Sindh's radiant heritage

People tend to grow affectionate and attached to the land they are born in and live on; they cultivate in this attachment a sense of pride, with the people of Sindh being no exception. Sindh, Pakistan's southern Indus Valley heartland, is home to one of the oldest and richest cultural identities. Wherever they live in the world, the people of Sindh take pride in and celebrate their cultural identities through everyday life, while Cultural Day gives them a chance to express their love for their land and honour it. This celebration is rooted in unique civilisational, historical and religious characteristics that the province epitomises.

The sacred cradle of the Indus Valley civilisation, dating back to 5000 BC; a land of saints, sages, Sufis and mystics; Bab-ul-Islam — the gateway through which Islam first entered the subcontinent; the fountainhead of spiritual wisdom, humanistic and secular values; a land of hospitality, tolerance and resistance.

Sindh is home to Mohenjo-Daro and other major sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which were among the world's first planned cities, with advanced urban sanitation, standardised weights and trade networks stretching to Mesopotamia. While much of the subcontinent still lingered in the Neolithic age, Sindh had already developed sophisticated brick-built cities, an undeciphered script and an egalitarian culture.

For ages, Sindh has gravitated and been a nucleus of spiritual traditions. Pre-Islamic Sindh had thriving Buddhist monasteries and Hindu ascetic centres, relics of which span across the province. The conquest in 711-712 made Sindh the first region of the subcontinent to come under Muslim rule — almost six centuries before the Delhi Sultanate. The port of Debal (near modern Karachi) was the 'door' through which Islam entered. This early contact made Sindh one of the earliest bastions of Islamic missionaries and mysticism in South Asia and imbued local traditions.

Great Sufi saints such as Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Sachal Sarmast and Qalandar Shahbaz made Sindh a global centre of devotional poetry, music and universal love. Their shrines remain living spiritual hubs where Hindus, Muslims and others pray side by side. Also, Sindhi culture is famous for its inclusive ethos. Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai's masterpiece Shah jo Risalo weaves Islamic, Vedantic and folk themes into verses celebrating love beyond sect and caste. Even today, the annual Urs festivals at Sufi shrines witness ecstatic music and interfaith harmony.

Hospitality in Sindh is a matter of pride. Hosts ensure visitors are lavishly fed and incur no personal expense. This deep cultural commitment often makes them reluctant to commercialise tourism, as they fundamentally view every guest as a blessing.

More importantly, Sindh takes pride in its lasting legacy of resistance. For over 5,000 years, this land has never fully bowed — not to Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Mughals, British or the policies that threatened its identity. Leading the movement against the centre's one-unit policy and for democracy in the MRD movement, the people of Sindh defied what jeopardised their social fabric. Today's inclusion, tolerance and secularism showcase the province's successful resistance to enforced extremist and exclusive tendencies that unfolded over the decades. The recent movements against the canal issue and for the protection of the river and cultural heritage have afforded the province a unique identity.

However, epic misgovernance, extremism, disunity, tribalism, feudalism, tribal conflicts, the so-called spiritual discipleship, growing socio-economic marginalisation and the rising courtier tendencies among leaders of rights movements, literary circles, artists and civil society today threaten the luminous legacy in which the land has always taken pride. Also, inadequate or negatively biased reporting in mainstream media on Sindh and its inclusive culture is a concern. Therefore, Sindhi Culture Day should help confront the threats to Sindh's rich cultural traditions and heritage.