily lead to inter-faith marriages as a rule. Chief Justice Bhagwandas is living proof that a sincere interest in Islam does not make him forswear his own faith. Why should it?
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