Chikmanglur, the more things change, Allah Bux Sumro and the Manzilgah Masjid riots in 1939

The BJP is trying to make political inroads in Karnataka by inflaming communal passions over a shrine where both Hindus and Muslims have prayed without conflict for many generations. The ongoing communal situation in Chikmangalur over the Dattatreya - Bababudan shrine recalls a similar incident in Sindh in 1939 and demonstrates that things have not changed a whit in communal politics in 67 years.

As in 2006, in 1939 too, non-communal forces were sought to be displaced by inflaming communal passions over a place of worship so that the Muslim League could gain a foothold in Sindh province. Then, too, the Congress party was not only a target but also ultimately complicit in the victory of communal politics.

The Manzilgah Masjid incident in 1939 culminated in irreversible division and destruction of a composite politics and coexistence between two religious communities, all for the sake of governance by the self-proclaimed representative of the majority community; Muslim League. Allah Bux Sumro, a nationalist non-communal leader who had held his ground in 1938 against the Muslim League was the chief victim of the incident along with the Hindus of Sindh.

In 1939, Khan Bahadur Allah Bux Sumro was the Chief Minister of Sindh in coalition with Congress Hindus. Earlier in 1938 M.A Jinnah’s attempt to wean him from his Congress allies and join a Muslim League Ministry had failed and Allah Bux had earned the enmity of the Muslim League. Hence in 1939, the case of the Manzilgah Masjid was taken up by the Muslim League to inflame communal passions and topple his ministry. The attempt succeeded, riots ensued and Muslim League gained a major foothold in Sindh. Inflamed by the communal riots, Hindu Congressmen joined the Muslim League to vote Allah Bux Sumro out of office.

A Muslim League ministry came into power and lasted only an year; however, it was well worth it because the Muslim League party gained a solid base in Sindh during that time. In 1940, after the Lahore ’Pakistan’ resolution was passed by the Muslim League, Allah Bux chaired a meeting of nationalist Muslims to prove to the British that the Muslim League did not represent all Muslims of India as it claimed. Allah Bux Sumro returned to power as Chief Minister of Sindh in 1941 but when the Congress called the Quit India movement, instead of retaining his ministry with the help of the opposition he too quit his ministry. Always condemned as a traitor to the Muslim cause, he was killed (at the age of 43) the next year in 1943 by his political rivals, some say of the Muslim League.

Different sources and perspectives presented below on Allah Bux Sumro, the Manzilgah Masjid riots of 1939 and the corrosive destruction wrought by communal politics serve to demonstrate that the same corrosive destruction continues today in India in 2006.

’The more things change the more they stay the same’ and ’those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it’ describe this terrible reality exactly.

SINDH’S BABRI MASJID

The Friday Times 20 October 2000
Momin Bullo

Situated in Sukkur near the once mighty Indus is a sad, desolate and crumbling one-room mosque. Masjid Manzilgah stands ignored and abandoned, hedged in on all sides by encroachers. Once it played a significant role in the formation of the very nation that has now turned its back on it.

The Masjid was built during the reign of the great Mughal emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar in the 10th century Hijri by the governor of Sukkur, Mir Masoom Shah Bukhari. But it was not until 1940 that it almost overnight became the focal point of Hindu-Muslim conflict. As soon as the freedom struggle gained momentum, the Muslims of Sukkur began worship at this mosque, situated as it was in close proximity to the Hindu Teerath Mandir "Sadhu Belo" in mid-stream of the river Indus.

Though the Muslims were justified in their re-use of the abandoned mosque, there can be no doubt that their timing was politically motivated. It worsened the already tense political atmosphere of the region with the Hindus vociferously clamouring for the building for they claimed it as a part of the Sadhu Belo temple.

Dr. Moonji, then a veteran Congress stalwart, rushed to Sukkur and chaired a largely attended meeting of local Hindus. Soon the occupation of the humble brick-built 8x8 feet mosque became a flaring point. Several meetings between the local Congress and Muslim League leaders ensued to try to find an amicable solution of the problem but all was in vain. Quite the opposite happened. A large-scale crackdown against Muslim League leaders was nitiated by the minority government of chief minister Allah Bakhsh Soomro (uncle of Illahi Bakhsh Soomro, former Speaker of the National Assembly) and the disputed site of the mosque was sealed off.

A large Muslim procession led by Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan started out from Shikarpur on foot and reached the mosque after a 40 mile trek only to be dispersed by the police. Mohammad Ayub Khuhro was detained at his village Aqil in Larkana. G.M. Syed, Qazi Faziullah, Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan, Namatullah Qureshi, Dr. Mohammad Yamin, Agha Nazar Ali Khan, Pir Ghulam Mujadid Sarhandi, Shaikh Wajid Ali and Syed Sadiq Ali Shah, some of the top cadre of the Muslim League, were all arrested and sent to Hyderabad jail. Haji Abdoola Haroon, Ali Mohammad Rashdi and several other politicians fearing arrest fled to Delhi.

The mass arrest of the Muslim leaders changed the mood of the brewing conflict between the Hindus and Muslims over the disputed mosque and, hence, a hitherto peaceful but tense agitation abruptly turned into an armed movement. Sukkur became the centre of unprecedented Hindu-Muslim rioting in which several hundreds of people were brutally killed.

As rioting continued for over a month, the predominantly Hindu Sindh Assembly expressed its lack of confidence against the chief minister Allah Bakhsh Soomro who consequently lost his job. A high level inquiry tribunal was constituted and finally it was established that the site belonged to the Muslims for it was judged to be a mosque.

After all this, so as not to tip the precarious and fragile balance, the disputed mosque was nevertheless sealed off until the partition of 1947. Rioting between Hindus and Muslim in Sindh on the issue of the mosque gave new life to the ongoing agitation for a separate Muslim homeland and caused a mass exodus of Sindhi Hindus to India. It was the late G.M. Syed who in his autobiography "Janab Guzarium Jin Seen" confessed that he had been wrong to create and fan the issue of Masjid Manzilgah.

It is ironical that after nearly five decades, an identical conflict arose in the Indian province of Utter Pardesh where Hindu-Muslim clashes broke out over the Babri mosque. This mosque too had been built by a Mughal emperor, albeit this time Naseeruddin Babar, and it was also but a shadow of its former glory. Also similarly, the Hindus claimed it as their holiest of holies, the Ram Janambhumi (Ram’s birthplace) and claimed that an ancient temple had been destroyed to build the mosque in the sixteenth century. This struggle over the site of the mosque not only shook up the Indian government but ended up causing changes in the political system of India.

Masjid Manzilgah, therefore, may rightly be called the first "Babri Mosque" of the subcontinent. Both mosques became the rallying cry of fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim, and the issue although fifty years apart became a precursor of a violent, communal politics. If the government sees fit to preserve and conserve Sukkur’s Masjid Manzilgah, it will serve a dual purpose. An old and historic monument will have been saved which will bear witness to the madness that can come of mixing religion with politics


K R Malkani in his book ’The Sindh Story’ (which he dedicates in part to Allah Bux Sumro)
http://yangtze.cs.uiuc.edu/~jamali/sindh/story/n ode18.html
" And so Sindh was born as a separate province on I April, 1936 as an act of favour to the Muslims by the British.

Even so, things were quiet enough. And everybody looked to the new dispensation with hope, not unmixed with fear. Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, in his message to the ’’Azad Sindh’’ issue of Al-Wahid (16 June, 1936), a leading organ of Muslim opinion, said: ’’The communal situation in Sindh, Punjab and Bengal threatens to assume ugly forms. I want Sindh to have the glory of solving the Hindu-Muslim problem for the rest of India to follow.’’ But the ensuing assembly elections dashed those hopes. The elections returned 24 of Bhutto’s Ittehad Party, 6 of Ghulam Hussain’s Muslim Political Party, 5 of Majid’s Azad Party --- all Muslims, 9 Congressmen, 3 Europeans, I Labour representative (Naraindas), I women’s representative (Jethi Sipahimalani) 11 independent Hindus.

But Sir S. N. Bhutto himself was defeated by Sheikh Abdul Majid of the Azad Party, who campaigned with the Koran on his head as proof that he was a better Muslim! The governor did not invite Khuhro, the new leader of the Ittehad Party, to form the government; he invited the old British favourite, Sir Ghulam Hussain (1878--1948), though he had the support of only five members. Once in the saddle, Sir Ghulam Hussain was able to put together the majority, like any Bhajan Lal of present-day Haryana. He won over independent Hindu MLAs by making one of them Speaker. However, early in 1938, the government fell. Meanwhile Khuhro had joined the Muslim League and the new Ittehad Party leader, Allah Bux Soomro, 38, became Premier.

Allah Bux (1900--43) was the finest Premier Sindh ever had. Though a zamindar and government contractor, he habitually wore Khadi. Immediately on entering office, he lifted the externment orders on Obaidullah Sindhi (1872--1944), a Sialkot Sikh who had become a Muslim, a leading revolutionary who had been vegetating in West Asia. (The Muslim League gave a reception in honour of Obaidullah. But when they started to chant: ’’Muslim ho, to Muslim League mein aao’’ --- If you are a Muslim, then join the Muslim League --- he walked out in protest; he was thinking in terms of a’’Sindhu Narbada Party’’.)

He withdrew the magisterial powers from the Waderas. He followed the Congress line and fixed 500 rupees as minister’s salary. Nominations to local bodies were ended. The unassuming Allah Bux sat by the side of the driver, never used the official flag on the car bonnet, never accepted any receptions or parties. In the train he would use the upper berth -and let others use the more convenient lower berth. On one occasion when flood-waters threatened Shikarpur, he breached the canal to flood his own lands --- and saved the city. But above all he was non-communal and nationalist.

That was reason enough for the communal Muslims to try to topple him. A huge League conference was held in Karachi in October 1938. Here the League stalwarts roared against the Hindus, the Congress, and Allah Bux. The conference set-up was comic-opera, complete with Arab sands, date trees and horsemen in the Arab head-dress, Iqaal. They even adopted a resolution which talked of self-determination for the ’’two nations’’ of Hindus and Muslims. Pir Ali Mohammed Rashdi felt that Mohammed Ali Jinnah was indifferent to this resolution. ’’He just allowed us to use it as a hint, a threat, a political stunt.’’ The real object was to topple Allah Bux somehow, anyhow. They got 29 Muslim MLAs to join the League. With the help of 3 European MLAs, they could have formed a government of their own. When, however, a no-confidence motion was moved, only 7 of them voted for it. And the League leader Hidayatullah himself quit the party and joined the Allah Bux ministry.

Indeed the League was so rootless in Sindh that when they announced a public meeting for Jinnah in Jacobabad, nobody turned up. Rashdi had to request his local friend Hakim Kaimuddin to ask his Hindu friends to produce an audience. The Hindus, as good friends, obliged. They even pocketed their ’’Gandhi caps ’ to avoid embarrassment to Jinnah; but they refused to shout ’’Jinnah Saheb Zindabad’’ with any gusto.

However, the League persisted in its mischief. The respected Pir of Lawari, near Badin in the Hyderabad district, had organised a local Haj for those who could not afford to visit Arabia. It had gone on since 1934. The pilgrims gathered on Ziwal-Haj, read namaz while turning to the durgah, went to a local well renamed ’’Zam Zam’’, addressed the Pir as ’’Khuda’’ and greeted each other as ’’Haji’’. It gave these poor people great spiritual satisfaction. But the fanatics denounced it as un- Islamic, agitated violently, and forced Allah Bux to ban it in 1938.

Success here only whetted the League appetite. Meanwhile, under Hindu pressure, the government regularized a small unauthorized Hanuman temple on Artillery Maidan near the Sindh Secretariat and banned the Om Mandali which has since become the Brahma Kumaris organization. All this encouraged the Leaguers’ belief that the government could be brow-beaten. They now mounted a big agitation to topple Allah Bux.

Manzilgah was a couple of dilapidated structures on the bank of the Sindhu in Sukkur near the Sadhbela Island Mandir of the Hindus. It had long been used as a government godown. The Muslims now claimed it to be a mosque. The Hindus opposed the claim as fake; they also feared that a mosque near Sadhbela would be used to provoke controversy and tension.

Allah Bux was on the horns of a dilemma. Ghulam Hussain before him had held Manzilgah to be government property and had refused to hand it over to the Muslims. Allah Bux sent Muslim officers to inspect the Manzilgah. They came back and reported that the original Persian inscriptions described it as an inn and that the ’’mehrab’’ was a later addition. But the Leaguers were determined to create trouble. From 3 October to 19 November, 1939, under the leadership of G.M. Syed, Khuhro and Sir Haroon, they forcibly occupied Manzilgah. On I November, 1939, Bhagat Kanwar Ram, the well-known singer-saint of Sindh, was gunned down at Ruk railway station --- and nobody was arrested. Sukkur district observed complete hartal for fifteen days. When Pamnani, MLA, said that the Pir of Bharchundi had got Kanwar Ram killed (earlier the Pir’s son had been beaten for kidnapping Hindu girls) he, too, was gunned down. The Sindh Hindus were stunned.

But worse was to follow. Word went round that killing one Hindu was equal to doing seven Haj pilgrimages. Sixty-four Hindus were killed and property worth several million was looted or burnt in the Sukkur countryside. In this violent atmosphere, G.M. Syed said on the floor of the Assembly that the Hindus shall be driven out of Sindh like the Jews from Germany --- a statement he has very much regretted since. But the damage was done.

It was a tragic situation, in which the Congress should have understood Allah Bux’s dilemma. Here was a man who had presided over the All-India Azad Conference in Delhi in 1940 and said: ’’The Muslims as a separate nation in India on the basis of their religion, is un-Islamic.’’ And the Congress should have understood why he had vacillated on the Manzilgah issue. As Gandhiji rightly pointed out in the Harijan (2 December, 1939), the basic problem was that self-administration was new to Sindh. ’’Sindh is nominally autonomous and to that extent less able to protect life and property than the preceding government. For it has never had previous training in the Police or the Military arts.’’ But Congress joined hands with Muslim League to topple the Allah Bux ministry! (And when Khoso, the only Congress Muslim MLA, objected, he was expelled from the Party!) It was a great gift made by the Congressmen of Sindh to the Muslim League, two days before that party met in Lahore and adopted the Partition resolution on 25 March, 1940! The Muslim leaders have since freely admitted that the Manzilgah issue was a bogus (’’hathradoo’’) agitation, staged just to topple Allah Bux.

Responsible Hindus were shocked by the short-sightedness of Sindh Congressmen. Professor N.R. Malkani wrote to Sardar Patel to do something about it. And the Sardar wrote back: ’’I have received your distressing letter of the 1st March 1940. Our friends of the Congress Assembly Party in Sindh have acted in a manner which has brought discredit to the organization and to themselves . . . The Hindu Panchayat of Sukkur has, it seems, succeeded in coercing them to a line of action which they would not have taken if they had the choice or the requisite courage to stand by the principles of the Congress . . . They talk of wider interest of the country in relation to their action, while they forget that they are not serving the local, much less the wider interest.’’

The League ministry fell the following year and Allah Bux came back to power. But the damage had been done. The Muslim League branches in Sindh went up from 30 to 400. During this one League year the British officers covered themselves with infamy, in serving the communal cause.

Justice Weston was appointed to inquire into the Manzilgah riots. When the Muslim Anjuman blamed the Muslim League for the violence, the judge turned on them! When the parties and the judge went to examine the Manzilgah site, Rashdi, the League ’’counsel’’, picked up Weston’s shoes and kept them in the shade. Weston was thrilled. When they came out, Rashdi again took the shoes and placed them before Weston. The judge in his excess of joy forgot even elementary discretion. He now left his car and sat in Rashdi’s car, as the party drove to Rohri. Rashdi writes in his memoirs that Weston even asked him that day in the car as to when the Muslims were going to claim Sadhbela. No wonder Weston in his report blamed the Hindus for the riots. This same partisan judge was now appointed lo decide about the Manzilgah. And he decided that it was a mosque! The Manzilgah issue died down --- but not before it had delivered a body-blow to Hindu-Muslim amity in Sindh.

Allah Bux came back to power. But the British were now bent on seeing him out. When the ’’Quit India’’ movement started, he renounced his old title of Khan Bahadur and the new one of OBE (Order of the British Empire). He also resigned from the National Defence Council. The Governor now declared that he had no confidence in him --- the Assembly’s confidence notwithstanding --- and dismissed him! A few months later he was murdered in broad daylight, while going in a tonga in his home-town of Shikarpur. The League minister Khuhro was arraigned --- but he escaped with the benefit of doubt."



Veteran Sindh leader G M Syed’s deposition in Court:
http://www.sindhlink.net/saeen/case/saeen-book1- part1.htm

Soon after I joined the Muslim League, something happened which vitiated the atmosphere of unity and brotherhood that had prevailed in Sindh for centuries. The Sindh of Sufis and sadhus was engulfed in the flames of communalism which reduced the land of love and unity into ashes and as a result of which the sub-continent was divided in 1947.

It is a tragic fact that as a result of partition, the Punjab and Bengal were divided into separate geographic entities while in Sindh a whole nation was divided and a large numbers of our people were forced to say goodbye to the land of their ancestors. The people who were obliged to leave were the very same who had played a great role in contributing to the material welfare of Sindh and to its linguistic and intellectual advancement. Among them were the devotees of Shah Sachal Sarmast, Shah Inayat and Sami. They had retrieved and collected the works of Sachal and Sami. They included people like Dr. Gurbakhsani, Kalyan Advani, Lal Chand Amardinomal, Jethmal Parsram, Bherumal M. Advani, T.L. Waswani and others.

The incident that shook Sindh is known as the Masjid Manzilgah Case. There was an old place in Sukkur, which had been named Manzilgah Masjid by the Muslims. Several delegations from Shikarpur and Sukkur called on the Prime Minister of Sindh, Allah Bux Soomro and demanded that the Muslims be given possession of this Masjid. Soomro deputed some ulema of the Jamiat-i-Islam, Sindh, to visit the site and report back to him as to what were the merits of the case. These ulema confirmed that the place was indeed a mosque. The Hindus objected that if the place was given over to the Muslims, they would violate the privacy of the female Hindu devotees who came to pray at the temple, which was situated on the bank of the Indus.

It had been established that the place was a mosque and there was pressure on Allah Bux Soomro whose government depended for survival on the support of the Congress and the independent group opposed to the site being handed over to the Muslims. Therefore, Soomro could not take any decision in the matter.

Tired of Allah Bux Soomro’s ambivalent attitude, Muslim delegations called on the Muslim League President, Haji Abdullah Haroon and proposed that the League should take the matter in its own hands. Haroon called a meeting of his party’s provincial working committee of which I was a member. I suggested that since the Muslim League was a political party, it should not embroil itself in a dispute that was purely religious because it would stoke the fires of communalism much against the interests of Sindh.

However, the working committee ruled in favor of taking up the Manzilgah Masjid issue and chalked out a sattyagraha program. Pir Mian Abdur Rehman of Bharchondi played a major part in this. To defuse the situation, Allah Box Soomro had an ordinance issued of the Governor under which anyone could be sent to jail without proper legal proceedings.

Around 3,500 people were arrested after the promulgation of the ordinance much to the consternation of the League leadership, and the agitation began to peter out.

My days with the congress had taught me that once it has started, it is extremely insulting and damaging to call off an agitation halfway through. Therefore,) took over the leadership of the movement and had the Masjid Manzilgah taken over by force. The Allah Bux government tried to have the occupation vacated by the police. The people set up barricades to foil the police bid to retake the mosque.

On November 14, 1939, 1 was arrested along with two other sattyagraha leaders and sent to the Central Jail, Hyderabad. Soon afterwards the Muslims inside the mosque, instead of being arrested, were forced to leave after they had been baton-charged and tear-gassed. Hindu-Muslim riot started that very day in which several innocent lives were lost and property worth millions destroyed. This was a black spot on the fair name of Sindh.

Arrested with me were Agha Nazar Ali Pathan, Dr. Mohammed Yamin and Nematullah Qureshi. Others arrested were Shaikh Wajid Ali from Shikarpur, Qazi Fazlullah from Larkana and Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan from Sultan Kot. Pir Ghulam Mujaddid Sirhindi of Shikarpur and some others were also put in jail.

After a while, the Hindus urged Allah Bux Soomro to provide protection to them in the countryside or face the ouster of his government. Meanwhile, I was released from the Central Jail, Hyderabad, on January 9, 1940, after serving a two-month term. I met some sagacious and farsighted Hindu colleagues and told them that I would not stop at anything short of the removal of Allah Bux Soomro’s government who had put my friends and me in jail. Thus we got rid of the Soomro cabinet with the help of these Hindu friends. Before I proceed further, I want to present two documents here.

They shed some light on my thinking despite the fact that I had taken part in a communal movement. With my release, I issued the following statement:

"After my arrest and that of my colleagues on October 1 9-20, 1 939, certain extremely tragic events took place in and around Sukkur. I came to know of these painful events in jail through my Hindu and Muslim friends. Further details have come to hand after my release. I sympathize with the Hindus and Muslims for what they have suffered during these riots. My heart goes out especially to those innocent Hindus who have suffered grievous losses. I could not sympathize with them earlier because I was in jail. I hope they will forgive me for this.

‘When I decided to take part in the Masjid Manzilgah movement, I could not even dream that it would have such bloody consequences. Murder, dacoits and arson are against our creed and are to be condemned. Sindh is in the teething stage in politics. It may have to learn several lessons before it can hope for a better future. The main reason for our recent tribulations is our inexperience and shortsightedness.

"Hindus and Muslims have been living together with great love and amity for centuries, guided as they have been by Sufis and man of great learning and piety. It is our ardent desire that in the future, too, this unity should blossom and be a beacon light for the rest of India. We are pained when we-find that there are obstacles on the road to the realization of these objectives. A permanent peace between the two communities is the need of the hour. It is my fervent desire that) should work towards this and. Our province is passing through a critical period and I appeal to everyone for Hindu-Muslim unity so that we can live like good neighbors.’ (Naeen Sindh laai Jidda Juhud, P. 67-69).

My mentor and spiritual leader and great Sindhi intellectual, Allama I.I. Qazi had written to me before the publication of the above statement saying that there was a similarity of views between him and me. An important excerpt from his letter is quoted below:

"For Ghulam Murtaza, G.M. Syed, I have a great deal of spiritual attraction but I am also annoyed with him. Why did he put himself into trouble by taking part in the Masjid Manzilgah Tehrik? He was the only one left in ‘Sindh and he, too, chose the path of darkness, that is, he took part in the Manzilgah movement. Therefore, what will become of us? Five hundred mosques in Sindh are in a state of disrepair. All Madrassahs in Karachi, Larkana and Tando Bago have gone from bad to worse. The Muslims themselves have ruined all Islamic institutions. People are seeking martyrdom for Manzilgah I am not sorry that I was not consulted on the issue. What makes me sorry is that good sense did not prevail."

--

The Sindhi leader who was neither a Leaguer nor a Congressman

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp? page=20065\15\story_15-5-2006_pg12_9
By Hasan Mansoor
...

In 1938, Hidayatullah stepped down and Soomro was offered to form his government, which he successfully did with the Congress’s help. The Sukkur Barrage was established in 1932 for agriculture reforms and an organised irrigation system in Sindh. The British government had earlier allowed Sindh to pay the cost incurred on the barrage in easy installments but after Soomro assumed charge he was compelled to pay the money in a shorter time and in unaffordable installments. Soomro found no other option but to increase taxes, which eventually broke the ruling coalition that consisted of three parties and even the Ittehad Party broke in two.

Soomro abolished the old Darbar system and implemented agricultural reforms. He withdrew the magisterial powers given to the influential feudal lords and lifted the externment orders on Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi and successfully arranged for his return to became the most hated of Indians for the British rulers.

Soomro was a ‘misfit’ for many in the set-up, as his decisions for his fellow politicians were popular but not prudent. Yet, it was his popularity among the masses that has still kept his memory alive today. He was prudent for the welfare of his people and remained aloof from the prudence practiced by fellow politicians.

Soomro never bothered with official protocol. He was ‘darvesh’ for many of his rivals and one of them was Pir Ali Mohammad Rashdi who, despite differences with Soomro, called him the most honest and down-to-earth ruler of Sindh. A chapter on Soomro in Rashdi’s Sindhi book of memoirs ‘Uhay Deenhan Uhay Sheenhan’ (The days that were) is self-explanatory.
..
In 1938, Mohammad Ali Jinnah visited Karachi where he held a meeting to launch the Muslim League in Sindh. Top leaders from the Punjab and Balochistan attended along with Soomro and other Sindhi leaders. During the meeting, Premier Soomro was asked to join the League like the premiers of Bengal and Punjab who accepted after a marathon debate. In the next meeting on October 14, a number of Sindh Assembly members also joined the League. During the meeting, the new Leaguers proposed a new leader in Sindh, which Soomro opposed on the contention that when no new leaders has been elected in Bengal and the Punjab and no new premiers were introduced there, then why should this be done in Sindh.

The League’s leadership did not accept his argument and the association broke before even coming into being.

Later, the communal riots in Sukkur on Masjid Manzilgah in 1939 not only expedited the League’s efforts to dislodge Soomro but even his allies in Congress grew annoyed. Both parties jointly passed a no confidence motion against Soomro. It was only Mohammad Amin Khoso of the Congress who voted for Soomro and thus suffered party disciplinary action.

The Muslim League formed its government in Sindh for the first time after that. But it lasted only a year. Soomro became the premier again in 1941, but the League had made great inroads in Sindh during its one-year rule which was evident from the fact that now it had 400 branches in the province unlike a year ago when it had only 30.

In April 1940, soon after the League’s Lahore meeting, the Muslim League’s opponent Muslim leaders met in Delhi with Soomro in chair. This meeting contested the League’s claim of being the only party to represent the Muslims of India.

When Soomro assumed the top office again in 1941, World War II was at its peak and Congress had launched its “Quit India” agitation with a civil disobedience campaign. The congress governments in all the provinces resigned and with the support of Congress the Soomro government had only two options: Either save his government by joining forces he did not like and take action against anti-British elements or withdraw yet again. He opted for the latter.

“Convinced as I am, that India has every right to be free and that the people of India should have conditions in which they could live in peace and harmony, the declaration and actions of the British Government have made it clear that instead of giving their cooperation to the various Indian parties and communities in settling their differences and parting with power to the people of the land and allowing them to live happily in freedom and mould the destinies of their country according to their birthright, the policy of the British Government has been to continue their imperialistic hold on Indian and to persist in keeping her under subjection, to use the political and communal differences for propaganda purposes, and to crush the national forces to serve their own imperialistic aims and intentions,” Soomro said in a letter to the Viceroy of India intimating his renunciation of his title of Khanbahadur and OBE (Order of British Empire).

“The latest speech delivered by Mr Winston Churchill in the House of Commons has caused the greatest disappointment to all men of goodwill who wish to see rendered to India the justice which is long due to her.

“As that hapless pronouncement withholds such justice for India and adds to the volume of evidence that Britain has no desire to give up her imperialistic hold on India.

“I feel I cannot retain the honours I hold from the British Government, which in the circumstances that have arisen I cannot but regard as tokens of British imperialism,” said the letter written on September 19, 1942.

He renounced the honours and resigned from the Defence Council during the WW II. Later, the press asked whether he wanted to extend the hand of friendship with the Nazis and Fascists. “I believe in two things,” he had replied, “To defeat British imperialism and fight against Nazism and Fascism at the same time. It is my birthright to fight against both evils.”

On October 10, Governor Sir Hugh Dow sent a letter to the premier intimating him that he had lost confidence and thus was dismissed from office. The governor had such powers under the Government of India Act 1935.

Soomro was killed on May 14, 1943 when he was on a tonga in Shikarpur. The case was tried in a special tribunal against seven people: Qasim Mangnejo, Kamal Mangnejo, Wali Mohammad Kharal, Abdullah Noonari, Abdul Haq Bhayyo,Qambar Kasai and Ibrahim Kasai. The former three were awarded death and the latter were sentenced for life by the court on February 24, 1944. Khanbahadur Ayub Khuhro who was Soomro’s political rival was also arrested along with brother Mohammad Nawaz and tried, but the Sukkur sessions judge exonerated them for lack of evidence. Thus, the greatest murder case in the history of Sindh is still unresolved despite a lapse of 63 years.

Soomro was neither a Leaguer nor a Congressman and thus was conveniently forgotten by the rulers either side of the border. But, he is still popular among his people who have no other idol to remember but him whenever Sindh goes through a difficult time.