The Capture of Pakistan by Urdu-Speaking Elites and the Brain Drain of Sindh: A Historical Analysis of Post-Partition Power Realignments
Note: This article examines the harmful impacts of Ganga civilization on the ancient Indus civilization following the population transfer based on religious grounds in 1947. East Punjab is currently experiencing a period of Hindi imposition; this write-up offers significant insights that may also materialize in the East.
Related: British origins of Hindi, Hindi is not mother tongue, Hindi can never be India’s National Language
Author:
Dr. Masood Tariq
Independent Political Theorist
Karachi, Pakistan drmasoodtariq@gmail.com
Date: June 4, 2025
Abstract: This article analyzes the political, administrative, and demographic transformation of Pakistan immediately after the Partition of British India in 1947.
It explores how Urdu-speaking Muslims from Uttar Pradesh and Central Provinces (UP and CP) seized control of Pakistan’s political apparatus, bureaucratic machinery, and cultural narrative at the expense of indigenous ethnic groups—Bengalis, Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, and Pashtuns.
Additionally, the article documents the migration of Sindhi Hindus as a catastrophic “brain drain,” orchestrated and exploited by the very migrants who monopolized Pakistan’s early state structure.
Through a detailed historical review, the article shows how the foundational power dynamics of Pakistan were shaped by the ambitions of an elite minority whose agenda clashed with regional democratic aspirations.
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Introduction: A New Country and an Ancient Elite
In British India, Muslims in the Muslim-majority provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, the North-West Frontier Province (now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2010), and East Bengal did not see democracy as a threat during the 1937 elections. However, the Urdu-speaking Muslims of Central British India (specifically from UP and CP) were minorities in their own provinces. Therefore, they viewed democracy in British India as a threat to their social dominance and political supremacy.
To protect themselves in a democratic India, they began to dominate the leadership of the All-India Muslim League. They launched a movement to partition British India based on religion, demanding the creation of a separate country for the Muslims of British India. In reality, the Muslim elite of Central British India feared the decline of their aristocratic privileges. It was then that they “realized” they were Muslims and a separate nation. Otherwise, despite ruling over Hindus for 800 years, their ancestors never felt the need to assert themselves as a separate nation. Nor had any Muslim scholar in the past 1300 years ever declared Muslims to be a separate nation.
The biggest challenge for the Muslim elite of Central British India was how to convince the Muslims of Muslim-majority provinces to support the idea of a separate country for all Muslims of British India.
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Inventing Muslim Nationhood: From Aristocracy to Religious Nationalism
The Muslim aristocracy of Central British India had never identified as a separate “nation” during the eight centuries of Muslim rule in India. Their identity was defined by class, not by religion. However, facing the loss of power in a democratic Indian Union, they rapidly embraced Islamic nationalism. Their reinvention of self-identity was based on three false unities:
i). That all Muslims in British India constituted a single nation.
ii). That Urdu was the natural language of all Indian Muslims.
iii). That Islamic practices, as understood by the Deobandi-Barelvi tradition, represented all Muslims.
These constructs were weaponized to rally support among Muslims in Muslim-majority provinces, particularly Punjab and Bengal, where regional languages, identities, and political aspirations had historically remained strong.
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Historical Context: Decline of the Muslim Ashrafia Post-1857
The Urdu-speaking Muslim nobility of North India, often referred to as the Ashraf class, held considerable sway during the Mughal period. Following the failed 1857 revolt, in which many UP Muslims participated, the British systematically excluded them from administrative roles, military commissions, and educational opportunities.
Marginalized and politically disempowered, this class began to reimagine its future through separatist political discourse, finding expression in the formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906.
While the Muslim League’s call for Pakistan gained momentum in the 1940s, its strongest support came from Muslim-minority provinces such as UP, CP, and Bihar, rather than Muslim-majority provinces like Punjab, Bengal, and Sindh.
Leaders such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a native of Bombay with ancestral ties to Gujarat, were ideologically and geographically detached from the regions that would constitute Pakistan. This disconnect meant that Pakistan’s creation was led by elites who never intended to live in the country they were advocating for.
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Post-Partition Power Dynamics and Migrant Ascendancy
The 1947 Partition of Punjab was two of the bloodiest episodes in human history. Approximately 20 million people were displaced and more than two million killed in what Time magazine termed the “greatest genocide since World War II.” Amid this human catastrophe, the emerging Pakistani state—led by the Urdu-speaking elite—moved swiftly and filled quickly the power vacuum left by departing British administrators to consolidate control.
i). Liaquat Ali Khan, a notable personality of Urdu-speaking Muslims from Uttar Pradesh, became the first Prime Minister of Pakistan.
ii). Through control of the civil bureaucracy, judiciary, and media, the migrant elite marginalized indigenous ethnicities and reshaped national identity around a Delhi-centric Islamic ethos.
Instead of enabling democracy, the central government dismantled it:
i). August 22, 1947: Jinnah dismissed the elected NWFP government.
ii). April 26, 1948: Jinnah’s orders removed Ayub Khuhro’s government in Sindh.
iii). January 25, 1949: Liaquat Ali Khan dissolved Punjab’s elected assembly and imposed Governor’s Rule.
These actions revealed a clear strategy: suppress indigenous political voices to enable the ascendancy of non-native elites.
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Linguistic Imperialism: Urdu and the Cultural Rewriting of Pakistan
In a deeply controversial move, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan declared Urdu the national language, even though the majority of Pakistanis spoke Bengali. This sparked early resentment in East Pakistan, culminating decades later in the secession of Bangladesh.
In West Pakistan, the imposition of Urdu marginalized Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, and Pashto speakers. Schools, courts, and civil services were rapidly Urduized. Educational curricula were rewritten to reflect the Ganga-Jamuni culture of North India, celebrating the history and ideology of the Muslim rulers of Delhi and ignoring or diminishing local historical narratives.
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Settler Colonialism: Selective Migration and the Liaquat–Nehru Pact
The Liaquat–Nehru Pact of 1950 was officially designed to protect religious minorities in both India and Pakistan. In practice, it became a tool for the mass migration of Urdu-speaking Muslims from UP and CP into Pakistan, especially Karachi, Hyderabad, and urban centres in Punjab.
This migration was not spontaneous; it was engineered:
In 1948, a quota system was introduced that disproportionately favoured Urdu-speaking migrants under the guise of “merit,” enabling them to monopolize bureaucracy, education, media, and judiciary.
Government jobs were reserved for these “special migrants.” Special trains carried students and graduates of Aligarh, Deoband, Nadwatul Ulama, and Barelvi madrasas.
The first residential colony in Karachi—PIB Colony—was built specifically for these settlers, with Sindh’s Chief Minister Pir Ilahi Bakhsh facilitating their settlement.
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The Greatest Brain Drain: The Exodus of Sindhi Hindus
Sindh, one of the most vibrant, tolerant, and economically productive provinces of pre-Partition India, suffered immensely in the aftermath. With a total population of 3.88 million in 1947—of which over 1 million were Hindus—Sindh had one of the most balanced and cosmopolitan social fabrics in South Asia.
Karachi, Sindh’s capital, was a Sindhi-majority city before 1947:
Sindhis: 61.2%
Urdu/Hindi speakers: 6.3%
By 1951, after the mass influx of Urdu-speaking migrants, Karachi’s Urdu-speaking population jumped to 50%, and Sindhis were reduced to less than 9%.
This was not just demographic change—it was cultural and administrative decapitation.
The migration of Hindu Sindhis—particularly from the educated Sammat caste—was one of the greatest brain drains in South Asian history.
These communities were targeted, assaulted, and forced out under the passive eye of the state. Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan openly told Sindh’s government to vacate Karachi and “make your capital elsewhere.” Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, said nothing.
The violence that accompanied this demographic upheaval was not spontaneous. Archival records and testimonies reveal that Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan gave tacit support to attacks against Hindu and Sikh residents in Karachi, particularly the Sammat Hindu Sindhis — the original inhabitants of the Indus Valley region.
When Ayub Khuhro, the then Chief Minister of Sindh, attempted to protect Hindu communities from the mob violence of newly arrived refugees, he was chastised by the Prime Minister, who reportedly asked him, “What sort of Muslim are you that you protect Hindu and Sikh here when Muslims are being killed in India?”
This approach to nation-building — one that linked loyalty to religion while erasing ethnic and linguistic histories — had lasting effects. It drove out indigenous communities, redefined Sindh’s political landscape, and ensured that the federal capital’s initial foundations were built upon the displacement of the province’s native population.
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Political Monopoly and Systematic Exclusion
By the early 1950s, the Pakistani state had been reshaped in the image of the UP/CP Muslim elite. Key characteristics included:
i). Installation of non-local administrators (e.g., Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar, a Kakar from Peshawar, was made Governor of Punjab).
ii). Political exclusion of native ethnic groups, with Punjabis, Sindhis, Bengalis, Baloch, and Pashtuns treated as culturally inferior or politically suspect.
iii). Censorship of regional identities and imposition of a singular “Islamic” and “Urdu” national culture.
iv). Centralization of power and suppression of provincial autonomy.
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Long-Term Consequences: Alienation and Ethnonationalism
The policies of the early Urdu-speaking elite had far-reaching consequences:
Bengali nationalism emerged in East Pakistan, culminating in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.
Sindhi nationalist movements gained strength in reaction to the demographic and cultural marginalization of Sindhis in their own province.
Baloch and Pashtun alienation deepened, fueling insurgencies and separatist sentiments.
Punjabi elites, though culturally marginalized, found a partial role in the civil-military establishment, creating uneasy alliances with the UP/CP ruling class.
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From Central Power to Marginalisation
Ironically, the Urdu-speaking elite who dominated Pakistan’s early years would themselves face political decline over the decades.
As military power increasingly consolidated in the hands of the Punjabi-dominated army and landed aristocracy, the influence of the Muhajir elite began to wane.
By the 1980s, discontent in urban Sindh gave rise to the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), an ethnic-based party advocating for the rights of Urdu-speaking communities in Karachi and Hyderabad.
This transformation was dramatic. The very community that had once dismissed ethnic politics and promoted a homogenised, centralised state began asserting itself as a distinct ethnic group with its own grievances.
Mohajir Qaumi Movement MQM’s political rise marked a reversal of fortune — from being the state-builders to being sidelined within the state they had helped define.
Yet this reversal did not erase the structural damages already inflicted on Sindh’s social order. The indigenous Sindhi population, having lost political control of its capital, continued to struggle for cultural and linguistic recognition.
The 1972 Sindh Language Bill, which granted official status to Sindhi, led to violent riots in Karachi — a stark reminder that linguistic justice in Pakistan has always come at a steep political cost.
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Towards a Historical Reckoning
The entwined histories of Muhajirs and Sindhis reflect the broader tensions that have shaped Pakistan: centralisation versus federalism, religion versus ethnicity, and migration versus indigeneity. If Pakistan is to move forward as a truly plural and federal republic, it must confront these difficult truths.
It must be acknowledged that the Muhajir elite played a decisive role in sidelining indigenous languages and identities — particularly in Sindh — even as they themselves later fell victim to the very centralisation they once championed. And it must also recognise that Sindh’s Hindu Sammat population — who shared linguistic and cultural ties with their Muslim neighbours, not with mainland India — were unjustly expelled in the name of religious nationalism.
The land that constitutes Pakistan today is the ancient territory of the Indus Valley Civilization — home to Punjabi, Sindhi (Sammat), Brahui, Kohistani, Chitrali, Gilgit-Baltistani, and Swati nations. These groups are the original inhabitants of this land, and their cultural rights cannot be subordinated to imported ideologies or settler narratives.
For Pakistan to truly reckon with its past and chart a more inclusive future, it must begin with historical honesty. Only then can the country transcend its inherited divisions and become a state for all its peoples — not just for those who defined its earliest institutions.
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Conclusion: A Hijacked Dream
Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Muslim unity, but it quickly became a platform for the political ambitions of a specific class of Urdu-speaking Muslim elites from North India. Instead of building an inclusive, federated, and democratic republic, they enforced a rigid ideological and linguistic uniformity that alienated the very people who made up the majority of Pakistan’s population.
The exodus of Sindhi Hindus, the silencing of Punjabi and Bengali voices, the marginalization of Pashtuns and Baloch, and the monopolization of state institutions by Indian migrants represent a foundational betrayal—one whose consequences continue to shape Pakistan’s fractured identity and unstable polity today.
Author Biography
Dr. Masood Tariq is a Karachi-based politician and political theorist. He previously served as Senior Vice President of the Pakistan Muslim Students Federation (PMSF) Sindh, Councillor of the Municipal Corporation Hyderabad, Advisor to the Chief Minister of Sindh, and Member of the Sindh Cabinet. His research explores South Asian geopolitics, postcolonial state formation, regional nationalism, and inter-ethnic politics with a focus on the Punjabi question and Cold War strategic alignments. In addition, he writes on Pakistan’s social, administrative, financial, and economic challenges, analyzing their structural causes and proposing policy-oriented solutions. His work attempts to align contemporary strategy and governance models with the analysis of historical research.
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Featured image: Natural spread of Panjabi civilization
