Indeed, the ideal of education has been very grand, noble and high in the Indus valley civilization.  Similarly, it has been the 'training for completeness of life' and the moulding of character of men and women for the battle of life. In order to attain these goals, the visionary souls and sages of Sindh had established the University of Sindh, Jamshoro which is indeed, an historic seat of leaning in Asia. It is also a natural and environmental masterpiece.
I vividly remember those days when knowledge and wisdom used to reign over there. Research and creativity, in all disciplines and domains, was its hallmark. It used to have world-class professors and teachers such as Mir Khadim Hussain Talpur, great scholar of Persian,  Prof. Qalandar Shah Lakyary, great scholar,  linguist and philologist, Prof. Asif Ali Sohag, a teacher as teacher should be, Professor Zeb Shah, (Late) Syed Zafar Hasan of Geography, (late) Professor Bodlo Zardari, (late) Professor Ansari and many others. All these education and Sindh–friendly souls used to strive day in and day out to promote education, intellect, research and culture on the campus. The varsity used to have students and scholars from across the world. No doubt, even today this great varsity has kept its values intact. Moreover, this varsity has served as the repository of Sindh’s spiritual, philosophical, scientific, artistic and literary achievements and as the media of transmission of this heritage to the future generations.
But unfortunately, now-a-day, it has fallen on its evil days as it experienced during the past dictatorial regimes. During those regimes the enemies of Sindh education hatched conspiracies to vitiate the peaceful educational atmosphere in different educational institutions in the province. The enemies of education manoeuvred to weaponise the campuses. They put in practice the evil formula of “divide and rule” among the student political groups and that adversely affected the education and research activities on the campuses. It seems that those forces are again in action with the same subversive agenda to ruin the educational institutions in the province. These forces know that Knowledge is the third eye of man, which gives him insight into all affairs and teaches him how to act. They want to keep the people of Sindh sans knowledge so that they continue to rule over them. It is time high time that the people of Sindh, especially, the Sindhi intelligentsia, educationists and civil society came forward and made their collective efforts to save their educational institutions such as the Sindh Univeristy, Jamshoro. Only then will those institutions will be able to discharge their functions properly for the education and enlightenment of the future of Sindh’s young generation.
HASHIM ABRO,
Islamabad, March 10.