‘Politicals’, Tribes and Musahibans: The Indian Political Service and Anglo-Afghan Relations 1929–39

This article examines the way in which the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier came to constitute a recurrent point of contention and dispute in Anglo-Afghan relations during the period under examination. It argues that while much attention has been paid to the way in which the activities of autonomous tribes of the frontier impacted upon British interests, much of the existing historiography has tended to focus upon the physical confrontation between tribe and state and has hitherto ignored perhaps the most complex aspect of the ‘tribal problem’ during this period; its impact upon the Government of India's diplomatic relations with Afghanistan. The article proposes that the period 1929–39 constituted a particularly challenging context for British policy-makers wrestling with the requirement to formulate a cost-effective tribal policy that would suit the interests of British India without undermining the newly emerged, pro-British but inherently weak Musahiban regime. It argues that while the Government of India avoided any fatal breach in relations with the Afghan leadership, the process of frontier policy-making illustrated some fundamental weaknesses in perspective on the part of that government department most closely associated with the formulation of such policy: the Indian Political Service.     

Abdul Ghaffar Khan: An Islamic Gandhi

Abstract

Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a mid-twentieth-century Pashtun of the Northwest Frontier Region known as the "Frontier Gandhi" or the "Islamic Gandhi." His career was marked by rejection of the badal blood feud, and the belligerent Pashtun tribal code. Accepting instead a non-violent interpretation of Islam, Khan was heavily influenced by Mohandas K. Gandhi, and came to interpret the heart of Islam, including the concepts of jihad, as essentially about peace, service, and non-violence. Khan traveled widely in the frontier region that later became Pakistan, and his most significant achievement was to raise a non-violent army of Khudai Khidmatgars or "Servants of God" from his own Pashtun people. His legacy is important to further understand a non-violent alternative of Islamic political resistance.