HYDERABAD: Noted researcher Atta Mohammad Bhambro has said that Sindhis are the creators of a unique civilisation and Sindh has given too much to the world but it got nothing in return.

According to him, Sindh is the first democracy of the world and ‘Sindhis are Darawars when their homeland is threatened’.

He was speaking at the launch of his book ‘Indus Script’ at Sindh Museum on Saturday night. In his book, the researcher has deciphered the language of Moenjodaro. He threw light on his book while exploring different aspects of Indus civilisation.

“There are countless Indus sites in the world,” he said while mentioning that Iran used to be a province of Indus and Kech and Makran were Indus sites too and so were Kashmir and East Punjab. “East Punjab has 1,200 Indus sites,” he said in his speech replete with quotations and references of many archaeology experts of international repute.

He said god Ram was actually born in Sindh and they were Sindhis who had discovered America – a word which is a combination of ‘amri’ and ‘ka’ – before Columbus. He stated that Afghanistan was part of Indus. He disclosed that Sindhis went to Turkey and Rome as a result of a massive flood. “There is no difference between Indus and Roman digits,” he remarked and said that it was Sindh which was the first democracy of the world with a 9000-year-old history of Sindhi language that gave birth to Sanskirt.

He said that Sindhis should not be int imidated. “We are Darawars when there is a threat to our homeland,” he said.

“Can people who introduced modernisation to the world be deaf and dumb?”, he wondered and said that god Ram had got nothing to do with Ayodhya as Sindh was his birthplace. “Ram’s son Kash belonged to Kashmir which was his area and that’s how Kashmir came to be known as Kashmir,” he said. He attached great importance to ‘Indus Script’ and said Sindhi language could be found in Arabic and Roman languages.

Likewise, he said, digit ‘zero’ and ‘decimal’ came from Sindhi language and entire banking system today revolved around these digits. “Indus Script gave so much to the world, but it got nothing from it,” he said. He observed that prophet’s Noah’s son had visited Moenjodaro.

He paid tributes to former vice chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddiqui for his assistance in this work.

Mr Siddiqui in his brief remarks said that Bhambro’s thinking, research and work was all about Sindh. He said he himself was greatly enlightened in the gathering.

He agreed with a speaker’s, Inayat Baloch’s, proposal that a workshop should be organised on ‘Indus Script’ and international experts should be invited to it to discuss the civilisation and language of Moenjodaro. “You [Bhambro] are Sindh,” he said.

Archaeology Prof Altaf Wasim dispelled impression that picture of a woman/girl was that of a dancing girl. “Actually she is a water worshipper as nowhere in the world anyone dances with a glass of water in hand,” he said. He added that 900 wells had been excavated in Moenjodaro. Similarly, he explained, there was no king or priest in Moenjodaro as no temple had been found there. He said that origin of 15 alphabets of English and some Roman digits was Sindhi.

He stated that Moenjodaro was a secular and pollution free city and so far drilling and excavation had been done in one kilometres radius alone while the city could be stretching up to 10 kilometres. Only 10 per cent excavation had been done at the site and more in-depth drilling was awaited, he added.

Writer Taj Joyo paid tributes to the researcher and said that it was really a difficult and interesting job that he had done. He said that Siraj Memon had done remarkable work in this subject.

He said that healthy criticism should also be welcomed. He emphasised the need for giving scholarships to young and budding youths by the Sindh government to study Devnagri and Snaskirt and then they should be tasked with research on Sindhi language.