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Today's Paper | April 27, 2024

Published 14 Aug, 2012 12:00am

Migration of Hindus

BRAIN drain is commonly referred to as the large-scale migration of technically skilled, educated and social entrepreneur class [from a country] … on one or the other pretext….

Though this term has been in use in recent times, in Sindh’s case it started in 1947 and is continuing till today. The entrepreneur class for any society is like blood in a human body. If blood is not supplied and circulated properly in the body, it is the end of life….

Sindh’s entrepreneur class were those who left this land at the time of Partition…. Sindh’s … educated class also left this land.Thus [the] administration … also went from the hands of Sindhi-speaking people, and trade and business too….

Whatever happened at that time should have been stopped, yet regrettably it is continuing. Scenes of 1947’s migration are repeated today as Sindh’s entrepreneur class is leaving this land. A number of Hindu families left for India, leaving behind their homes, property and businesses. Recently … 252 families from Balochistan and Sindh bade goodbye to their motherland….

When hundreds of people leave a country it is something extraordinary as they feel unprotected. It has … shocked entire Sindh and interestingly the interior ministry also woke up from deep sleep and termed the migration of the Hindu community a conspiracy against the country.

We are also of the view that it is a conspiracy, but what has the government done … to foil this conspiracy? [Hindus] … have been kidnapped for ransom, traders have been paying extortion every month, [while young Hindu girls] have been forcibly converted and married….

What the [interior minister] has termed a conspiracy is not too difficult to foil. If they are provided security and protection, people would not imagine leaving the motherland....—(Aug 10)

Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi.

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