Dr. Henry Walter Bellew,
a surgeon in the Bengal Army wrote the first book by any British on
Pashto grammar, 'A Grammar of the Pooshtoo Language'. Sir W.K. Fraser-Tytler
, "Afghanistan: a study of political developments in central and
southern Asia: wrote in 1950, "The Durand Line, though perhaps in
the circumstances the best line possible, has few advantages and many
defects. It is illogical from the point of view of ethnography, of
strategy and of geography."
The Pathans – 550 BC - AD
1957 by
Sir Olaf Caroe, 1958, Macmillan Company
,Reprinted Oxford University Press, 2003. The classic work .
Colonel Algermon George Arnold
Durand's definitive work, "The
making of a frontier", (1899), Durand joined the British Indian Army
in 1872 . Served in Afghanistan in 1878-80. He was the first British Agent
at Gilgit in 1889-93 and commanded troops in the Hunza-Nagar expedition,
in 1891. The book gives geographical details of Gilgit, Hunza-Nagar,
Chitral and Baltistan. Untiring Explorer, Durand found the people
"cheery pleasant people to deal with, slight, wiry and very active,
first-rate mountaineers and of untiring energy". He called the area
'land of gold and apricots'. It was the ingenuity of Durand that he
created a strip of border of no man's land called the Wakhan corridor and
drew the separating line in 1893. Controversial in his demarcation – The
Durand Line - of the territory and the people. The Second Afghan War of
1878-80 led to the demarcation of the Durand Line.
E.F. Knight "Where the
three empires meet: a narrative of recent travel in Kashmir, western
Tibet, Gilgit and the adjoining territories." - 1897.
An explorer and traveler and gave an eyewitness account of Hunza and Nagar
as already described above by Durand. Reprinted in Pakistan by Indus
Publications.
T.H. Holdich. " The
Indian borderland 1880-1900" - 1901.
Holdich joined the Royal Engineers in 1862. He served in the Afghan War
(1878-80) and the Tirah expedition (1897-8), was on special duty with the
Afghan Boundary Commission (1884-6) and was also a member of Persian -Beluch
Commission (1896). International Authority on boundary making and on
geographical and ethnic limits. Other works : "The gates of India:
being a historical narrative" (1910) , "Ethnographical and
historical notes on Mekran [ Baluchistan coast ] " (1892).
Classic Work --Sir Robert
Warburton's- "Eighteen years in the Khyber"- (1900 – 8 volumes,
maps . illustrations ) , a landmark publication, written at the request of
Edward VII, the then Prince of Wales. Sir Robert [died 1899] was half
Afghan. He was the son of Lt-Col Robert Warburton and an Afghan woman, who
was the niece of Amir Dost Muhammad of Afghanistan. Educated in Mussoorie
(India) and in England. Joined the Royal Artillery in 1862. Political
Officer in Khyber (1879-97) and raised the Khyber Rifles. Influential
over the frontier Afghans. Wrote situation reports in 1877 for the
government, Report on certain frontier tribes and on the tribes of the
Khyber range.
Henry George Raverty-
East India Company – cultural activist & administrator. He
participated in the Punjab campaign (1849-50) and in the first frontier
expedition (1850) against tribes of the Swat border. He served as
Assistant Commissioner in the Punjab (1852-9). Raverty set the
tradition of compiling district Gazetteers. He wrote and illustrated an
account of the district of Peshawar (1849-50). He authored Pashto grammar
in 1855 and compiled the Pashto-English dictionary. He surveyed Afghan
poetry from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century and rendered it into
English. It was later brought out as Selections from the poetry of the
Afghans (1867).
Sir Richard Temple-
administrator & authority on Mahrattas. Wrote – "A bird's eye
view of picturesque India (1898). His theses was that "Muslims of
India are a nationality". Published his own biography in two volumes
entitled, The Story of My Life (1896). Sided with the under-dog Muslims-
his comments on the Afghans are prophetic "For the Afghans he said:
"They cannot hang together for any purpose of politics or of war.
They form little societies among themselves like clans. Then every clan
will insist on being a law to itself and of doing as it likes. What they
all like best is this - to quarrel, kill, and plunder, according to the
impulse of the time. Such a people is never formidable politically of
itself". These words ring true ever since Genghis Khan & Taimur
Lane sacked & devastated the great towns of Herat , & Balkh in 13th
and 14th centuries.
Sir Winston S. Churchill
: "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" – An Episode of
Frontier War" , 1989, Leo Cooper, London.
The Begums of Bhopal:
A History of the Princely State of Bhopal by Shaharyar M Khan,
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Abida Sultaan
, Memoirs of a Rebel Princess, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Charles Allen " Soldier
Sahibs- The Men who made the North West Frontier ", Published 2000.
John Murray .
Nicholson, Edwardes, Abott,
& Lawrence were the soldier sahibs of the NWFP who primarily strove to
protect John Company's market share in the colonial world of 1839-1870’s.
But in many ways than that , they left behind a highly respected legacy
and Olaf Caroe remarks that these men were 50 % Pathans . Nicholson for
one and Roos _Keppel learned to speak Pushto with such flair and command
that the Pathans were charmed /captivated by them . In a sense towns,
colleges, and roads [ Abottabad. Lawrence, Edwardes, Aitchison, Mayo
College, etc are still named after these men ].
Imperial/colonial rule
was not entirely one-sided in favor of the colonial power. In as much as
the British rule over India [ "Jewel in the Crown "] reduced
dimensions of local ethnic society [ destroyed local cotton industry and
moved it to Manchester & Lancashire Mills, etc ] , it also raised
dimensions [ no doubt to grease & suit its objectives of plunder and
loot ] in other areas – Education , building of Railway Networks, Postal
& Telegraph Networks, , Irrigation networks [ the largest irrigation
system in the world is in what is now Pakistan and India’s Punjab and
Uttar Pradesh areas- namely the Power Generation at Dargai Tunnel in Swat,
River Barrages at Sukkur, Canal systems of the Punjab , Roorkee, The
Judicial Systems, etc ] .
There are people who have
worked both under the Japanese colonial rule and the British colonial rule
and the feedback one gets is that the Japanese were far more vicious &
cruel than the British.