AS THE Mughal Empire began to go to pieces in the last years of Aurangzeb, the Mughal appointees in Sindh also began to disintegrate. Their place was promptly taken by the Kalhoras, a native dynasty.
The Kalhoras were respected Syeds, who claimed to have come from Arabia in the days of the Abbaside caliphate. However, nobody is an Immigrant after a thousand years. And the fact that their great ancestor was one Odhani, only seemed to confirm their native origins.
Over the centuries, the Kalhoras had added zamindari power to their religious position. They had even acquired the zamindari of Gandabah, in which capacity they guarded the Bolan and other passes in the Sindh-Baluchistan area. With the death of Aurangzeb, wrote Clive, ``Sovereignty had fallen to the ground, for anybody to pick it up''. In Sindh it was picked up by Mian Yar Mohammed Khan, a scion of the Kalhora family. His armed faqirs, Taji and Jada, killed Amir Sheikh Jahan, the Mughal commander, and ousted Allahyar Khan, the governor of Bakhar. At first Aurangzeb's son Muizuddin, the governor of Lahore, thought of disciplining the Kalhora. But he soon realised that discretion would be the better part of valour. He, therefore, got the Kalhora appointed governor of Sindh.
The Kalhoras reunited Sindh, which had earlier been parcelled out among the Arghun and Tarkhan chieftains. They also again gave the province a local dynasty with its roots in the soil. But they had not been in the saddle for long when a typhoon by the name of Nadir Shah hit the province.
This Persian adventurer had sacked Delhi in 1739 and the Mughal had transferred the sovereignty of the Indian areas beyond Attock, plus Sindh, to him. Nadir Shah promptly summoned the Kalhora to his presence in Kabul. But the latter neither went himself nor even sent a reply. He thought it was best to keep away from a terror such as Nadir Shah. Also he thought that Nadir Shah had got too much in his loot of Delhi to bother to mount a special campaign to loot poor little Sindh. But Nadir Shah thought otherwise. He knew that if one governor got away with defiance, others would follow suit. He, therefore, immediately set out for Sindh. The frightened Kalhora immediately locked himself up in the fort of Amarkot. But Nadir reached there early in 1740 --- even before the Kalhora had had time to hide his treasure of one crore rupees. Nadir Shah's very name was a terror. When his son Nasir was marrying, he was required by custom to name his seven ancestors. People thought that Nadir would be embarrassed to name his ancestors who had been nobodies. But Nadir listed Nasir-ibn-Nadir-ibn Shamsher-ibn- Shamsher-ibn-Shamsher-ibn-Shamsher-ibn-Shamsher-ibn-Sham- sher (i.e. son of the sword, for six of the seven times). So Mao's ``thought'' that ``power issues from the barrel of a gun'' is not a new one. It is at least as old as Nadir.
This Nadir-ibn-Shamsher point-blank asked the Kalhora why he had run away, and the latter candidly replied: ``We had always been loyal servants of the emperor of Hindustan. We could not lightly switch loyalties.'' Nadir liked the reply and confirmed him in his governorship of Sindh. But he told him that he had heard that the Kalhora had two most precious jewels. The Kalhora confirmed this and produced a sack of wheat flour and a tin of ghee! Said the Kalhora: ``These are our jewels. If one has got these, one does not need anything else. And if one does not have these, nothing else will avail one.''
Nadir was pleased. He now expressed a desire to see the city of Thatta. Here he and his army were lavishly entertained for sixteen days. As he left, he took the captured treasure of one crore of rupees and slapped an annual tribute of twenty lakh rupees on Sindh. He even carted away the Kalhora's library of rare books and manuscripts. He also took with him three Kalhora princes and 12,000 Sindhi troops as guarantee for Sindhi good conduct. Even so, the people were relieved to see him go. The Kalhora princes later described their stay in turbulent Iran as ``hell''.
Earlier, when Nadir Shah was returning from his loot of Delhi, he was taking many Mathura Brahmins captive, to be sold as slaves in Iran. A pious Shikarpuri lady, Takht Bai, came to know of it. She requested her husband, Seth Kewalram Bhoj- wani, to ransom them all. Instructions were accordingly issued to the Seth's business branches all along Nadir's route, to have the unfortunate Brahmins freed on payment of Rs. 100-250 each. The ransomed Brahmins were then given some cash and sent home.
However, one pest followed another. As soon as Nadir the Persian died, Ahmed Shah Abdali the Afghan arrived on the scene. Safdarjang in Delhi forged a Mughal-Maratha treaty in 1752 --- duly attested by all the Hindu deities! --- to face Abdali jointly. This treaty gave the Marathas the Chauth rights in the Punjab, Gujerat and Sindh. However, before this alliance had time to fructify, the very next year, in 17j3, Abdali invaded Sindh to impose Afghan sovereignty on the province. Kalhora Nur Mohammed promptly fled to Jaisalmir --- where he died --- leaving it to Dewan Gidumal to handle Abdali as best he could.
Gidumal calmed down Abdali. He presented him with two sackfuls of ``holy dust, more precious than any gold or diamonds''. He then persuaded Abdali to confirm the Kalhora as governor, on payment of a reduced tribute of eleven lakh rupees.
Once again Sindh heaved a sigh of relief --- only to have yet another Afghan, called, of all things, Madad Khan (``Mr. Helpful'') swoop down on it. The terrified Sindhi writers of the time noted: ``These Afghans were like scorpions and snakes. They were as miserly as they were mean. On the poor and helpless, they descended like bijli (lightening); before the strong, they ran away like bijli. They would take away even worn-out sacks.'' For long the Sindhis described any impending disaster as ``Madad Khan is coming''.
The coming of the Kalhoras' from the north had squeezed the old Hindu chiefs in the south. The old Dodo-Chanesar statement, ``Sammas, Sodhas, and Soomras, they rule the south of Sindh'', was no longer true. Writes Sorley: ``At Umarkot and Kakrola and minor places, Hindu rulers had held more or less independent power. The rise of the Serais, the men of the upper country, as the Kalhoras and Talpurs were commonly called in lower Sindh, changed all this. When they were shut off from Shikarpur, and Sukkur, they extended their sway southward and eastward and stamped out Hindu independence.'' This led to the Sindh-Kutch wars, in which Sindh, being the bigger, had the upper hand. At the end of it, Ghulam Shah Kalhoro put up an embankment --- Allah Bund --- to prevent the waters of an Indus branch flowing into Kutch. This, however, only reinforced the result of an earlier earthquake, which had reduced the water flow in the area to a trickle. All this led to an estrangement between Sindh and Kutch. The latter now began to consider themselves Gujerati, though they were closer to Sindh in every recpect. Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sindh, was to note that Sindh and Kutch were united ``in all relations of life, civil, religious, commercial and military''.
The links were particularly close in language. Kutchi is closer to Sindhi than to Gujerati. An interesting example of this was witnessed in the second Lok Sabha(1957-62).Premjibhai Asser, a Kutchi settled in Maharashtra, was elected on the BJS (Bharatiya Jana Sangh) ticket. His wife knew neither English nor Hindi nor Marathi. On occasion when Premjibhai was not at home, she would answer the callers in Kutchi; Advani, being Sindhi, would understand her; he would then translate it in Hindi to others! But all these Sindhi-Kutchi links were sundered by the anti- Kutch policy of Sindh rulers.
However, the Kalhoras survived Nadir, Abdali, and the Kutch adventure to give Sindh quite a good government. New canals had increased farm production. Fish were so abundant that they were dried and then fed to horses. Population grew to a record thirty lakhs --- as against twenty lakh under their predecessors, the Arghuns, and only fifteen lakh under their successors, the Talpurs. Land revenue was reduced from one-third of produce under the Mughals, to anything between one-third and one-fifth, depending upon the soil and the crop.
The British East India Company had earlier described Thatta as ``a great citie as large as London''. It now had more than 50,000 houses, of which many were made of stone and mortar with vast verandahs, sometimes three or four storeys high. The textiles of Sindh were ``the flower of the whole produce of the East''. The international commerce of Thatta ``gave Sindh a place among the nations''. The city had 400 schools and 4000 boats. The Sindhis sipped the cups that cheered and sweetly inebriated --- the wine being made from molasses (gur), grapes (anguri), dates (katta), musk (muskhi), sugar candy (misri), roses (gulabi), and saffron (kesari). Says Sorley: ``The music of Tanpura and Dholki resounded from every house in Thatta.''
A great gift of the Kalhoras to Sindh was the city of Hyderabad. This was the site of the ancient city of Nerunkot (Narainkot). After the Arab invasion the city was sacked. It then became a vast graveyard called ``Nerun Kafir''. The Muslims considered it specially auspicious to be buried there. However, Ghulam Shah Kalhora ordered the graves --- including those of -the Princes and the Pirs --- levelled to the ground, setting a healthy example for the timid town-planners of today. He then sent Gidumal with two boat-loads of money to build the great fort, which the latter completed in just two years, 1768-70. It was named ``Hyderabad'' in a bid to flatter the Nizam of Hyderabad in Deccan to establish special links with him. But the two Hyderabads were too far apart to be of any help to each other.
From the northern gate of the fort was laid out the mile-long Shahi Bazaar on the crest of the ridge. The first part was given to the Bhaibund businessmen and the latter, to the Hindu Amil civil servants. The only exception were the Amil Gidwanis, whose chief, Gidumal, was the top minister, and who had to be nearest to the fort. The new capital, with the Indus in the west and the Phuleli canal in the east, grew into a great garden city.
Another ancient city which was revived during the Kalhorra rule was Shikarpur, which now became the financial capital of not only north-west India but also of Central Asia. Some people think that the city was founded by Kalhoras' cousins Daudpotas --- and it was named Shikarpur because the Talpur Mirs were fond of shikar (hunting). Others do not think so. They point out that Shikarpur was admittedly there before the shikar-loving Talpurs arrived on the scene; for another, Shikarpur has always been a trading centre, and never a hunting lodge. Also, the Muslims named their cities as ``Abad'' --- and never ``Nagar'' or ``Pur''. These experts think that Shikarpur is really Shakaripur --- the ``town founded by the vanquisher of the Shakas'', the Scythians. In this connection they point out that ``Quetta'' is known in Persian records as ``Shakari Kot'' --- ``the (border) fort built by the vanquisher of the Shakas''. Later, on the Indian side, it came to be known simply as ``Kot'' or ``Koita'', which the British corrupted into ``Quetta''.
A significant feature of the Kalhora rule was the coming up of the Hindus. After lying low for. centuries, they now staged a come-back with their sheer intelligence¢, adaptability, integrity and hard work. Apart from Gidumal --- and his brother Jaspatrai --- we hear of Gen. Balakram, vakils Devdas, Mulraj, Ghanshyam, Topandas, Karan Mal, Gulabrai. Mehta Motoomal was barkhurdar, one of the top advisers. And then there was Dewan Chellaram Sehwani, the exchequer. In Delhi the Kalhoras had two vakils --- Anandram ``Mikhlis'' and Mir Mataro (``Sir Plump''). The very first Kalhora chief, Adam Shah, had, in the fifteenth century prepared the ground for a fair deal for the Hindus. In 1736 Yar Mohammed Kalhora had specially invited Adomal (the ancestor of the Advanis) of Multan to settle down in Sindh. Many others followed suit from Kutch, Jaisalmir, and even faraway Prayag.
However, the Kalhora period will be known most for Shah Abdul Latif --- even as the Elizabethan period is known more for Shakespeare than for empire-builders such as Raleigh and Drake. Shah is not merely the greatest Sindhi poet, he belongs to world class. If Sindh had to choose between Shah and all the rest of the poets, it would no doubt choose Shah.
However, all good things must come to an end. And the Kalhora rule ended only too soon. The Soomras summoned the Sammas to their aid against Alauddin --- only to find themselves worsted by them. The Kalhoras invited the Baluchis to fight the Mughals, the Persians, and the Afghans. Before long they found the Baluchis too strong for their comfort. Indeed there were now more Baluchis in Sindh than in Baluchistan. To this were added the suspicions and jealousies of the later Kalhoras. Against the advice of Gidumal, they got Baluchi chief Bairam and his son Sobdar murdered. Bairam's other son, Mir Bajjar, continued to serve the Kalhoras loyally. When the Afghan Izzat Yar Khan descended on Sindh with 30,000 men, Bajjar faced him with a Sindhi-Baluchi force of 18,000 --- and worsted him. Said the Persian Fatehnama of the time: ``As the Baluchis began to ply their swords, the earth became red with the blood of the Afghans. Some of them were asking for mercy on bended knees, others were running away bare-head and bare-foot.''
But the Kalhoras began to suspect even a successful loyal commander such as Bajjar. They asked for his daughter's hand --- as proof of loyalty --- which he refused, on the ground of Baluchi tradition. The Kalhoras then asked the king of Jodhpur to have Bajjar murdered --- if he wanted Amarkot back. Jodhpur's emissaries met Bajjar on the excuse of conveying a very confidential message. Pretending to whisper things into his ears, they pounced upon him and killed him. (Hence the Sindhi saying that whispers could be dangerous; they cost Mir Bajjar his life!) This was more than the Baluchis could take. In the fighting that ensued, the Kalhoras were defeated by the Talpur Mirs in the battle of Halani in 1782.
The Afghans were not sure whom to recognize --- the erstwhile Kalhoras or the emerging Talpurs. So they said they would recognize the party that deposited six lakh rupees first. The Talpur representatives in Kabul --- Gidumal, Jaspatrai and Agha Ibrahim Shah Irani --- promptly raised the money from the local traders and won recognition for the Talpur Mirs of Baluchistan.
The Kalhora rule had come to an end after a brief but event- ful eighty years.