The study of Sindhi nationalism has remained overdetermined by the question of the allegiance of Sindhis to the Pakistani state. The movement has not been examined for itself but only from the vantage point of its success or failure. As a result, it has mainly received attention when sudden outbursts of violence seemed to threaten the stability of the state. However, few have attempted to examine what connects disparate events of ethnic violence and opposition to the central state with a broader understanding of what being Sindhi entails. Rather than address questions of failure or success, this article shows that the construction of a nationalist “idea of Sindh” has been a continuous process throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It also illustrates how an aspirational middle-class played a central role in this process. The article focuses on how three generations of Muslim men, who shared similar trajectories yet have unique social characteristics and repertoires of contention, constructed, reinforced, and disseminated the Sindhi nationalist discourse. This process translated into institution-building in the cultural sphere and contributed to the political outlook of a large section of Sindhi politicians on the left of the spectrum.

Umar Marvi, the first Sindhi feature film made in Pakistan, was released in 1956, in the context of the One Unit, when the merger of West Pakistan’s provinces pushed Sindhi intellectuals, students, and politicians to assert themselves in defense of their language and culture. By depicting the story of a famous folk heroine heralded as a patriotic figure by Sindh’s most prominent nationalist leader, we contend that Umar Marvi contributed to the construction of a modern national imaginary for Sindhis in post-Partition Pakistan. This imaginary rests on a narrative that conceives Sindhis as a peaceful and syncretic folk culture continuously occupying the mythicized land of the Indus. We show that Umar Marvi takes part in this narrative by portraying a certain image of an idealized community and by representing a fixed, folklorized heritage while attempting to master cinema as the medium of modernity.

The introduction to the special issue provides a framework to think about the changing conceptions of Sayyid-ness in various historical contexts in South Asia. First, we review some of the sociological and anthropological literature on caste among South Asian Muslims, to argue for a contextualised and historicised study of Muslim social stratification in Muslims’ own terms. Second, we throw light on the fact that Sayyid-ness, far from being a transhistorical fact, may be conceptualised differently in different socio-political and historical contexts. For instance, Sayyid pedigree was at times downplayed in favour of a more encompassing Ashraf identity in order to project the idea of a single Muslim community. Far from projecting an essentialising image of Sayyid-ness, by focusing on historical change, the articles in this collection de-naturalise Sayyids’ and Ashraf's social superiority as a ‘well-understood and accepted fact’. They further shift attention from the debate on ‘Muslim caste’, often marred by Hindu-centric assumptions, to focus instead on social dynamics among South Asian Muslims ‘in their own terms’. In so doing, these studies highlight the importance of the local, while pointing to possible comparisons with Muslim groups outside South Asia.

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