Dear Sindhi Brothers and Sisters:
When we had to leave the lands of our forefathers in the times of crises that arose immediately after partition of India in August 1947, we did not realize what we were going to lose due to our dispersals to multiple destinations of the world that were necessitated in search of “food and survival for the family and rebuilding our lives”. Time has shown that majority of us have well settled in almost all corners of the world but we have lost greatly on our mother tongue “Sindhi” as also our cultural heritage and relationship values. We have built hospitals, temples and more. Yet we have not been able to keep our community sufficiently connected as we used to be before the partition – today, a cousin might know of his cousin only by name but not in person because they never met. A hundred years ahead the cousins will not even know whether they have any cousins or where they are. This is because we are a Society that does not have our own “State or a piece of land” and long distances keep us apart. Having no state also means we do not have our own University or even a TV station which could connect us to some good extent. Living in the States of our “hosts”, our children have been obliged to take to the local language of the State, firstly for job opportunities and secondly due to environmental influence. It is for that our children have been drifting away from our mother tongue “Sindhi”. Our elders tell us that the circumstances that we are in now, ONLY our language can keep us together to whatever extent. If we lose our language, how can our Community survive? Sindhi schools in India have been curtailed because of less job opportunities to the applicant unless they know the local language. How our children can learn Sindhi then, when there are no schools and there is great influence of local dialects? Nothing can be equal to having Sindhi schools, Sindhi TV station and Sindhi State. But when we do not have them, we believe starting of audio assisted “online” Sindhi tutorials in Roman Sindhi is a good step forward, a little late but, we believe, late is better than never. We only hope and pray that our youngsters all over the world take interest and take full benefit from this site, learn our mother tongue “Sindhi”, and pass our language, traditions and relation values from generation to generation for all future and keep Sindhi Community connected through Sindhi language. This is an appeal.
KEWALRAM CHANRAI GROUP