Opinions regarding the outcome of the Sindh peasants’ long march for land reforms and amendments in the Sindh Tenancy Act (STA) of 1950 remain divided. Some are celebrating the promise made by Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza as a success who said that the suggested amendments would be tabled in the next Sindh Assembly session. Others hold a more pragmatic view, and have promised a second long march and a bigger sit-in in front of the Sindh Assembly building in August if the deputy speaker’s promises are not met.
The STA-1950 was the result of a massive movement launched at that time by Haider Bux Jatoi and his Sindh Hari (peasants) Committee. The latter also served as a model and an inspiration for other movements of landless peasants in the country. Arguably the most successful among these was the armed movement at Hashtnagar, Charsadda, led by the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP), which eventually liberated the peasantry there, and bolstered the middle peasantry by providing them with the land they had previously tilled for the feudal lords.
The current amendments in the STA are the result of months-long negotiations between local NGOs and landless peasants. These amendments hope to bring the original STA “at par with the times.” A major highlight of the march was the Third Hari Conference in Karachi on February 25. To put things in perspective, the Second Hari Conference was held in 1970 in Sukrund, near Nawabshah.
The spirit of the landless peasants who participated in the march was a sight to behold. For one, this was a proper march, on foot, not the march-cum-long-drive that our generation is aware of, courtesy the lawyers’ movement.
On Feb 15, thousands of activists and landless peasants, both men and women, had congregated at the mausoleum of Baba-e-Sindh (father of Sindh) Comrade Haider Bux Jatoi. From there, around 200 people, including 150 landless peasants, set out for Karachi on foot, via various stops in rural Sindh. Music and dance was a major part of the entire thing. The younger men did not walk as much as they danced all along the routes, as the procession covered an average of 25 to 28 kilometres every day.
The secular culture of Sindh was also wholly visible in the march, as monotheists, polytheists and atheists walked, danced, ate and celebrated their joint cause together for 12 days. Several attempts by some participants of the march to inject Islam into the event were overturned by the peasants and the leadership of the movement. “We appreciate your participation and support, but we do not appreciate the participation of your religion” was the common sentiment.
This is understandable, seeing as how around 60 to 70 percent of the landless peasants in Sindh are Bheels and Kohlis – lowest caste Hindus. The main slogan of the march was Sufi Shah Inayat Shaheed’s “Jekho Kherey, So Khaey” (loose translation: the tiller has the right to the produce).
Shah Inayat led a peasants’ movement in the mid-1700s, and the “Jhok communes” were established as a result long before the French communes were even conceived. The Jhok communes, according to legend, were attacked on the orders of the Mughal emperor, who was assisted in this by the feudal leadership of the area, as well as religious leaders. Shah Inayat was arrested and ordered to be crushed to death in a chakki. Many of his followers laid down their lives too. All the martyrs, irrespective of religion, are buried at a shrine in Jhok Sharif, which is dotted by around 25,000 graves, including two mass graves.
Much praise goes to the leadership of the current movement, including Zulfiqar Shah from South Asia Partnership Pakistan (SAP-PK), Punhal Sario from the Sindh Hari Porhiat Council (SHPC), and Shaheena Ramzan and Ramzan Memon from the Bhandar Hari Sangat (BHS), the parent organisation of the SHPC. Not only have they obviously educated landless peasants in several areas of Sindh about their rights, they have also indoctrinated them politically, and have, more importantly, taught them how to obtain what is rightfully theirs.
“We are not merely looking for freedom, we want our rights” was what everyone who was part of the march told TNS. There is a difference between the two terms, they explained. When a wadero (feudal lord) fears legal repercussions, he sets Haris free, but he does not give them what is rightfully theirs. “He hopes they will be happy enough to be free. He expects them to simply get up and go to a camp like they usually do. We don’t just want freedom. We want our rights too. We want to own the land that we till, we want our due share in the produce, we want to be treated with dignity,” the peasants said.
Stories of bonded peasants across the province corroborate this point of view. This is especially true in upper Sindh where the feudal lords own larger tracts of land and are therefore socially and politically more powerful than their counterparts in southern Sindh.
TNS met a group of 25 people, including 15 women, who had walked 25 km from Bolarchi to Jhok Sharif, district Thatta, to be part of the fourth day of the long march. 25-year-old Shambu Kohli narrated the tale of his tribe, the Kohlis from Bolarchi. He, and around 50 other people from his tribe, currently beg for a living. For 20 years they have been bonded to their Wadero, Ali Nawaz Leghari, in Bolarchi.
Two years ago, the Kohlis of Bolarchi were mobilised against their landlord by activists associated with the SHPC and the BHS. Afraid of legal action, Leghari said they were “free to go.” The Kohlis, however, made history. Instead of fleeing to a refugee camp like other ’freed’ agriculture labourers had done before them, they stayed put and demanded that they be paid for the labour they had put in for 20 years on Leghari’s lands. 80-year-old Leghari tried to scare them by allegedly lodging false FIRs at the local police station against many of the Kolhi men. Lowest caste Hindus, at the lowest possible rung of the social ladder, the Kolhis cut a helpless figure, but decided to fight back. They have now sought the services of a lawyer and plan to sue Leghari in court for violation of the Abolition of Bonded Labour Act.
The peasants’ long march ended on February 26 with a sit-in at the Sindh Assembly building, and the ensuing promises from the deputy speaker. Does the movement end here, though? No, the haris maintain. Their sentiments were summed up most aptly in the speech which SHPC head Punhal Sario delivered at the Third Hari Convention. “We voted the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) into power four times. It gave us nothing. Workers in Karachi were shot at during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure. The Communist Party did nothing. Nationalist parties have failed too. What we need is not the leadership of any of these parties. We need a movement carved and led by the people – by peasants and industrial workers,” he said. “We need a united Left. We need to get rid of our ’organisational chauvinism,’ sit with other people and learn to listen to their point of view even if we don’t agree with them.”