Master Hari Singh Dungarmal: The Pioneer of Sindhi Literature and Arya Samaj in Sukkur

Master Hari Singh Dungarmal (1857–1917) stands as a towering figure in Sukkur’s cultural and literary history. A staunch Arya Samajist, a schoolteacher, and the pioneer of Sindhi book printing in the city, he laid the groundwork for both Sindhi literary culture and social reform in upper Sindh at a time when Sukkur was growing from a garrison town into one of the province’s most important cities. His life is a window into the intellectual world of colonial Sukkur’s diverse communities, where schoolrooms, printing presses and reform societies shaped modern Sindhi identity.

Early Life and Role in the Arya Samaj

Born in 1857, Hari Singh began his career as a Sindhi-language teacher (“Master,” as the honorific in his name records) in Sukkur’s education department. Teaching in those decades was more than a job: government schoolmasters were among the few literate men in small cities, and they naturally became the centre of literary and reform activity around them. His dedication to social reform led him to the Arya Samaj, the Hindu reform movement founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875, which spread rapidly through Sindh from the 1880s onwards. The Samaj emphasised Vedic principles, education for girls as well as boys, widow remarriage, and the rejection of caste rigidity and costly ritual. In a trading city like Sukkur, with its large Hindu merchant and professional classes, these ideas found an eager audience, and Hari Singh became one of their most respected local exponents — a reformer working through books and classrooms rather than speeches alone.

Pioneering Sindhi Book Printing in Sukkur

His most lasting achievement came in 1888, when he founded Sukkur’s first bookstore, marking the dawn of Sindhi-language publishing in the region. Until then, printing in Sindh had been concentrated in Karachi, Hyderabad and Shikarpur; Sukkur bought its books but did not make them. Hari Singh’s press changed that. It printed religious, educational and literary works — Vedic texts, Arya Samaj tracts, school textbooks and Sindhi literature — making reading material available at prices and in quantities the city had never seen. A bookstore attached to a press also became a meeting place: teachers, students, reformers and poets gathered there, argued, and commissioned works. Within a generation, other Sukkur presses — including the Hans Raj Press and the Tilak Press — built on his foundation, and the city became a genuine publishing centre of Sindh. The wider story of Sindhi printing, and the role of communities like the Parsis of Sukkur in the city’s cultural life, shows how unusual this concentration of presses was for a town of Sukkur’s size.

Legacy in Sindhi Literature

Hari Singh’s contributions earned him recognition in the standard historical texts of Sindh, including Sindh Ji Hindun Ji Tareekh by Kaku Bherumal Meharchand Advani and the works of the historian Rahimdad Molai Sheedai. These sources remember him in three roles at once: the teacher who trained a generation of Sindhi readers, the publisher who gave the language a printing home in Sukkur, and the reformer who carried the Arya Samaj’s educational message into everyday life. After the Partition of 1947, Sindh’s Hindu literary families migrated to India, and much of this publishing tradition was scattered — which is why recording figures like Hari Singh matters today. The religious landscape he worked within still leaves its marks on the city, from the hilltop temples of the region to the island shrine of Sadh Belo, and the old city of Rohri beside Sukkur preserves the multi-faith fabric of that era.

Why He Is Remembered

Master Hari Singh Dungarmal died in 1917, but his imprint outlived him in every book his press set in motion. In the history of Sukkur he belongs beside the engineers of the barrage and the builders of its bridges — not as a maker of monuments, but as a maker of readers. For the fuller account of his bookshop and family, see the detailed study on our sister site: Master Hari Singh Dungarmal — Arya Samaj leader and Sindhi publisher.

Master Hari Singh Dungarmal: Key Dates

• 1857 — born in Sindh; the year of the great uprising that reshaped British Indian administration.
• 1870s–1880s — serves as a Sindhi-language teacher in Sukkur’s education department; the honorific “Master” dates from this career.
• 1875 — Swami Dayanand Saraswati founds the Arya Samaj; the movement reaches Sindh’s cities during Hari Singh’s lifetime and shapes his reform work.
• 1888 — founds Sukkur’s first bookstore and press, beginning Sindhi-language publishing in the city.
• 1900s — Sukkur presses including Hans Raj Press and Tilak Press follow his lead; the city becomes a regional publishing centre.
• 1917 — dies in Sukkur, remembered by teachers, readers and reformers across upper Sindh.

References

1. Sukkur Sunehra (local historical text).
2. Tareekh-e-Sukkur (History of Sukkur).
3. Sindh Ji Hindun Ji Tareekh by Kaku Bherumal Meharchand Advani.
4. Shikarpur: A City, A Civilization.
5. History of Sindhi Prose.
6. Sayed Imdad Hussain Shah Rizvi (2025), personal communication.

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