Talpur dynasty

The Talpur dynasty ruled Sindh, in what is now southern Pakistan, from 1783 until the British conquest of 1843. A Baloch clan that had served the earlier Kalhora rulers, the Talpurs seized power under Mir Fateh Ali Khan and governed through several branches of the family, with seats at Khairpur, Hyderabad, Mirpur Khas and Tando Muhammad Khan. One branch survived as the princely state of Khairpur until 1955.

The Talpurs were Baloch, descended from Mir Sulaiman Kako Talpur, who had come to Sindh from Choti Bala in southern Punjab. An ancestor, Mir Shahdad Khan, served as a Mughal official and founded the town of Shahdadpur in 1713. For decades the clan served the Kalhora dynasty, but relations broke down after the Kalhora ruler had the Talpur chief Mir Bahram Khan and his son put to death. The Talpurs rose in revolt, and the Kalhoras were overthrown at the Battle of Halani; the last Kalhora ruler, Abdul Nabi, lost power in 1783.

Mir Fateh Ali Khan took the title of Rais, ruler of Sindh, and kept the Kalhora capital at Hyderabad. Early Talpur rule became known as the Chauyari, the "rule of four friends", because Fateh Ali shared power with his brothers Ghulam Ali, Karam Ali and Murad Ali. A nephew, Mir Sohrab Khan, founded a separate branch at Khairpur, while another relative, Mir Thara Khan, set up the Manikani branch around Mirpur Khas in the south-east. Fateh Ali ruled until his death in 1801; his successors at Hyderabad included Ghulam Ali, Karam Ali and Murad Ali. The family administered the land through jagirs, or land grants, and for much of the period acknowledged the overlordship of the Durrani rulers of Afghanistan and paid them tribute. At its widest the Talpur realm reached into Balochistan and Kutch and held, by one estimate, about four million people. In 1832 the Talpurs joined forces to repel an invasion by the Afghan king Shah Shuja.

The Talpurs were Shia Muslims and promoted Shia devotion in Sindh. In 1785 Fateh Ali Khan built the first of many replica shrines of the Shia Imams at Tando Agha in Hyderabad, for people who could not afford to travel to the real shrines in Iraq and Iran. The Qadamgah of Imam Ali in Hyderabad houses footprints believed by the faithful to be those of Ali, said to have been a gift from the Qajar shah of Persia. The Talpur era also saw the building of Kot Diji Fort and the Faiz Mahal palace and the reconstruction of the great fortress of Ranikot.

Rivalries between the branches gave the East India Company its opening. The Khairpur chiefs asked the British to take Karachi from their Hyderabad cousins, and British troops seized the port in 1839. In 1843 an army under Charles Napier advanced on Hyderabad. On 17 February it defeated the Talpur forces led by Mir Nasir Khan at Miani, and a second victory near Hyderabad on 24 March completed the conquest. Most of Sindh was annexed to the Company's territories, the first part of present-day Pakistan to come under its direct rule.

The Khairpur branch kept its throne as a princely state under British paramountcy. In 1932 the ruler Mir Ali Nawaz Khan presided over a conference at Jacobabad calling for Baloch unity. Khairpur acceded to Pakistan on 3 October 1947 and was merged into the province of West Pakistan in 1955. The replica shrines the Talpurs founded are still in use.

Our maps label the Talpur state "Sindh" in 1800 and 1815; by 1878 the region lies within the British Raj.