16. A Forest Fit for a Prince His Highness Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur II

In the irrigated desert of central Sindh, Mehrano is a privately protected riverine forest.

His Highness Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur II has led an extraordinary life. Barely fourteen years old, he was crowned the ruler of the princely state of Khairpur in upper Sindh. When he turned eighteen, he was called back from England where he was studying at Cambridge University, and was formally handed over the reins of power in 1952. An enlightened man, he initiated a series of democratic reforms, breaking his family’s traditional feudal hold over the state. Consequently, Khairpur became a prosperous state decorated with architectural masterpieces, an exemplary judicature and an independent legislature.

When the independent state was forced to merge with the one unit of West Pakistan in 1955, he saw Khairpur’s institutions crumble one after the other, and powerless, he adopted confinement in his royal ‘Takar Bungalow’ in Kot Diji. He was only in his early twenties at the time and as the years passed, he was unable to come to terms with the way his state had been taken out of his hands. He sought personal sanctuary from the affairs of the world by immersing himself in Islam and the conservation of nature. Over the years, he has devoted his life to transforming his family’s privately owned game reserve or shikargah called Mehrano, near Kot Diji, into a wildlife refuge.

H.H. Mir Murad, who is now the last sovereign ruler of Sindh, says that Mehrano is the last vestige of the original ecological face of upper Sindh. “The agricultural lands are slowly eating into the sanctuary,” he explains in his soft-spoken, public school accent. A reserved, unassuming man now in his sixties, he shies away from public contact, meeting only a small circle of close friends and family. He describes his initiative to protect Mehrano: “The government’s more urgent priorities have, so far, forced us to take on a national task almost single-handedly. Naturally, progress is limited and slow; much slower, unfortunately, than the spread of the negative environment for wildlife that is growing all around us. Fraudulence has been allowed to enter the education system to such an extent that the return to primeval savagery has become all too apparent. In these circumstances the survival of non-aggressive life forms has become perilous.”

The approximately one square mile or 640 acres of the Mehrano Private Wildlife Refuge comprise riverine forest, grassland, a small lake and desert habitat. The approach to Mehrano is through the agricultural lands owned by the Mir (around 1,200 acres are owned by his family and relatives). Sequestered in this agricultural heartland is the unique ‘wildlife forest’ area which is Mehrano’s core zone. Several jeep routes take one into the heart of this forest, where there is a small, multi-storied hunting lodge. A narrow staircase goes up to the roof where a magnificent bird’s eye view of the thick acacia forest canopy and the desert just beyond await the visitor. As evening falls, all is quiet except for the birds and the rustling of animals in the forest below. This is Sindh as it once was a few centuries ago, before the forests were cut down to meet agricultural demands.

Deep inside the forest, there are a number of especially constructed hides for viewing the main species, Black Buck, Hog Deer, Wild Boar, and resident and migratory birds that come from as far as Siberia. The hides are located well inside the dense forest, a mass of matted under-wood carpets your feet along the way. Luxuriant sedge and rank weed are found in abundance near the lake, which is home to waterfowl. Long grass trims the forest, the only sounds are of the wildlife. The Talpur Mirs were very fond of their game reserves. They had entire villages uprooted and moved further along the banks of the river because they did not want the sounds made by the villagers to disturb their game! Even today, visitors are told to tread softly and remain silent when approaching the hides for fear of alarming the wildlife. The camouflaged hides afford views of the animals at an arm’s length.

A small section of the refuge is cordoned off by a high mud walled enclosure, this area is home to one of the largest herds of Black Buck (Antilope cervicapra) in Pakistan, numbering 268 males and 225 females. One of Mehrano’s biggest achievements has been the successful breeding in captivity of the Black Buck, an antelope species indigenous to the desert plains of the subcontinent that had all but disappeared from the region. In 1987, H.H. Mir Murad enclosed a small area in Mehrano to start captive breeding of an almost extinct herd originally protected by his ancestor, Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur I in 1865. Black Bucks are still being bred at Mehrano from that old stock, with the addition of new stock in 1987 from nearby Khar Centre in the Kirthar National Park in Sindh. Today there are 493 Black Bucks roaming freely in the confines of their enclosure at Mehrano – an awe-inspiring sight.

Mehrano is also the last stronghold of the Hog Deer in Pakistan, numbering 21 males and 47 females. The Hog Deer is a timid and helpless animal that has been pursued mercilessly in Sindh, it’s skin is precious, it’s meat is widely enjoyed and live animals are often given as gifts. The other species in the forest include wild boars, jackals, jungle cats, mongoose, porcupines, lizards, snakes, turtles, skinks and different kinds of fish, birds and insects. In the era of the Talpur Mirs, the shikargahs of the ruling family were located all along the banks of the River Indus, often stretching for miles. Mehrano is all that remains of these vast riverine forests, which served as dykes to the river and prevented the desert from encroaching upon the fertile valley plain. In a region where irrigated agriculture and massive deforestation has destroyed the original eco-system, Mehrano is a special reminder of the natural landscape that was once home to Asiatic rhinos and lions.

It was Mir Sohrab Khan Talpur, the founder of this kingdom of upper Sindh, who established the Mehrano game reserve in 1790. He ruled Khairpur State from 1783 to 1829. The Talpurs are of Baloch origin and came to power by defeating the last Kalhora sovereign and his foreign allies in 1783 after a period of war that began in 1775 with the murder of Mir Bahram Khan, the chief of the Talpur clan. When power was transferred to the Talpurs, Sindh was divided into a confederacy of three kingdoms with their capitals at Khairpur, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas. Mir Sohrab Khan established himself as the paramount ruler of upper Sindh. At the height of its power, Khairpur ranged from Gandava (now in Balochistan) to Shahgarh (now in India), stretching across an area of well over 50,000 square kilometres.

The arrival of the British in 1838 weakened the writ of Talpur rule across Sindh, but the Mirs of Khairpur managed to retain self-rule by avoiding confrontation. By 1851, however, they had lost a major chunk of their territory to the British, with only 6,050 square kilometres of Khairpur State remaining. The reins of the state continued to shift from one ruler to another quite smoothly. Mir Faiz Muhammad Talpur (H.H. Mir Murad’s father) was the only ruler who was removed by the British. His minor son, Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur II was crowned ruler and sent to attend the finest schools of the time in the subcontinent while the British took full administrative control of the state. (Like his father, H.H. Mir Murad too was the only child.) On September 16, 1951, Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur II cut short his higher education at Cambridge University to return to Khairpur for his formal investiture ceremony, which was conducted by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was also a personal friend of the rulers of Khairpur. Khairpur State had chosen to accede to Pakistan on October 3, 1947, and even before then had celebrated Pakistan Day on August 14, 1947 to discourage its considerable Hindu population from any thoughts of joining India instead of Pakistan.

Already, by 1950 general elections had been held in the state, the first ever elections in the entire subcontinent on the basis of universal adult franchise. Mumtaz Hussain Kizilbash became the first elected chief minister of Khairpur State. Upon his return to Pakistan, H.H. Mir Murad had over-ruled his family’s hold in the regency council (which had been set up to rule the affairs of the state during his absence) to allow the smooth transition of power to the elected assembly. H.H. Mir Murad protected this fledgling democracy from dominance by feudal forces and supported Kizilbash, a non-Sindhi who was a progressive administrator, in the elections. The house comprising 30 members with strong opposition worked until 1955. In that year, the house refused to join the one unit of West Pakistan. Until then, Khairpur and the other princely states that had joined Pakistan were an integral part of the country but had retained their autonomy. The military-led government in power in Pakistan at the time decided to abolish the sovereignty of these states. When the threat of military intervention was felt in Khairpur, H.H. Mir Murad chose to avoid bloodshed by surrendering his state.

Today, H.H. Mir Ali Murad Khan is a difficult man to meet. Due to ill health he rarely leaves his bungalow, which is located near the Talpur’s large fort in Kot Diji. The Talpurs would traditionally take refuge in the fort when threatened. They also built several palaces in Khairpur Mirs, their capital. H. H. Mir Murad only meets his former subjects during the first ten days of Muharram, when he emerges to hold public majalis in his Faiz Mahal in Khairpur Mirs. A sprawling moulded brick palace with its façade decorated by Jaipur sandstone, the Faiz Mahal was built two hundred years ago and its furnishings have remained unchanged over the years. The family crest is displayed prominently in the large, chandeliered reception hall. Portraits of the Mirs of Khairpur adorn the walls. To foil this grandeur, water seepage from the nearby British-built Rohri canal is threatening the foundations of the Faiz Mahal and has already ruined its flooring. Faiz Mahal is now only used for the family’s public interactions.

The Talpur palace’s faded glory is a reflection of the heydays of Khairpur State. By 1954-55, Khairpur had a revenue growth of 310 per cent, the highest of any area in Pakistan . Khairpur State spent 22 per cent of its revenue on education. Free education was provided up to the matric level. European teachers were employed to train local teachers. The state also provided free healthcare to its citizens and there were no property, income or wealth taxes or custom duties. The state also enjoyed a negligible crime rate and there was an expeditious disposal of criminal and civil cases. The state had a modern textile mill, a handloom woolen factory, a silk weaving factory, a hosiery factory, ginning and processing factories, a tannery, three ice plants, a match factory, a Virginia tobacco factory and a vanaspati oil and soap factory.

After the merger of the state, these developments were brought to an end by the federal government. The industrial units were shut down and removed by the regimes of Ayub Khan and then Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in violation of the merger agreement which had stipulated that these industries be used to provide revenue for Khairpur. The closure of the industries caused the skilled workforce to leave Khairpur for Karachi. The Khairpur Welfare Trust, which had been set up by the Mir and to which he had transferred the majority of his shares in the industries, was usurped and the real income of the area fell to one fiftieth of what it had been. Soon the high educational standards of the former state had also fallen drastically. Ironically, H.H. Murad’s family had been an avid supporter of the Pakistan Movement, providing considerable financial help to Muslim educational institutions like Aligarh University and University of Dhaka. It was then that H.H. Mir Ali Murad Khan withdrew from state affairs, feeling betrayed and disillusioned by the actions of the federal government. Several political parties approached him but he declined all offers to play an active role in the politics of Sindh. It appears that he found solace in his great love for conservation.

During his youth, H.H. Mir Murad had been a skilled hunter, he had a large collection of trophies that he had collected during big game hunts in East Africa. After his state was dismantled, he stopped traveling abroad. Then, as he turned more towards religion, he decided to consult his father-in-law, the eminent Shia scholar Allama Rashid Turabi, on whether hunting was permissible in Islam. Allama Rashid Turabi informed him that according to Islamic principles, hunting for pleasure is forbidden, it is only allowed as a necessity. After he heard this, H. H. Mir Murad never hunted again. In 1968 he turned Mehrano, his family’s traditional shikargah, into the ‘Mehrano Private Wildlife Refuge.’ Alarmed at the speed at which wildlife was disappearing from his lands, H.H. Mir Murad initiated a detailed management plan for the refuge. From 1971 onwards he personally conducted wild flora plantation work to optimise the food and breeding cover within Mehrano forest. He was thus able to increase the wildlife carrying capacity and make up for the large area of forest lost to agriculture over the years. Historically, the refuge contained now extinct species of Swamp Deer. The refuge was also an important staging and breeding ground of migratory waterfowl. In fact, H.H. Mir Murad’s most important habitat work has been the reconstruction of ‘Depart Pond,’ on which 5,000 to 10,000 waterfowl take refuge before they depart for Siberia. Over the years, he has become so attached to Mehrano that he knows each and every animal by sight.

H. H. Mir Murad’s active interest in conservation led him to serving on the government’s Sindh Wildlife Management Board from 1986-94. It was during this dynamic period of the Sindh Wildlife Board that effective measures were adopted for the restoration of the dwindling stocks of wildlife in Sindh. In 1974 the nearby Nara desert and Takar area of Kot Diji were declared wildlife sanctuaries, but Mehrano remains to this day a private shikargah in the books of the Sindh Wildlife Department. In 1993, all hunting in the region was prohibited under the cover of the new Sindh Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Act. Unfortunately, in 1994 the Sindh Wildlife Board was dissolved by the government and H. H. Mir Murad, by now facing ill health, became increasingly isolated.

In recent years, H. H. Mir Murad has delegated the affairs of his estate to his youngest son, Prince Mir Mehdi Raza Khan Talpur, who will now be managing Mehrano. “I was away studying Economics in the US when I was summoned back to look after the estate. I was only supposed to come back for six months but that has turned into five years. I thought I could make some profit from the estate which I could then invest, but it has not been possible; there is no money in agriculture these days and all that is left of the estate is around 1,000 acres of agricultural land. Mehrano takes a lot of money to run, and we are wondering how to cope with its expanding needs.” More open to the outside world than his father, Prince Mehdi Raza hopes to cooperate with international wildlife and donor organisations to help manage the refuge. Discussions with UNDP have begun to improve the young prince's confidence with sharing the unique knowledge about Mehrano that he has observed since his childhood from his father. Attending a recent UNDP seminar, he discussed some of the challenges ahead to sustain the sanctuary. Many would agree that the captive breeding enclosure of the Black Buck is especially in need of enlargement, since overcrowding of the animal population carries threats of disease and behavioural stresses.

“This forest would stagnate without him,” says Prince Mehdi Raza about his father. “He is an expert in this field. For example, he grew certain types of trees telling us that certain types of birds will come and settle when they mature and in twenty years, that is exactly what has happened. He has created a habitat for the animals. He has planted the necessary plants needed by the Black Bucks for feeding purposes which had all but disappeared in the region.” Prince Mehdi Raza, now 30 years old, has been helping out at Mehrano since he was eight, and says that his father has left him a detailed programme to follow so that Mehrano can continue to thrive even in his absence. He adds, “I have now convinced my father to modify his policy of pure conservation for conservation’s sake, to one of sustainable use… he has now agreed as long as it does not destroy the serene ambience of the forest and desert.”

Prince Mehdi Raza would also like to reintroduce the Black Bucks into the wild again as soon as a larger area of adjacent suitable habitat is acquired with protection measures in place. Mehrano is essentially an irrigated forest. The water comes from the nearby Mir Wah Canal, a 300 miles long network that was built by Mir Sohrab Khan and which also passes through the town of Khairpur.

The Mirs employ fourteen of their own guards at Mehrano to protect the refuge. The Sindh Wildlife Department still plays an active role in Mehrano’s upkeep by providing twelve staff members, including seven guards, two game inspectors, two drivers (for the tractors) and one machine operator for the water pump, which is used when the water level falls in the Mir Wah canal. Mehrano is today perhaps the oldest protected area of Pakistan. Many of the oldest national parks around the world have been privately owned game reserves of the nobility. The very idea of national parks itself originates from nature preserves created by the Russian Czars in the early 18th century.

H.H. Mir Murad’s preservation of Mehrano could serve as a model for future projects in the area. As he puts it, ‘Mehrano has become all the more unique due to the short-term political gain at the cost of long-term national interest type of rural land policy which has caused the needless ruin of our rich wildlife heritage to the point of extinction.’ Already his son has proposed a plan to the government to set up private wildlife preserves on a large scale in Sindh. He would like to re-invigorate several forests nearby and introduce other species like the Rhinoceros and Barasinga and conserve the crocodiles in another game reserve in Nara. For now, however, Mehrano remains a unique sanctuary lovingly created by a prince to save his living heritage.

– Written by Rina Saeed Khan