TALPUR

also spelled Talpura, or Talpuri, Baluchi tribe that furnished a number of Muslim amirs in the Upper and Lower Sind, when the region was nominally a part of the Durrani kingdom of Afghanistan. One of their leaders, Mir Fath 'Ali Khan, set himself up as the rais, or viceroy, of Sind in 1783. He settled amicably with two Afghan expeditions for recovery of arrears of tribute, and by his death in 1802 Talpur rule was firmly established in Sind. The Talpur, native to Baluchistan, claimed no saintly descent and were not as popular as their predecessors, the Kalhora; but they did succeed in imposing peace in the area for 40 years and establishing a reasonably efficient administration. The Talpur consolidated and extended the Sind government at Hyderabad and recovered Karachi. The British saw the Sind as the gateway to Afghanistan and, after years of increasing pressures, annexed the territory in 1843.