SUMMARY OF EVENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1937, Page 11

SUMMARY OF EVENTS

FRONTIER TROUBLE

MILITANT FAKIR'S WORK

Trouble has again broken out in the Khaisorah Valley, on the North-West Frontier of India, where two British and two Indian officers, with 19 Indian other ranks, have been killed by tribesmen aroused by the fanatic Fakir of Ipi, wrote Sir William Barton, late of the Indian Political Department, in the "Daily Telegraph" recently.

In the following article Sir William Barton, who had many years' experience of administration among the Irontier ' tribes and served in the Afghan War of 1919, describes the origins of the trouble and the means taken along the frontier to keep such outbreaks' in, check. Militant Islam is an outstanding feature of life on the Afghan frontier. The news of a fresh collision between British troops and a tribal lashkar near Damdil, in Waziristan, emphasises the ever-present danger. The soldier priest has always been the stormy petrel of the borderland. RELIGIOUS QUARREL. Once again a fanatical priest has brought on a frontier campaign as the result of a religious quarrel between Moslem and Hindu. The trouble arose out of the alleged conversion of a Hindu girl to Islam. The Hindus opposed the claim. Moslem crowds attempted to coerce them. The district authorities intervened and placed the girl in safe custody, whereupon the Moslems sought help from beyond the border a few miles away. They found an ally in the Fakir of Ipi, a village in the Tochi near the Tori Kheyl boundary in the valley of the Khaisorah. He is a Tori Kheyl of about 35 years of age, and spent his youth in religious training under a well-known Mullah of Ipi. His influence began to be felt after 1924; he owes his popularity largely to the fact •that he hardly ever accepts largesse. When his help was sought he raised a large lashkar (tribal force) of Dauris, a fanatical tribe of the lower Tochi, and .with it made a demonstration on the Bannu border. British military forces control the Tochi; pressure was brought to bear on the Dauri headmen and the lashkar dispersed. To avoid arrest the Fakir fled to the Tori Kheyl, and from a safe haven in the Khaisorah continued his anti-Government propaganda. The keystone of frontier policy is tribal responsibility. The Tori Kheyl as a body and individually, and in particular the tribal jirgah or council, which represents the tribe in its relations with the Government, were responsible for preventing the Fakir from working up trouble. They had no quarrel with the Government, and they had much to lose by provoking reprisals. Moreover, they had only recently agreed, in return' for an annual payment, to allow a road to be made up the Khaisorah, to connect with the main road from the Tochi leading to the hill cantonment of Razmak. Summoned to meet the political authorities the jirgah admitted itself unable to control the Fakir's supporters, unless the Government made a military demonstration in force in the Khaisorah. SNIPERS' OPPOSITION. In the susbequent operations, the troops met with little opposition, though there was a certain amount of desultory sniping. The purpose of the Government to construct a road through the Khaisorah Valley, linking it with the main Tochi-Razmak road, was carried out. A representative jirgah of the Tori Kheyl promised compliance with the Government terms, a fine in rifles and other penalties, and the troops were thereupon withdrawn.

But the Fakir of Ipi moved into Mahsud country and the Shakto valley, a safe harbourage from which to continue his propaganda. The result was a recrudescence of hostile acts; two British officers of the South Waziristan Scouts were murdered, the Madda Kheyl being implicated in one case, and Mahsuds in the other. Later, there was sniping of British camps and a mass attack on a Gurkha picket. The situation appeared so threatening that it was thought necessary to move two fresh pickets intp the Tochi. The Government made it clear that further outrages would lead to-extensive military operations.

This display of force appeared to have had its effect. The Madda Kheyl promised to bring to justice the murderers of Captain Keogh, while the Tori Kheyl pledged themselves to bring pressure to bear on the Fakir to force him to abandon his hostility to the British Government.

It was hoped that this would end the trouble. A later attack in force on the British column unfortunately suggested that the trouble had got beyond the control of the pro-British section of the Tori Kheyl.

The Fakir turned a deaf ear to the appeals of the elders and women to desist from his anti-British activities. Consequently military measures were tightened, including special steps to prevent provisions from reaching the hostile tribes. A total of 30,000 British troops, including two tank brigades, was ordered to the area concerned and the object was the investing of the Fakir's cave and the fastnesses of the scrub-covered Shaktu Valley. Constant sniping and damage to telephone wires and bridges followed. On April 24 it was reported t'.iat, with 33,000 troops and five companies of light tanks, operations against the Fakir had begun in earnest under the command of General Sir John .Coleridge. In a clash on May 10 two Britishers and 12 Indians were wounded, and a day or two later there was another fight which forced the tribesmen back and resulted in military casualties of three killed and nine wounded. Within a week a camp site had been captured, 50 tribesmen being killed and 40 wounded, and at the end of May the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders lost seven killed and 20 wounded in an attack on Gharion Camp. The tribesmen were driven off by machineguns. An Indian troop train was also attacked, with six casualties. Early this month it was reported that the Fakir was seeking for peace.

That the Fakir's preaching has had "widespread effect is shown by the fact that he has now adherents not only