1972 Language violence in Sindh occurred starting on 7 July 1972 when the Sindh Assembly passed The Sindhi Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill, 1972 which established Sindhi language as the sole official language of the province resulting in language violence in Sindh. [1] [2]
The proclamation of Sindhi as the official language of Sindh caused the Daily Jang , an Urdu language newspaper in Karachi, to publish a full-page story on their front page surrounded by a banner with the statement "Urdu ka janaza hai zara dhoom se nikle" (It is the funeral of Urdu thus should be a flaunting one) by Rais Amrohvi. [2] [3]
Violent clashes erupted in Karachi and other towns in Sindh Province, Pakistan, resulting in the deaths of at least 19 people on the third day of protests over the choice of Sindhi as the official provincial language. [4] The demonstrations were triggered by a bill passing Sindhi as the official language instead of Urdu, spoken by half of Karachi's muhajir population. [5] The army was brought in to enforce a 24-hour curfew. In total, 47 people were killed in the unrest. [4] Then President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto planned to meet with both language proponents to find a resolution.
In 1972, when the PPP-led Sindh government declared Sindhi as the province's official language, groups of Muhajir students formed the Muttahida Tulaba Mahaz Karachi (MTMK). The movement started by organizing a protest-movement by changing the number plates of motor vehicles into Urdu alphabets and numerals and had vandalized English signboards. Riots later broke out between the Sindh police and the MTMK in Karachi and between Sindhi and Muhajir youth elsewhere in urban Sindh. [6]
Hyderabad is a city and the capital of Hyderabad Division in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the second-largest city in Sindh, and the eighth largest in Pakistan.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), previously known as Muhajir Qaumi Movement, is a secular political party in Pakistan that was founded by Altaf Hussain in 1984. Currently the party is split between 2 main factions. MQM-London faction is controlled by Altaf Hussain from London, while MQM-Pakistan is run by Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui based in Pakistan. Its electoral symbol was a kite.
Ataullah Mengal was a Pakistani politician and feudal figure. He was the head of the Mengal tribe until he nominated one of his grandsons, Sardar Asad Ullah Mengal, as his tribal successor. He was also the 1st Chief Minister of Balochistan during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's premiership from 1 May 1972 to 13 February 1973. He died on 2 September 2021 in Karachi.
Altaf Hussain is a British Pakistani politician who is known as the founder of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. He holds United Kingdom citizenship and has been living in exile in the UK since the start of Operation Clean-up. Since 2015, he has been a fugitive from the Anti Terrorism Court of Pakistan on the charges of murder, targeted killing, treason, inciting violence and hate speech. He went on trial in the UK in January 2022 for promoting terrorism and unrest through hate speech in Pakistan, and was acquitted the next month. He had fled the country in 1992 after a crackdown against his party was launched.
Larkana District is a district of the Sindh province of Pakistan. Its largest city is Larkana, which sits on the banks of the Indus River. It is the home district of the influential Bhutto family.
Rais Amrohvi, whose real name was Syed Muhammad Mehdi (1914-1988) was a Pakistani scholar, Urdu poet, paranormal investigator, and psychoanalyst and elder brother of Jaun Elia. He was known for his style of qatanigari. He wrote quatrains for Pakistani newspaper Jang for several decade. He promoted the Urdu language and supported the Urdu-speaking people of Pakistan. His family is regarded as a family of poets.
Events from the year 1972 in Pakistan.
Mumtaz Ali Khan Bhutto, was a Pakistani politician who served as 8th Governor of Sindh and later the 13th Chief Minister of Sindh. He was also the first cousin of late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977.
The Sindhudesh Movement is a separatist movement, based in Sindh, Pakistan, seeking to create a homeland for Sindhis by establishing an ethnic state called Sindhudesh, which would be either autonomous within Pakistan or independent from it.
Syed Qaim Daim Ali Shah is a Pakistani politician who served as the elected Chief Minister of Sindh for three terms. His last two terms combined, a total of eight years, makes him the longest serving Chief Minister of Sindh. He is Sindh President of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and was an elected Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) from PS-220 (Khairpur-1).
The Muhajir people are Muslim immigrants of various ethnic groups and regional origins, and their descendants, who migrated from various regions of India after the Partition of India to settle in the newly independent state of Pakistan. The term "Muhajirs" refers to those Muslim migrants from India, who settled in urban Sindh. The Muhajir community also includes stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh who migrated to Pakistan after 1971 following the secession of East Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War.
The Politics of Karachi takes place at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of the government. Karachi is a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural and multireligious metropolitan city. The demographics of Karachi are important as most politics in Karachi is driven by ethnic politics.
Targeted killings in Pakistan have been a rising form of violence and have contributed to security instability in the country. They have become common and have gained attention especially in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, economic capital and capital city of the Sindh province. Several targeted killings have also occurred in Quetta, the capital of the southern province of Balochistan. Police and law enforcement agencies have sometimes come under criticism for their ineffectiveness in locating the perpetrators and investigating their motives. For most part, targeted killings in Karachi have been attributed to political, religious and ethnic reasons. There are speculations about the killing but no real proof has been found against any party.
Sirajul Haq Memon was a Pakistani Sindhi language novelist, journalist, historian, scholar, linguist, story-writer, and advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He was born in Tando Jam town, Hyderabad District to school-teacher and poet Mohammad Yaqub Niaz in a house that would eventually have ten siblings, including renowned Sindhi scholar Dr Fahmida Hussain. After completion of his early education, his family shifted from his native town to Hyderabad where he completed his matriculation examinations in 1950, after which he moved to Karachi. After his B.A. (Hons), he pursued the study of Law at Karachi's S.M. Law College; he also started working as a part-time sub-editor at the weekly Sindh Observer to meet the expenses of education and boarding at the Jinnah Courts. After graduating, he moved back to his hometown Hyderabad, where he worked with Mohammad Usman Diplai at his printing press, and then as an assistant in the Sindhi Adabi Board, where he along with Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo and Ghulam Rabbani Agro translated classical works from English to Sindhi so that wider Sindhi audiences could read them.
1972 Sindhi Language Bill was introduced by the Chief Minister Mumtaz Bhutto on July 3, 1972, in the Sindh Assembly, Pakistan. The 1972 Language violence in Sindh occurred starting on July 7, 1972, when the Sindh Assembly passed the Sind Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill, 1972 which established Sindhi language as the sole official language of the province resulting in language violence in Sindh. Due to the clashes, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto explained that this bill is not against Urdu language. Later an ordinance was also promulgated to clarify it. The original bill as passed by the Sindh Assembly on 7 July 1972 is still in place.
The Sindh Mohajir Punjabi Pathan Muttahida Mahaz was a political party in the Pakistani province Sindh. The party was founded in 1969. Nawab Muzaffar Khan was the convenor of MPPM. In theory the party sought to serve as a political platform for Muhajirs, Pashtuns and Punjabis in Sindh, but in reality it functioned as a Muhajir political party as the Pashtun and Punjabi presence in the MPPM ranks was very limited. The party mobilized Urdu-speaking Muhajirs against the emerging Sindhi nationalist movement. It was led by Muhajir bureaucrats and businessmen. The main base of the MPPM was the city of Hyderabad.
Ghūlām Muḥammad Gūlāb was a Pakistani television and film actor. During his artistic career he starred in more than 300 Urdu and Sindhi dramas and 6 films.
Bakhtawar Bhutto-Zardari is a Pakistani public figure and educationist. She is the chairperson of SZABIST. She is the daughter of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and former President Asif Ali Zardari, sister of former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and granddaughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, making her a member of the politically prominent Bhutto family of Pakistan. She is also a trustee of SZABIST Foundation, and Sindh Peoples Welfare Trust.
Persecution of Muhajirs or Human rights abuses against Muhajirs or Anti-Muhajir sentiment ranges from discrimination, mass killings, forced disappearances and torture, to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech of Muhajirs, mainly those belonging to the right wing party Muttahida Qaumi Movement – Pakistan.
The Muhajir Province Movement is a linguist movement in the Pakistani province of Sindh. This movement is backed by a Muhajir pan-nationalist political and ethnic movement seeking to establish a separate province in Sindh which seeks to represent the Muhajir people of Pakistan. It is proposed to consist of Muhajir-majority areas of Sindh which would be independent from Sindh government.