Roots of Afridi Insurgency in British India’s North-West Frontier: 1849-1897

ABSTRACT

The North-West Frontier of British India, a semi-independent mountainous borderland, was the site of continuous Pukhtun armed struggle against colonial intrusion throughout the nineteenth century and into the first half of the twentieth. Persistent tribal armed attacks and major rebellions were followed by ‘butcher and bolt’ or ‘burn and scuttle’ British military expeditions, including one of the biggest Victorian small wars–the Tirah Campaign of 1897/98. Two features are particularly distinctive about the Pukhtun insurgencies: 1) The fierce and consistent nature of Pukhtun opposition to the encroaching British military state; 2) The insurgents’ success in warding off annexation and inflicting decisive military defeat time and time again propelled the colonial state into an ongoing reflexive about its failure to ‘pacify’ the region and control the tribes. Focusing on Afridi insurgency in the nineteenth century, this article examines some themes that draw attention to causes, grievances, and toward the insurgent actors. While our fleeting glimpses into insurgents motives and actions come largely from colonial accounts of counter-insurgency operations, by drawing on my extensive archival and field research in the North-West Frontier, including Afridi oral testimonies, this paper focuses its lens on the Pukhtun perspective of the North-West Frontier ‘small wars’.

KEYWORDS:

• North-West frontier
• Afghanistan
• Pukhtun
• Khyber
• Tirah
• Afridi
• salt
• grievance

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr Peter Lorge, and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their many insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Politically the term ‘North-West Frontier” referred to the North-West Frontier Province (1901–2010) which included the settled districts as well as the semi-autonomous region of the federally administered tribal areas (FATA). The latter was comprised of seven tribal political agencies (Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan). The North-West Frontier Province was renamed Khyber Pukhtunkhwa in 2010. In 2018, FATA also became part of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

2. Focusing on South Waziristan, Condos and Rand argue that the Frontier encounter in the case of the Mahsud involved as much cooperation and collaboration as it did violence. See Condos and Rand, “Coercion and Conciliation at the Edge of Empire: State-Building and its Limits in Waziristan, 1849–1914.” Kaushik Roy also claims that coercion and negotiations (backed by force) were an integral component of British COIN/Small War. See Roy, Frontiers, Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies in South Asia, 7.

3. See for example Andrew Roe, Waging War in Waziristan: The British Struggle in the Land of Bin Laden, 1849–1947. Roe argues that British colonial pacification measures were effective in Waziristan and the lessons learned there could be applied to, and useful in contemporary COIN operations of the United States and its allies. The 1995 US Army Field Manual field manual drew on the writings of Charles Callwell on Small Wars and on British colonial experiences to demonstrate that the British had a successful counter-insurgency tradition. For a critical perspective see Smith and Jones, “The Illusion of Tradition: Myths and Paradoxes of British Counterinsurgency,” 119–150.

4. The historiography of colonial frontier warfare is still largely constituted by colonial sources such as accounts of officers who accompanied punitive expeditions into tribal territories. See note 9 for an example of such sources pertaining to the Afridis. The handful of studies of Frontier warfare in the post-1947 period do not offer insurgent perspectives that counter, or substantially revise the imperial perspectives of Frontier warfare. While not including insurgent perspectives, Tim Moreman”s The Army in India and the Development of Frontier Warfare, 1849–1947, is a detailed and comprehensive account of the development of frontier warfare from the perspective of the British army. Kaushik Roy has provided a synthesis and a comparative study comparing insurgencies and counterinsurgencies in the North-West and North-East Frontiers of South Asia. See Roy, Frontiers, Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies in South Asia.

5. Sheldon,”Introduction,” 933.

6. In 1994 and 1995 I spent several months in Peshawar and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas, now Khyber Pukhtunkhwa) researching local archives as well as conducting interviews with local informants. The Directorate of Archives in Peshawar was an important source of confidential and secret documents that revealed how imperialism functioned at the lower levels in the Frontier including politics of military/political men on the spot as well as sub-imperial interactions with tribes contained within petitions and letters from tribes as well as reports of local spies. Documents were also gained from access to the Offices of the Political Agents – Khyber, North Waziristan, Kohat. The offices of political agents are generally not open to the public. I was fortunate to be able to gain access to these archives. Majority of documents pertaining to the early colonial period contained there were already quite deteriorated and in urgent need of attention. However the most invaluable source within my field research were interviews conducted with elder tribesmen. Such accounts were integral to gaining a glimpse into Pukhtun perspectives and narratives of imperial Frontier wars and colonial resistance. Since Khyber Pukhtunkhwa generally lacks written accounts the past is preserved in the form of received memories and different very rich poetic traditions. At the time I conducted my research several elder tribesmen provided accounts and clues that opened up avenues of inquiry that I would not have followed otherwise. Sadly that generation of tribesmen will have passed now and given the US invasion of 2001 and the subsequent violences that followed it would take time and dedication to find what remains of those narratives. For more on researching the Frontier and oral accounts see Agha, Limits of Empire, 23–25; 111–117; 148–154.

7. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 5.

8. Shadwell, Lockhart”s Advance through Tirah, 104.

9. In Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 5, the Afridis are described as: “Ruthless, cowardly robbery, and cold-blooded, treacherous murder, are to an Afridi the salt of life. Brought up from his earliest childhood amid scenes of appalling treachery and merciless revenge, nothing can ever change him: as he has lived – a shameless, cruel savage – so he dies.” Such orientalist tropes are rife throughout colonial accounts. See for example, Nevill, Campaigns on the North-West Frontier.

10. Mark Condos argues that “outrages,” interpreted as “fanatical” by colonial authorities on the North-West Frontier were for the most part political acts of anti-colonial resistance and constructed as “fanaticism” to serve the colonial state”s sovereign need to punish and kill. See Condos, ““Fanaticism” and the Politics of Resistance along the North-West Frontier of British India.” There are parallels with the contemporary constructions of “terrorism” and how insurgency, can be redefined, and interchanged with “terrorism,” especially within the context of the United States” war on terror.

11. The official military history of the record of these expeditions is contained in Frontier and Overseas Expeditions.

12. For semi-official accounts written by officers, see for example: Wylly, From the Black Mountain to Waziristan; Nevill, Campaigns on the North-West Frontier. Several volumes were devoted to the Tirah Campaign due to its magnitude, significance and especially as an illustration of the problems faced by colonial armies in fighting small wars. Included in such works are: Callwell, Tirah 1897; Shadwell, Lockhart”s Advance through Tirah; James, The Indian Frontier War: Being an Account of the Mohmund and Tirah Expeditions 1897; Mills, The Tirah Campaign, Being the Sequel to the Pathan Revolt in North-West India; Hutchinson, The Campaign in Tirah 1897–1898: An Account of the Expedition Against the Orakzais and Afridis under Gen. Sir William Lockhart.

13. Christensen, Conflict and Change among the Khyber Afridis: A Study of British Policy and Tribal Society on the North-West Frontier 1839–1947, 334. Christensen”s unpublished dissertation still stands out as one of its kind focusing on a comprehensive examination of different aspects of Khyber Afridis” society and their interactions with British colonialism.

14. Christensen, 339–340.

15. Sweet, “Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaptation.”

16. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.

17. See Ahmed, Pukhtun Economy and Society: Traditional Structure and Economic Development in a Tribal Society.

18. Christensen, 33.

19. Christensen, p. 43.

20. Wylly, 262.

21. Christensen, 34.

22. There were trading links with Afghanistan but Christensen claims that these were of lesser significance as compared with those within British territory. See Christensen, 39.

23. Christensen, 332–344.

24. James, Report on the Settlement of the Peshawur District, 76.

25. Nichols, Settling the Frontier: Land, Law and Society in the Peshawar Valley, 1500–1900, 175–176.

26. James, Report on the Settlement of the Peshawur District, 72–73.

27. Nichols, Settling the Frontier: Land, Law and Society in the Peshawar Valley, 1500–1900, 176–177.

28. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 128.

29. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 128.

30. For a more detailed account of British policy regarding the Kohat salt mines and the role of salt in Afridi resistance see Agha, “Trans-Indus Salt: Objects, Resistance and Violence in the North-West Frontier of British India,” 21–42.

31. Tucker, Report on the Settlement of the Kohat District in the Panjab, 148.

32. Tucker, 49.

33. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 131.

34. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 136.

35. The rates were lowered, from 1 rupee per maund, to 2–4 annas per Lahori maund of 100 seers. Tucker, Report on the Settlement of the Kohat District in the Panjab, 148.

36. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 137.

37. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 142.

38. See note above 20., 279.

39. Frontier and Overseas Expeditions, 61.

40. Akbar Ahmad described the 1897 revolt as an example of a millenarian movement – “spontaneous” and “short-lived” native reaction to the presence of foreign troops. British expansion, in the tribal areas, was viewed by the tribes as a “direct physical threat to moral and religious values and the immediate cause of the uprisings” Ahmed, Millennium and Charisma among the Pathans: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology, 105, 107.

41. “Attempt made by Amin Khan, Kuki Khel, to stir up the Afridis to take up his cause Against the British Government”. Foreign Frontier, Confidential, Nos 26–29. 1892. Directorate of Archives (DOA from here on), Peshawar, Pakistan.

42. “Translation of a report dated 22 June 1892, from Sahib Khan, Ghilzai, living in Kurram, to Deputy Commissioner, Kohat.” K.W. Secret Frontier, September 1892. No. 579. (DOA).

43. “Copy of a translation of a letter received by the Political Officer, Khaibar on the 20 June 1892, from the Mullas of Tirah and brought by Haidar Moghul Khel, Kamrai Afridi.” K.W. Secret Frontier, September 1892. No. 585 (DOA).

44. From, Lieutenant-Colonel Warburton, C. S. I., Political Officer, Khaibar To, The R. Udny, Esq., Commissioner and Superintendent, Peshawar Division. K.W. Secret Frontier, September 1892. No. 586–587 (DOA).

45. Warburton, Eighteen Years in the Khyber, 1879–1898, 104.

46. Warburton, 104.

47. Warburton, 117.

48. For a detailed examination of the sub-imperial politics in military and civil decision-making surrounding the loss of the Khyber, see Agha, “Sub-imperialism and the loss of the Khyber: The Politics of Imperial Defence on British India”s North-West Frontier.”

49. See Callwell, Tirah 1897. See notes 10 and 49 for further citations on the Tirah campaign. See also Agha, “The Tirah Campaign, 1897–1898” In Queen Victoria”s Wars, edited by Stephen M. Miller, 240–259.

50. Hutchinson. The Campaign in Tirah 1897–1898: An Account of the Expedition Against the Orakzais and Afridis under Gen. Sir. William Lockhart, 16.

51. Rob Johnson has devoted a chapter in The Afghan War of War to reconstructing the Pukhtun perspective of the war in Tirah, which is mostly based on a reinterpretation of the correspondence found in Mullah Syed Akbar”s house in Tirah. The brief discussion mainly reconstructs their tactics. However, this does not further our understanding of Afridi insurgent motives or perspectives. See Johnson, Afghan Way of War: How and Why they Fight. Other works especially dealing with British-Afridi warfare generally reproduce the colonial historiographical perspective. See for example, Barthorp, The Frontier Ablaze: The North-West Frontier Rising, 1897–98; and Stewart, The Khyber Rifles: From the British Raj to Al Qaeda.

52. “Grievances put forward by the Afridis and Orakzais in their petitions to the Amir.” Foreign Frontier, Confidential, December 1897. Nos. 1–11 (DOA).

53. “Translation of a petition from Kazi Mira Khan and others to the address of the Amir of Afghanistan, dated the 8^th Jamadi us Sani 1315 H. (4 November 1897)” Foreign Frontier, Confidential, December 1897. No. 2 (DOA).

54. Translation of a petition from the Jirgas of the Afridi and Orakzais inhabitants of Tirah and the Khaibar to His Highness the Amir of Afghanistan, dated the 23^rd of Jamadi-ul-Awal 1315 H. (20 October 1897)” Foreign Frontier, Confidential, December 1897. No. 3 (DOA).

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid. In the petition the matter is brought up as “During the time of Mr. Cook … “ It is clear that they are referring to Captain J. Coke who led the expedition against the Adam Khel in 1850 and against the Jawaki Afridis in 1853. The official documents corroborate the Afridi account that he played off different clans against each other. For example, Coke arranged with the Bangash Maliks to hold the Pass in return for allowances against the Adam Khel. See Frontier and Overseas, 130–159. His name came up in my interviews with Afridi elders as well.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. The research presented here is a work in progress for a longer book length study on the Afridis and the War in Tirah.

62. Informant A., Interview with Agha, Jamrud, Khyber, May 1995.

63. Informant B., Interview with Agha, Jamrud, Khyber, April 1995. B was a descendent of Nawab Zaman Khan and a relative of Amin Khan Kuki Khel.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid.

66. Informant C., Interview with Agha, Jamrud, Khyber, May 1995. C. belonged to the same clan as Mullah Syed Akbar – Aka Khel.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

69. From W. M. Young, Secretary to Government, Punjab To the Secretary, to The Government of India, Foreign Department, 18 June 1880, Proceedings of the Government of Punjab, (DOA).

70. Ahmed, Millennium and Charisma among the Pathans: A Critical Essay in Social Anthropology. While focusing on Swat, Ahmed described the uprising of 1897 as a short-lived, spontaneous millenarian revolt. I have shown this to be erroneous in my study of the 1897 revolt in Swat and Waziristan – the cases there bear similarities with the uprising in the Khyber and Afridis” motives and grievances discussed in this article. See Agha, The Limits of Empire: Sub-Imperialism and Pukhtun Resistance in the North-West Frontier.

71. In this book Christian Tripodi critiques the Western population-centric, nation-building tradition of COIN. He argues that a central problem in this COIN approach is the counterinsurgent”s assumption that local cultural knowledge is the prerequisite in order to control and even to redesigning the insurgents” country. See Tripodi, The Unknown Enemy: Counterinsurgency and the Illusion of Control. However Tripodi”s case study of Waziristan in this work misses crucial pieces of the story – the politics of civil-military relations and the role of the political officer as they actually played out in Waziristan. In Waziristan, the political officer was not an instrument of the imperial government, but actually drew the government deeper into tribal politics., When things went wrong, (as in the disastrous attack in Maizar, North Waziristan in 1897) Mr Gee, the political officer tried to cover up the history of sub-imperialism in North Waziristan and the political officer”s relations with the Darwesh Khel Wazirs. We only know what happened because a military tribunal was held in the aftermath of the attack to uncover the causes of the Maizar attack. For a more detailed account of civil-military relations and the interactions of the political officers with the tribes see Agha, The Limits of Empire, 86–111.

72. Witlock, Craig et al. “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War.” The Washington Post, 9 December 2019.

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Sameetah Agha

Sameetah Agha is Professor of Modern World History at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. Her research focuses on the British empire, military history, and colonial warfare and resistance with an emphasis on South Asia and Afghanistan. She is most recently the author of The Limits of Empire: Subimperialism and Pukhtun Resistance in the North-West Frontier (2020) and “The Tirah Campaign, 1897-1898” (2021).