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.
BOOK NAME: A Princely Affairs -- The Accession and Integration of the Princely States of Pakistan, 1947-1955
AUTHOR: Yaqoob Khan Bangash
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press - Karachi
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 2015
The following excerpt has been taken from Pages: 55 — 59
“Yaqoob Khan Bangash was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan. After finishing his initial schooling at Salamat Academy and Lahore College of Arts and Sciences (LACAS), he went to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, earning a BA in History in 2004. He worked at the Asia Society and East-West Institute during 2004-5, and then joined the University of Oxford in 2006 to research for a DPhil in Modern History which he completed in 2011. Presently, he is teaching history at Forman Christian College and Information Technology University, Lahore.
CHITRAL & DIR
“Perched in the northernmost part of India, Chitral has few surviving documents attesting to the foundation of the state and the origins of its ruling family. Even official Government of India records are not consistent about the origins of the Chitral ruling family and depend on local tales at their sources. Both the Imperial Gazetteer and the Memoranda on the Indian States gives differing versions of the foundation of the state. The Memoranda on the Indian States asserts that the ruling family of Chitral descended from one Baba Ayub, a descendant of Timur, the Mongol emperor, or from some noble family in the Hazara region. It notes:
“Baba Ayub settled in Chitral about the beginning of the 17th century, and entered into the services of the Ruling Chief, a Rais of the same family as the rulers of Gilgit. About one hundred years later, the Rais line became extinct and Mohtara Shah (also known as Shah Kator I), a lineal descendant of Baba Ayub became Chief, or Mehtar.
“In contrast, the Imperial Gazetteer states that the family of the Chitral Mehtar's descended from one Sangin Khan who died in 1570 and whose sons dislodged the local ruler and established the current ruling family. With such a level of uncertainty about the origins of the ruling family, only physical control of land and pacification of the people were legitimizing factors for the Mehtar.
“Chitral was first exposed to the Government of India through its relations with Jammu and Kashmir. Mainly to thwart Afghan aggression Chitral and Kashmir signed an alliance in 1878 by which Kashmir became a suzerain of Chitral in return for heavy subsidies from both the Kashmir durbar and the Government of India. However, the Maharaja of Kashmir was categorically told that he would not be allowed to meddle in the affairs of Chitral despite this agreement. Lord Lytton noted: 'henceforth, he (the Maharaja) will neither be required, nor permitted, to meddle with the affairs of any state, great or small, beyond the Cashmere frontier. Internal divisions were rife in the ruling family of Chitral, as exemplified by the dispute over the succession after the death of Mehtar Aman-ul-Mulk in 1892. At that time, a bitter struggle ensued over the throne, which culminated in direct interference by the British in 1895, after Umra Khan, the Khan of Jandul, and Sher Afzal the brother of Aman-ul-Mulk laid siege to Chitral Fort, containing a British political agent and garrison. The security of the Mehtar of Chitral's position now depended largely on the British government and its policies as executed by the political agent, a situation which also alleviated the tensions caused by the mehtar's prodigious talent at producing feuding descendants.
“The ruling family of Dir State traces their origins to Akhund Baba, a holy man of the seventeenth century. Although the ancestry of the family was from a religious leader, the later rulers made no reference to their religious origins. Dir, composed mostly of Yusufzai Pathans, was a tribal society with power vested in the tribal chief. The Nawabs of Dir therefore, were simply leaders of the Paina Khel tribe and rose to ascendancy in the aftermath of the Chitral Relief Expedition of 1895. The official accounts relate:
“In 1895, on the advance of the Chitral Relief Expedition, Muhammad Sharif Khan (the Chief of Painda Khel) came to the Political Officer and did good service by advancing up the Panjkora line with his own forces, recovering Dir from Umra Khan's garrison and pushing on a force into Chitral territory ... he also contributed to the raising of the siege of Chitral by showing the near approach of Sir Robert Law's column, and rendered good service by capturing and handing over the Citrali pretender, Sher Afzal.
“As a result of such 'good service' the British recognized him as the Chief of Dir and entered into an agreement with him, securing access to Chitral for a subsidy of Rs10,000. Later, in 1897, Sharif Khan was granted the title of nawab and in 1898 an agreement was signed which recognized the boundaries of the state of Dir which included Sharif Khan's annexation of the lands on the right bank of the upper Swat river in the spring of 1897.
“The recognition of Muhammad Sharif Khan as the Nawab of Dir and the settlement of the territorial boundaries of the state did not end internal dissension among different factions of the Yusufzai Pathans. When Sharif Khan died in 1904, and later when his successor, Nawab Badshah Khan, died in 1925, the succession was bitterly disputed and the British government had to intervene in order to settle the issue.
“With an often challenged hold on power, and the resulting disputed succession, the Nawabs of Dir had little luxury to develop and cultivate any princely forms of rule and style. Government in Dir was conducted on a day-to-day basis and most of the nawab's time was spent trying to maintain law and order and collect revenue from the other important khans in the state. Being a tribal leader also meant that the nawab had to maintain a certain degree of closeness to the people of his tribe and ensure their well-being and loyalty. As late as 1959, the British deputy high commissioner in Peshawar noted: 'The Nawab relies for his following in the State on the fact that his Painda Khel subjects receive especially privileged treatment, paying little or no taxes unlike other tribesmen. The hold of the Painda Khel Nawabs on Dir was so uncertain in the beginning that they were even willing to put themselves under the suzerainty of the Kashmir durbar in order to consolidate their position. In 1885, Nawab Muhammad Sharif Khan wrote to the Maharaja of Kashmir stating: 'I beg respectfully to state that having lost my own father, I now look upon Your Highness ... as my father ... I who am of old a loyal servant of Your Highness.' It was only when the Painda Khel nawabs were able to establish full control of Dir in the years following the Chitral expedition and later the grant of a hereditary title of nawab by the British in June 1918 that their possession of Dir became secure. This gave Dir a particular character among other Pakhtun societies, as only here did a tribal leader assume the title of a prince. Sir Olaf Caroe noted: 'Dir state has always been unique in that there alone among Pathans the tribes acknowledge one of themselves not only as a Khan or Malik, but as their hereditary ruler with power over their person, indeed as a prince.
“This phenomenon, anthropologist Lindhlom explains 'revolve(s) primarily around a confrontation in Dir between Pukhtun war leaders and the centralized state of Chitral. This confrontation led to an unusual development of hierarchy in Dir and the rise of a princely family. Therefore, Dir was the only tribal Pakhtun state to have emerged in the Indian Empire.
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