Sindh’s Separation from the Bombay Presidency: The Role of All-India Muslims and Shahnawaz Bhutto’s Political Shifts

In 1917, when Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu and Viceroy Lord Chelmsford visited Karachi to seek the views of Sindh’s leading figures on India’s constitutional future, the Sindh branch of the Central National Muhammadan Association demanded that Sindh be separated from the Bombay Presidency and made a province in its own right. However, when Montagu and Chelmsford published their report in 1918, they did not even mention this demand. They favoured keeping Sindh under Bombay’s administration.

The influential Mirs, pirs and landlords of Sindh had little objection to this arrangement. Some Sindhi landlords saw their own future tied to Bombay. They were so attracted to the city’s affluent, bourgeois lifestyle that they made little effort to invest in Karachi, an emerging commercial centre, preferring instead to acquire grand houses and property in Bombay. By contrast, Karachi’s Jewish, Parsi and Sindhi Hindu communities made the city the centre of their economic lives. Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, too, acquired a lavish bungalow, My Nest, and the Astoria Hotel in Bombay.

At the annual session of the All-India Muslim League in Aligarh in 1925, a resolution was moved calling for Sindh’s separation from Bombay. It argued that Sindh was a distinct region in ethnic, geographical and cultural terms, and that Bombay had no justification for keeping it under its control. The resolution was moved by Maulvi Rafiuddin Ahmed of Poona and seconded by Muhammad Khan of Ferozepur. Its passage was significant because it made Sindh’s separation from Bombay an important part of the Muslim League’s all-India political agenda.

By early 1928, however, a section of Sindh’s landed elite, including men such as Shahnawaz Bhutto, remained opposed to separation. They were deeply attached to Bombay’s fashionable hotels, clubs and affluent social life. When the Bombay Legislative Assembly formed a committee under Bhutto’s chairmanship to work with the Simon Commission, the committee did not recommend separating Sindh from Bombay. Only two members, Syed Miran Muhammad Shah and Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, submitted dissenting notes in favour of making Sindh a separate province. By contrast, the majority report of the committee appointed by the Punjab Legislative Assembly recommended Sindh’s separation from Bombay.

A delegation representing the Sindh Muhammadan Association presented a detailed case for separation before the Bhutto Committee. Khan Bahadur Allah Bux Khuhro worked tirelessly during this period to advance the cause. He published a pamphlet describing the hardships faced by Sindhi Muslims at the hands of moneylenders. He argued that Muslims in Sindh had been reduced to a state of backwardness and dependence, with many effectively becoming slaves to creditors. Small farmers and landowners, he said, had lost their land over relatively minor debts.

Khuhro also highlighted the lack of educated Muslim representation in the bureaucracy. According to him, finding a Muslim officer in government service was almost impossible, while officials demanded hefty bribes even for routine work. He alleged that Hindu officials took substantial bribes from moneylenders and wealthy merchants to legitimise the transfer of poor Sindhi Muslims’ land to creditors. As an indication of the scale of corruption, he pointed out that the children of salaried officials were being sent to expensive schools and colleges in England, much like the children of wealthy landlords.

When the Nehru Report was adopted at the All-Parties Convention in Calcutta despite Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s strong opposition, the All-India Muslim Conference met in Delhi two days later under the presidency of Sir Aga Khan. The meeting had been convened on the initiative of Fazl-i-Hussain of Punjab. It brought together some of the subcontinent’s leading Muslim landlords and businessmen, along with political figures such as Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar and Maulana Hasrat Mohani.

The conference adopted a lengthy resolution containing 14 demands. The first called for Sindh to be separated from Bombay and made a separate province. In March 1929, a meeting of the reunited Muslim League, chaired by Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Delhi, adopted these demands as a resolution. They subsequently became known as Jinnah’s Fourteen Points.

The Muslim League’s case for Sindh’s separation was so vigorously argued that even Shahnawaz Bhutto eventually changed his position. At the Round Table Conference in London in November 1930, Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah and Muhammad Ali Jinnah strongly advocated separation. Bhutto, too, presented a grim picture of the condition of Sindh’s Muslim population.

“The condition of the agricultural population in Sindh is extremely miserable,” he said. “They eat dry millet bread only once a day. They cannot afford medical treatment for their children. They cannot even provide a shroud when a relative dies. The landlords have been reduced to beggary. Their lands are slipping out of their hands. They cannot pay government taxes, their property has lost its value, and they are neither educated enough to secure government jobs nor wealthy enough to enter business. It would therefore be better to place the administration of Sindh in the hands of its own people.”

On August 16, 1932, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald announced the Communal Award, which laid down the principles for allocating seats to different religious communities in provincial legislatures and maintaining separate electorates. The demand to separate Sindh from the Bombay Presidency was also accepted, although the separation did not take effect until April 1, 1936. Of the 60 seats proposed for the new Sindh Legislative Assembly, 34 were reserved for Muslims.

In 1937, Shahnawaz Bhutto was vice-president of the Sindh United Party. Its leading figures included Haji Abdullah Haroon, Allah Bux Soomro and G.M. Syed. Rather than organising politics along religious lines, the party sought to bring Hindus and Muslims together on a common provincial political platform. It is also worth noting that the Sindh United Party’s political outlook was closer to that of the Indian National Congress than to the All-India Muslim League.

Bhutto lost the 1937 Sindh Legislative Assembly election from Larkana to Sheikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi, who belonged to the Sindh Azad Party. Despite his considerable political experience, Bhutto failed to win his own constituency. One major reason was that he preferred to conduct his politics from Bombay, away from his constituency, while Sheikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi remained close to the land and the people he represented.

Bhutto was also accused of being overconfident about his popularity and of spending lavishly to malign his political opponents. According to one account, he dismissed Abdul Majeed Sindhi as a jackal entering a lion’s den.

Shahnawaz Bhutto did not remain affiliated with a single political party throughout his career. His political loyalties shifted with changing circumstances. After his electoral defeat, he left the party and returned to government service. During the 1940s, he moved closer to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and aligned himself with the Muslim League’s political position.

In early 1947, Bhutto was invited to join the council of ministers of the Nawab of Junagadh. On May 30, 1947, Nawab Mahabat Khanji appointed him the state’s Diwan, or prime minister. As Diwan at the time of Partition, Bhutto supported Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan. The state, however, had a Hindu-majority population, much of which favoured accession to India.

On August 15, 1947, the Nawab announced Junagadh’s accession to Pakistan, a move opposed by India. Following a local revolt and Indian intervention in November 1947, Shahnawaz Bhutto decided to hand over the administration of Junagadh to India. He arrived in Pakistan with his family on November 8, 1947.

After moving to Pakistan, Bhutto remained associated with the affairs of Junagadh’s former ruler for some time. Before Partition, he had been active in the politics of British India and had served as a member of the Bombay Legislative Council. He later became the Diwan of Junagadh.

He did not hold a formal political or government office in Pakistan. Nevertheless, he remained an influential figure and was consulted by political leaders in Sindh. Former Sindh chief minister Yusuf Haroon, for instance, sought his advice on political matters.

After arriving in Pakistan, Bhutto settled at his ancestral home in Larkana, where he died on November 19, 1957.

To be continued…