Q&A with Rita Kothari about her new book ITTEHAD, her translation of a 1941 book by Guli Sadarangani

An extraordinary book, translated by one of the very few English writers with admirably strong Sindhi skills as well – Rita Kothari. We had a very enjoyable zoom call together a few weeks ago, and the Q&A appeared in Hindustan Times yesterday. Read on!

Saaz: What drew you to this book and to translating it into English for a wider audience?

Rita: I’d known of Ittehad for at least 20 years. I’d come across references to it and always found it intriguing. I remember wondering, is Vimmi Sadarangani related to the writer Guli Sadarangani? And why doesn’t she appear anywhere? Not even in the two-volume 1993 anthology Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the Present edited by Susie Tharu and K. Lalita. That included Popati Hiranandani, Sundri Uttamchandani, and others – but not Guli Sadarangani.

And every small entry I came across called the book controversial. To me, that should have made her better known, not less. Why was this pioneering woman, who wrote such a courageous book in 1941, missing? I felt this was a historical imbalance. I wasn’t surprised when I learnt that even her son Kishore hadn’t read her work.

Finding a copy was a challenge, I finally got one from Sahib Bijani, Director of the Indian Institute of Sindhology at Gandhidham. And then finding a publisher – this was done through a collaboration between the Ashoka Centre for Translation and Zubaan. It’s called Women Translating Women. Zubaan is bringing out many other books in this series – and there will be other languages. I’m thrilled that this Sindhi novel is part of a community of women’s voices,

Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Sindhi and others, not standing alone as an outlier.

Translation can be a small gesture, but it can have larger ramifications. At the very least, it was my way of paying homage to a pioneering and courageous woman writer, the first woman novelist of our language. Not many people know of Sindhi literature, let alone a woman writer in pre-Partition Sindh. So it’s a minoritization at several levels – woman, language, region, era. 

 

Saaz: What were the problems that this 1941 novel, offering love and equality between religions as a social and political strategy in the years leading up to Partition, face when it was published and over the years?

Rita: Ittehad was ignored in its own time, the theme was distasteful. It wasn’t widely read or discussed, and over the years, it didn’t feature in literary histories in English.

What I found compelling was how Guli Sadarangani managed to be both conventional and subversive. There’s a clear valuing of romance and relationships, yes – but also a questioning of institutions like marriage, property, and patriarchy. The protagonist, Asha, isn’t looking for salvation through marriage. She’s invested in her friendships, in her own selfhood, in the idea that love can’t survive without independence.

There’s also a certain tenderness and idealism in how religion is portrayed – not as dogma, but as a journey. The book feels radical in its insistence on mutual respect and understanding, both between individuals and between communities.

Perhaps it was too gentle to be taken notice of, or too idealistic, or perhaps it didn’t fit the more strident narratives that came to dominate after Partition.

 

Saaz: What could it be about Guli Sadarangani’s life and background that led to her producing a book with ‘woke’ themes?

Rita: Guli Sadarangani was from an Amil family; the Amils are a Sindhi community with several generations of education. They tend to be more liberal, ahead of their time – as is this book, remarkably ahead of its time.

Her brother, Krishna Kripalani was an English professor at Shanti Niketan; in 1941 when Tagore died, he was appointed director. He is well known – but no one talks about the sister.

Guli also studied at Shantiniketan, which I believe was formative for her. That’s where her character Asha also goes to study, in the novel. Guli translated Gora, and I assume Tagore’s ideas influenced her. Another character, Aruna comes from a Brahmo Samaj background too – that’s the Bengal connection which was common among liberal Sindhis before Partition.

Clearly, her family was progressive. Sending a young woman across the country to study at Shantiniketan – those values must have shaped her deeply. She translated Gora, and wrote other novels too, which I haven’t worked with. But Ittehad felt like an important landmark.

 

Saaz: Russia comes across a shadowy ideal in this book, could you please tell us what made it special to Sindhi writers?

Rita: Most people in India see Sindhis as purely mercantile, without a cultural or intellectual life. But the truth is, prior to Partition, Sindh had a thriving intellectual scene. Many educational institutions were run by Hindu Sindhis. After Partition, that cultural identity appears to have drained away.

Today’s stereotype of Sindhis in India as only money-minded is post-Partition; in Pakistan, people acknowledge the role Hindu Sindhis played in creating cultural institutions.

My own father was not from an elite background, but names of Russian thinkers, communism – meant something to him. In his lifetime, he swung from attending communist meetings in Kalyan to eventually admiring the BJP. But those multiple ideological influences coexisted, it wasn’t just Russia.

You see those same ideological streams in the novel – Gandhi, Tagore, Brahmo Samaj, communism. At the heart of it is always the question: how does one become a good, ethical citizen? The novel doesn’t always make clear where its moral compass lies, so it feels utopian at times. Yes, the 1940s were a critical time in Sindh – communal tensions, the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, and so much more. To write a novel like this during that time – it meant something.

 

Saaz: Translating across cultures is never easy – which parts of the book did you find difficult to convey in English?

Rita: Most of the language in Ittehad was urban and familiar to me, so not especially hard. But there were moments that gave me pause. One passage stands out: when Hamid tells his mother he doesn’t want to marry and she asks if he’s in love. He says he is, and she asks, who is she? “Khudaji bandi,” he replies, “A devotee of god!”

“Aren’t we all that?” she asks. “Tell me more, what abour her zaat-paat?”

And he says, “So now you want to know her zaat-paat!”

“Yes!” she replies, and when he reveals the girl is Hindu, her reaction is so interesting.

She says, “Really? Those people who consider us to be untouchable, who won’t even accept food from us, you’re going to marry one of those?”

Words that are used for a sect, or a caste, have become of huge interest to me in the act of translation. It shows how the vocabulary we assume is about religion is often really about caste. Words like zaat, sampradaya, panth – we use them across different contexts, and they often blur categories of religion, caste, and sect. This overlap has become a major area of interest for me, especially in translation.

So there were interesting aspects – but nothing really challenging in the act of translation.

 

Saaz: That couldn’t have been the case with your translation of Shah Abdul Latif into Hindi?

Rita: No it wasn’t – and I’ll admit that was a project I care about even more. It’s called Kahé Latif and comes out next month. I selected about 450 of his poems. The translation felt like a lifetime wish – something I didn’t have the confidence to take on for a long time. It’s coming out from Vani Prakashan.

As you know, Sindhi is one of India’s important literary languages, with a 600–700 year-old tradition. This is almost unknown in India, even amongst Sindhis. If you ask an average person to name a Sindhi writer, they won’t know anyone. Popati Hiranandani may be translated, but how many have heard of her? And there are so many other fine writers, writing on a range of themes.

So my Kahé Latif is another attempt at reclaiming our literary tradition. It’s a Hindi translation, done directly from Sindhi – not from English, and not as a prose rendering, but in poetic verse. There are many English translations of Shah Latif, but we don’t have versions that retain the alliteration and rhythm of the original. Hindi allowed me to do that. I hope people will read it aloud in Hindi, quote it the way Latif is meant to be quoted.

Saaz: You once told me that you find the Sindhi community very patriarchal. My experience has been quite different. What could be the reasons for this?

Rita: That’s interesting, and I think it points to how diverse and heterogeneous the Sindhi community is. My sense of the community comes from growing up in Kachchh, where I saw strong male dominance – in trusts, institutions, and family decisions. Patriarchy was embedded in everyday life. But in your experience, perhaps among Sindhis in urban centres or in the diaspora, there’s more fluidity and exposure to other ways of being.

It’s a difference worth thinking about. Maybe there are multiple Sindhi worlds  – and they’re shaped by region, class, mobility, and memory in very different ways.

First appeared in HT Premium on 3 November 2025 on https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/rita-kothari-the-vocabulary-we-assume-is-about-religion-is-often-about-caste-101762174156436.html

Sindh in books: breaking silence, rebuilding memory

A round-up of recent books about Sindh

Saaz Aggarwal

The story of Sindh has fascinating layers and nuances, but has largely been neglected or trivialised. The forceful scattering after Partition created confusion. The internet is clogged with wrong dates, misinterpretations, and one-sided accounts – enormous swathes of information that remain two-dimensional, insular, detached from historical reality, often shrouded in unappealing clouds of unresolved trauma. Those who work to create a coherent, reliable body of knowledge about Sindh are swimming against the tide. Those who grasp the breadth of Sindhi poetry, philosophy, music, architecture, cuisine – despair at how public perception has narrowed to a single icon, Jhulelal, and an annual festival, Cheti Chand. Yet, as newer generations respond to the call of their ancestry, a quiet resurgence has begun.

One of the most remarkable new titles is Lion of the Sky by Ritu Hemnani (HarperCollins, 2024). Written in free verse, it plunges the reader into pre-Partition Hyderabad (Sindh) and, through the eyes and heart of a young boy, brings the lost land and a vanished world alive. Each word creates a vivid image, each pause a moment of recognition.

If you break a kite string it’s bad
  If the stitches break, it’s bad
    If you can’t calculate, it’s bad
      If you block a railroad, it’s bad
        I may not know very much
          about the line this British man is drawing
            but I do know one thing.

              It’s bad.

In less than half a page, we are immersed in the domestic and political world of that time: a festive activity, the gendered expectations of a trader family, passionate participation in the freedom movement, and that ominous line which would end an era.

Another compelling title is SIM SIM by Geet Chaturvedi, translated by Anita Gopalan (Penguin, 2023). The protagonist – that peculiar old man, trembling and dribbling, half in the past and half in myth – embodies the haunting loneliness of exile, among the finest contemporary explorations of Sindhi displacement.

Long before these newer voices, Meira Chand (born 1942) brought the Sindhi presence into global literary consciousness. Writing from Singapore and Japan, her novels – some adapted for the stage in the 1990s – include well-drawn cameos of Sindhi characters.

For readers seeking an intimate understanding of Partition in Sindh, The Night Diary and Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani offer rare insights. Through the eyes of children, they recreate what it meant to lose one’s home and to rebuild life amid confusion and resentment. These stories balance tenderness with historical precision: they bring out the complex relationships between communities, the moral disarray of that moment, and the struggle to make sense of a world suddenly divided. These are books for younger readers, and deal with themes of death and violence unflinchingly and with such care that they feel redemptive rather than traumatic. Friendship, family, and courage become the motifs through which history’s hardest truths are encountered.

Equally evocative is Mukund and Riaz, written and illustrated by Nina Sabnani, as it transforms her father’s late-life memory of friendship and loss during Partition into a thirty-page picture book and a short film. Using Sindhi appliqué motifs and luminous colour, Sabnani creates a tender meditation on a memory her father shared with her short years before he died, something he had never spoken of before: his best friend, and what happened to his cap. Using motifs drawn from Sindhi appliqué, every frame glows with colour, underlaid with sadness.

Other novels which explore Sindh’s landscape of loss and renewal include TRYST WITH KOKI by Subhadra Anand (Authors Upfront 2023), THE TATTOO ON MY BREAST by Ravi Rai (Bloomsbury, 2019), THE SWING by Isha Merchant (Notion Press 2023) written when the author was 12. Other novels which explore Sindh’s landscape of loss and renewal include Tryst with Koki by Subhadra Anand (Authors Upfront 2023) and The Tattoo on my Breast by Ravi Rai (Bloomsbury, 2019. The Swing by Isha Merchant (Notion Press 2023) is notable because it was written when the author was just 12 years old. You Have Given Me A Country by Neela Vaswani (Sarabande Books 2010) retails in India at ₹2514 but Murli Melwani (introduced below) called it “an excellent read,” particularly the chapter about her visit to India to meet her father’s family.

The most authentic glimpses into Sindh, though, come through translation. Ittehad by Guli Sadarangani (1928–2017), translated by Rita Kothari (Zubaan, 2025), resurrects a lost literary voice as well as the intellectual world that thrived in Sindh before its dismemberment. Written in 1941, this extraordinary novel brims with “progressive” ideas – the need for women’s financial independence, the right to choose one’s partner, religion as a path of spiritual growth rather than division, and the treatment of labour as partner rather than subordinate.

Another compelling contribution is The Pages of My Life, memoir of Popati Hiranandani (1924–2005), translated by Jyoti Panjwani (OUP 2010). It recounts her girlhood, education, Partition, and professional life as a writer and academic with candour and verve. One of the most memorable anecdotes describes a prospective suitor discussing dowry, to which she calmly replies that since she earns more than he does, perhaps his family should be paying dowry to hers.

Guli Sadarangani and Popati Hiranandani belonged to Sindh’s Amil community, which valued education, reform, and social consciousness, more about which in THE AMILS OF SINDH [black-and-white fountain (bwf) 2019].

Guli Sadarangani and Popati Hiranandani belonged to Sindh’s Amil community, which valued education, reform, and social consciousness. Their world is explored in my book The Amils of Sindh [black-and-white fountain (bwf) 2019], which traces the community’s history from its administrative roles in Sindh to its post-Partition adaptation in India.

Tales from Yerwada Jail (bwf, 2013), by the prolific Rita Shahani (1935-2013), deeply beloved even today in the lost homeland, is also significant. Through memories from within her family, the book offers a glimpse of the passionate involvement of Sindhis in the freedom movement – only to face permanent exile when Independence finally came. I cannot speak or read Sindhi, and translated this book in collaboration with the author. She read aloud the Sindhi text while I made notes, and we refined successive drafts together until both were satisfied.

The most exceptional translation yet is Rita Kothari’s Unbordered Memories, a curated anthology of post-Partition short stories. It presents the Sindhi experience from various vantage points – departure, wrenching farewells, humiliation in refugee camps, and the desolation of those left behind in Sindh. The stories are filled with pain and nostalgia, emotions almost never expressed in Sindhi families. Freedom and Fissures (Sahitya Akademi, 1998), a collection of Partition poetry is similar, translated by pioneers Anju Makhija and Menka Shivdasani, working with Sindhi poet Arjan “Shad” Mirchandani. Like me, neither translator can read or speak Sindhi. These collaborations reveal the paradox of a language that survives largely through mediation; a poignant commentary on Sindhi’s fractured afterlife.

Other books weave family histories, oral traditions, and lost geographies into personal testimony. My Sindh by Shakuntala Bharvani (bwf, 2022) blends essays, family stories, and musings on colonial texts into a mosaic of nostalgia and scholarship. Refugees In Their Own Country by Sunayna Pal (bwf, 2022) distils the Sindhi Partition experience into illustrated verse – graceful, dignified, grief-struck. Sunrise Over Valivade by Susheel Gajwani (bwf, 2025) sets the Sindhi resettlement story within a Kolhapur camp originally built for Polish refugees, linking it to a global narrative of displacement.

In Sindhi Tapestry: An Anthology of Reflections on the Sindhi Identity (bwf 2020) I received contributions from sixty contributors of different ages, backgrounds, and professions, exploring a wide range of themes around heritage, displacement, and belonging. Several recalled being taunted: “If you see a Sindhi and a snake, whom should you kill first?”

Many books on this list are self-published, by no means vanity or lack of competence, rather the valiant efforts of survivors of a catastrophe to keep their culture alive. The most notable exception is The Making of Exile by Nandita Bhavnani (Tranquebar Press, 2018). A comprehensive and nuanced account of the Sindhi experience of Partition, it meticulously examines every dimension – political, social, and psychological. Her narrative is precise and compassionate, and through its measured prose, the reader feels the full emotional weight of dislocation. Among its most affecting sections are those describing the despair of Sindhi writers who, after Partition, lost not only their homes but also their readership, their sense of audience, and, in many cases, their will to write. Many died heartbroken.

Among newer finds is The Son-in-Law from Sindh by Premilla Rajan. The title suggests a humorous cultural study of the much-pampered Sindhi son-in-law – and the cover, the mugshot surrounded by stamps from around the world, heightens that anticipation. What emerges, however, is a patchwork comprising affectionate anecdotes, lists of information some wildly inaccurate, and a few priceless glimpses into the Sindhworki world. 

Who were the Sindhworkis? Soon after the British annexation of Sindh in 1843, groups of young men began to board steamships laden with “Sindh work” – intricately crafted goods, textiles, and curios – and sailed out to trade across the Empire. Long before Partition, they had established mercantile networks, a remarkable history documented by the French scholar Claude Markovits in The Traders of Sindh: From Bukhara to Panama (2000).

Among the earliest fictional treatments of this world is Beyond Diamond Rings (Pustak Mahal, 2009) by Kusum Choppra. Daring and emotionally charged, it portrays the anguish of Sindhworki women whose husbands lived in distant lands and who, when Partition erupted, had to flee alone with their children and elderly. The most luminous portrayal of the Sindhworki world, however, is Beyond the Rainbow (bwf, 2021) by Murli Melwani, which won the International Impact Book Award in 2025. Its eleven short stories, set in Chile, Hong Kong, Canada, Thailand and other countries, trace the arc of Sindhi enterprise and endurance. Murli, who grew up in Shillong, studied English Literature and became a professor – and later a diaspora businessman – writes with precision and empathy, exploring the deeper themes of a homeland that no longer exists, the fragility of language, and the moral codes of a people who survived upheaval through work and faith.

Sindhwork and Sindhworkis (1919) was written by Tekchand Karamchand Mirchandani after a long career in Sindhwork. It describes the drab lives of the young men who toiled abroad, exploited by the capitalists comfortably ensconced in Hyderabad. It describes the drab lives of young men who toiled abroad, exploited by capitalists comfortably ensconced in Hyderabad. Sarla Kripalani (1920-2022) translated it in 2001, preserving a rare and invaluable record. The translation is included  in Sindh Bani (Rupa, 2025), with two other works also long in the public domain: Short Stories of Sindh – shared digitally on Sarla’s ninetieth birthday in 2020 – and Aaya Pir, Bhagga Mir and Other Sindhi Proverbs, published in 2008. The beautiful cover, displaying “Kutch” rather than “Kachchh”, inadvertently shows how regional identities can be altered in print. Sarla was a passionate storyteller and it’s unfortunate that public acclaim of her work was withheld from her.

Traces of colonisation, the blurring of idiom, the subtle drifts of meaning that erode a culture from its own vocabulary appear in many of the books listed here: sethia for setha, maike for peko, Ramadan for Ramzan, dupatta for ravo; a lost diary never returned because its pages were needed for cleaning backsides, a claim at odds with lived practice in South Asia.

When Sindhis say they “came to India” or “our roots are in Pakistan,” they are reiterating the absurdity that Pakistan existed before their expulsion. Sindh is often described as having escaped the full fury of Partition’s violence. But the violence of Sindh’s Partition was insidious – social, linguistic, psychological – and continues to echo through generations.

 

Appeared in Hindustan Times on 23 October 2025 https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/from-sindh-in-books-breaking-silence-rebuilding-memory-101761212246870.html

 

Interview with Ramya Sarma about her book Asha Bhosle: A Life in Music

Ramya Sarma
Courtesy Neeta Kolhatkar

Saaz: You’ve been associated with ‘Bollywood’ for a long time without an actual association with it – what’s that been like?

Ramya: I've been part of creating websites on Bollywood and its associations. It's been a lot of fun. Incomprehensible at times, annoying at times, and hilarious very often. It's a world I would normally never step into wearing any mask I might think of, but it's a very colourful, whimsical, crazy yet terribly intense and demanding world which can be daunting if you don't set good sense, logic and schedules aside and leap in, without thinking too hard or too straight.  Running websites is not about knowing that world, but about knowing the audience that wants to know that world. And ‘people’ is a far more interesting realm, one that makes me want to know more. I've never been glamour or star struck, so the desire to meet stars or even watch films has never been strong. I have always been curious about the people who make up that starry world - like the determination, hard work and charisma that has carried Asha Bhosle, Shahrukh Khan and others of their quality to the places they now hold. As far as interviewing filmi types, doing film reviews, watching shoots, et al...no, not for anyone who is a little OCD about time and place!

 

Saaz: And now you’ve written a book about someone you never met and yet you managed to create a very vivid, lifelike impression of her within a few pages, which keeps growing through right till the end. How?

Ramya: My editor-publisher Bidisha Ganguly and I have worked really hard to make this book something special. I aimed for the unexpected, which is what makes me want to read a book. It's really very simple: when you know nothing or close to nothing about something, your perspective is unbiased. You dive in and explore, learn, question, without preconceived notions or preconditions. It's like eating those filled chocolates...what they're filled with, you never know until you bite in. And AB is a PERSONALITY, someone who has done fabulous things with the life she has lived. What I admire is her resilience and that chutzpah to keep going,  and going higher. If I conveyed that, great! But a lot of people don't see that she's not just a star, she's a human being, with very human reactions and behavioural quirks. In glorifying her, that aspect rarely comes through. And while she's earned the right to that glory, there's so much more to her. Talking to people who are not obviously connected to filmbiz brought out that part of her, I think...I hope.

 

Saaz: Why Asha Bhosle of all people?

Ramya: It kinda landed in my lap, honestly. And I agreed to do it because it was a challenge and I was bored of the same old, same old. And on the way I found that she's the kind of woman I'd like knowing, someone who has talent, intelligence, sass, strength and, yes, frailties that have only given her power. I think that is an embodiment of Shakti, power, a realm that rules. I like the concept of feminine power,  of Shakti!

 

Saaz: What was your most memorable event in the process of writing this book?

Ramya: Well there were some very fun and some very memorable stories. Like learning about AB eating crisps with Shujaat Khan in London. Like her sitting and snacking in the car in Delhi with Parveen Khan. Like her delight at being recognised at the airport for a non-filmi work. Like her first meeting with Boy George, and admiring how he did his eyebrows. But my favourite moment, apart from the friends I made – by the way, almost every interview I did was food linked somehow! – was that email I got from Boy George. I opened it as soon as I woke up at 5.30 am one dawn and squeaked! Woke up lots of people – who really didn't care – and chirped excitedly at them...Why was that so special for me? It's a little silly, but when I was a teenager and trying to figure out how to be a girlie girl without overdoing it, I got an album of Boy George and Culture Club; BG was on the cover, with glorious eyes made up beautifully. And that is still my ideal when I do my face!

 

Saaz: And the most challenging?

Ramya: There were two aspects that were not just challenging, but plain hard on me, playing tricks with my self-worth and my mind. One was the delay that the project went through (if that's the right way of putting it?) at every stage, almost every page, with the first publisher. That was frustrating, hurtful, annoying, all those negative emotions that have been, frankly, scarring. The second was to pin down the few film types that I did get to speak to me. One of them made up for it in style, for which I am forever grateful and a fan – Sonu Nigam, who changed his mind about meeting me often, even when I was right outside his house. But he made up for it by doing the whole interview and singing fabulously on WhatsApp voice messaging! The others...that would make one of those really funny personal memories books that so many people are writing. I've mentioned some of them in the book’s intro.

 

Saaz: Looking back to the time you started working on this, what has changed in you, what did you learn?

Ramya: That life may throw you stinkers and more will come out of left field, but you will eventually do what you set out to do if you really want to do it. I guess it's like Asha Bhosle herself, hard work, grit and determination gets you to the end line. What changed in me is very little, I'm still me, albeit with more silver and less hair and a few extra lines that don't come from giggling, usually inappropriately!

 

Saaz: How about sharing a few stories that didn’t make it to the book?

Ramya: There are many … like the time my sandals broke right outside Lesle Lewis' studio and I trudged through the building barefoot. Seeing my woeful state, he made me put my feet up on his squishy sofa, talked to me for ages and then sang songs from his new album, then offered me a pair of oversized rubber chappals to get me back to my car! Then there was Sumit Dutt, who was in a meeting but came out for "ten minutes" and then sat with me for over an hour telling me stories about Ashaji singing under a large yellow umbrella in a waterfall! People surprised me with their generosity, kindness and plain niceness.

 

Saaz: Asha Bhosle is writing her autobiography. What do you expect that to have which your book doesn’t have?

Ramya: Obviously, a great deal, since it's her own life that she will write about. But the book has been announced many times and shelved many times. In fact, when I was with Poonam Dhillon, she called Ashaji to ask if she may speak with me. The lady agreed, telling her she could say what she wanted, since her own book was almost done and would be out soon. A couple of months later, she announced that she had decided that her life was her life and she saw no reason for other people to know about it, so her book would not be published. If it ever is, I'd line up to buy it!

 

Saaz: Finally, what do you expect from the release of this book?

Ramya: Obviously good sales, since that would make my publisher happy! And, of course, for readers to learn something new about Asha Bhosle, something that they had never seen or heard of before. Because that's what we were looking to do!

This interview was published in Hindustan Times on 27 Aug 2025.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/ramya-sarma-i-admire-asha-bhosle-s-resilience-and-chutzpah-101756123445691.html

Ramya and Saaz at the launch on 12 June 2025

Daneesh Majid: “History has mostly been written by those in power”

What struck me most about Daneesh Majeed’s book about what transpired during princely Hyderabad’s integration into India in 1948, is its parallels with the Sindh story. People did not consider their experiences worth documenting, eclipsed as it was by the much larger-scale violence elsewhere. Despite the dramatic lifestyle changes, colonization by dominant cultures, being sidelined in the administration and left to fend for themselves, they faced their plight with bravery and stoic acceptance. The book also exposes caricatures showcased through pop culture, media, and India’s many film industries.

Saaz: Why now, Daneesh? What gave you the courage to address this important piece of our history and the unjustifiably long gap in public discourse? And how did you approach writing about that politically sensitive moment?

Daneesh: It wasn’t necessarily courage. An epiphany back in early 2020 propelled me into action. A little before Covid, a video interview I conducted with Arshad Pirzada crystallized something I had been thinking about when carrying out some Hyderabad-centric features for The Hindu Business Line’s weekly magazine two years earlier. Pirzada is a former Gulf NRI whose family came from a priestly lineage and had ties to the bureaucratic Asaf Jahi establishment. Post-1948, they had to adjust to life as numerical minorities in a democratic landscape unlike the old feudal setup in which the ruling Muslim minority held sway. The hen Siasat.com chief editor, Ayoob Ali Khan, chided both of us for not emphasizing this fall and rise aspect of Pirzada’s journey, one which included him becoming an economic migrant to Saudi Arabia and paving the way for his family’s economic revival.

 SThere are plenty of such stories in Hyderabad that have remained undocumented (not only because many elders are no longer with us) and diluted through generations. A lot of these accounts have not been brought to the fore through crisp, timely and accessible narratives in the vein of works by authors like Urvashi Butalia, Anam Zakaria, Aanchal Malhotra and yourself.

 As for my approach, I could not solely rely on oral accounts. Besides my own enormous bookshelf, I scoured various bookstores, accessed personal libraries and found some academic articles to recreate the eras and build worlds that that the 11 different families lived in. My editor Vikram Shah’s nudges in the right direction were key to this. 

Saaz: Hyderabad is a city of syncretism, but also of stark divides – linguistic, religious, and class-based. How did you navigate these complexities while telling its story?

Daneesh: Some of these divides existed pre-1948.

 For instance, many people believe that the Mulki agitation which began surfacing in the early 1950s was the earliest harbinger of the Telangana-Andhra divide. One story an acquaintance told me was about his father, a participant in the anti-Nizam and eventually anti-Indian government struggle. When his father was hiding out among Andhra Telugu cadres and interacting with ordinary citizens during the late 40s in Bapatla, Madras Presidency, some of them either wondered how he was able to articulately communicate in Telugu while many poked fun at his Telangana dialect outright. That too, despite the fact that the Andhra Jana Sangham which helped foment revolt in Telangana brought the Telugu populations from Madras Presidency and Telangana together on the basis of language. He also spoke of how Andhraites monopolized decision-making out of a sense of organizational superiority.

 So rather than only looking at these divisions through post-colonial, contemporary lenses, finding and citing primary/secondary sources that mention previous iterations of these divisions helped in navigating those present-day discords.

Saaz: Could you tell us about your most important sources, and share any stories that surprised you or changed your thinking?

Daneesh: Two important ones which altered specific notions come to mind—both my own and commonly held ones.

 Dr. Rafiuddin Farouqui’s compilation of the Aurangabad (then a part of the Nizam state)-born Maulana Maududi’s letters, in which he beseeches Qasim Razvi to negotiate the best terms of accession with the Indian government. It showed a more farsighted, accommodating side to someone that many, including my own great-grandfather who served as a Director in the Religious Affairs Department of Princely Hyderabad, saw as a hardliner.

 Chukka Ramaiah, the now 98-year-old activist who participated in the early days of the Telangana Revolt not only abhorred the ruled Hindu vs. ruler Muslim angle of looking at the anti-Nizam struggle, but a cruder version of the Andhra versus Telangana binary too. He was all praise for a class of Andhraites who arrived in Hyderabad state during the early 50s, not as monopolisers of the commercial and ruling dispensations. This group of egalitarian-minded teachers from Andhra uplifted Telangana Telugus who previously didn’t have access to education, especially in their mother tongue.

Saaz: Our respective works (mine on the Sindhis) trace the afterlives of two distinct but parallel communities deeply affected by the reshaping of India after Partition. What does this say about how we remember the ‘unwritten histories’ of India – the ones lived not by governments, but by people?

Daneesh: History has mostly been written by those in power. Today, various political figures have been rewriting history especially through their election rhetoric. Since 2018, state, municipal and national polls saw certain opposition factions referring to then Chief Minister KCR as the “New Nizam.” They recasted national figures as reincarnations of the Iron Man who humbled Osman Ali Khan. The “Nizam culture” was blamed entirely for the city’s so-called inability to become a global IT hub.

 All this amounts to a constant rewriting of the past by the powers that be as they evoke the powers that were! But it is the ordinary citizenry of today, the majority of which doesn’t have the time nor resources to (re)evaluate bygone eras, who gets polarized as a result. Cinema, social media reels and WhatsApp forwards, backed by a robust ecosystem don’t help either.

 Yes, the Nizam possessed his shortcomings, and princely Hyderabad had a dark side to it. But this us-versus-them prism, with the Nizam and the Razakars being equated as the sole aggressors, has gained too much currency.

 I was told first and second-hand stories from Kayasthas and Telangana Hindus about Osman Ali Khan’s personal generosity and his patronage of temples. A lot of Telugu and Urdu literature chronicles how religious Muslims took to the onset of leftism against a feudal set up spearheaded by their “own.”

Micro-histories that ask the “big” questions about historical occurrences, in the “small” places are the need of the hour.

Saaz: Food, tehzeeb, language, architecture – Hyderabad’s cultural distinctiveness is legendary. Which elements do you think are still thriving, and which are slipping away?

Daneesh: Shervanis as well as Rumi topis are still worn at weddings and various functions. The food for the most part is still around. The feudal mentality that makes things more hierarchical while also inducing inertia among Hyderabadis won’t disappear anytime soon. That being said, to varying extents, these elements certainly haven’t been immune to the onset of McDonaldization.  

 The Dakhani dialect, which isn’t in danger of being fully cannibalized by shuddh Hindi or khaalis Urdu yet, can still be heard widely. But the nastaleeq script in which one can read Dakhani and standard Urdu literary gems, is rapidly fading away.

Signboards on streets as well as government offices and Urdu “jashns/anjumans” that often take place are in no way indicative of any substantive revival.

Unless the prose is translated, which to some is code for “diluted,” so much literature risks becoming obscure or an exotic relic of the past. In the past three years, some of my favourite Old City bookstores have closed or aren’t selling non-religious content.

Saaz: Did you find yourself having to leave certain things out – whether due to space, sensitivity, or complexity? Are there stories you wish you’d been able to tell more fully?

Daneesh: Yes. Throughout my research and fieldwork, I learned of some interesting reasons regarding why some Hyderabadis did or didn’t undertake life-altering migrations to the West, the Gulf, other Indian cities, certain parts of Telangana/AP, or even Pakistan.  

 There are some intriguing anecdotes about why some Muslims decided to either stay in India or make the move to Pakistan. After 1948, even the apolitical, professional class of Hyderabad’s Muslims, regardless of whether they had ties to the nobility, considered settling in Pakistan. Despite the 1965 War, which put spokes in the wheel of Indo-Pak travel, many left for Pakistan in the 1970s out of personal grievances.

 Including such sagas would have provided a more personal, interior context as to why people decided to leave their families and native soil. However, if an interviewee requests for the omission of any detail or anecdote, out of respect and sensitivity, I have to oblige.

Saaz: Who did you imagine as your ideal reader while writing this book – and what do you hope they will take away from it?

 Daneesh: My ideal reader was always someone who wants to look at how people remember tragic episodes alongside common, sometimes militantly mainstreamed interpretations. Irrespective of whether the reader approaches my first book as such, at the very least, I hope that they get to experience the flavour of Hyderabad through its 11 diverse families. After all, a city’s cultural distinctiveness isn’t only defined by its monuments, cuisine and languages, but also by those who call(ed) it home.     

This interview was published in Hindustan Times on 10 Jun 2025.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/daneesh-majeed-history-has-mostly-been-written-by-those-in-power-101749471874844.html

Interview with Kishore Mahbubani for Hindustan Times

Saaz: Your childhood was marked by hardship, malnutrition, and poverty. You’ve spoken of the strength and skills this gave you – how did you develop them? As a diplomat, what solutions would you suggest for helping children in similar situations?

Kishore: Since Singapore is now one of the most affluent countries in the world, many Indians are unaware that at independence, Singapore was one of the poorest countries in the world. In 1965, its per capita income was the same as Ghana in Africa: $500. I experienced this poverty personally. I was put on a special feeding programme when I went to school at the age of 6 as I was technically undernourished. Our home had no flush toilet. Debt collectors would come to our house regularly. My father went to jail. Yet, I was able to overcome many of these adversities because I had an unusually strong mother who never broke down under all these pressures. The resilience I developed in my life was a gift from her to me.

One reason why I wrote my memoirs is that I wanted to give hope to young people who may be suffering the same kind of difficult childhood I had experienced. It’s good for young people to understand that people like them have overcome difficult circumstances.

 

Saaz: Your book praises Lee Kuan Yew (who often gave you a tough time) extensively. What measures from his leadership could India adopt for better development?

Kishore: Singapore’s exceptional success as a country was due in large part to three of its exceptional founding fathers: Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Goh Keng Swee, and S. Rajaratnam. One of the great privileges of my life was getting to know all three of them well. From them, I learnt a lot about how countries could succeed in development. I distilled many of the lessons I learned from them into the acronym “MPH”. In this case, it doesn't stand for “miles per hour” but for “Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty”, which is the secret formula for Singapore's success.

Meritocracy is about choosing the best people to run your organisation, society or country. Lee Kuan Yew was insistent that only the best should be selected to serve in the government.

Pragmatism is about being willing to learn best practices from any source anywhere in the world. Dr Goh Keng Swee once said to me that no matter what problems Singapore encounters, somebody somewhere must already have encountered it. Hence, Singapore should proactively learn lessons from other countries. Dr Goh also pointed out that since Japan was the first Asian country to succeed, Singapore should study Japan carefully if it wanted to succeed as well. India could also learn lessons from Japan's development.

Honesty is about eliminating corruption. This is crucial as trust and stability are essential for an economy to thrive. Unfortunately, this is also the hardest principle to implement.

I believe that any society in the world, including India, would succeed and do well if it implemented the secret Singapore MPH formula.

 

Saaz: Could you tell us something about the different diplomatic communities you encountered?

Kishore: Walking into the UN headquarters and experiencing a real global village of representatives from 159 countries was always a thrill for me. Though we all came from strikingly different cultures and traditions, we were able to forge many close friendships with each other based on our common humanity.

When I joined the UN in 1984, some of my Arabian colleagues declared that I belonged to their tribe because my surname, Mahbubani, comes from an Arabic/Persian word, “mahbub,” which means “beloved.” Most Sindhis are Muslims. Due to my Sindhi roots, I felt some degree of cultural affinity with both the Arab countries and Iran. And since I sported a beard then, I was occasionally mistaken for an Iranian diplomat when I was seen without a tie.

The ambassadors from the five founding member states of ASEAN—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—came together like comrades in arms to defend our common interests. I also became very close to the African ambassadors, whom I found to be incredibly reliable and trustworthy. If you became friends with them, they would remain steadfast and stick with you through thick and thin.

I also worked with US ambassadors who were polar opposites: Ambassador Vernon Walters was incredibly warm and generous and won many friends for the US, while Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick was harsh and condescending towards the UN community in a bid to win favour with right-wing politicians at home. While American diplomats could be very direct and candid, they could also mingle easily with all nationalities. By contrast, European diplomats seemed to have an irrepressible desire to preach to other countries about human rights issues. I was therefore shocked to witness the incredible evasive skills of the Western diplomats when I chaired the oversight committee of the UN Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development (UNPAAERD). They expertly avoided making any concrete and binding commitments to help the African countries despite the passionate speeches they had given in the UNGA about wanting to do so.

 

Saaz: Please tell us about your visit to Sindh.

Kishore: When Shaukat Aziz, whom I had met in New York and Singapore when he was the Vice President of Citibank, became Prime Minister of Pakistan (2004 to 2007), he invited me to visit Pakistan. I went to Karachi, Hyderabad, Islamabad and Lahore. It was a fascinating visit. Then Pakistani High Commissioner to Singapore Ambassador Sajjad Ashraf also arranged a special visit to Hyderabad, where my mother had grown up. While my mother was sadly no longer with us, her brother, Mr Jhamatmal Kripalani, was able to draw me a map to their childhood home. Fortunately, we were able to find it.

Since I had grown up listening to stories of how Muslims and Hindus had killed each other during Partition, I expected to encounter hostility in Hyderabad when I went to search for my mother's home. Instead, every Muslim person I met in Pakistan received me very warmly and was delighted to see me. The reception could not have been warmer. I was glad to learn that a lot of the hostility from the Partition days had dissipated.

 

Saaz: As someone who has made Sindhis proud with your exceptional success, please suggest measures by which members of your community could enhance the way they are perceived.

Kishore: Sindhis are a remarkable people. There are very few ethnic groups in the world who have managed to succeed in all corners of the world. The Sindhis are one of them. Having visited most of the major cities in the world, I'm always pleasantly surprised to see members of the Sindhi community thriving and succeeding in all corners of the world. Indeed, I have first cousins in all corners of the world: in Suriname and Guyana in South America, in Texas and Florida in North America, in Ghana and Nigeria in Africa, in Japan and Hong Kong in East Asia, and of course in Mumbai and Kolkata in India. I also have relatives in Europe. The entrepreneurship of the Sindhi community is truly admirable.

In the next chapter of its development, India will have to engage the rest of the world more. Its trade and investment links with other countries will also increase. One of its major assets as it plunges ever more deeply into globalisation will be the strong and successful ethnic Indian communities overseas. Undoubtedly, the Sindhis will rank among some of the most successful Indians overseas. Their contributions should receive greater recognition within India.

 

Saaz: Your advice for young people who wish to follow a career in diplomacy?

Kishore: Diplomacy is one of the best professions in the world to join. Since we live in a small and shrinking world, all countries must now make a major effort to understand other countries and cultures all over the world. And the people who are best placed to do so are diplomats.

As I explain in my memoirs, I had no intentions of staying on in diplomacy, as I wanted to return to academia after graduating. However, I discovered diplomacy to be a more fulfilling profession than academia. I realised that in trying to defend the interests of a small country like Singapore in the international community, I was defending an underdog. Ambassadors from smaller countries have to work harder than ambassadors from larger countries. Fortunately, with the help of reason, logic and charm (as I describe in my memoirs) I managed to succeed in furthering Singapore’s interests in the United Nations and in the ASEAN community.

Golf proved to be very useful. Indeed, one reason why Southeast Asia, the most diverse corner on planet Earth, has had no wars in 50 years is that many of the Southeast Asian diplomats and leaders play golf with each other. This is also a lesson that South Asian countries can learn from Southeast Asian countries: it’s important to invest time in developing personal connections with each other. Trust building and cooperation at the national level is incredibly difficult when there is no warmth or trust on the interpersonal level.

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 This interview was published in Hindustan Times on 30 April 2025.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/kishore-mahbubani-india-will-have-to-engage-the-rest-of-the-world-more-101746012772995.html

The launch of Susheel Gajwani's memoir Sunrise Over Valivade

When Susheel Gajwani sent me a manuscript with stories of his childhood in the Sindhi refugee camp at Valivade, Kolhapur, I knew that this was an important piece of Sindhi history and decided to work on it with him and publish it. Here is what I said when we launched the book at NCPA, Mumbai, on 5 April 2025.

You can read what Sindh studies scholar Nandita Bhavnani said about what makes SUNRISE OVER VALIVADE an important book at the launch on this link 

There's a reading by Menka Shivdasani, Susheel Gajwani and Nandita Bhavnani here

And here is a performance by Susheel Gajwani himself at the event.

Publisher Saaz Aggarwal’s first-person account of Susheel Gajwani’s book, ‘Sunrise Over Valivade’ in scroll.in

Saaz and Susheel on one of their many
zoom discussions during the course of
preparing the book for publication
in Jan 2025

Susheel Gajwani’s book, Sunrise Over Valiwade, opens with the milk queue in a refugee camp. Mothers and grandmothers have brought their little ones – a ragged, squalling lot, some naked – and are waiting in line as milk is doled out from a large, dirty, aluminium vessel. A man in a khaki uniform is pouring milk into dented and tarnished tumblers with mechanical precision, filling each glass swiftly and purposefully. The children grab their glasses and empty them hungrily. Another man stands beside them, snatching the empty glasses back and rinsing them in a bucket of water. Hundreds of glasses are ‘washed’ in the same bucket. Susheel is waiting his turn.

What happens next you must read for yourself in the book, all I can reveal for now is that the words and the descriptions bring alive much more than the wretched, forlorn existence, the grime, the pushing and shoving, the language barrier, the unfamiliar geography, the helpless dependence on others’ goodwill and charity. Susheel’s dismay, his attachment to his grandmother, the way she responds – especially the way she responds, an iconic manifestation of the Sindhi identity – made me want to cry and ended up making me laugh. The first story in the manuscript Susheel sent me some months ago, it filled me with delight, and energized me to put everything aside and start preparing it for publication.

Kolhapur’s Gandhinagar Camp for Sindhi Partition refugees is largely unknown except to those associated with it. The most commonly referred list of Sindhi refugee camps in India at the end of 1948 is from Dr. UT Thakur’s 1959 book Sindhi Culture (Sindhi Academy, New Delhi):

1. Ajmer Merwara at Deoli          10,200

2. Bombay                                    2,16,500

3. Baroda                                      10,700

4. Bikaner State                            8,900

5. Jaipur State                               33,200

6. Jodhpur State                            11,800

7. Madhya Bharat                         3,400

8. Former Rajasthan                      15,800

9. Saurashtra Union                       45,500

10. Vindhya Pradesh                      15,400

11. Madhya Pradesh                      81,400

        Total 4,52,800

The Gandhinagar Camp is absent in this and other research about Sindhi refugees, as are many other locations of the scattered population. In time, it would grow – as did the other camps – into a community of solid citizens who contributed substantially to the economy of the region. And this is where Susheel Gajwani was born, in the barrack his family had been allotted, delivered by a daee from another refugee family.

Growing up in the camp, hearing the sounds of his mother tongue – and even the melodies of Master Chandur and other Sindhi singers – spoken around him was one thing; integrating into the wider world outside was another. This book covers interesting aspects of both.

 

Susheel’s family came from Shahdadkot in Sindh and, growing up, he heard the elders reminisce with nostalgia of the places they had left behind. I peered into maps of Sindh to locate the towns and villages Susheel named and found them all – except Korayoon. I asked around with no success and, finally, requested Nasir Aijaz. The award-winning Pakistan media personality and founder and director of the redoubtable Sindh Courier https://sindhcourier.com/ could find no trace of it.

“Seriously, Susheel? Korayoon?” I asked.

“Yes, Korayoon,” he replied firmly.

“Qambrani?”

“No.”

“Karira?”

“No!”

“Chakiyani?”

“Of course not, Saaz! Korayoon – that’s the name they spoke about. Often. Korayoon.”

Nasir reported back that village Korayoon was not even on the survey list of the Revenue Department. Perhaps, he said, the name had been changed. Yes – perhaps it had. Because, when the non-Muslims left Sindh, much changed. A new population arrived, making things difficult for those left behind, regardless of their religion. Sindhi culture was mocked, Sindhi people were colonized, their efforts derided. Across the border, Hassomal had turned into Haresh; Sati into Sita. Kripps was emerging from Kripalani. How could we know what names were being changed in Sindh?

 

As adults, Susheel and his brother Shashi became professionally associated with different formats of mass media. Discussing their childhood in a refugee community, the trauma of their people, and the courageous way in which it had been faced, they began asking round and reading up, and something they had always known came into focus. Their childhood home had in fact been built for Polish refugees of the Second World War, on land given by the Maharaja of Kolhapur, one of the Indian princes who followed the lead of the Maharaja of Nawanagar, in arranging for shelter to the Polish women and children who had lost their families to the war.

Susheel’s family had arrived in Valivade completely devastated. Wrenched from lives of comfort, they were thrown into wretched living conditions, and forced to live on charity. But the Polish refugees had arrived in Valivade a decade before them, after even more intense ordeals in slave gulags.

In the 1990s, Susheel and Shashi made an effort to find local people from nearby villages who had been associated with Valivade camp, and came across Dadoba Lokhande, who introduced them to Maruti Dashrath Bhosale, Shiva Gawli, Bandu Hari Awale and others who had worked with the Polish refugees. They shared their memories, and these form a charming adjunct to this Sindhi story. Barbara Charuba kindly gave permission to use her photos; more can be seen on https://www.polishexilesofww2.org/valivade-camp-india-part-4

 

Occasionally, dates came into question. When exactly did the Gajwani family leave Sindh, when did they arrive in the Bombay docks, when were they herded into trains that took them to Valivade?

Clarifying dates is always a challenge while tracing the history of families from a beleaguered community whose focus was on surviving and moving on. Over hundreds of interviews, I’ve met people who did not want actual years to be known, sometimes for legal reasons, sometimes social appearances. Fudging years was an easy way out. Most commonly, as with Susheel’s family, overwhelmed by the demands of survival and daily existence, people simply did not kept track. We turned to archival accounts.

After the 6 January 1948 pogrom in Karachi, the Bombay docks became overrun with refugees who had fled their ancestral homeland and wished to live close to Bombay where they could earn for themselves rather than in faraway Ulhasnagar on government doles. According to a news report on 28 February 1948, more than 5000 were squatting on the quaysides of No 18 and No 19, Alexandra Dock. Crime was escalating, and the sanitation situation put the entire city’s health at risk. On 4 March 1948, the Directorate of Evacuation was preparing to receive 5000 refugees per day. There were 12,000 awaiting dispersal, and on an average about 2000 were being removed daily. Do the figures quoted really add up? Either way, oral history interviews confirm that mass accommodation was being identified in other parts of India, and the railways were arranging refugee-special trains to Aswali (Deolali), Avadi (Chennai) and other places. It was a news report which indicated the month and year in which Susheel’s family – his parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and the extended families – arrived at Valivade.

 

Very soon after Sunrise over Valivade went online a few days ago, I received an email forward, strongly opinionated and responding with authority to the excerpt on https://blackandwhitefountain.com/sunrise-over-valivade/#. It lamented the incident as questionable and reflecting the writer’s urge for self-aggrandisement. The Sindhis, the email went on, were greatly appreciated by other communities, and India as a whole!  Not only that, but Sindh stands at the very centre of the Indian national anthem and even forms the stem of the word India and Hindu! The writer of the email himself, an important person, specified that, as a Sindhi, he had received nothing but affection and respect across the state even though he is not fluent in Marathi.

I will admit that I rolled my eyes a bit but phoned Susheel at once to check, “Was that the only time anyone hit you?”

He replied indignantly, “It was not. I was beaten up many times when I was in college!”

“Ok – were you the only Sindhi who faced that treatment, Susheel?”

“No, no, no, there were others who did.”

“Ok – did all the Sindhi youngsters get beaten up?”

“Of course not, Saaz! Most of them tried to stay out of trouble. But there were some of us who stood up for ourselves.”

This episode made me ponder (yet again) how very little I know about this fascinating community despite all the years of listening, thinking and trying to understand. Yes – by and large they wanted to be low key and just get on with the job – but does that mean we should pretend that people who are poised to bite back when provoked do not exist? That we can’t make space for that mantra of our times, ‘diversity’?

It took me back to the time when Susheel, 5 or so years old, stood clutching his beloved Amma’s loose-flowing pajama as they waited in line. The spectre of this hungry child, craving for milk, the ultimate luxury, haunted me right through the process of working with him on the book. How had he survived? What traces of those years remained within?

First appeared in https://scroll.in/article/1078447/a-publisher-recounts-her-experience-of-working-on-a-memoir-about-the-sindhi-refugee-camp-in-valivade on 4 February 2025