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        'SINDH' was part of the Bombay Presidency. On 31 March, 1937, the British government made it a separate province. According to the Census of 1941, the population of Sindh was 45.35 lakhs. More than 70 per cent of them were Muslims. But the city of Karachi and the Tharparkar district alone had a Hindu majority in Sindh. Only 50 per cent of the area in Sindh was cultivated. Even this cultivation work was done by Sikhs from East Punjab. Before our independence, this province was not self-sufficient. It depended upon central aid.

        When the first elections were held on the basis of the 1935 Constitution, the Muslim League was able to win just eight seats out of a total of 60 seats. Most seats went to independents. Initially, Muslim League leader Hussain Hidayattullah cobbled together a new government but in a matter of days it was toppled by the Congress and Allah Baksh together. Allah Baksh wanted to join the Congress, but Maulana Azad advised him that setting up a United Muslim Party would be in the larger interest of the people of Sindh. Nothing like that was possible at that time and so on 13 February 1940, the Allah Baksh government had to resign. On 8 March 1941, Allah Baksh again became the Chief Minister. As a Nationalist Muslim, Allah Baksh responded to Gandhiji's call of Quit India in 1942 and bravely returned the title of Khan Bahadur conferred on him by the British. While returning it, he wrote a strong letter to the Viceroy. Angered by this move, the British government removed him from the Chief Ministership of Sindh in two days. On 10 October 1942, Muslim League leader Hussain Hidayattullah was again invited to form a government. He remained as Chief Minister of Sindh till the creation of Pakistan, after which he was made Governor of the same Province. A few months after he laid down office as Governor, he was murdered. He was a rare combination of a traitor, criminal, armed dacoit and one of the most wretched men noted for his monstrous wickedness and ferocious aggression. It was he and his Muslim government who were responsible for the slaughter, loot, plunder of Hindus in general and the abduction and rape of Hindu women in particular.

Raj Pal Puri, the chief architect of the RSS in Sind (now in Pakistan).

Soon after partition, Khurron, a Minister in the government of Sindh, served as a sworn enemy of the Hindus in general and Hindu women and children in particular. The Muslim League in Sindh, fully supported by the government of Sindh, let loose a barrage of poisonous anti-Hindu propaganda. In one of his speeches he said: 'I am waiting for the day when the Hindus of Sindh will become so poor and their economic condition so pitiable that there women folk will be forced to carry on their heads the day meal of their labourer husbands and brothers. Our beloved Pakistan has come. They should all leave Pakistan before it becomes impossible for them to go. The time is coming soon when even a donkey will not be available to them to flee from here.'         Khurron would have been happier today because Islam embracing vermin like Shivraj Patil in the UPA government would have paid tribute to him in the following words: 'Khurron is a noble human being of composite culture — a shining symbol of humanity, compassion. Consideration, courtesy and cooperation. Our ongoing peace talks with him will continue like the secular waters of the INDUS (very much unlike the communal and non-secular waters of the Ganga and the Jamuna!!) indefinitely and to the end of eternity.'         Millions of anti-Hindu posters were pasted on the walls of all private and public buildings in Sindh calling upon all the Muslims to drive out and kill all the Hindus. The Muslim Muhajirs who fled India after Pakistan came into being, appeared on the scene and added fuel to the fire. Even the Sindhi Muslim now began to thirst for the Hindu's blood.

        Muslims in all the villages of Sindh-held Panchayats and decided that the property of Hindus, who were running away, should not be bought, as it was all to fall into their hands free. To make it worse the compassionate government of Sindh issued an Ordinance saying that any Hindu found selling his property would be sentenced to six months imprisonment. In the villages, Muslims would drive away cattle belonging to the Hindus. Another Ordinance directed all Hindu money-lenders to deposit with the government all valuables and ornaments Muslims may have pledged with them. These were returned to the owners, but the Hindu money-lenders got nothing. There was nothing they could do about them.

        Another Draconian Ordinance issued on 15 February 1948 prevented Hindus from easily emigrating to India without a permit. To get this permit, every Hindu had to fill eight different forms, one of which was a declaration that he owed nothing to anybody in Pakistan. But when a Hindu went for a permit, many Muslims would file false suits saying he owed them so much money. He had to pay off those fictitious debts in order to get the permit. He also had to pay a heavy bribe to get it.

        Temples and Gurudwaras in Sindh were defiled and their properties looted. Their idols were smashed and thrown away with Islamic compassion. If anybody resisted, he was killed with Islamic devotion. The Central government of Pakistan under Jinnah watched it with gay abandon and the eunuch government of India under a feminine Prime Minister called Jawaharlal Nehru watched it with non-violent and splendidly secular indifference. Thus the pot became full with inequity and unmerited cruelty for all the non-Muslims and Hindus of Sindh.

        Into that cauldron of horror, cruelty, violence, loot, plunder, rape and sudden death marched the heroic volunteer force of Swayamsevaks of the Rashtriya Swayansevak Sangh (RSS). An advertisement was put up by one of the Swayamsevaks at several places in Sindh. It contained this inspiring message: 'Hindu youths! Unite and organise yourselves together. You have to take a pledge to serve the Hindu society. United we stand and divided we fall. Come and let us march together taking all he non-Muslims of Sindh into India and elsewhere.' Such a message was given by Raj Pal Puri of the RSS in Sindh.

        Raj Pal Puri hailed from Sialkot and graduated from there in 1939. He became a Swayamsevak of the RSS after meeting Sangh Prachrak K D Joshi in 1939. Even though he got a job in the Ministry of Defence in government of India in New Delhi in November 1939, yet he gave it up in order to work on a whole-time basis for the RSS in December 1939. Babasahib Apte sent Raj Pal Puri to Sindh, where he first went to Karachi and later to Hyderabad. He was made Prant Pracharak for Sindh at the age of 26. He played a very valiant and predominant role in protecting the Hindus in Sindh immediately before and after partition. After our independence, he became Prant Pracharak for Mahatashtra. When on 27 March 1977, the Janata government took office, he was so overcome with joy that he suffered a heart attack and died, leaving to the whole nation a splendid example of heroism, noble service and self sacrifice.

        When Pandit Nehru went to Sindh in 1946, the Muslims of the Muslim League plotted to murder Jawaharlal Nehru in Hyderabad. Well known Congress leaders in Sindh like Chimman Das and Lala Kishanchand approached Raj Pal Puri of the RSS and requested him to provide protection to Pandit Nehru at the public meeting where he was expected to address. Raj Pal Puri accepted the challenge and directed the Swayamsevaks to attend the meeting in large numbers and prevent trouble. Those Muslims who tried to create mischief were dealt with sternly by the Swayamsevaks of the RSS. The Muslim League goondas did not dare indulge in any mischief.

        Thus it should be clear that immediately after partition the RSS played a stellar role in giving protection and relief to all the Hindus and non-Muslims in Sindh, helping them in every possible way to get back to India as safely as possible. Not only the people but even the Congress trusted the RSS and sought the cooperation of the office-bearers of the RSS. Even the formidable armed anti-social elements of the Muslim League recognised its strength.

        What is the message that the selfless heroes like Raj Pal Puri have for us all today. I can put it in these words: 'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how a strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knows neither victory nor defeat.'