BRITISH PERIOD IN PAKISTAN

At the start of the nineteenth century, most of present-day Pakistan was under independent rulers. Sindh was ruled by the Muslim Talpur mirs (chiefs) in three small states that were annexed by the British in 1843. In Punjab, the decline of the Mughal Empire allowed the rise of the Sikhs, first as a military force and later as a political administration in Lahore. The kingdom of Lahore was at its most powerful and expansive during the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, when Sikh control was extended beyond Peshawar, and Kashmir was added to his dominions in 1819.

The British largely stayed out of what is now Pakistan as they took control of India.British civil administration extended only as far Lahore near the present-day border of India and Pakistan. The rest of what is now Pakistan was never brought under control of the British, who only developed an interest in the region after Russia did. The area was grossly underdeveloped compared to British India. The few entrepreneurs were Hindus.

The British had little interest in much what is now Pakistan economically. They were interested in it only as a buffer zone between the Russians and their territories in India. To achieve this they manipulated tribal leaders through various means and cash payments and the establishment of garrisons. The British had no interest in helping the local people to develop.

Arrival of Europeans and the Decline of the Mughals

In the 18th and 19th centuries effective control by Aurangzeb's Mughal successors weakened. Succession to imperial and even provincial power, which had often become hereditary, was subject to intrigue and force. The mansabdari system gave way to the zamindari system, in which high-ranking officials took on the appearance of hereditary landed aristocracy with powers of collecting rents. As Delhi's control waned, other contenders for power emerged and clashed, thus preparing the way for the eventual British takeover. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

Vasco da Gama led the first documented European expedition to India, sailing into Calicut on the southwest coast in 1498. In 1510 the Portuguese captured Goa, which became the seat of their activity. Under Admiral Alfonso de Albuquerque, Portugal successfully challenged Arab power in the Indian Ocean and dominated the sea routes for a century. Jesuits came to convert, to converse, and to record observations of India. The Protestant countries of the Netherlands and England, upset by the Portuguese monopoly, formed private trading companies at the turn of the seventeenth century to challenge the Portuguese.

Mughal officials permitted the new carriers of India's considerable export trade to establish trading posts (factories) in India. The Dutch East India Company concentrated mainly on the spice trade from present-day Indonesia. Britain's East India Company carried on trade with India. The French East India Company also set up factories.

During the wars of the eighteenth century, the factories served not only as collection and transshipment points for trade but also increasingly as fortified centers of refuge for both foreigners and Indians. British factories gradually began to apply British law to disputes arising within their jurisdiction. The posts also began to grow in area and population. Armed company servants were effective protectors of trade. As rival contenders for power called for armed assistance and as individual European adventurers found permanent homes in India, British and French companies found themselves more and more involved in local politics in the south and in Bengal. Plots and counterplots climaxed when British East India Company forces, led by Robert Clive, decisively defeated the larger but divided forces of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey (Pilasi) in Bengal in 1757.

British Move into Present-Day Pakistan

Although European contact with South Asia began in 1498 with the Portuguese, by the early 1800s the British had emerged as the preeminent political and economic power in much of the subcontinent. British dominance was far from complete, with at best tenuous control over what are now Pakistan’s western provinces.

In the early 19th century an agreement was made with Sindh Mirs to promise to keep the French out. In 1839 the British set up near Karachi as port and took over the Sindh in 1843 since it was a corridor to Afghanistan. The takeover was orchestrated by Sir Charles Napier who was described as an “eccentric, swashbuckler with no scruples.” He said, “We have no right to seize Sindh, yet we shall do so and a very advantageous, useful, humane, piece of rascality it will be,”

The British then made inroads into the region were in the Punjab, which was occupied by the Sikhs. The Sikhs destroyed many cities and buildings in Pakistan. The Sikh adventurer, Ranjit Singh, carved out a dominion that extended from Kabul to Srinagar and Lahore, encompassing much of the northern area of modern Pakistan. By 1848, the British had defeated the Sikhs and taken the Punjab Valley and Peshawar Valley. From there they began making moves into the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs. British rule replaced Sikh rule. In a decision that had far-reaching consequences, the British permitted the Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir, a Sikh appointee, to continue in power. [Source: Countries of the World and Their Leaders Yearbook 2009, Gale]

After the British government took control of land occupied by the British East India Company after the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, the British continued to expand their territory until they occupied present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The British East India Company initially administered most of the Indian subcontinent, but the Indian-led Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 seriously challenged British occupation and caused the British government to administer India directly. This near defeat for the British prompted changes in their administration of the subcontinent and in their attitudes toward Indians, particularly Muslims. [Source: Library of Congress, February 2005]

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia: “The British attempted to subdue the anarchic northwest during the First Afghan War (1839–42) and succeeded in conquering Sindh in 1843 and the Punjab in 1849. The turbulence of the region was intensified by the fierce forays of Baloch and Pashtun tribespeople from the mountainous hinterlands. The British occupied Quetta in 1876 and again attempted to conquer the tribespeople in the Second Afghan War (1878–80) but were still unsuccessful. With the creation of the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in 1901, the British shifted from a policy of conquest to one of containment.” [Source: Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., The Columbia University Press]

British East India Company Rule

It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that almost all of the territory that constitutes Pakistan and India came under the rule of the British East India Company. The patterns of territorial acquisition and rule as applied by the company in Sindh and Punjab and the manner of governance became the basis for direct British rule in the British Indian Empire and indirect rule in the princely states under the paramountcy of the crown. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

Although the British had earlier ruled in the factory areas, the beginning of British rule is often dated from the Battle of Plassey. Clive's victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), where the emperor, Shah Alam II, was defeated. As a result, Shah Alam was coerced to appoint the company to be the diwan (collector of revenue) for the areas of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa (this pretense of Mughal control was abandoned in 1827). The company thus became the supreme, but not the titular, power in much of the Ganges Valley, and company agents continued to trade on terms highly favorable to them. *

The area controlled by the company expanded during the first three decades of the nineteenth century by two methods. The first was the use of subsidiary agreements (sanad) between the British and the local rulers, under which control of foreign affairs, defense, and communications was transferred from the ruler to the company and the rulers were allowed to rule as they wished (up to a limit) on other matters. This development created what came to be called the Native States, or Princely India, that is, the world of the maharaja and his Muslim counterpart the nawab. The second method was outright military conquest or direct annexation of territories; it was these areas that were properly called British India. Most of northern India was annexed by the British. (OTR))

Sikh Wars

By the late 18th century the Sikhs had conquered most of the Punjab and established various feudal states, including ones in Kashmir and Peshawar. Their greatest leader was Ranjit Singh (1780–1839), who established a Sikh kingdom in the Punjab. Ranjit Singh had maintained a policy of wary friendship with the British, ceding some territory south of the Sutlej River, while at the same time building up his military forces both to deter aggression by the British and to wage war against the Afghans. He hired American and European mercenary soldiers to train his artillery, and also incorporated contingents of Hindus and Muslims into his army. Disunity among the Afghans allowed the Sikhs to conquered the cities and provinces of Peshawar and Multan from them.

After Ranjit Singh died in 1839, political conditions in Punjab deteriorated, and the British fought two wars with the Sikhs, one lasting from 1845 to 1846 and another from 1848 to 1849. The First Sikh War ended with Treaty of Lahore in which the British gained more territory. The Second Sikh War saw the annexation of Punjab, including the present-day North-West Frontier Province, to the British East India Company's territories.

British forces were too powerful for the Sikhs during the Sikh Wars (also known as the Anglo-Sikh wars) , but the British, impressed by the courage and martial prowess demonstrated by the Sikhs took great pains to conciliate the Sikhs and were largely successful during the heyday of the Raj. The British showed respect for the Sikh religion, which was more compatible with Victorian Protestant values than any of the other faiths of India.

First Anglo-Sikh War

The First Anglo-Sikh War was fought between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in 1845 and 1846. It resulted in partial subjugation of the Sikh kingdom and cession of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate princely state under British suzerainty. [Source: Wikipedia]

The key engagement was Battle of Aliwal in January and February 1846, which the British won by eliminating the Sikh bridgehead. The main British army was reinforced with a fresh division. They attacked the main Sikh bridgehead at Sobraon. The Sikh leader Tej Singh is said to have deserted the Sikh army early in the battle. Although the Sikh army resisted stubbornly, the British eventually broke into their position. The bridges behind the Sikhs broke under British artillery fire, or were ordered to be destroyed behind him by Tej Singh. The Sikh army was trapped. None of them surrendered, and the British troops showed little mercy. This defeat effectively broke the Sikh army.

The Treaty of Lahore required the Sikhs to give up the valuable Jullundur Doab region between the Beas River and Sutlej River. The Lahore Durbar was also required to pay an indemnity of 15 million rupees. Because it could not readily raise this sum, it ceded Kashmir, Hazarah and all the forts, territories, rights and interests in the hill countries situated between the Rivers Beas and Indus to the East India Company, as equivalent to ten million of rupees. In a later separate arrangement (the Treaty of Amritsar), the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, purchased Kashmir from the East India Company for a payment of 7.5 million rupees and was granted the title Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.

Second Anglo-Sikh War

The Second Anglo-Sikh War (First War of Sikh Independence) was a military conflict between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company that took place in 1848 and 1849. It resulted in the fall of the Sikh Empire, and the annexation of the Punjab and what later became the North-West Frontier Province, by the East India Company. [Source: Wikipedia]

In April 1848 a British civil servant and army official sent to take charge of Multan from Diwan Mulraj Chopra, were murdered there. Within a short time the Sikh troops were in open rebellion. The British forces were not ready for a full out fight and believed that to contain the spread of the rebellion, they needed to not just capture Multan, but subjugate the entire Punjab. The British therefore held off and organized a strong army for operations in November. Despite convincing victories at Ramnagar and Sadulapur the Sikhs put up a strong fight at the Battle of Chillianwala. Finally Multan was captured. The British claimed complete victory in February, 1949 at the Battle of Gujrat. The Sikh army was pursued to Rawalpindi, where it laid down its arms; their Afghan allies retreated from the Punjab.

The Second Sikh War resulted in the complete the annexation of the Punjab, including the present-day North-West Frontier Province, to the British East India Company's territories. The annexation of the Punjab is largely seen as a completion of the British Empire on the Indian subcontinent. Kashmir was transferred by sale in the Treaty of Amritsar in 1850 to the Dogra Dynasty, which ruled the area under British paramountcy until 1947.

Great Game

The British began taking a serious interest in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the period of the Great Game when Russia’s power was growing and the Russians were viewed as a threat to British ambitions. As the British increased their territory in India, so did Russia expand in Central Asia.

The East India Company signed treaties with a number of Afghan rulers and with Ranjit Singh. Russia backed Persian ambitions in western Afghanistan. In 1838 the company's actions bought about the First Afghan War (1838- 42). Assisted by Sikh allies, the company took Kandahar and Kabul and made its own candidate amir. The amir proved unpopular with the Afghans, however, and the British garrison's position became untenable. The retreat of the British from Kabul in January 1842 was one of the worst disasters in British military history, as a column of more than 16,000 (about one-third soldiers, the rest camp followers) was annihilated by Afghan tribesmen as they struggled through the snowbound passes on their way back to India. The British later sent a punitive expedition to Kabul, which it burned in retribution, but made no attempt to reoccupy Afghanistan.

Expeditions by Francis Younghusband and Nikolay Przhevalsky in Central Asia were motivated the desire of Russia and Britain to control Central Asia. Przhevalsky traveled through Mongolia, east China, Kazakhstan and other eastern former Soviet Republics between 1870 and 1880. Younghusband traveled west from China into Central Asia and what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan between 1886 and 1894. While in western China, he came across a large Russia force in the Pamirs.

The British were angered by presence of Russian troops and proceeded to seize the Hunza valley in northern Pakistan. The British were also unnerved by Russian presence in Xinjiang in present-day western China, which borders Pakistan. The British supported a Tajik warlord there and were left out of the formula when the Chinese established Xinjiang Province in 1882. But at least their main objective was achieved: keep the Russians from getting closer to South Asia and India via the via passes into what is now Pakistan.

Anglo-Afghan Wars

Afghanistan served as a buffer zone between British interests in South Asia and Soviet interests in Central Asia. Both the Russians and British also worried about the affect of the unruly tribesmen in Afghanistan on their respective empires. In the end, Afghanistan was allowed to become independent largely because it didn’t seem like it was worth the trouble of conquering.

Dost Mohammad ruled Afghanistan at the beginning of the Great Game period in the 19th century, when Britain and Russia maneuvered against each to gain control of Central Asia. During this period, Afghan rulers were able to maintain virtual independence, although some compromises were necessary. In 1838 , the British defeated the Sikhs and took the Punjab Valley and Peshawar Valley in what is now Pakistan. From there they began making moves into the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs in part to subvert Russian influence in the area. The British wanted to make Afghanistan a buffer state to protect British India from Russian expansion. Afghan wars of 1839-1842, 1878-1880 and 1919 were fomented by British fears of Russian expansion.

The British were convinced the Emir Dost Mohammed Khan of Afghanistan was conspiring with Imperial Russia and launched the war First Anglo-Afghan War to replace him with the compliant Shuja Shah Durrani. This move had Sikh support, in return for the formal cession of Peshawar to the Sikhs by Shuja Shah. Initially successful, the British invasion took a disastrous turn with the Massacre of Elphinstone's Army, which lowered the prestige of the British, and the Bengal Army of the British East India Company in particular. The British finally withdrew from Afghanistan, and from Peshawar which they held as an advance base, in 1842.

In the First Anglo-Afghan War the British deposed Dost Mohammad, but they abandoned their Afghan garrisons. In the following decades, Russian forces approached the northern border of Afghanistan. In 1878 the British invaded and held most of Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War. In 1880 Abdur Rahman, a Durrani, began a 21-year reign that saw the balancing of British and Russian interests, the consolidation of the Afghan tribes, and the reorganization of civil administration into what is considered the modern Afghan state. During this period, the British secured the Durand Line (1893), dividing Afghanistan from British colonial territory to the southeast and sowing the seeds of future tensions over the division of the Pashtun tribes. Abdur Rahman’s son Habibullah (ruled 1901–19) continued his father’s administrative reforms and maintained Afghanistan’s neutrality in World War I. [Source: Library of Congress, August 2008]

Pashtuns and the British

The Pashtuns (Pathans) are an ethnic group that live in western and southern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan and whose homeland is in the valleys of Hindu Kush. The British and Pashtuns fought bitterly in the North-West Frontier. In the late 19th century British carved off the North-West Frontier Province from the Punjab and left it ungoverned, This condition was adopted when Pakistan was created and remains true today.

The first British contact with the Frontier region of the Pashtuns was in 1809. Following the Sikh wars in 1849, the frontier lands came under British control and the British began taking a serious interest in the area during the Great Game era, when Russia began expanding in Central Asia. But it was a difficult place. The historian Robert Wirsing wrote: “Widespread lawlessness and defiance of British authority was the constant complaint of British officialdom at virtually all times.”

Immortalized in a Rudyard Kipling poem called "Arithmetic on the Frontier," the Afridis Pashtuns reportedly were such excellent marksmen they were able to shoot down British biplanes with rifles. There is a legend about one Afridi leader whose heart was taken to the British museum in a silk casket. The heart they say weighed ten pounds. Describing a Pashtun tribe that controlled the Khyber Pass, the British explorer Charles Masson wrote in 1827, "The Kibaris, like other rude Afghan tribes, have their maliks, or chiefs, but the authority of these is very limited, and every individual has a voice in public affairs, it is impossible to describe the confusion that exists among them."

Badsha Khan was a Pashtun leader who promoted Pashtun nationalism. He was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and used nonviolent tactics to combat colonial rule. He founded a political movement, known as the Red Shirts. He won a lot of supporters but when the British decided to leave India-Pakistan, a homeland for the Pashtuns was not offered. In a referendum on the choice between a united India or a divided Pakistan and India, only seventy percent of Pashtuns voted. In 1947 the Pashtun voted to join Pakistan but were angry about the border with Afghanistan.

Pashtun fighters fought on the British side in World War I and World War II at places like Gallipoli and Monte Cassino. Pashtuns also formed the majority of fighters who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s and the British in the 19th century. Most Taliban have been Pashtuns.

Pashtuns and the Division Afghanistan and Pakistan

The British and Pashtuns fought bitterly in the North-West Frontier. In the late 19th century British carved off the North-West Frontier Province from the Punjab and left it ungoverned, This condition was adopted when Pakistan was created and remains true today.

Pakistan and Afghanistan were divided by an artificial boundary drawn by the British in 1893. The border divides Pashtun territory and was is called the Durand line after the British envoy, Sir Mortimer Durand, who drew it. The Pashtuns have never accepted this border. In 1897 they revolted. and 35,000 British troops had to be called into put down the revolt.

Describing a Pashtun tribe that controlled the Khyber Pass, the British explorer Charles Masson wrote in 1827, "The Kibaris, like other rude Afghan tribes, have their maliks, or chiefs, but the authority of these is very limited, and every individual has a voice in public affairs, it is impossible to describe the confusion that exists among them."

Badsha Khan was a Pashtun leader who promoted Pashtun nationalism. He was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi and used nonviolent tactics to combat colonial rule. He founded a political movement, known as the red Shirts. He won a lot of supporters but when the British decided to leave India-Pakistan, a homeland for the Pashtuns was not offered. In the referendum on the choice between a united India or a divided Pakistan and India, only seventy percent of Pashtuns voted. In 1947 the Pashtun voted to join Pakistan but were angry about the border with Afghanistan. Pashtun fighters fought on the British side in World War I and World War II at places like Gallipoli and Monte Cassino.

Struggle in the Pamirs and the End of the Great Game

The capture of Merv and the Pandejah oasis near Afghanistan in what is now Turkmenistan by the Russians in 1884, raised alarm that the Russians were going to try and annex Afghanistan and the Pamirs. The British controlled the Punjab Valley and Peshawar Valley in northern Pakistan.

Both the Russians and Britons set up offices in Kashgar and were courting leaders in the Pamirs, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains and using spies, posing as explorers, traders, Muslim imam and Buddhist monks to establish contacts and keep an eye on the enemy.

The British were angered by presence of Russian troops in the Pamirs and proceeded to seize the Hunza valley in northern Pakistan. Around the same time the Russians were fighting in northeast Afghanistan.

All of this activity brought Russia and Britain to the negotiating table. A series of agreements hammered out in 1895 and 1907 that gave the Russians the Pamirs (present-day Tajikstan) and established the Wakhan Corridor, the finger of Afghanistan that touches China. The Wakhan corridor was attached to northeast Afghanistan as a no-man land between Russia-controlled Central Asia and Britain-controlled India (Pakistan). The agreement on the Pamirs for all intents and purposes brought the Great Game to an end. But spy activity in Kashgar and other places continued.

British in Punjab and Pakistan

In Punjab, annexed in 1849, a group of extraordinarily able British officers, serving first the company and then the British crown, governed the area. They avoided the administrative mistakes made earlier in Bengal. A number of reforms were introduced, although local customs were generally respected. Irrigation projects later in the century helped Punjab become the granary of northern India. The respect gained by the new administration could be gauged by the fact that within ten years Punjabi troops were fighting for the British elsewhere in India to subdue the uprising of 1857-58. Punjab was to become the major recruiting area for the British Indian Army, recruiting both Sikhs and Muslims.

The Sepoy Uprising of 1857-58 heralded the formal end of the Mughal Empire and marked as well the end of company rule in India. The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act of 1858, which transferred authority to the British crown, represented in India by the governor general, who thereafter also had the title of viceroy. Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress of India in 1877.

The British Raj was socially and politically conservative, but it brought profound economic change to the subcontinent. For strategic, administrative, and commercial reasons, the British improved transportation and communications and kept them in good repair. Coal mines were opened in Bihar and Bengal, and irrigation canals were laid out in the Yamuna (also seen as Jumna), Ganges, and Indus valleys; the Indus Valley became the largest irrigated area in the world. The expansion of irrigation in Punjab led to the development of canal colonies, settled mainly by Sikhs and Muslims, and the designation of Punjab as the granary of India. Law and order guaranteed a high rate of return on British, and later Indian, investment in these enterprises.

Muslims Under British Rule

According to “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices”: “European control over India began in 1600 with the founding of the British East India Company, which steadily acquired governmental authority until 1858, when the British Crown assumed full authority over the subcontinent with the establishment of the British Raj (1858–1947). During the nineteenth century colonial rule ignited a debate among Sunni Muslims over two different interpretations of Islam. One group favored a moderate form that was tolerant of religious diversity and stressed modern education and accommodation to a world dominated by Western powers. A second group espoused a puritanical interpretation of Islam that viewed accommodation to Western influences as counter to the faith and to the unity and strength of the Islamic community, or ummah. The latter was associated with Deobandi Islam, a Sunni movement that took its name from the town of Deoband (north of New Delhi), where the first Deobandi school, Dar-ul-uloom (House of Learning), was founded in 1867. [Source:“Worldmark Encyclopedia of Religious Practices,” Thomson Gale, 2006]

A call for jihad against British rule in India resulted in an underground movement that lasted from 1830s to the 1870s. In the mid 19th century, racial criteria were also used in a dramatic overhaul of the British Indian Army. The number of British soldiers was increased relative to the Indians, and Indians were excluded from artillery and technical services. A theory of "martial races" was used to accelerate recruitment from among "loyal" Sikhs, Punjabi Muslims, Dogras, Gurkas, and Pakhtuns (Pathans) and to discourage enlistment of "disloyal" Bengalis and high-caste Hindus. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

Prior to 1857, Muslims were prominent in economics and administration, and Muslim leaders are believed to have led the Sepoy Rebellion to regain the political and economic advantages enjoyed under Mughal rule. The British responded by dropping Urdu and Persian as official languages and replacing them with English, thus rendering many Muslims functionally illiterate and unemployable. The British also placed Hindus in many positions previously occupied by Muslims. As a result, Muslims perceived Hindus as opportunistic accomplices to the British oppression of Muslims, and this impression would endure for decades.

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia: “Unlike previous settlers in India, the Muslim immigrants were not absorbed into Hindu society. Their ranks were augmented by the millions of Hindus who had been converted to Islam. There was cultural interchange between Hindu and Muslim, but no homogeneity emerged. After the Indian Mutiny (1857), a rising Hindu middle class began to assume dominant positions in industry, education, the professions, and the civil service. Although, in these early decades of the Indian National Congress, vigorous efforts were made to include Muslims in the nationalist movement, concern for Muslim political rights led to the formation of the Muslim League in 1906; in the ensuing years Hindu-Muslim conflict became increasingly acute.” [Source: Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed., The Columbia University Press]

Impact of the the British Indian Army on the Pakistani Military

The country's British heritage has played the greatest role in shaping the often amorphous military tradition of the Muslim period into streamlined modern forces. Beginning in the earliest days of the East India Company (chartered in 1600), native guards were hired by the British to protect trading posts. The critical event in the evolution of the British Indian Army was the uprising of 1857-58 — known as the Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Rebellion by British historians and sometimes as the First War of Independence by later Indian nationalists — when troops in north-central India, Muslim and Hindu alike, rose up against the British. Some bonds of loyalty held, but many Indian troops slaughtered both their British leaders and hapless civilians. With the help of Indian troops who did not join the rebellion — especially Sikhs and Muslims from the Punjab — the mutineers were put down with a violence that matched the atrocities that they had committed. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

The bond between Indian and Briton had been broken, and a rethinking of British military policy in India was set in motion. East India Company rule was abolished, and direct British rule — the British Raj — was instituted in 1858. Emphasis was put on recruiting in areas where disaffection was least and where the British discerned the existence of "martial races" (ethnic groups) noted for their military tradition, lack of political sophistication, and demonstrated loyalty. By these criteria, the most fertile area for recruitment was in the Punjab region of northwestern India. The Punjabization of the British Indian Army and the assumptions that underlay it would weigh heavily on both the international and the domestic politics of Pakistan once it was created as an independent entity.*

The Pakistan Army structure of the early 1990s in many ways bore a close resemblance to the British Indian Army structure at the end of the nineteenth century. During that period, recruitment into individual, homogeneous regiments depended on class and caste, rather than on territory. Over time, these regiments became sources of immense pride to the men who served in them and to the ethnic group from which they were frequently recruited. Service in a specific regiment passed from father to son; the eventual shift from British to Pakistani rule went with hardly a ripple in the structure except for the change in nationality of the senior officer corps.

The British experimented with various forms of recruitment and of elevation to officer rank. During the period between the two world wars (1919-39), the British trained Indian officers to command at least Indian troops, and training establishments were set up to produce an indigenous officer corps. A small number of officer candidates were sent to Britain to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst; after 1932 the majority of candidates were trained at the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun.*

Forward Policy in the Northwest Frontier

British policy toward the tribal peoples on the northwest frontier vacillated between caution and adventurism during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Some viceroys opposed extending direct administration or defense beyond the Indus River. Others favored a more assertive posture, or "forward policy." The latters' view prevailed, partly because Russian advances in Central Asia gave their arguments credence. In 1874 Sir Robert Sandeman was sent to improve British relations with the Baloch tribes and the khan of Kalat. In 1876 Sandeman concluded a treaty with the khan that brought his territories--including Kharan, Makran, and Las Bela--under British suzerainty. The Second Afghan War was fought in 1878-80, sparked by Britain's demands that Afghan foreign policy come completely under its control. In the Treaty of Gandamak concluded in May 1879, the Afghan amir ceded his districts of Pishin, Sibi, Harnai, and Thal Chotiali to the British. During succeeding years, other tribal areas were forcibly occupied by the British. In 1883 the British leased the Bolan Pass, southeast of Quetta, from the khan of Kalat on a permanent basis, and in 1887 some areas of Balochistan were declared British territory. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

A similar forward policy was pursued farther north. A British political agent was stationed in Gilgit in 1876 to report on Russian activities as well as on developments in the nearby states of Hunza and Nagar. In 1889 the Gilgit Agency was made permanent. A British expedition was sent against Hunza and Nagar, which submitted to British control. A new mir from the ruling family of Hunza was appointed by the British. British garrisons were established in Hunza and Chitral in 1892. A formal protectorate was declared over Chitral and Gilgit in 1893.

Also in 1893, Sir Mortimer Durand negotiated an agreement with Amir Abdur Rahman Khan of Afghanistan to fix an only partially surveyed line (the Durand Line) running from Chitral to Balochistan to designate the areas of influence for the Afghans and the British. Each party pledged not to interfere in each other's lands. This agreement brought under British domination territory and peoples that had not yet been conquered and would become the source of much difficulty between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the future.

The establishment of British hegemony in the northwest frontier regions did not lead to direct administration similar to that in other parts of India. Local customary law continued, as did the traditional lines of authority and social customs upheld by the maliks (tribal chiefs). To a large extent, the frontier was little more than a vast buffer zone with Afghanistan between the British and Russian empires in Asia and a training ground for the British Indian Army.

Sindhis in the British Period

Sindhis are the natives of the Sindh province, which includes Karachi, the lower part of the Indus River, the southeast coast of Pakistan and a lot of desert. Sindh was conquered by the British in 1843. After his victory, the commanding officer, British General, Sir Charles Napier, an infamous one word dispatch to his bosses: "Peccavi" — Latin for "I have sinned." Sindh was part of the Bombay Presidency until 1937, when it was made a separate province. Following Pakistan's independence, Sindh was made part of West Pakistan in 1955. In 1970 Sindh became a province of Pakistan. [Source: D. O. Lodrick “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life”, Cengage Learning, 2009 *]

During the British Raj, Sindh, situated south of Punjab, was the neglected hinterland of Bombay. The society was dominated by a small number of major landholders (waderas). Most people were tenant farmers facing terms of contract that were a scant improvement over outright servitude; a middle-class barely existed. The social landscape consisted largely of unremitting poverty, and feudal landlords ruled with little concern for any outside interference. A series of irrigation projects in the 1930s merely served to increase the wealth of large landowners when their wastelands were made more productive. Reformist legislation in the 1940s that was intended to improve the lot of the poor had little success. The province approached independence with entrenched extremes of wealth and poverty. [Source: Peter Blood, Library of Congress, 1994 *]

There was considerable upheaval in Sindh in the years following partition. Millions of Hindus and Sikhs left for India and were replaced by roughly 7 million muhajirs, who took the places of the fairly well-educated emigrant Hindus and Sikhs in the commercial life of the province. Later, the muhajirs provided the political basis of the Refugee People's Movement (Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz — MQM). As Karachi became increasingly identified as a muhajir city, other cities in Sindh, notably Thatta, Hyderabad, and Larkana, became the headquarters for Sindhi resistance.

In 1994 Sindh continued to be an ethnic battlefield within Pakistan. During the 1980s, there were repeated kidnappings in the province, some with political provocation. Fear of dacoits (bandits) gave rise to the perception that the interior of Sindh was unsafe for road and rail travel. Sectarian violence against Hindus erupted in the interior in 1992 in the wake of the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, by Hindu extremists who sought to rebuild a Hindu temple on the contested site.

Baloch in the British Period

The Baloch, also know the Balochi, Baluch or Baluchi, are an ethnic group that live primarily in the sandy plains, deserts and barren mountains of southeast Iran, southwest Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. The Baloch have a long history of warfare. They fought with the various groups that occupied the Balochistan at the time of their arrival and expanded earthward, making it as far as Delhi in the early Mughal era. In the 18th century, the Baloch tribes were only loosely united. The British officer Sir Charles Napier, who fought the Baloch in the 1840s, wrote: “The brave Baloch. first discharging their matchlocks and pistols dashed over the bank with desperate resolution; but down went these bold and skillful swordsmen under the superior power of the musket and bayonet.”

In the British period tribal chiefs served as intermediaries between the local people and the British. In the process the Baloch lost much of their autonomy but through the British title and political system were able to accumulate more political power, wealth and land. According to the “Encyclopedia of World Cultures”: Uninterested in the Region economically, the British were solely concerned with establishing a buffer zone that could forestall the encroachment of the Russians upon the rich prize of India. To further this end, the British relied on the Baloch tribal leaders, cash handouts, and the establishment of garrisons, but they paid no attention to the economic development of the region itself. [Source: Nancy E. Gratton,“Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 3: South Asia,” edited by Paul Hockings, 1992]

D. O. Lodrick wrote in the “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life” Concerned with a possible Russian threat to their Indian Empire, and also with gaining access to the strategic Afghanistan frontier, the British sought to extend their influence into Balochistan. They achieved this by playing local leaders against each other and through a policy of divide and conquer. Tribal chiefs were guaranteed local autonomy and cash payments in return for allowing British garrisons in their territory. Some areas along the Afghanistan border were brought under direct British administration. By the early 20th century, British control over the region extended to the borders of Afghanistan and Iran. [Source:D. O. Lodrick, “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life”, Cengage Learning, 2009]

The British annexation of Sindh in 1843 pushed the frontier of British India to the borders of Balochistan. By the early twentieth century, the British had control over much of the region. The Baloch were largely pacified in the late 1870s through the efforts of one Sir Robert Sandeman. Some of the Khan that ruled Balochistan at that time were just as eccentric as some nawabs and maharajas in India. One Baloch khan developed a passion for collecting shoes. To make sure that no one stole them, he kept the left shoe of each pair locked in a dungeon. The last Khan of Kalat designed his palace to look like the Queen Mary cruise ship. His quarters were in the ‘Captain’s Cabin’ on the top deck.

Northern Pakistan During the British Period

What is now northern Pakistan was largely beyond the reach of reach of the Russian. The Bursusho, also known as Hunzakuts, are dominant ethnic group of the Hunza valley in far northern Pakistan. Up until the early part of the 20th century many Burushos made their living raiding the caravans that traveled between Leh and Yarkand over 5,540-meter-high (18,176-foot-high) Karakorum pass. Some were slave traders. The ruling Thums not only exploited travelers and merchants who passed through their territory they also exploited their own people; taxing them when the Thums were under threat and enslaving them if they resisted. Occasionally a sword dance is held as a reminder of their brigand days,

The Burushos have traditionally had good relations with the Chinese. For a while the Hunza Valley was part of Kashmir. The British captured the valley in the 1930s to hold off Soviet expansion into the valley, but they had a difficult time. A British colonel impressed with their stamina called the men of the Hunza "an oasis of manliness in a desert of trousered women." Hunza is now part of the Gilgit Agency in Pakistan.

The Hunza was ruled for 900 years by an autocratic monarch known as the mir. His power was regarded as absolute. He was assisted in his duties by a grand vizier. They were responsible fro meeting out justice and distributing goods. Villages were led by chiefs assisted by sergeant in arms. “Kalifas” appointed by the Mir presided over important events. Social control was maintained mainly through the impositions of fines and the threat of deportation and forced labor.

The Mir often consulted with elder members of the community about daily matters great and small. For many years, the Mir was the only one with a clock. In the old day he used rely on forced labor. When the Mir was in power he often ordered clan members to work his fields instead of their own. The Mir often stayed long periods of time at the Intercontinental hotel in Karachi which some of his subjects visited just so they could embarrass him by shouting insults. In 1974 the Mir handed over control of the government to the Pakistan government.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (tourism.gov.pk), Official Gateway to the Government of Pakistan (pakistan.gov.pk), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated February 2022