Faiz Mahal Palace. Principle residence of
The royal family of Khairpur. 
Brief Outline of Recent History
Honour Guard at Faiz Palace 12-09-1951
In
1947, on the 15th of August, British paramountcy over the foreign
affairs of the Princely States of India came to an end, leaving them
fully independent but also surprised and unprepared. All sovereign
rulers had the choice of remaining fully independent or accede to
either of the newly formed dominions of India and Pakistan. The States
were misled into believing that they would continue to exist in the
same relations with the newly formed dominions as they did with the
British Empire, if they acceded to either dominion. This they believed
until the very last days before independence for India and Pakistan. It
was this erroneous belief that led the vast majority of rulers to
reject the proposal of a union of princely states such as the United
Arab Emirates today, as put forward by the Nawab of Bhopal. After
Accession however, the states lost everything except the Ex-Ruler’s
titles, privileges and a privy purse which was promised to them by an
agreement. As India failed as a large centralized state in maintaining the higher quality of life that the former subjects of the princely states were used to, there came a great resurgence in the popularity of the princes and they began to participate in politics. ( Even today 300 to 350 million people live below the 'poverty line' in India. The poverty line being 300 Indian Rupees or under 7 US Dollars per month! assuming those earning more than $7 a month are not poor! ) Foreseeing certain defeat in the upcoming elections, Indhira Gandhi (prime minister of India) violated the agreement made with the princes by treacherously abolishing all the privileges and privy purses on 28th December, 1971. These priviliges were guaranteed by the Government of India, and her own father Nehru, the first prime minister of India. The princes were financially destroyed as most of them had not made personal investments during their reign. Suffering great economic hardships they were forced to abandon politics. Furthermore, Bollywood movies were used as propaganda tool with great success, to villianize and discredit the princes. In Pakistan too, in 1972, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did the same to the rulers even though they had mostly stayed away from politics. The truth was that despite all the palaces and fabulous jewels that the princes had aquired, the cost of maintaining the government along with all the state institutions including the monarchy, was significantly less then the expenditure on comparable areas by the Indian government due to a much smaller bureaucracy. This spared more revenue to be spent on public welfare then the Indian districts could muster. Commisioners, majistrates, governors, even prime ministers and presidents of India could only dream of the legitimacy the Indian Monarchs had in the eyes of their subjects.
In 1947, accession was the only feasible option because the states were given absolutely no opportunity to organize their independence and while many had excellent military forces; their defenses had been completely crippled due to fighting the powerful armies of Hitler and the axis-powers, in alliance with the British in the Second World War. Ironically, it was the British, under labour party control, that were coercing the rulers to surrender to the new successor ‘empires’ of Pakistan and India. (The Kingdom of Bhutan is the only Princely State that survives to this day).
Final page of the Instrument
of Accession 03-Oct-1947
The Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah
had publicly declared that Pakistan “was not going to coerce,
intimidate or put any pressure on any State making its choice. But
those States which wish to join the Pakistan Constituent Assembly will
find us ready and willing to negotiate with them an agreement for the
mutual advantage of both the parties.” When India usurped the states
Mr. Jinnah did not, although he did take over those functions of these
states that might possibly have posed a threat to Pakistan in the
future. These functions were foreign affairs, defense, and
communications to some degree. It was a treaty called an “instrument of
accession” signed by the rulers and Mr. Jinnah that permitted Pakistan
to manage the above mentioned functions on the rulers behalf. However,
the rulers were guaranteed sovereignty over all other matters. The
instrument specifically promised no coercion to enter into any other
agreement with or recognition of any constitution of Pakistan.
Furthermore, by taking over the function of Defense from Khairpur for
the sake of Pakistan’s security it became incumbent on Pakistan to
protect the sovereignty of Khairpur.
The Eighth Sovereign of Khairpur, Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur II (the present Ex-Ruler) acceded to Pakistan on the 3rd of October 1947 while in his minority through his Regent.
- The State had the first democratic elections based on universal adult franchise in Nov.1950, before they were held in Pakistan. Mr. Liaquat Ali Khan, the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, and a personal friend of the Mir of Khairpur inaugurated the Khairpur Legislative Assembly. The Mir protected this fledgling democracy from dominance by feudal forces. It was his support of Mr. Kizilbash a non-Sindhi yet progressive administrator that allowed for his election as chief minister. The young monarch even forced his own relatives to wholly follow the policies of Kizilbash. Soon afterwards, following Khairpurs example and much to the chagrin of the dictatorship of Pakistan, the rulers of Bahawalpur and Kalat introduced democracy in their countries as well.
- The State provided better quality free health care for its citizens, far superior than that provided in Pakistan. Free health care meant free consultations with doctors, free medicine, and free operations. Even food was provided free, both for the patient and his visitors! Eminent foreign doctors were invited to train local doctors by performing operations with them.
- It had the highest per capita expenditure on education of all units that joined Pakistan. The state spent 22% of its budget on education. European teachers were employed to train local teachers of primary and high schools. The best and most qualified teachers were concentrated in Khairpur for college education. Primary education was compulsory while it was genuinely free up till metric, to all who came. The poorest students were provided with free books, housing, clothing and even food. After metric, scholarships were given generously. Many of these very students attained prominence not just in Khairpur but Sindh, Pakistan and abroad. Indeed, some of these very students that received free clothing and food later became ministers, chief ministers, justices and chief justices. (free education of dubious quality is just now being provided in the Punjab and still remains to become a reality in Sindh - 50 years later! ). After the merger with Pakistan this education came to an end and the children had no choice but to join the oppressive child labour force of Pakistan.
- Adult education was given attention as well with the setting up of special schools. Furthermore, an industrial school for women was set up with a German lady as principal.
- Khairpur had a post partition (1947-1955) revenue growth of 310%. The highest of any area in Pakistan was the Punjab at 40%, while Sindh had only 13%.
- Despite having negligible taxes, its budget per capita was more than double than that of the highest found in Pakistan.
- It had an extremely low crime rate due to the expeditious disposal of criminal and civil cases, while there were widespread complaints about such in adjoining regions.
- The State had a swiftly growing industrial base, which formed the main part of its revenue. It was the state’s heavy investment in its human resources through education that provided it with a concentration of skilled labour force technicians and engineers. This allowed for its industrial development as private enterprises began to invest in Khairpur as it provided the necessary workforce. Perhaps the greatest testimony of Khairpur's economic success was that there were negligible agricultural taxes such as dhull etc. despite it being deep in the rural interior of Sindh! Mir Ali Murad had personally toured Europe and chosen the machinery for industry. Khairpur had only built one industrial zone that had led to so much economic growth and welfare. It had developed a new 5 year program to build eight more industrial zones for which roads and power houses were already being built. Loans were being provided to private industry to set up in the new zones, plots of land were already taken over by private firms. God only knows what was in store for the next five year plan after that. But alas it was not to be.
To provide information to the public, Khairpur State
published every act, and procedure of government
and judiciary. The work was not copyrighted and was
available at a nominal price and this allowed for the
preservation of its history. One such publication is
the Budget Speech 1955.
A few years after the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan (1951), facing
a brutishly aggressive government of Pakistan, the Mir, now at the age
of 22, was forced to “merge” Khairpur with the “One Unit” of West
Pakistan, a political reorganization designed to support dictatorship.
Khairpur and Bahawalpur were the first states to be annexed in 1955
through a Merger Agreement which their rulers were forced to sign in
1954 on threat of military invasion. This threat was made by then
defense minister, General Iskander Mirza (Dictator-Governor General
1955-1958) while his right hand man, General Ayub (Dictator-President
1958-1969) was the chief of the armed forces at the time. The Khan of
Kalat who had simultaneously received this threat, refused to accept
any such illegal agreement and this lead to a military invasion
beginning on the 6th October 1958, causing a massacre of unarmed
civilians in Kalat city along with numerous other human rights
violations, mass murder and atrocities throughout Balochistan.
Curiously enough, none of the other states, which had not introduced
democracy, were asked to merge and surrender their sovereignty to the
'One Unit' until 1969; a fact about which most historians are unaware. The merger agreement violated the very agreement that the rulers had with the founders of Pakistan. The people of Khairpur offered to fight for their independence but the odds were impossible. Mir Ali Murad refused to accept the suggestions that he move abroad to Britain or Switzerland with his personal assets and government and not sign the agreement; thereby not giving Pakistan even the pretext of legitimacy and letting the people fight. However, it was to spare his subjects the horrors of a military invasion that the ruler signed agreement after taking guarantees for their welfare and continuance of the benefits that the state provided to its people as well as his royal privileges.
After the merger of the State, this agreement too was violated and all developments were brought to an end, retarded into non-existence. To the corrupt military controlled government of Pakistan of that time, social and economic development of these states was seen as a threat, particularly because development of the provinces bordering the states was pathetic and this eventually would have led to unrest. Inside Pakistan, Khairpur was relegated to the backwaters.(By 1985 the real income of this area fell to a 50th of what it was!!) Virtually every promise of the merger agreement was broken. During the regime of general Ayub Khan, dictator of Pakistan, practically all the industrial units were shut down as soldiers marched into factories and stole their assets. The suddenly unemployed workforce, under great duress, fled to Karachi and Lahore, while many were reduced to starvation and begging.
The devastating “one unit” fiasco officially came to an end on the 1st of July, 1970. It had led to the genocide of over a million Pakistanis of Bengal, the break up of Pakistan and the formation of Bangladesh. Soon afterwards, the remaining provinces were allowed a mock existence, however, the States were not even permitted that. The catastrophe brought on by the Pakistan government not only destroyed the well-being and once bright future of the citizens of Khairpur in the 1950's but also that of the successive generations of their children as well. What is worse there seems to be no end in sight to their miseries.
Pakistan reduced the people of Khairpur to a worse condition than even its own miserable citizens. Unemployment rose limitlessly and the law and order situation became a nightmare with corrupt Pakistani officials being complicit in crimes, a condition that remains to this day, unabated. Rather than securing his own future, Ali Murad, apprehending such treachery from the Government of Pakistan, established the Khairpur Welfare Trust with the last remains of his personal wealth in the hope of providing a little relief to his former subjects. This Trust was usurped and its assets handed over to a military fund. Furthermore, without any provocation whatsoever, Ali Murad's personal revenue providing assets such as agricultural lands and factories were seized by the Pakistan government. Having been already deprived of his jewels he had spent the remains of his wealth on his former subjects as they turned to him for aid when economic and social catastrophe was brought on by the Pakistan government. Soon Ali Murad was financially destroyed. Embarrassed to face his own people as he was unable to help or protect them he became a hermit in his own palace where he lives to this day in isolation.
Today his once beautiful palaces are crumbling and on the verge of collapse. Mir Ali Murad refuses to meet anyone except one or two friends and that too very rarely. He has two sons, prince Mir Abbas Raza Talpur and prince Mir Mehdi Raza Talpur. The younger son, prince Mehdi, is in charge of his father’s estate and is trying to convert it into revenue producing assets against considerable odds. Much to the discomfort of established polititians the younger son has become the public face of the last royal family of Sindh, and has recently started to give audience to people. Of his family's present situation he says: "It is one thing to surrender crown and country and then to live a life of an ordinary citizen in ones homeland, but another of having to live in Pakistan that is one of the most corrupt states of the world. What ever personal assets remain are mainly in Sindh, our homeland and we have no desire to leave it, but life inside of Pakistan is full of uncertainty and constant political and economic instability bringing misery to the vast majority of the population. This is thanks primarily to the military establishment that rules Pakistan directly or indirectly. Our personal wealth has been taken from us by one means or other, and we live on earnings which would be considered as middle class income in an industrially developed country. We are now in financial crises and find ourselves unable to protect our heritage. The lawlessness in Sindh is such that benefiting from tourism is out of the question. What is very painful is the fact that attacks on the meagre remains of our private property continues, unabated, to this day causing us to live in constant fear for our livelihood. My family has continuously lived in a constant state of traumatic tension and I have found that it has affected both their physical and mental health as they suffer from severe depression."
