Kalhora

Kalhora (कल्होरा) (Kalhorah, Kalhoro) is a Muslim Jat clan found in Sindh,Pakistan. It is a Baloch Jat clan found in Afghanistan.^[1]

Origin

The name is based on Sindhi word kalhorah. Lati is said to be derived from the Hindui lat, ' tangled or clotted hair,' and kalhorah in Sindhi is said to bear the same meaning. A derivation from lat, a ' club ' in Sindhi, has also been suggested, and in front of the Kalhora chief's tomb at Khuda-abad a number of clubs are suspended. ^[2]

History

H.A. Rose writes that Kalhora or Sarai, originally a Jat tribe, also known as Doddi Lati, which gave a dynasty to Sind and is still represented in Dera Ghazi Khan. Its ancestors were darweshes who followed the tenets of the Sayyid Muhammad, the Junpuri, a noted teacher, and one of them, Harmus, espoused a daughter of the Abara Jats of Sind, receiving a grant of land as her dower. His son or grandson. Shaikh Nasir, and his son Shaikh Din Muhammad established their temporal and spiritual authority over the Abara territory in Upper Sind. His brother Yar Muhammad threw off all allegiance to the Mughals, seized the Siwistan sarkar of Thatha, the Siwi mahali of Bakhar in the Multan Province, and Dihar, and wrested the title of Khudayar from the Mughal authorities. His descendant Nur Muhammad drove the Daudpotras out of the zamindari of Lakkhi, in the Bakhar mahal. In 1736-37 the Lati Khan, Khudayar received the province of Thatha, together with the southern part of the Bakhar sarkar, but two or three years later he was stripped of two-thirds of his territory by Nadir Shah. After Nadir Shahs death however the Khudayar assumed authority over all Sind, under the nominal suzerainty of the Durranis, but their rule was short-lived. Nur Muhammad Kalhora was succeeded on his death in 1762 by his son Muhammad Murad, but he only ruled for five years and was deposed by the Talpur Baloch, who set up his brother Mian Ghulam Shah (1757-58). An attempt by his brother Attar Khan to regain Sind, under the authority of a Durrani grant, failed, Ghulam Shah died in 1771, while superintending the erection of the fortress of Haidarabad in Sindh, after a stormy reign of 15 years. He had in 1758 allowed the East India Company to establish a factory in Sindh, but Sarfarz Khan, his son and successor, cancelled the permit in 1775. A year previously he had caused Bahram Khan, head of the Talpurs, and one of his sons to be assassinated, and this led his dethronement, in or about 1786. ^[3]

The name Sarai or Serai is borne by the notable Kalhora family of Hajipur in the Jampur tahsil of Dera Ghazi Khan. For an account of it reference must be made to the Dera Ghazi Khan Gazetteer, pp. 91 — 94, but it should be noted that the statement therein made that the Daudpotras are descended from Jam Junjar and therefore akin to the Kalhorasis repudiated by the Abbassi or Daudpotra tribe, though it was accepted by Raverty. ^[4]