THE TALPUR family of the Mirs (Amirs) took over from the Kalhoras. But they were not destined to rule long --- or well. Being shepherds by ancestry, and warriors by profession, they neglected irrigation and agriculture. They also enclosed huge cultivable areas for hunting. As a result, the population declined from 30 lakhs under the Kalhoras to just half that when the Talpurs gave place to the British in 1843. But food continued to be exported to Kutch, Kathiawar, Makran and even Arabia.
Pottinger, the British envoy, found in Sindh ``extortion, ignorance and tyranny possibly unequalled in the world''. Burton found the mulla schools teaching things such as `Mohammed had 1,04,472 hair, three of them grey''. And yet the Mirs did not do too badly in some other respects. They got back Amarkot from Jodhpur. They also got back the then small seaport of Karachi from the Khan of Kalat in Baluchistan, with the help of Karachi's Nagarseth Naoomal. Eastwick found ``more crime in Lahore Durbar in one year than in Talpurs' sixty years''. And Lambrick wrote: ``Compared to any state between the Indus and the Euphrates, Sindh may be pronounced a country considerably advanced in civilization.'' In Wali Mohammed Khan Laghari, Prime Minister, Sindh had, in the words of Dr. Burnes, the British envoy, a ``versatile genius in the style of renaissance''. And yet none of this availed against the inevitable British advance.
That the Indus was India's biggest river and Alexander had been there, acted as a magnet on the British imagination. They had had a flourishing trade in Thatta. They had reports that ``Sindh is a magnificent country''. They had, therefore, made up their mind to get Sindh.
The British had always feared France as their rival. Now they also began to fear Russia, expanding in Central Asia, north-west of lndia. When France and Russia signed a treaty of alliance in Tilsit in 1807, Britain was alarmed to no end. Noted Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General: ``The Directors are much afraid of Russians and so am I ... I feel confident that we shall have to fight the Russians on the Indus.''
The British immediately sent envoys to Sindh, Kabul, .ran, and Jodhpur. In 1819, they occupied Kutch. They began to force treaty after unequal treaty on the Mirs, which the latter were in no position to resist. And so they first occupied Karachi and Thatta. By another treaty in 1820, the British got the Mirs to keep all other Europeans and Americans out of Sindh. They extracted the right to navigate the Indus --- on the excuse that the 'British royal gift of chariot and horses for Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore, could not be transported by land. The Mirs tried to convince the Sikhs that the carriage was actually carrying gold for Syed Ahmed Barelvi, who was fighting them. But Ranjit Singh was not impressed. He, therefore, asked his French military adviser Ventura to stage military exercises on the border of Sindh, which quite frightened the Mirs. The British had vowed on this occasion to respect the Talpur sovereignty on both sides of the Indus. When, however. the Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, decided that the British must have the strategic island of Bakhar, they argued facetiously that, being an island in the Indus, its occupation by the British did not violate the Mirs' sovereignty on both sides of the river!
Maharaja Ranjit Singh very much wanted to seize Sindh. As he told his French adviser Jacquemont in 1830: ``What would be the good of my taking Tibet? It is rich countries that I want; could I not take Sindh? It is said to be a rich country. But what would the British say?'' And now Shah Shuja of Afghanistan had given Shikarpur to the Sikhs. Kabul wanted Peshawar from the Sikhs. Iran occupied Herat in Afghanistan. The British pretended to be friends of all. In the process they persuaded the Sikhs to give Shikarpur to the Sindh rulers for a consideration of fifteen lakh rupees. All this gave the British much influence in the north-west.
On top of that, Aukland, the Governor-General, decided that the different Mirs administering different areas of Sindh were to be treated as ``independent rulers''. That cooked the Talpurs' goose. The family broke up in rival factions in no time. It was ``divide and rule'' at its crudest.
The British now insisted on an ambassador in the court of Hyderabad. In vain did the Talpurs bleat: ``We want no treaties, no alliances; spare us the honour of an ambassador; or an officer must be deputed to our court, why, then, let it be a doctor.'' A physician was always welcome in those corpulent courts. (The British noted that the Mirs were too fat to fit into any normal English chair.) But they failed to see that even a British physician would be a British agent.
Dr. James Burnes, 26, was duly escorted from Kutch to Hyderabad by the Mirs, envoy Gopaldas, with due pomp and ceremony. The Sindhis were so curious to see the Englishman that every other man pretended to be ill --- with a claim to ``see the doctor''! (A similar scene was repeated in Sindh soon after Partition. When it was announced that expectant mothers would get exit permits on a priority basis, the lndian High Commissioner, Shri Sri Prakasa, found his Karachi residence inundated with women who had stuffed themselves with clothes, to look pregnant!)
Burnes found the Hyderabad court a curious mix of Pickwick and Arabian Nights. They removed his shoes --- but he would not remove his hat! The whole scene was reminiscent of King Charles II's visit to Westminster School. The principal, Dr. Busby, took him round, but he kept his hat on all the time. He explained to the surprised King: ``It would not do for my boys to suppose that there existed in the world a greater man than Dr. Busby.'' To keep the hat on, was Dr. Burnes' way of impressing the Hyderabad court that the British were boss. Whenever Burnes administered a pill to a Talpur, he was expected to take one himself- obviously to reassure them that it was not poisonous. Sindh, he noted, ` would be a fair field for English quackery to flourish.''
The early Englishmen found the Sindhi boatmen ``bigger cheats than either the Jews or the Russians''. They found the Sindhis talk as loud as four men together. Altogether the situation was so quaint, Eestwick noted: ``If Charles (Dickens) were here, all the world would soon be re ding Dickens' impressions of Sindh.''
The Hindus were second-class citizens, so that, noted Burnes, ``none seemed to have a more devout wish to see the British Colours flying on the bastions of Hyderabad than the Hindoos of respectability''. This was particularly true of Seth Naoomal Hotchand Bhojwani of Karachi, who had 500 business branches from Kutch to Kandhar to Iraq, and whose father had been forcibly ``converted''.
It all happened like this. It was the year 1831. Kundo(Kundan) a labourer's son in Karachi, had been severely reprimanded by his teacher. He was standing unhappy on a city corner when he was enticed into a mosque and converted. The Hindus of Karachi were shocked. They refused to sell provisions to the Muslims. The Muslims retaliated by polluting the town's water supply at Lyari. At this stage one Syed Nural Shah passed through the Hindu area, abusing the Hindus. Parasram, 24, younger brother of Naoomal, protested. Nural now said that Parasram had insulted the Prophet. As the Muslim mobs began to collect, Parasram escaped to Jaisalmir. To calm the situation, the Mirs called Parasram's father Hotchand to Hyderabad. Hotchand left Karachi for Hyderabad with 2,000 Hindus. On way he was seized by a Muslim mob, declared a Muslim, and confined in a Pir's house. He could not be circumcised only because he was over fifty. He refused to take any food from Muslim hands and, instead, subsisted for twelve days, on roasted gram. The princes of Kutch and Jaisalmir protested to the Mirs, who now enabled Hotchand to escape to Lakhpat in Gujerat. Here the family arranged an elaborate shuddhi ceremony costing one lakh rupees. Hotchand spent the next ten years in Lakhpat.
No wonder Naoomal turned against the Muslim misrule and sought Hindu relief in British take-over. He went all out to help the British. Naoomal, in the words of Outram, became the ``only friend of the British from Karachi to Kandhar'' during the First Afghan War. He arranged the transportation of the British troops to Afghanistan --- with himself and the Shikarpur bankers Jait Singh and Chatrumal supplying ready cash and credit. Interestingly enough, the governor of Shikarpur at the time was Jethmal, the greatgrandfather of Ram Jethmalani, now member of Parliament. Jethmal used to strike coins in his own name. His portrait is still found in the India House Library in London. Pottinger said that Naoomal became ``the hands and feet of the British forces in Sindh''. The Mirs called him and said to him: ``So you have avenged your father's insult to your heart's content.'' But they could do no more.
The Mirs were shocked to see that Dr. Burnes had detailed maps of Sindh. ``The evil i5 done,'' they said; ``you have seen our country. The Feringhee [foreigner] knows everything.'' The horses carried by river to Ranjit Singh aboard the Satellite and the Planet had proved real Trojan horses. The British had been able to gauge the river depth and map the countryside during that trip.
And then came the British imbroglio in Afghanistan. The British had gone to that country via Sindh, with a variety of aims --- to influence Sindh; to outflank the Sikhs; to aid and abet the fanatical Syed Ahmed Barelvi to harass the Sikhs in their rear; to confront the escpanding Russian power in Central Asia. But the entire British army was annihilated. Only a bedraggled Dr. Broydon returned to Abbotabad to reveal the news to a surprised world.The British could not pocket that defeat without compromising their position throughout India and, indeed, throughout the world. They, therefore, decided to cancel out the adverse effects of defeat in Afghanistan by a resounding victory elsewhere. Sindh was the obvious candidate for the exercise. Elphinstone said that action in Sindh after the defeat in Afghanistan ``exactly resembled that of a bully who, having been knocked down in a street row, goes home and beats his wife.''
Napier had been a favourite junior officer of the Duke of Wellington in the Napoleonic wars. He was now sent as commander of the detachments of the Bombay and Bengal armies to bag Sindh. He had come to Sindh just to make ``one lakh of rupees'' to marry off his three daughters. He was, therefore, in a great hurry. In vain did the poor Mirs complain of arm-twisting. And in vain did the British Political Agent, Outram, counsel patience. Said Napier: ``We have no right to seize Sindh, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, humane piece of rascality it will be.'' He added: We shall cut the Gordian knot; we are too strong to take the trouble to un-tie it.'' In his fevered imagination, Napier even thought that the Sindh commander Hosh Mohammed was, in reality, ``Hosche'', some French general! The Mirs were drawn into an unwinnable war. But by their bravery they also showed that it was not an unfightable war. Napier had ridiculed ``their crazy artillery on camel-back''. But in the Battle of Miani, near Hyderabad, on 17 February 1843 reported Thornston: ``With sword and shield, the Baluchis in more than one impetuous onset, shook and forced back the British line.'' Wrote Eastwick, another eye-witness: ``Seldom, perhaps, has the determined valour of the Baluchis on that occasion been surpassed. Our loss in this engagement was severe --- 62 killed, 6 of them British officers, and 194 wounded, of whom 13 were British officers. The Sindhi army suffered 400 fatal casualties. Later there was another engagement at Dabo --- Doabo --- with no better results.
Seth Naoomal's father, Hotchand, who had been waiting in the Karachi harbour for two weeks aboard the family ship Kotya Haripsa, now landed triumphant1y, to a hearty welcome by Hindus and Muslims alike. The Mirs' rule had ended in Sindh. They left behind only three memorials --- their tombs in Hyderabad, their hat (with flat top), and their reputation for vanity. If somebody behaves uppishly in Sindh, he is taunted: ``Do you think you are a Talpur?''
Charles Napier promptly sent triumphant word to the Governor-General, ``Peccavi'' --- Latin for ``I have Sin(ned''. He then proceeded to loot the Treasury and the Palace. But Dewan Awatrai Malkani, the Mirs' Chancellor of the Exchequer, stood in his way. Napier went to Awatrai's house for the keys but the latter said that he could not give them without the Mirs' orders. Napier threatened to shoot him, but Awatrai kept his cool. His bluff having been called, Napier left, crest fallen.
Later Napier allowed Awatrai to arrange the ladies' exit from the Fort, since he alone could approach their quarters. Awatrai sent out doli (palanquin) after doli with treasures and valuables, till twelve of them were safely out. It was only when the thirteenth doli was coming out that the breeze lifted the curtain and showed there was nobody inside. After that Napier sent in some English ladies to clear out the Begums, who were now allowed to carry only three dresses each.
Under the leadership of Awatrai and Showkiram Advani (the father of Sadhu Hiranand) people came out, sword in hand, and said that they would supply provisions at reasonable prices but that there must be no looting. That saved the city.
Many Hindus had lent money to the Mirs. Mukhi Tarachand and other Hindu leaders wanted Napier to repay the loans as ``state liability''. Napier refused. Thereupon they collected money and partly compensated the creditors. In protest against Napier's behaviour, Tarachand refused a British jagir of what later became the Hirabad area of Hyderabad.
Napier was so impressed with Awatrai's intelligence and integrity that he offered him a job, but the latter refused. Awatrai refused even a pension. Later he accepted a pension, through the Mirs.
Napier had got Sindh, but the high-handed manner in which it was seized shocked decent Englishmen in India and England alike. The Sindhis of course dubbed him ``Shaitan Ka Bhai'' (Brother of Satan). The Mirs sent their vakils --- Akhund Habibullah- Dewan Metharam and Dewan Dayaram --- to London (19, Marley Street). The aggrieved Begums petitioned Queen Victoria. None of them was heard; they were all told to go and speak to the local authority. But soon the British indignation erupted in the open. The London Times (6 May, 1843) carried a leading article condemning ``a definite and settled plan of spoilation and summary execution''. The Bombay Times called it an ``impolitic war'', and said that the British ``officers have taken Mirs' Begums''. When 800 soldiers died in the Karachi cholera, the Delhi Gazette attributed the high casualties, the high costs and ``the series of petty humiliations'', to the unjust conquest of Sindh.
Napier retaliated with his characteristic fury. He wrote to a friend: ``Don't expect me ever to be in a good temper unless I can kill an editor.''
But criticism persisted, the Government's ``Blue Book'' --- old- style ``White Paper ` --- on the subject notwithstanding. Both, British Prime Minister Peel and Governor-General Ellenborough, felt embarrassed. Peel wrote to Ellenborough of ``the extreme and growing embarrassment of the Government and the danger to its existence, and to the public interest, arising from the Scinde affair.'' London even asked Ellenborough to consider returning Sindh to the Mirs --- particularly in view of the fact that the army in Sindh was costing four times the province's revenue
But the redoubtable Duke of Wellington was all for annexation. He asked Ellenborough to ``persevere'' and not to worry over much about ``the licentious London Press discussing the exaggerated reports of the more licentious Press of India''. He clinched the issue when he said: ``Is our constitutional executive authority prepared to see a colony o f French adventurers introduced and settled on the Indus, in the service of the Sikhs?'' It was not. And so Sindh was duly annexed. The British appeased public opinion by recalling Ellenborough. Napier was quite right when he said: ``The nature of things prevents Scinde long continuing as an independent government. Had it not been fought in 1843, it would have been fought in 1853.'- The Baluchis, he said, were also ``foreigners in Scinde''. As the British were the paramount power in India, argued Napier, the people of Sindh were ``our own, in their hopes and aspirations''.
Napier was right. The sovereignty of India is indivisible.