Asma Faiz’s excellent book on Sindhi nationalism fills a much needed gap on ethnicity and ethnic conflict in Pakistan. Works on ethnicity in Pakistan—both research articles and books—have focused on providing a more general outline of ethnic conflict and movements including that of Tahir Amin, Adeel Khan, Mehtab Ali Shah or have focused more on the Mohajir/Karachi case study (Oskar Verkaaik, Nichola Khan, Laurent Gayer) and Balochistan (Martin Axmann, Paul Titus, Taj Breseeg). With respect to Sindh, historical works concentrated in the colonial era or initial years of the postcolonial period have received greater attention (Sarah Ansari, Allen Keith Jones, Hamida Khuhro, Tanvir Ahmad Tahir) or anthropological works focusing on Sufism and caste politics (Michel Boivin, Julien Levesque, Ghulam Hussain) or language and linguistic politics (Tariq Rahman). In Search of Lost Glory is the most recent and up-to-date work on Sindhi nationalism tying together historical, political, social and ethnographic analysis at both the macro- and micro-levels by directing attention at its discursive appeal and the agency of Sindhi ethno-nationalist parties.
September 2021, volume 45, No 9