Five thousand years of history, a river that gave the subcontinent its name, and a community of saints, poets, traders and homemakers who carried their culture across the world. This is the story of the Sindhis.
It's a fair question, and the honest answer comes in layers. The land itself has been continuously settled for close to 9,000 years, going back to early farming villages related to Mehrgarh, just beyond Sindh's present border. Within Sindh proper, the fortified town of Amri was already standing on the Indus around 3600 BC, and Kot Diji — pictured here — by roughly 3300 BC, both centuries before Mohenjo-daro was even built.
The name "Sindh" is younger, but still immense — the river is named in the Rig Veda, composed some 3,000-plus years ago. Sindhi as a language descends from that same Old Indo-Aryan world — through Prakrit and Apabhramsha — giving it a linguistic lineage stretching back roughly 3,000 years, even though the oldest surviving written Sindhi dates to only around 1,300 years ago. Some Sindhi linguists argue for a deeper connection still, back to the Indus Valley civilisation itself — but since the Indus script has never been deciphered, that remains an open scholarly question rather than settled fact.
Sindh takes its name from the mighty Sindhu (Indus) river, whose banks nurtured one of the world's earliest civilisations. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions on earth — the Rig Veda itself speaks of the river, and the words "Hind" and "India" both trace their origin to "Sindh".
Today Sindh is a province of Pakistan, home to the districts of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Thatta, Badin and others — but for Sindhis scattered across the globe since Partition in 1947, it remains, as the old family record books put it, simply "beautiful, sweet and lovable motherland."
What sets Sindh's ancient cities apart isn't just their age — it's how startlingly livable they were. The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, waterproofed with bitumen and fed by its own well, is considered the earliest known public water tank in the world.
Almost every home in the city had its own bathroom and latrine, draining into a covered brick sewer that ran beneath a street laid out on a strict grid — an integrated, citywide drainage system that historians note wasn't matched at that scale in Europe until the 19th century. The bricks themselves followed a standardised 4:2:1 ratio, identical from Sindh to sites hundreds of kilometres away — shared engineering standards, forty-five centuries ago.
Sindh is the second biggest province in Pakistan by area, with its capital at Karachi. Historically, it comprised the whole of the lower Indus valley, from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea — modern Sindh forms the lower Indus basin and covers roughly 140,915 square kilometres, about as large as England.
Geographically, it is bounded on the north by Balochistan and Punjab, on the east by Rajasthan (India) and the Rann of Kutch, and on the west by the Arabian Sea and by Balochistan. The province can be divided into three distinct parts — the fertile central belt through which the river Indus passes, and the sandy desert regions to the east and west.
Sindh's history stretches back further than almost anywhere on earth — through empires, conquerors and dynasties, long before it became home to the Sindhi people we know today.
By the time Alexander the Great reached the lower Indus, he had never lost a battle and had never met a man who wasn't afraid of him. In Sindh, he met several — and what happened between them is one of the most remarkable encounters in the whole history of the ancient world.
As the story is told in Sindh, when the great Brahmin sages of the land heard that a foreign king intended to conquer the whole world, they simply laughed. When Alexander asked why, they asked him what, exactly, he thought he would do with it. He told them: rule over all of it, every kingdom, every people. They laughed harder still — not out of fear, but pity — and told him plainly that no matter how much of the earth he seized, death would leave him owning nothing more than the small plot of ground it would take to bury him.
It was not bravado. These were men who owned nothing to begin with — no land, no gold, no clothes beyond what covered them — and so had nothing for a king to threaten them with. Their freedom was total, and Alexander, for all his armies, had never faced an opponent quite like it.
Soon after, a Sindh ruler named Sambus rose up against Alexander, and his soldiers blamed ten of these Brahmin sages for encouraging the revolt. Dragged before the king, they expected death. Instead, Alexander — unable to resist testing them one more time — put each of them a riddle, and declared he would execute whoever answered worst, working down the line from the weakest response to the strongest.
Asked which were more numerous, the living or the dead, the first sage answered without hesitation: "The living — since the dead no longer exist."
Answer after answer landed sharper than anything his own court could offer. By the end, Alexander did not execute a single one of them — he let all ten go free, loaded with gifts, and instead punished the officer he had appointed to judge the contest, for daring to rank Sindh's wisest men incorrectly.
Impressed beyond measure, Alexander asked the sages to accompany him back to Greece, to be seen and heard by the philosophers of the West. Almost every one of them refused outright — what could the West offer men who already wanted for nothing? Only one agreed: a sage the Greeks would come to call Kalanos, but who was known to his own people as Kalinatha.
He travelled with Alexander for years, through Persia, watched and admired by an army that had never seen anything like him. But when illness finally weakened his body in a foreign land, Kalinatha refused to let it take him slowly. He built his own funeral pyre, gave away every gift he had ever been given, and — in front of Alexander and the assembled army, trumpets sounding, elephants trumpeting in salute — walked into the flames without a flinch. It is said he sang as he burned. His last words to the king who had conquered half the known world were simple: we shall meet again in Babylon.
What the Greeks witnessed that day, and could barely find words for, was not despair — it was the deepest expression of a philosophy this land had been teaching for centuries: that the self is not the body, that death is not to be feared but met on one's own terms, and that a man who has let go of everything cannot be conquered, however large the army at his door. It left a mark on Greek philosophy itself, feeding directly into the Stoic idea that a free mind cannot be enslaved by fortune.
Alexander did meet him in Babylon — in a sense. Almost exactly a year later, the man who had conquered from Greece to the Indus died there himself, far from home, having never set foot in Macedon again. In the end, the sages of Sindh were proven right: for all his conquering, Alexander the Great owned, in death, nothing more than the ground it took to bury him.
A note on the sources: Greek writers such as Arrian and Strabo record two separate meetings — a Sindh-based riddle contest tied to Sambus's revolt, and a philosopher named Kalanos linked instead to Taxila, further north. Sindhi tradition, and the name Kalinatha itself, has long held these threads as one story belonging to Sindh — this page follows that telling.
Centuries later, Sehwan — close to where Sambus once ruled — became home to the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Sindh's greatest Sufi saints. Long before the Sufi era, it seems, this stretch of the Indus already had a reputation for producing people a world-conqueror couldn't rattle.
From the port city of Karachi to the holy town of Rohiri, each of Sindh's cities carries its own story.
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Sindh has never been a land of one faith. In the homeland itself — Sindh province, Pakistan — the population today is overwhelmingly Muslim, shaped by one of the richest Sufi traditions on the subcontinent; the two great poet-saints celebrated elsewhere on this page, Shah Abdul Latif and Sachal Sarmast, were themselves Muslim Sindhis, revered as deeply by Hindus as by Muslims. Sindhi Hindus remain a smaller, deeply rooted minority there, alongside small Sikh, Jain and Christian communities.
Beyond the subcontinent, the picture flips. The worldwide Sindhi diaspora — Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, the US, Spain, the Philippines and beyond — exists largely because of the pre-Partition Sindhworki Hindu trading network and the mass Hindu exodus of 1947, and is overwhelmingly Sindhi Hindu as a result. That is the community this Association was founded by and continues to serve, so what follows describes Sindhi Hindu beliefs and devotional life specifically — the tradition actually carried into Singapore and still practised at Sindhu House today.
Sindhi Hindus believe in the one God and Sanatana Dharma, from which Brahma the generator, Vishnu the operator, and Shiva the destroyer — together with the avatars of Ram, Krishna, and Guru Nanak — are seen as different representations of that same supreme being.
Deep devotion is shown to saints and sages of all faiths, on the belief that those who show faith and love as mankind's true way may bring people closer to God.
Two Sufi orders, Qadria and Naqshbandia, took root in Sindh in the 16th century and remain central to daily life for the province's Muslim majority — a mystical, poetry-steeped tradition that shaped Sindhi culture as a whole, Hindu and Muslim alike.
Guru Nanak himself travelled through Sindh, and many Sindhi Hindu households came to keep the Guru Granth Sahib in a home tikana, worshipped alongside murtis of Ram, Krishna and Jhulelal — a genuinely syncretic tradition distinct to the Sindhi Hindu community.
Revered as an incarnation of Varun Devta, the water god, Sai Uderolal is said to have descended to help the Hindus of Sindh preserve their culture against the oppressive rule of a 10th-century Muslim king, Marakhshah of Thatto.
After the Hindu community prayed for seven days on the banks of the Sindhu, Varun Devta promised a protector would be born into the Ratanrai family. A son, Udaychandra, was born on a Friday evening in the month of Chaitra, 1007 AD — known also as Uderolal, Amarlal ("the immortal one") and Jhoole Lal, "jewel of the cradle."
He preached unity and love between Hindu and Muslim communities throughout Sindh, and in 1020 AD, after 13 years on earth, is said to have disappeared back into the waters of the Sindhu. A rocky pilgrimage site on the river between Rohri and Sukkur honours him still — called Jind Pir by Hindus and Khwaja Khizr by Muslims. His birthday is celebrated across the world as Cheti Chand, the Sindhi New Year.
After Partition scattered the community across the globe, displaced Sindhis gathered in Bombay in 1950 — led by the writer and scholar Ram Panjwani — and formally embraced Jhulelal as the unifying icon for all Sindhis. It was a deliberate choice: precisely because he had always belonged to both Hindus and Muslims back in Sindh, he became the one figure a scattered community could still gather around.
Sindh was the birthplace of a number of fine Sufi saints and master poets, almost all of them Muslim Sindhis whose writing came to be revered across both major communities. Among the most celebrated are Shah Abdul Latif and Sachal — together known as the "Jewels of Sindhi Literature."
Widely considered the greatest of Sindhi poets, his verses — the Shah Jo Risalo — remain a treasured cornerstone of the Sindhi language. He taught that God is not distant from us, and that longing for the divine is itself a form of prayer.
Born Chainraj Bachomal, Sa'mi was a poet and mystic who expounded Vedic wisdom through simple shlokas known as the Slok. He passed away in 1852 at the remarkable age of 107.
Born a Muslim, Sachal was also revered by the Hindu faith after a vision of the Universal Humanity of God. His poetry declared that "God is love, love is God" — his name, Sacho/Sachedino, itself means "the one who speaks the truth."
Shah Abdul Latif built his life's work, the Shah Jo Risalo, around seven tragic heroines of Sindhi folklore — women chosen for their courage, loyalty and defiance. Centuries later, they remain as central to Sindhi identity as any historical figure.
A washerman's daughter who falls in love with a prince, and crosses the Thar desert alone and barefoot in pursuit of him after he is taken from her — dying of exhaustion within sight of her goal. Sindh's great parable of devotion outlasting despair.
Sohni swims the river every night on an unfired clay pot to meet her beloved Mahiwal — until a rival swaps it for one that dissolves in the water. A story of longing that generations of Sindhi and Punjabi singers still perform.
Abducted and offered every luxury by a king who wishes to marry her, Marui refuses every comfort and pines only for the mud walls and simple well-water of her home village — Sindh's enduring symbol of loyalty to one's roots.
As a spoken tongue, Sindhi's lineage runs deep — linguists trace its descent from Vedic Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha, a line of development roughly 3,000 years long. The written record is younger: the first surviving written evidence of Sindhi dates to around the 8th century AD, and Sindhi holds the distinction of being the very first language on the subcontinent into which the Quran was translated.
Over the centuries it has been written in at least five different scripts — Khojki and Khudabadi (developed by Sindhi trading communities themselves), Devanagari, Gurmukhi, and Perso-Arabic. The Khudabadi script was briefly decreed the standard by the Government of Bombay in 1868, before the British later settled on a standardised Perso-Arabic script for official use. Partition split the language exactly as it split the people: Sindhi is written in Perso-Arabic script in Pakistan today, and in Devanagari script in India — one language, carried forward in two alphabets.
Sindhi names are rooted in Sanskrit and drawn from astrology, the calendar, and devotion — with even surnames carrying clues to a family's history and place of origin.
Many names were kept according to the Nakshatra (birth star) — Hassomal or Hassi for those born under Aslesha, Menghraj and Jethanand for Jyestha, and Moolchand for Mool nakshastra. Others followed the day or month of birth — Sunday-born children carried names like Sunie, Aditya or Adumal, while those born in the month of Chaitra were named Chotrani.
Devotees of the gods took names such as Ishwardas (Ishwar), Kishinchand (Krishna), Ramchand (Ram) and Nanik (Guru Nanak) — while surnames ending in "Ja" trace a family to a particular province of Sindh, and Amils and Bhaibands often added "ANI" to an ancestor's name.
| Basis | Examples |
|---|---|
| Nakshatra (birth star) | Hassomal, Menghraj, Moolchand |
| Day of birth | Sunie (Sun), Somomal (Mon), Mangaldas (Tue), Budhranis (Wed) |
| Month of birth | Chotrani (Chaitra), Asoomal (Assoi/Aswin), Pohumal (Poshya) |
| Gods & historical figures | Ishwardas, Kishinchand, Ramchand, Nanik |
| Region of origin | Arjandas, Jasoti, Nari |
| Amil / Bhaiband surnames | Talreja, Kukreja, Makhija, Hinduja |
The traditional dress for the Sindhi male was known simply as "Dhoti, Jammo, Achi Paghri ain Bochhan Kulhete."
Dhotis were worn by Brahmins, Bhaibands and Vaparis (traders) alike. The Paghri (turban) — usually white and elaborately decorated — was essential for every man, and considered as important as the Bochhan (long coat) it was paired with. Jamma coats, worn on special occasions, were often opened almost from the front and finished in gold-glorified buttons that spoke to a man's personality.
Sindhi Amils, who served as Diwans under Mir rule, wore huge Salwar, Angrikho and a distinctive tall cap. Bhaibands — mostly traders — favoured Dhotis, Khamiz and a long coat, and always covered their heads, mostly in white. Wealthy Shikarpuri men wore the Pughri with Bochan, and were known for long beards and moustaches.
Sindhi women traditionally wore an elaborate array of gold and silver ornaments, each with its own name and meaning — passed down as heirlooms through the generations.
Cotton, rice, wheat and sugarcane were the main crops of Sindh, with rice by far the most important — Sindh also produced bananas and mangoes in abundance. The waters around Karachi were rich fishing grounds, famed for the sweet Pallo (Hilsa) fish, known as the "vehicle of Lal Saeen" (Jhoolelal). Sindh also earned a reputation for textiles, pottery, leatherwork and carpets.
Government servants who filled many appointments in the civil service — put above others in terms of status.
Merchants comprising Sindhworkis and Shikarpuris, who established trading posts around the world and dealt in fabrics, trade and commerce.
The Amils and Bhaibands filled most appointments of status. Sindhworkis established trading posts internationally; Vanyas were shopkeepers of every kind.
Long before Partition, Hyderabad-based Hindu merchants known as Sindhworkis had already built one of the most far-reaching trading networks of the Indian subcontinent — by 1937, close to 5,000 Sindhworki firms operated across the globe, following two great sea-routes out of Bombay: one east through Colombo, Singapore, Surabaya, Saigon and on to Kobe in Japan; the other west via Port Said and Gibraltar, as far as Panama. Sindhi women were active partners in running these far-flung family firms, not merely supporting them from home.
Textiles sat at the very heart of this trade — the business was known simply as "Sindwork": silk piece-goods, embroidered fabrics, curios and traditional Sindhi handicrafts, carried out to British, European and Far Eastern markets and sold to travellers and collectors alike. It's genuinely how the Sindhi presence in Singapore began: Wassiamull Assomull, believed to be the first Sindhi to ever set foot here, opened a textile business in Singapore in 1864 — nearly six decades before this Association was founded — before expanding into silk and curios across Hong Kong and beyond.
Singapore sat directly on that historic Bombay–Kobe route — which is precisely why a community of Sindhi traders had already put down roots here well before this Association was founded in 1921. The global spread of Sindhis today isn't only a story of Partition and displacement; it's also the continuation of a trading diaspora that was already a century old by the time 1947 arrived.
That trading instinct hasn't disappeared, but it has broadened. Where the Amils once filled the civil service and the Bhaibands ran the family firm, today's Sindhi diaspora — including right here in Singapore — is just as likely to be found in medicine, law, banking, engineering, tech and academia. The professions changed; the drive to build something new in an adopted home, generation after generation, hasn't.
The Hindus of Sind, on the formation of Pakistan, were thrown out of everything. Karachi and Hyderabad were the two big cities of Sind at the time of partition; an organised raid was made on 6 January 1948 in Karachi, and on 21 December 1947 on each and every house of Hindus in Hyderabad. All the Hindus were thrown out of their houses and collected in camps and centres for evacuation to India by sea and rail.
Thousands upon thousands of Sindhi refugees sailed in ships from Karachi and landed in Bombay port every day. They brought whatever belongings they could — or were allowed to carry by the Pakistan authorities, who invariably seized most of their valuables. Approximately 11 lakhs of Hindu Sindhis left to find new roots on Indian soil.
Those who left, in going to the promised land, found that as their share of the fruits of freedom, they were to receive poverty, suffering, disease and privation. Those who had been masters of money and riches had become penniless.
Historians looking back on Partition add an important layer of nuance to this story. Unlike Punjab or Bengal, Sindh saw comparatively little large-scale communal bloodshed — the exodus was driven less by mass violence than by fear, economic pressure and the specific, traumatic incidents of dispossession described above, in what several historians have called one of the more peaceful, if no less devastating, migrations of Partition. It was a choice forced by circumstance rather than a single act of war — which makes it no less a loss. Sindhi Hindus are also often noted as the one major Partition-displaced community who never received a Sindhi-majority replacement state within India, unlike Punjabi or Bengali refugees — a homeland lost, with nothing quite like it regained.
Because of their need to survive, Sindhis spread their wings through the length and breadth of the globe. They set new roots in new and often unfamiliar lands, imbibing the customs, mannerisms and language of their new domicile — in return for the love, promise and security those countries provided.
Due to their perseverance and hard work, Sindhis succeeded by accommodating themselves to the way of life and customs of those who welcomed them. But as time passed, it became increasingly difficult for the newer generations to cling to their roots, and it has been observed that it grew harder still for them to speak the Sindhi language — which is why associations like ours remain so important today.
The clearest proof of that resilience is a real town. Around 100,000 Sindhi refugees near Bombay were given nothing more than a disused wartime military transit camp — 1,178 bare barracks, no roads, no streetlights, no running water. Rather than wait for help, they converted the barracks into workshops with their own hands. By August 1949 the settlement was formally declared a township in its own right and given a new name: Ulhasnagar — "City of Joy." Within a decade it had grown into one of India's major small-industry hubs for textiles and manufacturing, and it remains, to this day, home to the largest concentration of Sindhis anywhere in India — a camp that refused to stay a camp.
From our Hall of Legends to our recipe archive and photo gallery, discover more of what makes Sindhi heritage so rich — and join us in keeping it alive here in Singapore.