Sindh and its global expansion after partition.
The movement to Spain and neighboring territories.
I have always been curious to explore the deeper history of how my father ended up in Spain, of all places in the world. As ordinarily as he always spoke of his arrival in Tenerife, it was obvious to me as I grew older, that this was a fascinating adventure he took. This article covers the origins of how Sindhis like my father made their journey to Spain, followed by reflecting on how first-generation Sindhis like me have navigated multiple identities growing up and what impact this has had on our own parenting.
The present Indian community in Spain is the outcome of distinct migration streams occurring in two markedly different phases. The initial phase, commencing in the late 19th Century and peaking during the 1970s, was incited by investment openings in the Canary Islands and Spanish enclaves within northern Africa. This movement was primarily driven by the commercial ventures of the Sindhi population already established in other parts of the Maghreb and the Mediterranean. Over the passing decades, this migration flow gave rise to a compact, unique community of shared Indian heritage. This community exhibits considerable diversity in terms of national and legal associations, while also actively engaging in business pursuits. Remarkably prominent within the business domains of their chosen settlements, this community has cultivated a strong reputation and established robust institutional connections, despite maintaining relatively limited social bonds with the host Spanish society.
Indian Migration to Spain: A Long And Unexplored History
The first wave of settlers had a uniform profile because their international mobility practices were linked to commerce, an activity carried out exclusively by Sindhi men, leading them to expand and settle in free zones and port cities throughout the world. They were known as Sindhwarki companies, and this implies an ethos that is well echoed by Dr. Ram Buxani. “My blood has the ‘Sindhwarki’ ethos.” ‘Sindhwarki’ ethos implies a globe-trotting trait among the Sindhis, who are not daunted by aliens or the alien land in quest of the green pastures across the globe.” They chose to settle in Spain’s Canary Islands due to business opportunities there, as well as the archipelago’s proximity to other settlement areas, such as Gibraltar and the Maghreb countries.
The initial group of early settlers consisted of approximately 100 male individuals who frequently travelled to the Mediterranean and Northern Africa for their existing businesses. The male heads of homes would also make regular trips back to India for family visits and religious purposes, while their families remained in Sindh.
The influx of Sindhi migrants to the Canary Islands steadily increased in the early 20th century, with a peak during the late 1960s and early 1970s, including my own father. This rise in migration was influenced by the improved economy of the archipelago, driven by the growth in tourism. Additionally, the community faced challenges in other locations, including Sindh, which came under Pakistani rule after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.
During this period, the origins of new arrivals became more diverse. Sindhi merchants and workers arrived in Spain not only from India but also from other countries where the Sindhi trade diaspora had settled, such as Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Curacao, and Ghana. Evidently, there appeared to be a movement of change happening, which only can be described in one simple word: resilient survivors.
By the middle of the 1970s Indians were proprietors of over 200 businesses in Ceuta and Melilla. In the 1980s, a small shift occurred as Spain entered the European Union and this led Sindhi businessmen to move to other parts of the geography, like Cataluña, Malaga, and Andorra, in search of new opportunities.
Fast forwarding more than 40 years later, figures from Spain’s national statistics body (INE) show that there were 51,440 Indian nationals living in Spain in 2022. Indians make up the third largest Asian community in Spain after Chinese and Pakistanis. What began as a Sindhi arrival in the late 19th century, today comprises of many more Indian communities, driven predominantly today by Sikhs, but also include Hindus and Buddhists from the North of India, especially Haryana and Punjab.
A Sindhi born in Spain.
I belong to the first-generation Sindhi immigrant community, born and raised in Madrid. Whilst my dad was busy growing his business in the 70s and 80s, my mother was grappling to adjust to the new language and culture, she was launched into. There were considerable obstacles to face, from buying groceries to not having regular contact with family, back in India. It was a lonely passage, and the silver lining she clung to, was a handful of Sindhi families that had migrated much earlier on from Northern parts of Africa, like Morocco. They had some extra “foreign” experience in this diaspora, and she embraced them as family.
When you are far removed from your people, food, festivals, and traditions, you tend to attract what you miss, even more. And this was my first learning in identity management.
I distinctly remember traveling back to India during my summer vacations, and I would speak in Sindhi to my grandparents, rather proudly and be seen as the rare child who was a “foreigner” but spoke her mother tongue. I debated two things with myself. Was I a foreigner in India or a foreigner in Spain? And if I was born in Spain, therefore was my mother tongue not Spanish? My dad fondly often said “Tú eres española” (you are Spanish), referring to my nationality. Yet, he refused to speak to me in any other language except Sindhi. I knew he was deeply proud to have attained his own nationality in Spain, after years of struggle and it really did make him so happy to have both his children nationalised as Spanish citizens. But in his heart, hewed and bled Sindh.
This did not create a crisis for me, in fact, I think both my brother and I navigated the feelings quite naturally. We just happily did a hopscotch between English, Spanish, and Sindhi, often creating a mishmash of sentences. A standard lingo in every immigrant Sindhi home.
I feel very grateful today that I was immersed in my language of origin, so deeply. Perhaps as a teenager I did have some shame and embarrassment, especially when I noticed nobody else spoke it at school, it was not even recognised as a language until I explained the historic partition.
And one day I truly realised what it meant for me to be Sindhi. I returned to university to begin my second year in the UK. I met a new student who had arrived from Karachi, Pakistan. We were just getting acquainted in the lunch queue, and he said “Taeen Sindhi galainda ayon?”. (You speak Sindhi?). I was held in my tracks as I heard the words. I was not ready for this moment. One often associates language with communication, yet for me that day I associated Sindhi with an emotion, a feeling of belonging, a mindset like no other, of camaraderie across the world, in finding other fellow settlers.
I cannot really explain how it feels to leave your country, your home, and most importantly your identity behind, as did Sindhi’s who were forced out of Sindhi (Pakistan) in 1947, because I will never know. However, if there is something I can tell you is an interesting story from the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), around 100 Sindhwork merchants were settled in the Canary Islands and approximately 200 in Spanish Morocco. These included names like the Pohoomull Bros, D. Chellaram, J.T. Chanrai, and M. Dialdas. They had successful businesses running at the time.
During the time of war, these merchants sought protection and help from the government of India as protection for British Indian interests, but not much help was extended, at least not for the settlers in the Canary Islands. The Spanish disallowed these foreign merchants to leave during the war and prohibited the withdrawal of goods and money, resulting in tremendous misfortunes for the Sindhi community.
Some were able to send their families back to India as the war went on and were only able to gather bits and pieces after the Francoist dictatorship was established. Ironically, eight years after, the Indian subcontinent was divided and Sindh became a part of Pakistan, facing many families to leave what was considered their soil and home and migrate to the Canary Islands via Bombay.
In many ways, this circling diaspora bleeds in our veins, giving us a migratory gene by default. Holding onto our roots has always been a matter of family priority in my personal case. Growing up in a predominantly bhaiband Sindhi community in Madrid, meant I was thoroughly versed in having value for money, influenced by the trading roots my father carried and how this heavily seeped into his behaviour. A symptom of his trailblazing business aura meant he was a believer in international travel and higher education out of your home.
We were given these opportunities, but there was always a telephone number of some uncle or aunty attached, and sure enough, these people were Sindhis. I still remember my first internship at the age of 16. I was going to Hong Kong for two weeks. This was an adventure for me, as I had never stepped into Southeast Asia before. I was beyond excited. The experience did not disappoint, and with it, I was blessed with my first exposure to Sindhi networking outside of Spain. Being in Hong Kong was another moment of identifying with who I was. I would tell people I was from Spain and if the person I spoke to was Sindhi, their next question would be: “I know someone in Las Palmas, do you know X?”
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria is a small island in the Canary Islands of Spain, yet I don’t think I’d be wrong if I said that any Sindhi around the globe has probably at some point had a relative, friend, or acquaintance living in Spain, with high chances that that person was living in Las Palmas.
This was when I knew Sindhis were most certainly on multiple parts of the world map, and I could call myself a citizen of the world. As it turns out, we — the Sindhis — are great at weaving networks. We have been able to interact and triumph in environments with multiple religions, languages, and cultures.
The one thing that stands out for me is, that we are proud to speak the language of the country we migrate to, yet our own Sindhi language is in decline and dying. Recently I heard a quote by the revered Dada Vaswani who said “Boli na aen ta budhi na aen, budhi na aen ta badhi na aen”. This translated to English means, “If there is no language, there is no intellect, and without intellect, there is no unity.
I am the parent of two teenagers and whilst my attempts to speak to them exclusively in Sindhi have been far from successful, I do try to teach them vocabulary in a playful manner and spread the language across my home, even if it means through food and traditions. I recently spoke to my daughter about this and she said something very comforting to me.
“I may not speak the language to you Mama, but you should continue to speak it to me as you always have and I can assure you I DO understand every word, because, like you, I feel it too”. I spent the rest of the evening only speaking in Sindhi to her, and I was pleasantly surprised that she grasped a good 80% of what I was saying.
Remain connected to Sindhyat.
What began as a spread for survival or need for belonging outside of Sindh, has led Sindhis to globally conquer many corners of the world. We constitute a sizable diaspora across the globe, flourishing beyond trading and business. In the same line of progress, we have also risen with technological progress. It has become easier than ever to remain connected and should we not use this facility of connection to preserve our Sindhi language too? The wise often say, ‘something is better than nothing’. Hence, we, the Sindhis, must endeavor to do something to stay connected and save our identity, ‘Sindhyat’, which perhaps, may eventually help save our language.
Jai Jhulelal.
