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A banker by profession, Salim Ansar has a passion for history and historic books. His personal library already boasts a treasure trove of over 7,000 rare and unique books.Every week, we shall take a leaf from one such book and treat you to a little taste of history.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
BOOK NAME: Operations in Waziristan (1919-20)
AUTHOR: General Staff Army HQ, India
PUBLISHER: Government Printing, Calcutta India
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 1921
The following excerpt has been taken from Page 7-9
Waziristan lies on the western border of the Indian Empire, and forms the connecting link on the Afghan frontier between the districts of Kurram and Zhob. For political and administrative purposes it is divided into Northern and Southern Waziristan. Its shape resembling a rough parallelogram 5,000 square miles in extent practically the whole of which is a tangled mass of mountains and hills of every size, shape and bearing. At first sight the mountains appear to run irregularly in all directions, but a study of the map will show that there are well-defined ranges protecting the interior of the country and making penetration into it a matter of extreme difficulty.
EXTRACT
“From the time of earliest dealings with the Wazirs and Mahsuds these tribes have presented a most difficult problem and one which still awaits a satisfactory solution. The political history of Waziristan especially in its earlier stages has always been closely interwoven with and to some extent overshadowed by, that of Afghanistan. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the British Government has from time to time been involved in military operations with the Waziristan tribes, but the first event of purely political importance with which we are concerned occurred in 1884, when the Amir of Afghanistan made an attempt to establish his supremacy over the Wazirs, and though it met with little or no support from the tribesmen, our policy with regard to Waziristan had not reached sufficiently advanced stage to enable us to dispose of the question finally.
Four years later the Amir was informed that it was not our intention to occupy Wana. This somewhat vague intimation led him to suppose that the Afghans were free to go there, and they accordingly did so. Previous to this the Amir had on more than one occasion asserted that Waziristan belonged to him, but his claim was not definitely repudiated until 1892, when he was informed that, although he would not be called upon immediately to evacuate Wana, we did not admit his right to occupy it, and he was forbidden to advance further into Waziristan pending a settlement. At the same time he was reminded that we had always insisted on the independence of the Wazirs and upon our right to deal directly with them, that we should continue to do so and that he must not attempt to bring them under his authority.
This pronouncement was naturally unpalatable to the Amir, who objected to our having any dealings with the Wazirs and claimed the whole of Waziristan in his dominions. It was of course, impossible to admit such a claim, which had no foundation in fact, for it would have allowed this large track of country in which we were becoming more and more interested, to pass entirely out of our control. The position of Waziristan was thus clearly defined to Amir as being one of complete independent, qualified by our right to hold direct relations with its inhabitants. About this time a proposal was made that we should hand over the suzerainty to the Amir, allow the tribesmen to pay him tribute, and at the same time exercise some sort of control over them, ourselves and bind the Amir to abstain from all actual interference with the tribes.
Lord Lansdowne, however, disliked the idea of this arrangement which would have given both ourselves and the Amir concurrent rights in the same country, and it was rejected. Nor did the Government of India view with more approval a suggested solution of the question involving a partition of the Wazir tribes between ourselves and the Amir. This scheme, by which the whole of the Darwesh Khel would have been transferred to Afghanistan, was considered as presenting insuperable difficulties and was also dropped.
It had always been the policy of the British Government to abstain as far as possible from interference with the internal affairs of the independent tribes living beyond our Indian border, but the decision to exclude the Amir from Waziristan logically involved the protection of that region as well as of its inhabitants from unprovoked acts of aggression on his part. All that government wanted, however, was that the Wazirs should look to us and to no one else. Obviously the advantage of gaining the confidence of the tribes was all important.
In 1893, the negotiations of the previous year reached a final settlement and by the Durand Agreement, signed in Kabul in November, the Amir definitely renounced all claim to Waziristan (the Birmal tract excepted) and agreed to the request of the British Government that the boundary line between India and Afghanistan should be delimitated. A Commission was accordingly appointed in October of the following year to demarcate the Western boundary of Waziristan from Domandi, on the Gomal, northwards.
It was considered that this was a suitable opportunity to accept the invitation of the Wazirs of Wana, given two years previously, to occupy their country, thereby preventing future aggression on the part of either the Afghan authorities or the Powindahs and securing the Gomal route against the depredation of the Mahsuds. To do this it was decided to establish a military post in Wana with outposts along the line of the Gomal Valley. No sooner was Wana occupied than Mahsud attack on the camp occurred and the third-Mahsud expedition of 1894-95 was the immediate result.”
Readers may contact Mr Salim Ansar for any further information at salimansar52@yahoo.com
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ISSN 1563-9479 
