Whilst surfing in the cyberspace, I came across this wonderful stroy of a wonderful Sindhi lady
whose contributions to the education in Sindh are examplary.
Whilst surfing in the cyberspace, I came across this wonderful stroy of a wonderful Sindhi lady
whose contributions to the education in Sindh are examplary.
Whenever you see girls going to schools in Sindh, you can thank Dadi Leela
for her efforts and life-long struggle for female education in the province -
she can be dubbed as the Grand Dam of female education in Sindh. She has done as
great a work as that done by Mother Teresa did in social work and human
services in India, or Abdus Sattar Edhi has done for this country. But while
those two are household names, Dadi Leela has worked diligently all her life
without many knowing of her abilities and the work she has accomplished.
Her passion was inculcated by her guru Sadhu T.L. (Thanwar Das Leela Ram)
Waswani, a mystic saint and founder of the Miran Girls High School at
Hyderabad, the first-ever high school for girls in Sindh. Like her guru, Dadi,
too, stayed back to serve her land and people instead of migrating to India in
the 1947 partition. However, Sadhu T.L. Waswani, who had undertaken 'bhart'
(fasting) and recited the Geeta to mourn the death of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad
Ali Jinnah, was forced to leave the country a few years after independence.
Dadi, however, stayed back.
Dadi Leela was born to an affluent family of famous Hindu Amils of Hirabad on
December 20, 1916 in Hyderabad, Sindh. Hirabad of Hyderabad was then a posh
locality of upper and middle class Hindu families. The family were disciples
of the mystic-cum-social worker Sadhu T.L.Waswani. "In those days many Hindu
families would hire a music teacher to teach their children classical music so
as to enable them to sing keertan and bhajan," Dadi says, recalling her days
of childhood. "The roads and streets of Hirabad and the rest of the city were
washed with water twice a day," she says emphasizing the relative affluence of
the area. She was enrolled by her father, Teerath Das Hotchand, in the city's
best school Kundan Mal Girls High School from where she completed her
matriculation. She also learnt classical music from the music teacher Mr Joshi
hired by her father at home. "In those days, however, many people would
disapprove of music," she reminisces of the early, wondrous years.
In the pre-partition days of Hirabad and the rest of Hyderabad city, she says,
"the senior residents would look after the beautification and cleanliness of
their area and streets. There was a ladies' park in Hirabad founded by a great
philanthropist and women rights activist Madam Chatur Bai Jotsingh, an
Oxbridge, who was also the founder of a women's organization 'Naari Sabha.'
The Madam was once the vice principal of the Training College for Women at
Hyderabad.
After Dadi's graduation, she applied for the job of a music teacher at the
same college in 1940 when G.M.Syed was the education minister of Sindh.
"G.M.Syed himself was present during my interview," remembers Dadi. In those
days there was no government education institute for girls in Sindh except
Hyderabad, Karachi and Mirpurkhas. "Except for matriculation, all the
examinations were taken at Karachi," she recounts.
After seven years of her teaching at the Training College for Women, there
came the tumultuous times of the upheaval of partition. Most of the Hindu
Amils living in Hirabad were migrating to India and Dadi was the only young
Hindu girl who remained here. She consulted her guru Sadhu T.L.Waswani. " 'No.
Stay back and serve your motherland (the newly-liberated Pakistan) and
parents,' my guru advised me," she says. "I also witnessed the composing of
national anthem by Ghulam Ali Chhagla at Radio Pakistan Karachi just after
independence," she says.
In 1951, she came to do her BT (Bachelor of Teaching) at Karachi. "There was a
vacuum as most female singers had migrated after partition and, keeping it a
closely-guarded secret from my father, I started singing as Leela Wadhwani
from Radio Pakistan, Karachi. I had four programmes in a week," she says. "I
started receiving hundreds of letters from my fans all over Sindh. Soon my
father came to know about my singing and he strictly reprimanded and
prohibited me from singing for radio. The radio people approached my father
but he was adamant, saying: 'I do not wish to have my daughter remain
unmarried all her life as our society does not like girls singing on the
radio.' " In 1954, she married Dr Tulsidas Harchandani.
But her real career began when she became headmistress in a girls' high school
at Mirpurkhas. "There were mostly Hindu girls sent by their parents to school.
I travelled to every nook and corner of Tharparkar and Mirpurkhas to persuade
Muslim families in far-flung rural areas to send their girls to school," she
says. "Those were the days when simpleton rural people living under the
clutches of feudal society would think educating their girls meant getting
them conversant with writing love letters to their boyfriends," Leela says
with a touch of amusement. Narrating an anecdote about the superstition and
ignorance of the rural womenfolk, she says, "In a village I saw women running
helter-skelter when they heard the roaring sound of an aeroplane over them.
'Djinn, djinn,' they would say," she laughs. "I told them, 'this is because of
your ignorance. That's not the djinn but an aeroplane, an invention of human
beings.' "
Then she composed a poem: 'Oh daughter of Sindh, why are you so alien and
ignorant, drive the djinn of your ignorance by your learning.'Citing another
example of the ignorance of the poor rural womenfolk in Sindh she remembers,
"I was waiting for a train at the Tando Adam railway station when a woman came
to me asking to read out the fare of the ticket she had bought. When I read
out the fare, I realized that she had been cheated by the booking clerk. I
went along with her to the ticketing ofice and threatened the clerk to return
the amount embezzled by him to the poor woman or otherwise she would call the
police. He returned the money. "I told the woman that this was because of her
illiteracy. Why don't they send their girls to schools? I got the address of
her village, toured there, and on my pursuance they started sending their
daughters to schools."
Later, she became Deputy Inspectoress of girls' schools in Sindh. "During my
tenure, at least, I can never forget two incidents that occurred to me in my
way of spreading education among the female population in Sindh but God
Almighty helped me to be successful in my mission," she says. "In one
incident," she recalls, "some hooded, armed men led by a landlord from Mehar
(Dadu district) visited me in my office. They started threatening me not to
open a girls' school in their area."
" 'Are you all right? Would you like to have some water as you are looking
exhausted and irritated. You people must have come from far away,' " I asked
them. Later I told them, "look your daughters are not your daughters alone.
They are my daughters and the daughters of the nation. Keeping them illiterate
is a sin. On such a discourse they realized that they were at fault. They
apologized and withdrew," she says.
"In another incident a girl living in the hostel of the Training College for
Women ran away with her boyfriend. When I got to know of this, I felt the
earth slipping beneath my feet. I prayed to God, asking him to save the
dignity of the institution and the parents of the girl. Once more, God came to
my rescue. Somehow I discovered that the girl and her boyfriend were hiding in
the annexe of a tailor's shop. I immediately rushed to the place and retrieved
the girl. Later, I asked the girl to get the consent of her parents after the
completion of her education.
"Throughout my career, I never adopted any kind of prejudice or bias against
anyone on any basis," she says. A vast majority of the present generation of
female teachers, officials in the education department and the headmistresses
are one-time pupils of Dadi Leela. Dadi, literally means 'big sister' and she
lived up to her name in the hope and expectation of encouraging female
students to complete their education. She retired as Deputy Director Education
in 1976. Since then she has been engaged in the field of social services and
female education and her meditation through music mainly based on the poetry
of her guru Sadhu Waswani and the saint poet Shah Latif. In 1985 she was
elected to the Sindh Assembly and was accused by some of her fellow Hindu
parliamentarians of distributing her quota of jobs to Muslims rather than
Hindus. "Because Muslim youth were more deserving," she says. "In my
neighbourhood the barefooted poor Muslim women would come with a plea to get
their sons employed," she says.
Currently, she holds the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Girls Guide and
also runs a community centre and an industrial home. She literally cries when
she discusses the present status of education in Sindh and the corruption in
the education department. "I am perplexed to know when I see and hear about
the lavish lifestyle of education department officials, males and females. I
could not even get a house of my own and live in my ancestral home. It's quite
impossible for any honest official serving the education department to live in
that lifestyle," she says. "I owe unrepayable gratitude to this country and
her people who gave me a name and honour, looked after me when I was alone and
young, and it takes care of me when I am in my old age," she says. "Now, I
don't even want to visit India to meet my relatives because of the fear of
dying and being buried in an alien land. I wish to be buried here," she
concludes.
Dadi's contribution towards female education in Sindh are part of our
glorious history. Tirthdas Hotchand was her brother who retired as Mukhtiarkar of Revenue
department. He was a literary person who was deeply involved in projecting
the sufi mysticism of Sindh in western world. He interpreted the spiritual
meaning of the poetry of Shah Abdul Lateef Bhittai and Hazrat Sachal
Sarmast in English and through Pardeep Publications brought out his
following books in mid sixties:-
Shah Abdul Latif Series
Sachal Sarmast Series
1. Shah Abdul Latif: An introduction to his seven singing stories
2. The Song of Necklace: The story of Leela and Chanesar
3. The Song of Kinjhar Lake: The story of Noori Jam Tamachi
1. The story of Love : Sachal Sarmast's sindhi poetry
2. The story of Melting : Sachal Sarmast's Persian Masnavi Gudaz-nama
Sindh : My Motherland My Fatherland
Makhdoom's Quest For The Truth
Makhdoom's Quality Quest