In Jamshoro, a couple of months ago, I had a chance to visit the M.H. Panhwar Institute of Sindh Studies. The occasion was a memorial lecture and discussion organised by the Vali Ram Vallabh Literary Society, to mark the first death anniversary of Vallabh, an eminent writer and translator, who was truly a polymath and a polyglot.

The Institute, named after another great scholar and engineer from Sindh, Muhammad Hussain Panhwar, also houses a large, modern library that continues to expand.

Books and rare manuscripts are being digitised by an able team of librarians and technical specialists led by a veteran comrade and bibliophile, Niranjan.

The Institute is governed by a board, which is currently chaired by Sani Hussain Panhwar. Recently, I am told that the Sindh Assembly has awarded a charter to the Institute. Besides other knowledge-generation and research-related activities, the Institute also functions as a publishing house. Among other publications, the three important books that have come out from the Institute, in collaboration with Karachi`s Peacock Publishers, are The Case of Karachi by Prof Aijaz Ahmed Qureshi in 2022, Glimpses of Sindh`s History, edited and introduced by Zaffar Junejo and Aijaz Ahmed Qureshi in 2023, and The Historical Contours of Sindh, edited and introduced by Zaffar Junejo in 2024.

In 2017, The Case of Karachi by Qureshi was originally published in Sindhi. It was then translated into English by Abdul Malik Soomro. The book is one of the most comprehensive treatises one has come across on the subject. It pulls together the political history of Karachi and its societal impact during the years of the city`s separation from Sindh, 1948 to 1970.

Qureshi rightly terms it a forgotten chapter of our history, the negative fallout of which the people of the province, including in its capital city, are still experiencing.The book reminds its readers that it is about time for all permanent residents of the province to seek and accept that Sindh is their primary identity, reconcile with the rights and wrongs of both past and present, and move towards a progressive and peaceful society, where principles of democracy and egalitarianism prevail.

Qureshi`s book is divided into three sections, the first having12 chapters meticulously documenting the move of the then central government to separate Karachi from Sindh and the reactions speeches, protests, writings from the floor of the assembly to students and public at large across Sindh taking to the streets.

The second section has four chapters that critically look at state-crafted policy and a particular mindset that promoted alienation of the post-1947 migrants from India with the Sindhi language, the biased allotment of evacuee properties, and the uprooting or neglect of earlier native settlements, villages in particular. The third section comprises 25 articles or papers written by a variety of scholars or political leaders on various aspects on the subject.

The other compendium, Glimpses of Sindh`s History jointly edited by Junejo and Qureshi, is a compilation of 13 selected writings by 10 officials of the East India Company and British Raj, James McMurdo and Alexander Burnes to M.R. Haig and W.H. Moreland included among them.

The editors have dedicated this book to the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) of Great Britain and Ireland, which marked its 2OOth anniversary in 2023.

These writings were published in RAS`s journal between 1834 and 1926. There are detailed accounts on the Indus and other water bodies within the current administrative precincts of Sindh or adjacent to it, the environment, habitat, cities and towns, revenue system, monuments and ruins etc.

I n the third book, The Historical Contours of Sindh edited by Junejo, writings on Sindh or those related to Sindh are selected from The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, published between 1832 and 1843. These articles reflect a keen desire on the part of the contributors to understand the people of Sindh and their condition, Sindh`s commerce and its regional and international trade routes and the significance of the Indus river. The grammar and vocabulary of the Sindhi language is also related and explored. Most, if not all, articles are penned by serving military officers.

There are two interesting historical surveys based on the Chach Nama, the Tohfat-ul-Khwan and a few other sources, by Thomas Postans, who was first an ensign and then became a lieutenant when contributing to the Journal.

Junejo has also included some of Postans` cityscapes, which read like earlier forms of later district gazetteers the British compiled in India. On a slightly different note, if I am not mistaken, Postans, who rose to the rank of captain before an early death, was married to Marianne Postans.

She is considered one of the finest women travel writers of the 19th century.

There will always be valid criticism from native, antiimperialist and subaltern writers and historians about the lens through which our region was viewed by the British or other colonialists. However, due credit has to be assigned to those who have diligently and judiciously recorded the details of our land, river and habitat. Even though we will continue to question their intent and, at times, their approach and inferences, they have added an enormous body of knowledge for us to draw upon and debate about.

Efforts such as the three books mentioned above acquire even more significance in a country like ours, where the erasure of memory and distortion of history are used as policy and propaganda tools.

The columnist is a poet and essayist. His latest collections of verse are Hairaa`n Sar-i-Bazaar and No Fortunes to Tell