They would have called themselves Katis,
but the Muslims surrounding
them had for centuries called them Kafirs - infidels -
and their land,
thus came to be known as Kafiristan.
One day in 1897, near the village Brumotul not far from
Chitral, then
a semi-independent Muslim state high in the Himalayas, a
bunch of boys
went walking. They were not Chitralis, but refugees from
another place
that lay west of the newly demarcated Durand Line. They
were not
Muslims, either. The boys would have described
themselves as Katis,
but the Muslims surrounding them had for centuries used
“Kafir” to
describe the boys’ ancestors, and “Kafiristan” for their
original
land. The British had retained that nomenclature for the
portion of
that land they now controlled, while the Afghan Amir,
Abdur Rahman,
whose invasion had made the boys refugees, had named his
portion
“Nuristan” (“The Land of Light”).
The boys stopped on a bridge to watch two “Sahibs”
fishing in the
stream below, not having seen their likes before. One of
the sportsmen
came over to them and said something in Khowar, one of
the several
languages spoken among the Kafirs. One Kati boy
understood what was
said; he asked his friends to find earthworms for the
Sahib. Later, he
and another boy carried the day’s catch to the Sahibs’
camp. The man
who spoke to the boys was an army doctor named Capt; the
Kati boy who
understood him was named Azar. Something about the boy
struck Harris
as exceptional. He sent for him the following day and
almost
obsessively insisted that Azar—barely ten or eleven at
the time—should
join his service. Azar offered excuses, his mother
cried, but his
father, Kashmir, the leader of the clan, gave his
permission. Azar
became Harris’s servant—first for 18 months at Chitral,
and then for
two years at Peshawar. Meanwhile, Kashmir was killed by
some relatives
when he was on his way to Kabul—after converting to
Islam—to meet the
Amir and seek from him his previous high status.
In June of 1900 Harris was dispatched to China to help
suppress the
“Boxer Rebellion,” while Azar stayed with the Captain’s
spinster
sister. However, when she decided to return to England
at the end of
the year, Azar refused to accompany her. He insisted on
staying in
service in the army with the Punjabi soldiers he had
come to like, and
who had been very kind to him. Miss Harris then handed
him over to a
Capt. A.A. James.
Soon after, Azar fell seriously ill, and during that
illness took a
vow to become a Muslim on regaining health. After
recovery, Azar made
his wish known to James, who was not pleased. It was not
what Harris
had wanted, who, in fact, had given everyone strict
instructions
against it. (For the record, Harris had never sought to
make Azar a
Christian.) Seeing Azar’s determination, however, James
took the
necessary steps and obtained the required permission
from the
Political Department. One Friday, Azar converted to
Islam, and took on
a new name: Shaikh Muhammad Abdullah Khan. His devotion
to Capt.
James, however, and the latter’s manifold kindness to
him remained
unchanged.
A few years later, in the summer of 1905, when Abdullah
was at the
mountain resort of Murree with his master, he was
overwhelmed by a
longing for his ancestral homeland. A new ambition also
took hold of
him. He got the idea of accomplishing what his father
had died trying
to do—return to the original home in Afghanistan and
become the leader
of his people. With James’s help, a petition was
prepared and—after
Abdullah put his thumbprint on it—sent to concerned
authorities.
Several British officers helped in forwarding the cause.
Abdullah
eventually got an audience with the new ruler of
Afghanistan when the
latter visited India, but, not knowing Persian, he could
not converse
with him. Promises were made—or so Abdullah thought—but
nothing
happened. Then James had a serious accident, forcing him
to return to
England.
That is where Abdullah’s story, as told by him, ends. It
is now
available to us in a remarkable book. (Shaikh Muhammad
Abdullah Khan
‘Azar’, My Heartrendingly Tragic Story, edited by
Alberto M. Cacopardo
and Ruth Laila Schmidt (Oslo: Novus Press, 2006), pp.
xl, 136, 139.)
As the narrative closes in Jalandhar Cantonment,
Abdullah says: “Now I
can feel homesick with a good conscience, because God
Almighty has
given the Sahib relief and recovery.” The learned
editors add in a
footnote: “This was probably written in early 1908;
Abdullah is
already planning his return home, which will take place
later that
year.” Abdullah returned to Brumotul, where he lived out
the rest of
his life. The editors think he died around 1948.
At some stage during the process of petitioning
(1906–07), Abdullah
dictated to someone an account of his life, containing
much more than
the bare-bone given above. He also added to that
“heartrending” (dilon
ko hila-dene-wali) story a separate but detailed account
of his Kati
people, their history, kinship system, religious
rituals, arts, and
important myths or lore. Evidently, it was done at the
urging of Capt.
James, who might have also suggested the topics that
needed to be
covered. The two narratives are in Urdu, and in first
person. But the
editors are rightly doubtful of Abdullah’s prowess in
that language at
the time, for it contains patches that are too purple
for any novice.
Most likely Abdullah’s words were recast by his scribe
friend. Be that
as it may, the preciseness of Abdullah’s observation and
the poignancy
of his feelings draw our respect and attention even if
they come in
someone else’s language. The singular manuscript,
formally dedicated
to Capt. James, remained in the captain’s custody until
1914, at which
time it was returned to the author with other papers. It
stayed with
Abdullah until 1929, when the famous Norwegian scholar
Georg
Morgenstierne (1892–1972) met him at Bromotul, and
bought it from him
for thirty rupees. It now reposes in the Institute for
Comparative
Research in Human Culture at Oslo.
Morgenstierne was the first to note the importance of
the book—no
worthy account of the Kati people existed at the
time—and planned to
bring out a proper translation. Unfortunately he died
before he could
make any serious progress. The task was then undertaken
by one of his
illustrious students, Knut Kristiansen, but he too
passed away before
the job was finished. Thankfully, the project was not
abandoned, and
we now have the two accounts accessible to us in the
original Urdu as
well as in English translation. The latter, done
originally by
Kristiansen, has been revised and updated by Kandida
Zweng and Manzar
Zarin, and provided with explanatory notes by the
editors. A brief
epilogue accounts for Abdullah’s life after 1908, while
archival
photographs allow us to see the faces of these neglected
people and
their physical environment. There is a wealth of
scholarly addenda in
the form of an introduction, biographical and
explanatory notes, plus
an extensive bibliography, resulting in a superbly put
together
book.Who were Azar/Abdullah’s people? Only the ancestors
knew, and they do
not seem to have left any story of origin or migration.
Some outsiders, coming much later, have called them the
descendents of
Alexander’s army because they prominently have blue eyes
and very fair
skin. When in 1888 Rudyard Kipling sent off his two
rascally heroes to
become kings in Kafiristan, this is how he described
their first
sighting of the local people: “Then ten men with bows
and arrows ran
down that valley, chasing twenty men with bows and
arrows, and the row
was tremenjus. They was fair men, fairer than you or me,
with yellow
hair and remarkable well built.” (Sadly, the 1975 film
based on the
story was shot in Morocco and not in Chitral, and John
Huston’s
“natives” were swarthy and dark-haired, true only to
Hollywood
anthropology.) Linguists who studied the relevant
languages have
declared them as old as the time when Aryan and Iranian
languages had
not branched away from each other—even older. These
people made their
home in a remote region, extremely picturesque but not
possessing the
wealth that attracted marauders and empire builders.
Various invading
hordes seemingly skirted them. And when the diverse
people around them
became Muslim, they collectively came to be known as
“Kafirs,” and
their land as “Kafiristan.”
However, what could survive ancient marauding failed
against the
combined might of 19th century colonialism and
nationalism. The
British in India came to terms with the Pathans in Kabul
in 1893 and
put down the infamous Durand Line (1896) that cut
through the land of
the Kafirs. Soon after, the Amir of the new nation of
Afghanistan
invaded his portion of the divide to establish his
sovereignty. Those
who could do so fled to Chitral, whose Muslim ruler let
them settle
near their brethren.
The “Land of Light” is presently controlled by the
Afghan Taliban. It
gained headlines around the world in October 2009 when
The American
forward base, “Camp Keating,” was attacked, and eight
American
soldiers were killed. Subsequently, the Americans
abandoned the base
after turning it into rubble. Things are also perilous
in the Chitral
valley, with frequent rumours of Osama bin Laden hiding
in the region
and the CIA having a listening post there. In September
2009, a Greek
scholar-volunteer, Athanasios Lerounis, was kidnapped by
the Afghan
Taliban. Lerounis had been working with the Kalash
Kafirs of Chitral
for many years because he was struck by their response
when he had
asked what they wanted most. “A school of our own,” they
told him,
“where we can teach our language and culture to our
children.” He was
now helping the Kalash build an ethnographic museum of
their own when
the raiders came from across the Durand Line. They now
hold him in
Nuristan, in ransom for the release of three Taliban
leaders in
Pakistan’s custody. In January 2010, a group of Chitrali
Muslims,
including some Kalash, traveled to Nuristan for the
fourth time to
plead for Lerounis’ release, and again returned
disappointed.
Back in September 2009, a member of the Kalash community
had told the
Daily Times of Lahore: “If the government doesn’t take
any serious
action we will leave Pakistan and go to some other
country, a move
which would bring bad name to Pakistan.” Who can even
begin to imagine
the desperation behind that threat, so naďve and so
futile? In the
21st century, no people can emigrate at will. The
countless “Durand
Lines” all over the globe will never allow it.
Source: asianwindow.com
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