The East India Company and Their Questionable Treaties
With the treaty in place with the Mirs in Sindh, we now need to look at where the EICo was in relation to other political events and fast-forward events to 1836.
The Durrani kingdom had been broken up, and Shah Shuja was in exile. Dost Mohammed had taken his place in Kabul, while Kandahar and Herat continued to be controlled by independent rulers. Kashmir and a part of Multan had been taken from the Afghans by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In 1836, he invaded not just Sindh but also threatened Shirkarpur, demanding, for his efforts, a hefty tribute of 12 lakhs. The Mirs, militarily unable to resist Singh, were forced to accept mediation by the EICo between themselves and the Sikhs, under the condition that they allowed the British to install a permanent Residency in Hyderabad. It was further stipulated that only the British would negotiate with Ranjit Singh. They grudgingly accepted both conditions. However, what the Mirs did not know was that the British had reasons of their own for these unpalatable ideas.
The Governor General in India was now Lord Auckland. Auckland, described as “a clever and capable but somewhat complacent and detached Whig nobleman”, was driven by that same fear that had taken hold of Lord Robert Wellesley, of foreign influence in Afghanistan. For Wellesley, it had been the French; for Auckland, it was the Russians. Auckland now sought to secure India’s northwest frontier by reinstating the pro-British Shah Shuja on the Afghan throne. On 1 October 1838, in Simla, he published the Simla Manifesto, effectively dethroning Dost Mahomed Khan. In the same breath, Auckland signed a tripartite treaty with Shah Shuja and Ranjit Singh, binding Shuja to relinquish all his designs on Sindh, including his desire to demand tribute; the same clause, however, forced the Mirs to pay a sum of 15 lakhs to Ranjit Singh instead.
“Shah Shuja does not appear to have acquainted Lord Auckland with the fact that he had already relinquished all his claims on Shikarpur and Sind by a solemn engagement written on the Koran, and so Lord Auckland thought it just to demand from the Mirs some equivalent for the emancipation which he supposed he had secured to them. The nature of this was dictated by the necessities of the situation. They were required to allow and assist the passage of the British array through Sind to Afghanistan, to permit the temporary occupation of Shikarpur and some other territory as a military base, and to suspend that article of the treaty of 1832 which forbade the transport of military stores by the Indus.” (Aitken)
It is no surprise, then, that the Mirs were angry. These demands were just the beginning of what the Gazetteer calls a “chain of negotiations, enforced treaties, misunderstandings, threats and enhanced demands which culminated in the battle of Miani.” The battle, which would be fought in 1843, would be the start of events that would eventually result in the annexation of Sindh.
As per tradition, four Mirs ruled Hyderabad at the time — Nur Muhammad, Hasir Khan, Muhammad Khan and Sobdar; Mirpur Khas was the seat of Sher Muhammad, and that of Khairpur was occupied by the aged Rustam Ali Khan. While the men collectively did not trust each other, they could agree that they distrusted the British more and dreaded their power. At Hyderabad, the suspicious four “friends” had taken to sleeping in the same room at night, never hunted alone and were never out of sight of one another. Meanwhile, the Mirpur Khas and Khairpur courts, although independent of Hyderabad, were squabbling with each other. To add to this already volatile powder keg, the minor Baluchi chiefs were grumbling, leaving the political officers in Sindh walking a miserable tight rope that required more firmness and tact that any of them had ever envisioned, for “The Mirs vacillated, were insolent and submissive by turns, made promises and gave strict injunctions to their officers not to act up to them, and broke out occasionally in silly acts of treachery and violence which brought worse conditions on themselves.”
The very nature of the problems culminated in an incident that the British were not likely to forget. As soon as the Mirs agreed to allow the passage of the British army through their territories, their governor at Fort Manora in Karachi ordered the guns to open fire on the British ship, the “Wellesley” as she approached the harbour. The “Wellesley” replied by levelling the sea face of the fort and landing troops to occupy it. Around the same time, all the stores gathered up for the troops at Hyderabad were mysteriously destroyed, and the Assistant Resident made a headlong flight from the city.
“This led to a revised treaty, with severe conditions, which, being presented on the point of the bayonet, was accepted, and was ratified by the Government of India on 11th March, 1839. By this, they were to be protected from foreign powers and the independence of each of them was guaranteed, but they were required to pay three lakhs of rupees a year towards the maintenance of a British force in Sind. Mir Sobdar was exempted from all share in these payments on account of his uniform friendliness. Mir Rustam of Khairpur had, in the previous year, willingly entered into a treaty by which his territories came under the protection of the British Government, he engaging to assist our troops in their passage and also to lend us temporarily the fortress of Bukkun. Before all these matters were finally settled, in November 1838, Sir John Keane had landed at Ghoraban, then called Vikkun, and successfully taken his army through the country, the Bengal army and that of Shah Shuja joining him in Upper Sind.” (Aitken)
The Mirs, for their part, withheld supplying Keane’s army, but the merchant princes of Karachi, on the other hand, principally Seth Naomal, could not do enough for the British – his motivation, and that of the other merchants, was not altruistic; the British came bearing an abundance of cash and for a time, as long as flowed like water, the towns of Karachi, Tata, Sukkum and Shikarpur, drank their fill on this new found wealth. The Mirs were, to say the least, displeased and would most likely have wished they had never heard of the East India Company. However, British fortunes in Afghanistan reversed in 1842 when they were booted out of Kabul, leading to a disastrous retreat and even worse blow to their public image. At this point, the Mirs could have exploited the situation, but instead, they held themselves aloof. In their court was Major James Outram (whose career we shall explore later, in more detail) as Resident, and he managed, through some intricate diplomacy, to prevent the Mirs from running him and every other European into the sea. The Mirs, for their part, were still arguing and intriguing, something Outram himself was able to exploit for his benefit.
However, the embarrassment that was the retreat from Kabul left the British not only sore and shamefaced; as soon as the fiasco was dusted (though it would not be buried for many decades to come), Lord Ellenborough, who had replaced Lord Auckland in 1842, decided a revision of the terms with Sindh was due. He now insisted that, quite brazenly, the EICo would no longer accept cash demands from native states, but now demanded their lands instead. As for the EICo in Sindh itself, as there had been ongoing infighting and jealousies between the military and political departments, he simply withdrew all political officers and appointed Sir Charles Napier. Napier wielded both civil and military control and could use both, “to settle matters,” amicably if possible and if not, then by force. Napier was not a fool, and he saw exactly what Ellenborough was playing at. As Napier pointed out, “We have no right to seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, humane and useful piece of rascality it will be.” (Aitken)
Just how rascally they were prepared to be will be seen in Annexation.
Sources:
Aitken, E.H. Gazetteer of the Province of Sind. Karachi: Mercantile Steam Press, 1907.
Postans, Thomas. Personal Observations on Sindh: the Manners and Customs of its Inhabitants and its Productive Capabilities. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman, 1843.
Verma, Esha (2016). Sindh in Transition: From Mughal Rule to British Annexation, Early Eighteenth Century to 1843. Open Access Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.26686/wgtn.17143394.v1
Downfall of Talpur dynasty and British annexation of Sindh: A Critical Review of British-Talpur Treaties.
Bashir Ahmed Summer Sultana, Department of Political Science, University of Karachi, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. WALIA journal 35(1): 132-139, 2019. Available online at www.Waliaj.com
Links:
The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: https://medium.com/@ruthwick.m/the-fourth-anglo-mysore-war-and-the-death-of-tipu-sultan-809332ffc7a4
Mutiny Reflections 