Why Turkey?

Donated by Klaus KreiserReprinted from : Asian Affairs 57, 1970

Hostages on the Indo-Afghan border in the later nineteenth century

This paper look at some of the strategies employed by British administrators to control the highly independent Mahsuds, one of the principal tribes of Waziristan, during the later 19th century. It focuses in particular on an innovative scheme introduced in 1873 for keeping a number of hostages in British territory. The British hoped that, as well as giving them more influence over the tribe, this would persuade them to adopt more peaceful ways. In 1878 it was replaced by a plan to settle some 200 Mahsud families in British territory. This was not a success, and the hostage arrangements were revived in a modified form in 1882 (this time an effort was made to use the hostages as a kind of tribal police), before being finally abandoned towards the end of the decade. The paper shows how Macaulay’s hostage schemes accustomed the British to the idea that each year money should be spent on the Mahsuds, so presaging the later distribution of allowances to the tribe as a whole. Keeping the hostages did help the administrators to manage the Mahsuds more effectively, but failed to persuade them to adopt the customs and values of Britain and British India. The hostage schemes were nevertheless good examples of the kind of ‘cultural agility’ advocated in recent years by counterinsurgency experts

Negotiations with the tribes of Waziristan 1849-1914-the British experience

In the nineteenth century the independent Waziristan tribes usually relied on jirgas— assemblies of adult men—to resolve conflicts, and manage relations with other groups. Particularly in the period from 1849 to 1914, rather than simply subduing them by military means, the British usually had to manipulate and manage the tribes as best they could. This meant negotiating with them through these jirgas. Among the problems they encountered were, firstly, factionalism, which meant that the tribes often received mixed messages from the local officials. Secondly, nikkat, the ideology of sharing between the different tribes and sections, made it difficult to target rewards or punishments on particular groups. Thirdly, the tribes’ decentralised political organisation and ethos of equality meant that they had no leaders or rulers through whom they could be controlled. One of the lessons of the British experience in Waziristan is that negotiations should be conducted directly and not through intermediaries. Others are that as many different shades of opinion and sources of influence as possible should be involved, and that knowledge of the culture of those with whom is negotiating is indispensable