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After the partition (1947), the Sindhi migrants settled in about one hundred small and big refugee camps, mainly situated nearby the urban areas in different parts of the country. Most of them were monolingual and had their schooling through Sindhi medium. Thus they formed fairly homogeneous linguistic and socioeconomic groups in these settlements.
Due to the rich cultural and literary background and strong social contact, they were enthusiastic to maintain the linguistic and cultural identity. They established many educational institutions and cultural organizations. The absence of a single geographical region, change in the initial settlement patterns for the economic survival, closure of Sindhi medium schools and direct contact with other languages are the main reasons which reduced the functional use of Sindhi in different informal as well as formal domains in India.
During the last 57 years, the Sindhi settlements have been shrunken in number and size, because, a great number of Sindhis left the camps for the economical survival and better job opportunities and scattered in the non-Sindhi urban areas or became Non-Residential-Indians and scattered all over the world, which has drastically affected the functional use of Sindhi language. In India, Sindhis have also become bi/multi lingual, which has shown a remarkable language shift and limited the use of mother tongue. There is a great difference in their linguistic and attitudinal behaviour among different age groups, educational background and local surroundings, regarding the language choice.
Various domains of the Sindhi language in India are briefly discussed below:
The Sindhi speakers settled in the Sindhi pockets have maintained their mother tongue at home. All the family members speak with each other in Sindhi. Among the scattered Sindhi speakers, the elder family members use their native language but the younger members use it in very limited occasions with their parents and grand parents. Generally, the children of scattered Sindhi speakers do not speak in Sindhi with each other. They use Hindi, English or regional language of their respective region.
In a number of cases, it is also found that the parents and grand parents have started speaking in Hindi or English with their children and grand children.
The Sindhi speakers generally use their native language for the inter-group activities and use Hindi, English or the respective regional language for the intra group activities.
At the market places the Sindhi businessmen and customers speak in their mother tongue, but with the non-Sindhi customers, the Sindhi businessmen use the local languages, Hindi or English, according to the required situation. Sometimes they use Sindhi as a code language in front of the customers about the rates and other business secrets.
The Sindhis have become bi/multi lingual in India. They use local languages, Hindi or English, whichever language/s is/are common at the work place.
Sindhis use their native language for the in-group formal functions and public meetings. Sometimes, they shift to Hindi or English wherein some non-Sindhi speakers also participate in their programme.
The Hindu Sindhis are very liberal about their religion. They regularly worship at home, visit Tikanas – Nanak panthi temples, Gurudvaras and different Hindu temples and attend religious discourses in Sindhi, Hindi, Punjabi and English. All the Sindhis worship ‘Jhulelal’ – the River deity. His birth anniversary on the ‘Cheti-chand’ is celebrated as the ‘Sindhiyat Day’ all over the world.
In Sindh, a large number of educationists and litterateurs belonged to the Sindhi Hindu community. After the partition, they established many educational institutions and literary forums in India to maintain their linguistic and cultural identity.
A majority of first generation migrants had their schooling through Sindhi medium. Therefore, they started many Sindhi medium schools in their localities. The local governments also opened a number of Sindhi medium schools to provide the facility to have education through their mother tongue. There was atleast one Sindhi primary school in almost every Sindhi colony and a Sindhi secondary school in a bigger settlement in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi regions. There were ten Sindhi medium higher secondary schools in Gujarat. A great number of Sindhi learners studied Sindhi as a subject at the higher secondary and graduate levels. Many candidates have passed M.A. in Sindhi and some have been awarded Ph.D in Sindhi. There are some Sindhi teacher training institutions in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Due to various prestigious factors, socio-economic pressures and non-availability of Sindhi medium at the higher level, most of the second-generation Sindhi speakers started shifting from the Sindhi medium to non-Sindhi medium schooling. They also felt that the non-Sindhi medium education had more advantages for the economic survival and better job opportunities. Therefore, they preferred to send their children to the non-Sindhi medium schools. Thus, most of the third generation of Sindhi speakers have been educated through the non-Sindhi medium.
In the beginning, the Sindhi managements opened many Sindhi medium schools with a great enthusiasm and received encouraging response. But afterwards, to meet the demand and expand their institutions, they opened the non-Sindhi medium branches (mainly English and in some cases Hindi). Once the non-Sindhi branches were opened, the number of Sindhi medium students started decreasing drastically. In most of the cases the Sindhi medium branches were closed totally.
Now the governmental as well as non-governmental agencies are encouraging to introduce Sindhi as a subject and teach the language through evening classes.
Sindhi is widely used in different fields of mass media. At present, in India, 110 newspapers and periodicals are published in Sindhi, which play a very important role for the scattered community. But the Sindhi newspapers and periodicals are not capable to cater the demands of the Sindhi people as they cannot compete with the papers published in the dominant languages, in terms of coverage of topics and circulation. Lack of planning and resources have also prevented the publishers to use modern technology and employ trained persons in this field.
Apart from the print media, Sindhi is also used in the electronic media. Sindhi programmes are relayed from different stations of All India Radio. No daily programme in Sindhi is telecast from the national channel of Doordarshan. A limited time is allotted for Sindhi on some regional channels. Some Sindhi programmes are also telecast by the private agencies. So far, not a single Sindhi documentary film is made by the Film Division. About twenty Sindhi feature films are made in India. Many Audio and Video cassettes and C.D’s are also made in Sindhi.
Sindhi has a rich literary tradition. Sufficient oral as well as written literature is available in the language (see. 8.1 and 8.2). Many monolingual, bi lingual and tri lingual dictionary are also published in Sindhi (see. 823.2.2.2).
Because of two main reasons, the readership in Sindhi has declined sharply. Firstly, most of the Sindhi speakers have become bi/multilingual and they come across the better material on variety of subjects available in other languages and secondly, due to the inadequate competency in Sindhi, they are not able to enjoy and appreciate their own literature.
In India, many literary works of Indian languages and English have been translated into Sindhi. Some Sindhi books are also translated in other Indian languages (see. 822.2.2.2)
There is a great scope in this field, which can be captured systematically.
In India, Sindhi has a very limited role to play in many formal language domains. Being a stateless minority language scattered all over the country it is not used in the fields like administration, judiciary and legislature.
Due to the strong influence of dominant languages, code mixing and code shifting are very common among the Sindhi speakers. During the informal as well as formal speech, a number of Hindi forms of Sanskrit origin and many common English lexicons are used in their language. They also shift to Hindi or English while using the Sindhi language.
In the absence of a Sindhi speaking region in India, the Sindhi language will continue to be a minority language, which can perform a very limited role in different language domains. But it must be remembered that the linguistic minorities in our country differ in their developmental level. It must be noted that the state of Sindhi is quite different from other minority languages in India. Sindhi is one of the major languages of this sub-continent, having about 24 million speakers all over the world. Unfortunately, the Indian Sindhi community is cut off from the majority due to the geo-political reasons.
In spite of many difficulties, the Indian Sindhi speakers have not only maintained their linguistic identity but also have done a remarkable work in the field of education, mass media and literature. Actually, they want to contribute much more but they are depressed rather confused in the present situation, as they are not clear about the proper direction to utilize their energy and resources.
The most important factor they must keep in their mind is that, in India, they will survive only if the Sindhi language is kept alive by using it in different informal as well as formal language domains. If the community is cut off from the language, it will be uprooted from the life itself.
Copyright CIIL-India Mysore