Around 1825, the then super power recognised the importance of Kurrechee, as the gateway to northern India, Afghanistan etc, and decided that it should be annexed. Accordingly, missionaries, travellers and agents started pouring into the city. Their representative at the court of Mirs became active.
Out of the agents sent to Kurrechee, the most important or successful was Captain V.W.S. Hart, who camped at Kurrechee around 1830, and went straight to work, contacted all possible groups - the Syeds, the Hindus, even the slaves but found all uninterested in a rising against the Mirs, except his host, Naomal: the great grandson of Bhojomal, founder of the city. Who got excited with the idea of a city-state under him. In the words of Henery Pottinger The company representative at Hyderabad as governor-general at Calcutta.
For a scheme they dug back into the history and found that about 36 years back from 1831 the city changed hands from Khan of Kalat to the Mirs, due to a Mandir-Mosque issue.
The opportunity came their way when a Hindu student, tired of beatings by his teacher took refuge in a mosque. Taking advantage of the tension, one Nooral Shah came to the house of Naomal and started creating a scene.
Parsram, the younger brother of Naomal, replied. During the heat, Parsram is said to have uttered some blasphemies, Parsram was immediately whisked away to Jaiselmer and Nooral Shah took to all the important cities of Sindh crying blasphemy, blasphemy. Raising a hue and cry amidst the Muslims of Sindh.
It was demanded that since Parsram has fled outside the jurisdiction of the Mirs, his father Hotchand should be tried in his place (it is interesting to note that Hindus were so confident of justice under the Mirs, and of their influence, that only Parsram fled and no other male or female member of the family).
Mir Murad Ali, the then ruler of Sindh was intelligent enough to see through the ploy. He so handled the whole issue that it petered out. This sagacity on the part of the Mir earned him a reprieve of eight years. That Kurrechee fell in 1939 is a different story.
Should we not take a lesson from the Mirs [Talpurs] and see through the plot hatched by the "Super Power" of today.
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