THIS is apropos of Mir Muhammad Ali Tapur's rejoinder, 'The reality of Talpur rule' (March 5), in response to my letter, 'Research on Hur Movement'. I am grateful that Mir Muhammad Ali has started the discourse on one of the issues discussed in my letter, i.e. bracketing Talpurs with non-local rulers, some unkind remarks notwithstanding. Such discourses are a source of healthy intellectual debate, otherwise non-existent in such a bleak academic atmosphere prevailing in the country.
Mir Muhammad Ali has rightly said that when Talpurs overthrew the Kalhoroa dynasty, it was their fourth generation. Therefore, they were less alien than Arabs, Arguns and others.
For the efforts of extending 'Maarik Wah', a natural inundated canal and some dug tributaries from it, which contributed towards agriculture of Shahdadpur, Talpurs ought to be given credit.
However, dividing territory within the various branches of the tribe in power was more to buy clan's loyalty. However, this policy did not work in the case of the Khairpur clan which in order to save their state went into the British camp. Similarly, turning entire fertile lands into meadows or doling out to loyal clans can also not be justified, nor can be equated with present-day DHAs. In any case, two wrongs cannot make one right.
I agree that I did not mention the reasons why Talpurs revolted and overthrew their masters because it would have entailed another discussion, far from the main subject. Mir Muhammad Ali has admitted the change in Sindhi alphabets but he insists that change was minor which in his view does not warrant any credit to the British.
I would like to say that originally Sindhi lacked an authentic script/alphabet. It was written in more than eight different scripts, i.e. Thattai, Khudabadi, Luhaniki, Memonki, Khojiki, Devnagri, Gurmukhi, Hatkai (Hatvaniki).
When the British arrived, they found the pandits writing Sindhi in Devnagri script. Traders, including Khojas and Memons, were using a variety of 'Modi' or 'Vanika' scripts, without any vowels. Hindu women were using Gurmukhi and government employees were using some kind of Arabic script.
In 1849 the British produced an English-Sindhi dictionary in Devnagri. A year later they translated the Bible in Sindhi, again in the Devnagri script. Majority of government servants were Hindus who favoured the Arabic script because they did not know Devnagri, and had to learn a new script.
A big debate started, with Capt Burton favouring the Arabic script and Capt Stack favouring Devnagri. Sir Bartle Frere, the then commissioner of Sindh, referred the matter to the British East India Company's Court of Directors, who ruled in favour of the Arabic script on the ground that Muslim names could not be written in Devnagri.
Thereafter, Sir Richard Burton, an Orientalist, with the help of local scholars Munshi Thanwardas and Mirza Sadiq Ali Beg evolved a 52-letter Sindhi alphabet. Therefore, my giving credit to Sir Bartle Frere in development of modern Sindhi script is not without basis.
MANZOOR H. KURESHI
Karachi
