We, the Indian Sindhis who came to this country, after the tragic partition of India, strongly feel that we all have made supreme sacrifices and lost our homeland – Sindh for the sake of freedom of the country. We further reiterate that we fifty lakh Sindhis, who are scattered all over the country, have been reduced to a negligible minority in every state. As a result of this, we have been confronted with many serious problems in cultural, educational, literary, social and political fields, threatening our very existence as a distinct cultural and linguistic entity.
Our sad experience is that Central Government as well as State governments have completely ignored the cultural, literary and educational aspirations of the Indian Sindhis for its development in cultural and educational fields. At times, there has been even apathy to the legitimate and genuine grievances of the Sindhi Community.
Such casual attitude towards the Sindhi community is motivated primarily because Sindhi community does not possess political clout to influence the corridors of power. As we do not form a vote bank at any particular place, we are unable to elect our own person from any electoral constituency either for Lok Sabha or for any State Assembly, who could effectively voice our genuine grievances and difficulties, from such democratic forums.
It is a painful reality that over fifty lakh people who inherit a hoary past, who have fully identified themselves with national mainstream, who are enlightened and are fully conscious of their national duties, go unrepresented in the collective community sense, in this great democracy. Our only ‘SIN’ is that we have lost our homeland for the sake of freedom of our beloved Indian nation. On the other hand the political reality in India is that other linguistic communities smaller than Sindhis inhabitating Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim etc. whose population ranges from half a million to a million, enjoy full and separate political status; have full-fledged democratic forums in form of legislative assemblies and are represented in august body of our Parliament.
It is thus only the Sindhi community, which stands to suffer. No democracy is worth the name, if it denies a civilized and enlightened community of more than five million people, the right of being adequately represented by its own electoral representatives. Failure to provide equal participation in the political affairs of the country to the Sindhi community, because of its peculiar and unfortunate circumstances, amounts to negation of the principles of political rights to all citizens, as envisaged in the constitution of the nation.
We, therefore, are of the firm opinion that the Sindhi community be constitutionally declared and given status of a Special Linguistic Minority. To ensure such a status and to accord the Sindhi community to exercise political rights with a sense of equality and dignity, we demand the following specific measures to be adopted by the Central government:-
1. Six seats, one each from the states of Maharashtra, Gujrat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh be reserved in LOK SABHA for the Sindhi community by making a suitable amendment in the constitution;
2. On the basis of the same principle, a constitutional provision may also be made for the reservation of some seats for the Sindhi community in the legislative assemblies of the six of the above states, depending on the proportion of population of Sindhis in each of the above states;
3. At least one outstanding public figure from the Sindhi community be nominated on the legislative Council of each of the above states. A provision to this effect may also be made in the constitution.
4. At least one outstanding public figure from the Sindhi community be nominated on the Rajya Sabha to represent the cultural and literary interests of the Sindhi linguistic minority.
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