The fall of Kalat and Mir Mehrab Khan (1839)

In the previous chapter we saw the British “Army of the Indus” pass through the Bolan Pass in the spring of 1839 and march towards Kandahar and then Kabul. We also noted the agreement made on that journey with the Khan of Kalat, Mir Mehrab Khan. This chapter deals with the end of the same year, when a British force on its way back attacked Kalat and the khan was killed in his fortress. There are two accounts of the event: that of the British officers, and that of Baloch historians and modern researchers. We present both, each with its sources.

The Bombay column marches on Kalat

After Shah Shuja was seated in Kabul, the Bombay part of the army was returning to India by way of Quetta. It was commanded by Major General Thomas Willshire. According to the second edition of W. W. Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India”, Willshire was detached from the army with 1,050 men to attack Kalat. In A. W. Hughes’s 1877 book “The Country of Balochistan”, the figure is 1,261 men and six guns. “Rough Notes”, the 1840 journal of staff officer James Outram, includes a plan of Kalat.

13 November 1839: the attack and the casualties

The attack took place on 13 November 1839. According to Hunter’s gazetteer, field guns knocked in one gate of the fortress, and the town and citadel were taken “in a few minutes”. The 1908 “Imperial Gazetteer” (Provincial Series, Baluchistan) says briefly that Kalat was taken by assault and Mir Mehrab Khan was killed. According to an article by Abdul Basit Khan and Ayaz Muhammad (2018) in a University of the Punjab journal, the khan refused to surrender and died fighting.

The casualty figures are given separately, according to the source:

• Baloch side: Hunter’s gazetteer and the 1875 “Encyclopaedia Britannica” (ninth edition) both say that more than 400 Baloch were killed, including Mir Mehrab Khan himself, and 2,000 were taken prisoner. According to W. H. G. Kingston’s “Our Soldiers”, eight principal sirdars of the khan fell with him and the rest surrendered. The official list printed in the London Gazette (13 February 1840) names the sirdars killed, including Mir Mehrab Khan, and lists the wazir, Mulla Muhammad Hasan (Muhammad Hussain in Hunter and the London Gazette), among the prisoners.
• British side: According to the official return printed in the London Gazette, 31 were killed (one lieutenant, one subadar and 29 rank and file) and 107 wounded, a total of 138. Kingston also gives 138 for killed and wounded together.

Why was Kalat attacked? Two accounts

The official British account (1839–1840): William Hough, Deputy Judge Advocate General with the army’s Bengal column, wrote in his 1841 book of Mehrab Khan as “the Belochee chief of Khelat”, at whose “instigation” the tribes attacked the army. Hunter’s gazetteer says the British authorities considered the khan’s conduct so treacherous and dangerous that punishment was thought necessary. The 1911 “Britannica” gives details of the charges: attacks were arranged on British supply convoys in Kachhi and the Bolan Pass. John William Kaye wrote in his “History of the War in Afghanistan” that it was then the “fashion” to lay every misfortune of the army on the road to Kandahar at Mehrab Khan’s door. He added that opinion in India and Afghanistan was that the khan had been rightly punished, although, in Kaye’s words, “few” knew exactly what his offences were.

Later British research: These same official works later change their position. Hunter’s gazetteer and the ninth “Britannica” say that later inquiries proved the treachery towards the British was committed not by Mehrab Khan but by his wazir, Mulla Muhammad Hasan (Muhammad Hussain in Hunter and the London Gazette). The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer also says Macnaghten and Burnes were deceived by the treachery of Mulla Muhammad Hasan and Saiyid Muhammad Sharif. It quotes the historian Malleson’s verdict that the attack on Kalat was “more than a grave error, a crime”. The 1911 “Britannica” adds that the wazir convinced “our too credulous political officers” that the khan was at fault, because the wazir wanted to ruin his master and take power himself under a child heir.

The Baloch and modern account: According to a 2022 article in “Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review”, after the fall of Kalat the British authorities found evidence proving the khan’s innocence, and his conduct had been “willfully misrepresented”. The article says some letters reached the political officer “Mr. Bell”. In the University of Balochistan journal “Balochistan Review” (2015), Pervez Ahmed and colleagues write that Sir William Macnaghten and Sir Alexander Burnes were deceived into believing that Mehrab Khan was a traitor to the British. A review of a Baloch history in the daily Dawn quotes the book’s position that Mehrab Khan stayed silent and peaceful despite British provocation, and that the attack was sudden and unprovoked. In his 2007 article on Baloch resistance literature, Javed Haider Syed notes that Baloch poetry of the time remembered Mehrab Khan’s struggle.

Shah Nawaz Khan and the separation of territories

After taking Kalat, the British appointed a new khan. According to the 1908 gazetteer, Shah Nawaz Khan was made successor and Lieutenant Loveday Political Officer. In the “Encyclopaedia Iranica”, Brian Spooner writes that Shah Nawaz was fourteen, a great-grandson of Mir Mohabbat Khan, and that Loveday acted as his regent.

At the same time, some territories were separated from the khanate. According to the 1907 Sarawan gazetteer, the districts of Sarawan and part of Kachhi (Kach Gandava) were annexed to the Kabul kingdom, that is, Shah Shuja’s government, and placed under British officers. In Iranica, Spooner puts it this way: Mastung and Quetta were given to Shah Shuja and Kachhi was handed to the Political Agent, Western Sind. The Kachhi gazetteer also says that from 1839 to 1842 the area was held and administered by the British. In the agreement of 12 Muharram 1255 AH, roughly 28 March 1839, recorded in Aitchison’s collection, the khan had already accepted Shah Shuja’s supremacy.

The 1840 revolt and Lieutenant Loveday

The new arrangement did not last even a year. Kaye writes that the Brahui sirdars besieged Kalat and the city fell to them a few days later. Shah Nawaz Khan gave up the throne in favour of a young prince, Mehrab Khan’s son, and Loveday was taken prisoner. According to Spooner, Mehrab Khan’s son Nasir Khan II rallied the tribes and retook Kalat. According to the 1911 “Britannica”, the British-appointed ruler and a weak garrison were overpowered.

An eyewitness to the siege was Charles Masson, who was stranded in Kalat on his way to Kabul. According to Elizabeth Errington in Iranica, Masson was imprisoned with Loveday. He was then sent to the British Political Agent in Quetta with the rebels’ demands, where he was immediately imprisoned as a traitor and spy. He was released in January 1841 and in 1843 wrote “Narrative of a Journey to Kalât”, in which he called the Kalat revolt the “precursor” of the later catastrophe at Kabul.

Loveday did not survive. According to Kaye, when a British detachment advanced some months later to help Dadar, Loveday was found dead in a camp abandoned by the Brahui force. Archibald Forbes wrote in 1892 that he was treated with “great barbarity” and finally murdered. Iranica also says he was killed by the rebels.

The restoration of Nasir Khan II

In the end the British accepted the same family they had removed a year earlier. According to the 1911 “Britannica” and Hunter’s gazetteer, in 1841 the British recognised Nasir Khan II, the young son of the slain Mehrab Khan, and soon evacuated the country. The 1907 Sarawan gazetteer gives more detail: Major (later Sir James) Outram installed Nasir Khan on the masnad at Kalat in October 1841, Sarawan and part of Kachhi were returned to him, and a treaty was made with him on 6 October 1841. The 1908 Imperial Gazetteer, however, gives 1840 as the year of this installation by Outram, and its list of rulers also begins Nasir Khan II’s reign in 1840.

Next Sunday: the era of treaties: 1841, 1854, 1876, where we shall see how the treaties beginning with Nasir Khan II changed Kalat’s autonomy step by step.