The Socialist Sufi of Sindh: Social Justice and Radical Democracy in 17th Century Sindh

Abstract

Sufi Shah Inayat Shaheed (1655-1718) and his movement symbolized social justice, civil liberties and radical democracy at a crucial time in the Indian subcontinent, when the Mughal Empire was crumbling and such values were non-existent, in that the majority of the Sufis of Sindh had abandoned the preaching and practice of social justice and had become pure worldly landlords. However Shah Inayat was neither one of the traditional Sufis who rather than changing the conditions preach patience and contentment; nor was he amongst those religious scholars according to whom the equal distribution of wealth was the foundation of „Muhammadan equality‟. His slogan was „Jeko Khere So Khaye‟ (He Who Tills has the Right to Eat) i.e. his firm belief was that the fundamental demand of „Muhammadan equality‟ is that farming should be done on collective principles, everyone should participate equally in the productive process and distribute the product amongst each other according to their need. Thus a full 100 years before the birth of Karl Marx; 150 years before the advent of the Paris Commune; 200 years before the advent of the Sindh Hari Tehreek; and 250 years before the advent of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Shah Inayat and his movement symbolized the principles of radical democracy and social justice in practice which became a threat to the ruling Kalhora rulers in Sindh when it successfully set up an agricultural commune in Jhok, and began to spread among many districts of Lower Sindh. Despite the fact that Shah Inayat had tried to make collective farming i.e. socialist method of production and distribution a custom in the era of feudalism, which was far ahead of its time, the experiment ended in defeat. Based on original research and original translations of Persian accounts of the period, the paper explores the singular achievements of Shah Inayat and his movement in fostering a successful example of social justice and radical democracy and evaluates the causes of its success and failure and lessons for the rise and fall of democracy in south Asia, in the past, present and the future in the 21st century. Given that 2018 marks the 300th anniversary of the martyrdom of Shah Inayat and that our history textbooks usually talk ad nauseam about the invasions of Muhammad ibn Qasim, Mahmud Ghaznavi and Ahmad Shah Abdali, this is a timely endeavor to resuscitate and re-emphasize the legacy of Shah Inayat, a son of the soil, with regards to social justice and radical democracy for our new generation in the 21st century.