KARACHI: Speakers at an event held to pay homage to Pir Sibghatullah Rashdi II, Pir Pagaro the Sixth, on Wednesday said the British Raj had hatched a conspiracy to get him hanged as his Hur movement, in the midst of pressure on the empire because of World War II, had made it hard for the British to maintain a sustained supply chain to the enemy on the eastern fringes of India.

“He was always considered a thorn in the eye of the British rulers, who were gravely trapped in the war where Hitler-led forces from the west and Japan in the east had made their lives hard,” said Aftab Nabi, a former inspector general of the Sindh police and researcher of the region’s history at a programme organised by the Friends of Sindhu Civilisation at the Karachi Press Club.

The tribute marked the 76 death anniversary of Pir Pagara, better known as Sooriah Badshah.

‘He was always considered a thorn in the British rulers’ side’

He said Pir Pagara was an illustrious servant of Sindh, who had led the war against imperialism for a better life for his country.

“First, they got him confined to Calcutta for six years and were not allowing him to return to Sindh until the new leadership of Sindh, which had then got the status of a province, launched a movement in his favour. His homecoming parade had [unnerved] the British a great deal” who never stopped spying on him.

He said it was not possible for Governor Dow and other British rulers to hang Pir Pagara in normal circumstances, thus they created such circumstances.

What brought the rulers to the point where they decided to get rid of a leader of a small province on the fringes of a mighty subcontinent had certain reasons that Mr Nabi shared threadbare.

He said Karachi was a garrison city during WW II in the early 1940s where more than 10,000 United States troops were also stationed, mostly in Malir Cantonment, to help the empire which was rapidly fading on the horizon of the world.

Karachi and Calcutta hosted supply chains for the entire subcontinent and beyond and since the eastern borders of India were extremely under pressure because of Japanese conquests on the Far Eastern front, Karachi’s significance had become even greater.

That supply line, said the former Sindh police chief, would pass through the area influenced by the Hurs and that area was an enemy land for the British rulers. Thus, they deemed an enemy within, an existential threat, which should be eliminated.

“They [the British] first imposed martial law on Sindh, a rarity during their centuries-long rule, holding the civilian laws in abeyance, thus making it easier to try Sooriah Badshah before a summary court to eliminate him. They got it by intimidating many witnesses and bribing many foes of the Hur leader and hanged him as per their wish on March 20, 1943.”

He said more than 200 Hurs had been executed by the British rulers through summary court trials and that was in addition to the worst persecution of the followers of Pir Pagara for decades.

“However,” added Mr Nabi, “despite killing him and reportedly burying him in a remote island of Balochistan, the British could not subdue the Hur Movement.”

Irshad Abbasi, Ghazi Salahuddin, Younus Mehar, Khadim Soomro and others also spoke.

Our Correspondent from Sanghar adds: To commemorate the 76st death anniversary of Sooriah Badshah, a gathering was held in Sanghar on Wednesday.

Under the banner of the Hur Historical Society, a local organisation working on Hur history, a public gathering on the death anniversary of Sooriah Badshah has become an annual feature over the years.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2019