Colonial Encounter on the North-West Frontier

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Colonial Encounter on the North-West Frontier Province: Myth and Mystification Author(s): Akbar S. Ahmed Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 14, No. 51/52 (Dec. 22-29, 1979), pp. 2092-2097Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4368262Accessed: 15-04-2015 05:02 UTC

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SPECIAL ARTICLES

Colonial Encounter on the North - West

Frontier Province Myth and Mystification

Akbar S Ahmed

The colonial encounter on the north-west frontier of undivided India was one of the most barren encounters. For the Pathan, colonisation meant destroyed villages, water tanks and grain storesl; it meamt electrified fences, block houses and unending series -of 'butcher and bolt' raids. When the British finally left in 1947, the legacy they left behind did not consist of schools or colleges or such other symbols of development, but of repressive institutions like Frontier Scouts and Constabulary. The barrenness of the colonial encounter in the Frontier is in notable contrast to that in Bengal, across the sub-continent, or even across the Indus in the Punjab.

Nevertheless, the Pathan-British encounter has been permeated with a strong element of 'romance' which is reflected in the memoirs and accounts left by the British as well as in the creative works by writers like Kipling - though the Pathan himself has never been able to see the noble and romantic aspects of the encounter.

This aeticle examines the causal factors that led to the mystification of the colonial encounter, and the social and political needs that such mystification fulfilled.

THE story of colonisation is not a pretty one. To the Pathans living in the North-West Fron-tier Province of Pakis- tan (NWFP) and particularly in its Tribal Areas, it has meant destroyed villages, water-tanks and grain-stores; it has meant electric-fences, block houses and a non-ending series of 'butcher and bolt' raids.

Colonisation scars the colonised as it dehumanises the coloniser. To the Pathan in the Tribal Areas it meant a complete rejection of the twentieth century which in his eyes the British re- presented. For instance, in 1947 when the British left there was not a single school, dispensary, electric bulb or government post In (what is now) the Mohmand Agency area. There were no hospitals, schools, colleges, railways or electricity in the Tribal Areas, except, of course facilities like electricity locally generated within British cantonments and for the exclusive use of the British. ITe instibutions the British left behind were Instruments of repression and sub- version: the Frontier Scouts and Cons- tabulary, block-houses and barbed wire, political allowances and titles.

Today remnants of the British cultural legacy are reduced to adjuncts of war - the bag-pipes the Frontier Consta- bulary plays and the shorts it still wears for its uniform. Here was one of the most barren meetings of cultures possible. The lack of synthesis does

not indicate an inherent structural flaw or weakness in either culture; it merely reflects on the form of the encounter. Nevertheless a miasma of romance and mystification enveloped the encounter on the Frontier. I shall examine in this paper the causal factors that created this mystification and the social needs they satisfied.

British influence over the last century made its greatest impact at the most distant and encompassing four points of the Indian sub-continent: the great Presidency cities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and the capital (after 1911) Delhi. These cities produced universi- ties which in turn educated native law- yers, doctors, civil servants, politicians, often more English than the English, a consequence of Macaulay's Minute on Education, 1835, considered_"the most far-reaching single measures in the nineteienth century". Perhaps the Minute's most important aspect was that the English language entered into the mainstream of Indian social and political life as its lingua franca. A religious and cultural synthesis inspired from the West produced the Derozians, the Brahmo Samaj, the Servants of India and the Theosophical Society. In turn neo-revivajist Hindu ideology like the work of Ramkrishna and Vivekananda became popular in the West. By the beginning of the 20th century Indians, the makers of modern India and them-

selves a product of the synthesis, were acquiring international names: Gokhale, Jinnah, Nehnu, Gandhi, Iqbal and Tagore.

The barren cultural encounter in the Frontier is in notable contrast to Bengal, across the sub-continent, where whole groups not only interacted to but en- tirely adopted the ideas, manners and language of the British. The intellectual eclecticism and synthesis created a new class, the bhadralok, literally 'culti- vated, class', often in the forefront of sophisticated political philosophies on the sub-continent. The hundred years of British rule on the Frontier failed to prodice bhadralok groups of any kind. The grand, clubs like the Madras Club (the last to allow natives), the United Services Club and the Bengal Club of Calcutta, the race clubs, the sea-ports, the railway stations, the law courts and the restaurants reflected the glory of Empire. These vast and grand edifices reflected a cultural moment when the East and the West appeared to coalesce and come together in harmony.

The Punjab Province was the 'model province' of the Empire. By the latter half of the last century and the newly- opened 'canal colonies' were converting Punjab into an area of agricultural surplus. New townships named after Victorian heroes, like Abbottabad, Mont- gomery and Lyallpur, were appearing on the map; new educational institutions

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY December 22-29, 1979

like Aitchison or Chiefs College, Forman Christian College, St Anthony's College were beginning to produce a new kind of elite. Fehnale education got off to a start in the last century in the Jesus and Mary Convents located in most big towns of the Purriab and their main boarding school and centre at Murree. Agricul.tural development and adminis- trative security made life in that Pro- vince secure and sta;ble for all ethnic and religious groups during what has been called the 'Pluniabi Century.

The synthesis was in stark contrast to life across the Indus in the Frontier and in the Tribal Areas. Here the encounter was real and the bullets never stopped. Military forts, columns, bugles and sudden death preoccupied the British. Here it was the Britisher who learned the language of his subject and it was a rare Pathan from the Tribal Areas -who spoke, dressed or ate like the British. The only encounter of any sort took place in dark ravines or on rough mountain crags or perhaps in the exchange of wit with political officers. The Tribal Areas remained closed systems in the most profound sense of the term. It was not only a different world, it was almost a different century.

Let me hasten to add that I speak of larger cultural encounters and imperial systems that leave little room for the role and charadter of individuals. On the latter level the Frontfer has' produced some of ithe most celebrated officers in the Empire. The legendary heroes of Victorian India grew to stature here: Edwards of Bannu, Abbott of Hazara and Nicholson, one of the heroes, of Delhi. These officers provided the Victorian era with a prototype: dashing, bold and often killed on duty in the prime of their lives like Burnes, Nicholson, Mackeson, Cavag- nan. Initially "the officials with the British force who could claim any ac- quaintance with the Afghan language were to be counted on the digits" (Bellew 1867: vii) but the position changed drastically after the creation of the North-West Frontier Province in 1901, largely from the trans-Indus areas of the Punjab Province, when officials on the Frontier not only had to pass tests in Pushto but also, became immers- ed in the ways of the Frontier. Later years produced Frontier officers like Howell, Cunningham and Caroe - often more Pathan than the Pathans themselves. Along with' the men, Frontier institutions acquired world fame: the Guides, the Frontier Force

Regiments, the Frontier Scouts and Frontier Constabulary.

The North-West 'Frontier Province re- 'mains one of the most fascinating areas and memories of the British Em- pire. Myth, legend and reality over- lap here and one is not sure where one stops and the other begins. The Fron- tier was where carees, including those of Indian Viceroys and British Prie Ministers, could be made and unmade; where a simple incident could escalate rapidly into an international crisis and where in 1897 in the general uprisings in the Tribal Areas (Ahmed 1976) the British faced their greatest crisis in India after 1857. "The North-West Frontier of India must surely be one of the most legendary of places on the earth's surface.. . Both Alexander the Great and Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis served here; and between them a great scroll of names - Tamerlane, Babar, Akbar, and with the coming of the British, Pollock, Napier, Lumsden, Nicholson, Roberts, Robertson, Blook, Churchill, Wavell, Slim, Auchinleck, and even Lawrence of Arabia. Apart from soldiers, the iFlontier has i-nvolved generations of administrators, politicians, and statesmen: Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone,. Dalhousie, Lawrence, Lytton, Curzon, Gandhi, Nehru, Attlee, Jinnab, and Mountbatten have come to power or fallen, through their Frontier policies. The Frontier has not only been the concern of Britain, India and Afghanis- tan

_(and in recent years of Pakistan); the mysterious pressures it generates have involved Russia, China, Persia, Tuirkey and even France; on two occa- sions these pressures have brought the world to the brink of war" (Swinson. 1967: 11).

The world's greatest conquerors, Alexander, Taimur, and Babar have not succeeded in su-biugating the pathan and have had to come to terms with him to use his passes to the sub-continent. He has made and unmade kings in Kabul. He is aware of being an empire-builder and destroyer, of helping found the great Mughal Empire. In the words of Kbushal Khan Khattak, the Patban poet, "After him was' Babar King of Delhi, who owed his place to the Pathans".

With ym'all populations and severely limited resources the Pathan has shattered the armnies of the world's mighviest Empires. Akbar the Great's army was annihilated while returning from Swat in 1586 (8,000 killed including Akbar's favounrte minister Birbal). Aurangzeb's army was shattered in the Khyber

Pass in 1672 (10,000 killed, 20,000 captured) and in the Mohmand areas in 1673 and 1674. In 1920 an entire British brigade was destroyed at Ahnai Thngi in WazIristan: 366 including 43 officers were killed and 1,683 were wounded. During the same campaign near Makin a British regiment was mauled with 60 killed and 90 wounded; in contrast only 22 Mabsud were killed and 48 were wounded. In other parts of the Empire the balance of soldiers was always againstN the British: in the Tribal Areas for once it was the British who far outnumbered native enemies: for instance Clive fought and won at Plassey in 1757 with only 2,100 soldiers against an army of 50,000. Mughals too were accustomed to victory over superior numbers. Babar, the first Mughal Emperor, faced Lodhi's 100,000 men at Panipat in 1526 with only 12,000 troops. But on the Frontier, by 1915 all eight British battalions in India were on duty. By 1936, 80,000 British troops were deployed in Wazi- ristan alone more than all the rest in the sub-continent. In the last major campaign against the Mohmand in 1935 General Auchinleck led 30,000 British troops into their country. The fighting strength of Mohmand as assessed by General Staff may be gauged by the 'fighting men' of their two major clans: Gandab Halimzai, 3,500 and Tarakzai, 3,100 (General Staff 1926: 38).

Pathans in the Tribal Areas who have humbled the arrnies of two of the greatest empires knotvn in India, the Mughal and the British, have never been con- quered, Pathan tribes in Afghanistan before their 'assimilation' by Amir Abdur Rabman provided British military history with one of its most dramatic and chilling moments with the appearance of the half-dead and half-crazed Doctor Brydon on the cold January morning in 1842 at the Jalalabad garrison - a moment immortalised in Lady Butler's famous painting in the Tate Gallery, London. The doctor was the sole survivor of the grand Army of the Indus. Th,e impossible had happened in the Victorian era and at the high- noon of British military might: an entire British army had been wiped out. It may be recalled that in 1672 a similar fate had overtaken an entire Mughal Army in the Khyber Pass and the Emperor Aurangzeb's Governor, Amin Khan survived with just four others to make his lonely way to Peshawar.

In 1897 the Frontier erupted; in what can abe seenl as local response to pro-


December 22-29, 1979 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

mises of visionary religious leaders of a millennium and utopia in/ the near future (Ahmed 1976). Its failure saw among other troops the Mohinand Field Force in 1897 roaming at will in the most inaccessible areas of the' Mohrnand Agency up to the Baezai Jarobi glen after the followers of the Adda Mullah, destroying villages, water tanks and grain stores. This was the first and last invasion of the deepest area of Mobmand country in history. Chur- chill, who accompanied the Force, was moved to write: "Far beneath, was a valley upon which perhaps no white man had looked since Alexander crossed the mountains on his march to India" (Churchill 1972: 81). It was to be almost another 76 years before out- siders would be permitted to cross the Nahakki Pass again this time without a .shot being fired (Ahbned 1977 a).

During the 1908 Mohmand expedition' into the Gandab valley 38,000 maunds of grain were destroyed and the British lost 89 deadl and 184 wounded. 1916 saw the high watermark of determination to keep the Mohmands from the Empire. Two wires, one of which was charged with electricity, were put up between the Kabul and Swat rivers along a length of about seventeen miles. In between and at every 600 yards strongly guarded block-houses were constructed and as a 'final solution' nearby villages were destroyed. 400 Mohmands were electro- cuted that year. Mohmands still carry a bitter memory of this period and date events from the 'year of expulsion' (sharonkay kal).

In' a top secret assessment called "Secret Appreciation by Offloer Com- manding No 2 (Indian) wing of the possibilities of the coercion of the Mohmand tribes by air action" water- tanks (the store of the year's water in the village mud and clay pond from rains) whole villages and towers were listed as targets. Also listed was the Safi Chamarkand area where Russian influences were suspected. In the.1933 and 19.35 campaigns air strikes and tanks were tused against the Mohmand. A leader called 'Ethics of bombing' in The Statesman (September 9, 1935) sup- ported the action: "If the Govern- ment of India have to teach the marauders a lesson, what from the point of view of the party attacked is the difference between being bombed from a'bove or shelled from opposite or being attacked by mnachine-gun or rifle fire"?

The economic consequenoes of a blockade had far greater impact than its immdiate military aims of defeat-

ing the enemy in battle. "A blockade of the Mohmands had been proclaimed

.by the Chief Commissioner in. August, afid its effect,was beginning to be most seriously felt. Cloth was soon practi- cally unobtainable in Lower Mohmnand country, the. Upper' Mobmands only obtained it at great cost through Kana and' Kunar; salt was being sold in Pandiali and Kamadi at two seers per rupee, antl' the cost of soap, tea, sugar and other commodities had risen in proportion. Above all, the annual winter migration to be Peshawar valley for labour and trade, u-pon which the Khwaezai, Baezai and other up-country clans depend in great measure for their subsistence during the rest of the year, was stopped. Numerous arrests of Mohmands had also been made, and property of considerable value seized by the Frontier Constabulary, who were constantly engaged in patrolling the Mohamand border by night.in search of tribesmen attempting to evade the blockade, was. sold by auction and the proceeds credited to Government". (PBP July 1916, Nos 6-13 A: 7). ITe standard 'Military Report on Mobh- mand Country' General Staff, India,. re- comnmends that "the only means by which the submission of the tribes can be secured are the temporary occupation of the country and the destruction of crops and villages" and has sections entitled "Best Seasons for Operations" which recommend autumn so that "the chief harvest of the year can then be taken for the use of the expedition, anv surplus destroyed and the sowing of the next crop disturbed or preven- ted" (General Staff 1926: 34).

Bitterness for the twentieth-century 'civilisation' and 'modernisation' process in Pathan minds results from their asso- ciation of these processes with. the colonising British. An American scho- lar conmnents: "As far as the Frontier is concerned, however, the story throughout is one of a struggle for control - a control wihich was never completely established and a struggle which ended only when the British departed in 1947. In this context, the political history of the Frontier under British rule hangs more on 'milestones of suppression than on those of reform" (Spear 1963: 145).

Local Pukhtun memory of imperial conflict is reinforced by the memory of three events on the larger stage: it was a Pathar who replaced the M;ughal Emperor by force of arms, it was a Pathan who fought and won the last battle of Panipat shattering the finest Maratha forces, and with the Sikh kQingdom forming a hedge between the

Pathan and India the history of con- quest, took a final turn against Muslim dynasties in Delhi.

Structurally, the British bolstered and enoouraged the growth of a 'chiefly' Malik class in the Tribal Areas. Their efforts met with little success. But the foundation of conflict, contradiction and, dysfunction in Pathan society between the elders (mashar, political haves) and youngers (kashar, political have-nots) was created. The very core of tribal democracy was touched. But the Maliks with all their secret allowances' and political privileges remained little more than glorified 'tourist' chiefs. In the interior, of' the Agencies tfie weight of their word depended to a great deal on tbeir personal influence. The Tribal Areas remnained a 'closed system'.

Two types of writers created the myth of the Frontier: people who had lived and served' in. the area and those who howderlirised the subject for popular appeal. The Romance of the Frontier was to reach its literary apogee with Kipling, troubador of Em- pire. Kipling reflects sympathy for the underdog and his ethnic references are not wilfully malicious, though the Afri- can native prototype is still 'Fuzzy- Wuzzy' and a 'big black boudi,n beg- gar'; andl the Indian the low-caste 'Gunga Din' is "of all them blackfaced crew the finest man I knew". The Afri- can and the Asian are the White Man's Burden, "new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child".

Contrastin,g strongly in theme and tone of address' is the encounter between the Pathan, in this case an Afridi outlaw, land the Britisher in perhaps the best known of his imperial poems, 'The Ballad' of East and West'. The theme and literary tone are grand and imperial, they manifestly transcend colour and race. Here is a meeting of two races on equal footing reflecting a mutual admiration and acceptance of each other's ways:

But there is neither East nor West, Border,, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand f,aoe to face, though they come from the ends of the earth.

At the end of the poem "the two'strong men" have come to terms:

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh cut sod, On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the wondrous names of God.

There is in''Kipling a certain respect for the rough and wild tribesmen that contrasts' with his open and general contempt for natives in the Empire. It is the, Pathan in the Khyber that forces


ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY December 22-Z9, 1979

questions and doubts about the 'Arith- metic on the Frontier' where "Two thousand pounds of education drops to a ten rupee jezail".

Missionaries, doctors, soldiers, administrators and women have contri- buted over a century to multi-dimen- sional and intimate accounts of Pathan social and political life wherein he emerges as an Indian version of the 'noble savage'.* There is a peculiar love- hate relationship inherent in the concept. The two main points that emerge from these accounts are divided between the 'noble' half of the concept, a 'different' type of native, his 'likeabi- lity', democracy, frankness, sense of humour and the other half of the concept, his 'savageness', 'treachery' an4 the dangers of duty on the Frontier. I reproduce the quality Qf. this kind of danger on the Frontier and the form of divided loyalties it could generate. Irene Edwards, a nurse in the early 1930s in Peshawar, relates how she and Captain Coldstream were having coffee and talking about golf:

He knew that I was very keen on golf and asked me if I'd like a lesson from him. I said yes, I'd be very grateful, and he arranged to pick me up at five that after- noon. Then he wett downstairs. When he got to the bottom he waved to me and said, 'I'll pick you up then, at five' I said, 'Right', and I turned round to walk back to the duty room. Then I heard a peculiar sort of scuffling noise. SuddenlV I heard shouts of 'Sister, Sister, come quicklyl' I rushed to the top of the stairs and looked down and there were two of the babus carrying Captain Coldstream upstairs. I could see blood stream- ing from his neck and I said, 'What has happened ?' 'He's been beaten' one b&lbu said. The other habu said in Hindustani, 'No, he has been knifed'. I looked down at Captain Coldstream and I knew that he was dying. When assistance came I went iback into the duty room and I saw our coffee cups. I looked at Captain Cold- stream's coffee cup and I picked up mine, which was still warm. I sat there and cried and cried, till another sister came and put her arms around me. We then walked otut on to the verandah and we

* Pennel, 1909; Bellew, 1864; 1867, 1880; Holland, 1958; Churchill, 1972; Elliott, 1968; Masters, 1965; North, 1945; Raverty, 1862, 1888; Ridgeway, 1918; Roberts, 1897; Robertson, 1899; Wylly, 1912; Burnes, 1834, 1836; Caroe, 1965; Edwards, 1851; Elphinstone, 1972; Mason, 1976; Fraser-Tytler, 1969; Goodwin, 1969; Howell, 1931; Ibberson, 1883; King, 1900; Merk, 1898; Stein, 1929; Warbur- ton, 1900: Woodraft, 1965; Starr, 1920, 1924.

saw Abdul Rashid, the orderly, standing there with blood pouring down his arm. . I went up to him and said, 'Oh, Albdul Rashid, have vou been hurt ?' and they all looked at me queerly. I thbught A:b- (lul Rashid had gone to Captain Coldstream's assistance. Actually, he was the mturderer (Allen 1977a: 201).

This incident of sudden violence and death took place in Peshawar, the military and civil heart of the Province. Outside the city it was an even more dangerous wogld. Every Frontier band had similar tales of sudden and violent death to tell (Pettigrew: 80). Nonetheless and on balance, "everyone liked the Pathan, his courage and his sense of 'humour... although there was always the chance of a bullet and often a great deal of discomfort" (Woodruff 1965, Vol II: 292).

The second category of writings are highly romanticised novels with titles like 'Lean Brown Men', 'King of the Khyber Rifles' and 'Khyber Calling' (see North 1945). It is not surprising that Flashman begins his adventures in the first Afghan War. These novels were complemented by popular 'B' films like, the 'Brigand of Kandahar' or 'North- West Frontier'. The worst novels of the genre create names for people, places and situations not evenly remo- tely accurate. In such novels the economic, sociological and historical attempts at approximating to reality are thrown to the wind. A good example is the currently popular series written by Duncan Macneil with titles like 'Drum-s Along the Khyber' and 'Sadhu on the Mountain Peak'. Their inaccu- racies may gratify and conform to images of rebellious tribesmen East of Suez living a life of luxury and sin. I shall resist the temptation to quote from the adventures of the intrepid officer Ogilvie in the heart of Waziristan, a puritanical, isolated, economically backward zone in the Tribal Areas, who comes across Maliks named Ram Surangar, who is housed in palaces with malrble floors, statues of "well- breasted naked women", ceilings depict- ing paintings of deibauchery and who is sent a chosen girl to keep him' conwany at ni-ght by his host (Macneil 1971: 78).

On' the Frontier today the, romance eiigendered bv the' colonial encounter is still preserved. It began from the moment of the Independence of Pakis- tan in 1947 when Sir George Cunnin- gham, an ex-Governor of the NWFP, was re-called from Glasgow by Jinnah to become the first Governor of the Province. Memories of the colonial encounter remain untouched. The Bil- liards Room in the Miran Shah, North

Waziristan, Scouts Mess is still domi- nated by the portrait of Captain G Moynel1 V C, Guides Frontier Force, "killed in action Mohrnand operations- 29 September 1935". Lt-Colonel Har- nan stares from a painting in the Din- ing Room of the Wana Mess in South Waziristan. A note in T E Lawrence's hand thanking the South Waziristan

'Scouts for their hospitality is enshrined in a glass box in the Wana Mess library. On the Shabkadar tower that do"minates the entire area the plaques commnem.orating fallen soldiers are still clear. The graveyard, too, is undisturb- ed and the head-stones tell their tale clearly. Both bear testimony to the Mohmand encounters between 1897 and 1915.

The continuing romanoe of the Fron- tier is best captured by a story Askar Ali Shah, the editor of The Khyber Mlail (Peshawar) recounted of an old retired British officer who had served in the Frontier Scouts and who was given permission, obtained, with diffi- culty, to visit Razmak, North Waziri- stan, with his wife. He requested the comnianding officer to be allowed to accompany the local Scouts on a 'recce' trip (gasht) and wore his uniform still splendid after all the years. He obser- ved that evening that he would go homne and was now ready to die. Per- ha.ps with the dea,th of his generation the r-omance will also fade and die.

It is important to distinguish that the symbols of the romance of the Frontier are maintained by the political and military administration. Parpe- tuation of tradition is itself part of the romance. No such symbols of Frontier romance or nostalgia are visible among the tribes themselves. It is essential to underline that this is a one-way nostalgia. Pathan tribes saw the encounter as extra-ethnic, extra-religious and, as illus- tratied above in many cases, extra- savage. Because tribesmnen were by and large left to themselves in the Tribal Areas and social contact and adminis- trative control was at a minimum, they remained tribal in the most profound sense, unencapsulated by larger state systems and civilisations. At the same time, colonisation on the Frontier was not the total uprooting and destruction of a civilisation as in other parts of the world.

What caused this great halo of romance to float over British endeavour on the Frontier and continue to grow after it was all over? The answers are many and I shall consider them on various levels. Racially the British found that across the Indus there was a different world, the people were fairer

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and taller and some, like Afridis, had blue eyes and blonde hair which helped create and perpetuate romantic theories of Greek origin (Bellew 1864, 1867; 1.880). Geographically, the climate and the physical environment reminded the British of home (Ahmed 1974, 1977b: 123-148). Psychologically the British by the turn of the century found-themselves with no new worlds to conquer on the sub-continent: India lay pas- sive and quiet. The major military pre- occupation was with the unruly North- West. Frontier triibes; peripheral crises on the periphery of Empire. Imperial security bred a confidence in one's values and as a consequence of this confidence an understanding of the values of a remote and tribal people. Socially, the type of civil and military officer after India became a colony of the Crown in 1858 and no longer the business of a comm?ercial company, re- presented the mniddle and upper classes of the most powerful nation on earth who were often driven with a zeal to serve, civilise or convert and thereby make a name for themselves.

The cream of the Indian Civil Ser- vice and the military formecd the new Indian Political Service Cadre serving mainly on the Frontier (Coen 1971). The mystification of the Frontier encounter was bred by changed im-perial circumstances and the type of its per- sonnel. It was not always so. Early con- tacts with Pathans in the middle of the nineteenth century after the sub- jugation of more complex, sophisticated and affluent Indian states and people spoke of them as "absolute barba- rians .. . avaricious, thievish and preda- tory to the last degree" (Temple, Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab in 1855, quoted in Wylly 1912: 5). Ibbetson thought the Pathan "blood-thirsty, cruel and vindictive in the highest degree; he does not know what truth or faith is, in so much that the saying Afghan be iman (an Afghan is without conscience) has passed into a proverb among his neighbours" (Ibbet- son 1883: 219). These attitudes were to be converted to those bordering affection, respect and even admiration two generations later.

Like schoolboys in a state of boredom and security the new br,eed of officers at the turn of the Frontier century craved some excitement: the Frontier was the French leave, the excitement involving an out-of-bounds adventure, the forbidden, smoke, the forbidden drink; the innocently exciting infringe- ment of school laws and social taboos that the 'likeable rogue' at school at- tem,pted without bein.g caught. Social

reality drew its symbols from public school life of which it appeared on extension, a confirmation and a parody. The concepts of 'sportsmanship', 'games', 'honour', 'word', 'playing the referee', 'gentlemanly' and 'winning fairly or losing honourably' - key symbols of idealised British social behaviour - found almost exact conti;apuntal equiva- lents in Pathan society: 'word' (jaba), 'honour' (nang), 'gentlemanly' (Pukhtun) and 'courage' (tora). Certain things were either 'done' or 'not done'. Life was seen and understood in these mutually recognised symbols. There was a particular Frontier code of its own that evolved as a cornsequence of the encounter: "It became, theref ore, a point of honour with us never to leave a wounded man behind. So if one of our nmen was wounded we counter- attacked in order to get that wounded man back." Above all the Frontier tested the man: "To run away or to show cowardice on a Frontier campaign and come and wine or dine with your brother officers in the evening was a far worse punishbment than risking death" (Alien 1977a: 207).

The Pathan was just the sort of person to fit in with concepts of 'honour' and the 'code' with his own equivalent concepts: "Frontier officers were a rather special breed of the British and they were sometimes almost converted to the Pathan's sense of honour and usually to his sense of hum-our; it did not often happen the other way round. The same kind of stories recur when- ever people talk about the Frontier; they rememnber, for ingtance, the Zakka Khel men in 1908 crowding round Roos- Keppel, once their Political agent, when the expedition against them was success- ful and the fighting over. 'Did we fight well?' they asked and he replied: 'I wouldn't have shaken hands with you if you hadn't" (Mason 1976: 337-8).

The Pathan was placed in a different social category to the other natives on the sdbcontinent: "There was among the Pathans something that called to the Englishman or the Scotsman - partly that the people looked you straight in the eye, that there was no equivocation and that you couldn't browbeat them even if you - wished to. When we crossed the bridge at Attock we felt we'd come home" (Allen 1977a: 197-8).

The colonial encounter was reduced to the nature of a cricket matcbh, it was 'our chaps' versu.s 'your chaps':

The Political Agents would have been useless if they had not identi- fied themselves thoroughly with the tribesen's thoughts and feelings, but

we felt they often carried it too far. At the end of one day of fighting the Political Agent's young awsistant came into our camp mess for a drink. M L, in command, was in a good humour. After a confused beginning, the bat- talion had fought skilfully and well and several 'men were certain to win decorations.

The young political put down his glass. 'I thought our chaps fought very well today, sir, he said.

M L beamed. 'So did I. Not at all bad'.

'And outnumbered about three to one, too, I should say.

M L looked a little puzzled. 'Well, onily in one or two places. On the whole I think the tribesmen were outnumbered'.

The political said, 'Oh, I'm sorry. It's the tribesmen I was talking about' (Masters 1965: 157).

The Pathan-British encounter is thus seen in straight,'game' analogy: "It is a game - a contest with rules in which men kill without compunction and will die in order to win, in which kinship and friendship count less than winning -but in which there is no malice when the whistle blows andl the game is over. And the transfer of an important player may be arranged at half-time while the lemons are being Sucked" (Mason 1976: 337).

Life on the Frontier was itself part of the great game played on three con- tinents by intemational players. Even tihe sordid business of bombing tribesmen was cast in a 'sportsman-like' mould and a proper 'warning notice' was issued before air-raids. Otherwise it simply would not be cricket:

Whereas laskars (war parties) have collected to attack Gandab (Moh-

- mand) and are to this end concentra- ted in your villages and lands, you are hereby wamed that the area lying between Khapak-Nahakki line and the line Mullah Killi-Sam Chakai will be bombed on the morning of (date) beginning at 7 a m and daily till further notice.

You are hereby warned to remove all persons from allI the villages named' and from the area lying between them, and the Khapak and Nahakki Passes and not to return till further written notice is sent to you. Any person who returns before re- ceiving such further written notice will do so at his own risk.

Signed Griffith - Governor dated 4th September 1933.

Little wonder that a leader in The Statesman (September 13, 1935) dis- approved of this stance and warned that "war is not a sentimental business and there will be no end to it so long as there is the least tendency to romanticise it as a gentlemanly and heroic and admirable pastime".

Above all, the FroIntier repr,esented a male world and its masculine symbols

2096


a system that translated easily into classic British public school life. Women, on both sides, were generally invisible - and when encountered honoured. No stories of rapes, abduc- tions and mistresses are told on either side. In any case almost the entire Tribal Area was strictly a 'no families' area for officials. In perhaps the most famous and unique affair of its kind, Miss Ellis was kid- napped in 1923 from Kohat by an Afridi, Ajab Khan, as revenge for a British raid on his village and what he considered the violation of the Code by exposing his women to the presence of British troops. All accounts of Miss Ellis' treatment corroborate her own statements that her honour was never violated and she found respect and pro- tetion at the house of Akhundzada Mahmud among the Orakzai (Swinson 1967). It was this absence of the 'Mem- Sahi,b' that gave life on the Frontier its special public-schoolboy flavour and their presence in large numbrs after the opening of the Suez Canal late last century may be considered as the final ethnic and social barrier between In- dians and the British (Allen 1977a, 19771b; Spear 1963).

In spite of the regular engagements with the colonial power the tribal structure in the interior remained whole, symmetrical and unitary in the traditional classic anthropological sense. Raids and reprisals did not recreate or reorder social structure and remained extrinsic to it. They may have even served to confirm it. The mystification of the Frontier encounter created a my- thical tribesman worthy of the honour to play opposite the British in the Fron- tier Game. The mystifoation and roman- ticisation of the colonial encounter on the Frontier helped to popularise a universal image of the Pathan embody- ing the finest qualities of loyalty, courage and honour that transcended race, colour and creed (Caroe 1965: 344; Mason 1976: 338-339) and one that ap- proximated to the Pathan's own notions of ideal Pathan behaviour as understood in terms of his Code. Contemporary British accounts end on a romantic and emotional note of a contact with a people "who looked him in the face" (Caroe 1965: xiii; Elliott 1968: 293) and speak of "an affinity born of a hundred years of conflict, a mutual sense of honour, affection and esteem" (Caroe in Preface to Elliott 1968: v). This romantic nostalgia is not restricted to British writers alone; for most writin.g on the Frontier in Pakistan too is in a similar ven.

This romantic gloss dloes not dha.nge the savagery or determination of the encounfter: barbd wires anzd bomnbing

do not win friends, but for the British it helped create a special ethnic category of people who they could elevate to 'noble savages' above the general run of 'savages'. I;t was an elevation not based on sophisticated intellectual or cultural criteria but an extension of the public school analogy: someone not at your school but who could take a beating in the boxing ring or rugger without complaining and give as good as he got. The map of British India was dyed with various colours: red for British India, yellow for the 'protected areas' of the Indian gates and so on. To these categories was added a special one, an acknowledged 'no-man's land', of the Tribal Areas - a land beyond the pale.

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Article Contentsp. 2092p. [2093]p. [2094]p. 2095p. 2096p. 2097

Issue Table of ContentsEconomic and Political Weekly, Vol. 14, No. 51/52 (Dec. 22-29, 1979), pp. 2069-2084+A129-A164+2085-2100Front Matter [pp. 2069-A156]Soviet Putsch in Kabul [pp. 2069-2070]Post-Election Calculations [p. 2070]False Indicators [pp. 2070-2071]Partial View [pp. 2071-2072]Many Uncertainties [pp. 2072-2073]Letters to EditorFlogging and Patching Policy [p. 2073]Assault at BHU [p. 2073]

Statistics [p. 2074]Capital ViewInto Action [pp. 2075-2076]

Companies: His by Steel Shortage [pp. 2077-2078]Keltron's Electrolytic Capacitor Project: A Major Thrust towards Self-Reliance in Electronic Industry [pp. 2079-2080]From Our CorrespondentsSeamen's Strike [pp. 2081-2082]One Year of Adult Education [pp. 2083-2084]Voting for 'Law and Order' [p. 2084]

Review of Agriculture, December 1979Fertiliser Policy [p. A129]Transfer of Technology and Agricultural Development in India [pp. A130-A131+A133+A135-A137+A139+A141-A142]

Binny [p. A142]Review of Agriculture, December 1979Trends in Tubewell Irrigation, 1951-78 [pp. A143+A145-A147+A149+A151-A154]Collective Responsibility in Construction and Management of Irrigation Canals: Case of Italy [pp. A155+A157-A160]Organisational Problems of Small Farmer Development Administration [pp. A161-A164]

From Our CorrespondentsWhy Do Voters Not Vote? [pp. 2085-2086]Conference Season [pp. 2087-2088]

ReviewsReview: Dissecting Voting Behaviour [p. 2089]Review: Doubly Exploited [p. 2090]

Official PaperWithout a Theme [p. 2091]

Special ArticlesColonial Encounter on the North-West Frontier Province: Myth and Mystification [pp. 2092-2097]Banking Development in Sixth Plan: Some Issues [pp. 2098-2100]

Documents

Colonial Encounter on the North-West Frontier