AR Siddiqi has had an interesting journey. His experience through the turbulent times of Partition and the divided politics thereon within Pakistan makes for an interesting and poignant reading of the book Partition and the Making of the Mohajir Mindset. Well-versed in Urdu and Persian, Siddiqi obtained his masters degree from St Stephens in Delhi and worked as a journalist for the Dawn in Delhi and for the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi. He then joined the Pakistan Army as a public relations officer in 1950 and served for 25 years. As the head of the Inter Services Public Relations during General Tikka’s regime, he experienced the nature and the dynamics of sectarian politics. Noted for his work on civil-military relations, Siddiqi’s latest book sketches the predicament of millions of Indian Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from Delhi, Lucknow, and other places in north India lured by Jinnah’s ‘two nation theory’ and the alluring idea of a separate homeland. Little did these beleaguered Urdu speaking migrants, called the Mohajirs, realise that they would be treated with contempt and regarded no more than refugees in the newly founded Pakistan for which they left their home and centuries old composite Hindu-Muslim culture.
The author, himself a Mohajir from Delhi, examines with rare sensitivity the plight of the Mohajirs, who to their disappointment discovered that Pakistan’s polity was dominated by the Punjabis in collusion with the Pathans. While the Sindhis, the Bengalis and the Baloch had strong territorial base which they could call as their homes, the Mohajirs had no place which they could claim as their own. A bulk of the Mohajirs chose to settle in Sindh, particularly in Karachi and Hyderabad bringing them in conflict with the local Sindhis. The conflict continues to this day and has claimed countless lives.
http://newageislam.com/the-other-pakistanis/books-and-documents/d/1798
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