Chitral is an important state by reason of its situation at the extremity of the country over which the Government of India exerts its influence. Sir Francis Younghusband has described this state as “one of the chinks in the wall of defence. Not a very large one, but certainly capable of being made into a considerable one if we do not look after it, and in time; for not only is there a chink just here, but the wall is thinner too. Practicable roads across the mountains, especially those by the Baroghil and Dorah passes, lead into Chitral; while the width of the mountains from the plains on the south to the plains on the north, as the crow flies, is 400 miles by the Pamirs and Gilgit, but through Chitral only 200. So Chitral is a place to be looked after and efficiently guarded.”

Importance of Chitral

Gilgit and Chitral seemed to the Government of India to afford good watch-towers whence the country south of the Hindu Kush might be guarded and controlled, since the northern passes provide a difficult but by no means impracticable route for the incursion of a hostile force large enough to cause trouble, or at least excitement, upon this portion of the Border. But our occupation of Chitral is not universally approved. Sir Thomas Holdich[[80]] has said that “the retention of Chitral may well be regarded as a doubtful advantage.... As an outpost to keep watch and ward for an advance from the north, Chitral is useless, for no serious menace is possible from the north. As a safeguard otherwise, it is hard to say from what it will protect us. It is in short the outcome of political, not of military, strategy. As a political centre it must be remembered that it possesses an outlook westwards over the hills and valleys through which the Amir’s great commercial roads have been projected, as well as northwards to the Hindu Kush passes. But it is at best an expensive and burdensome outpost, and is, on the whole, the least satisfactory of all the forward positions that we have recently occupied.”

Elsewhere,[[81]] however, Sir Thomas Holdich seems in some degree to qualify these opinions. Writing of these northern mountain approaches to India, he says, “We cannot altogether leave them alone. They have to be watched by the official guardians of our frontier, and all the gathered threads of them converging on Leh or Gilgit must be held by hands that are alert and strong. It is just as dangerous an error to regard such approaches to India as negligible quantities in the military and political field of Indian defence, as to take a serious view of their practicability for purposes of invasion.... The Dorah Pass ... is the one gateway which is normally open from year to year, and its existence renders necessary an advanced watchtower at Chitral.”

The country is divided into the nine districts of Laspur, Mastuj, Torikho, Mulrikho, Kosht, Owir, Khuzara, Chitral and Drosh. The population totals something over seventy thousand, and the fighting strength is estimated at six thousand men, armed for the most part with matchlocks of local manufacture or imported from Badakshan. There are also in the country under a thousand Sniders and muzzle-loading Enfield rifles, presented at different times to the Mehtar or ruler by the Indian Government.

The Chitralis are the only non-Pathan tribe described in this book and are a mixed race of Aryan type, of whose origin little is known: the language of the country is Chitrali, and Persian is also spoken by some of the upper classes. The people are all Muhammadans, mostly Sunnis, but by no means of a particularly strict or fanatical type; and while the priests have a certain amount of influence, they are unable to work their flocks up into any high degree of religious frenzy as is possible with certain Pathans. The people of Chitral are splendid mountaineers with great powers of endurance, and have fought well on occasion. Sir George Robertson has thus described their characteristics:[[82]] “There are few more treacherous people than the Chitralis, and they have a wonderful capacity for cold-blooded cruelty; yet none are kinder to little children, or have stronger affection for blood or foster-relations when cupidity or jealousy do not intervene. All have pleasant manners and engaging light-heartedness, free from all trace of boisterous behaviour, a great fondness for music, dancing and singing, a passion for simple-minded ostentation, and an instinctive yearning for softness and luxury, which is the mainspring of their intense cupidity and avarice. No race is more untruthful, or has greater power of keeping a collective secret. Their vanity is easily injured, they are revengeful and venal, but they are charmingly picturesque and admirable companions. Perhaps the most convenient trait they possess, as far as we are concerned, is a complete absence of religious fanaticism.... Sensuality of the grossest kind, murder, abominable cruelty, treachery or violent death, are never long absent from the thoughts of a people than whom none in the world are of simpler, gentler appearance.”

Early History

The early history of Chitral is a record of intrigue, civil war and assassination—“a monotonous tale of murder and perfidy—the slaying of brother by brother, of son by father,” and each successive Mehtar appears to have waded to the throne through seas of blood. The founder of the Chitral Royal Family was Shah Katur, whose descendants, dividing into two branches, parcelled the mountainous country from Kafiristan to Gilgit between them—the Khushwakt branch ruling the eastern portion, while the Katur branch governed in the west, or Lower Chitral. At the time of the British occupation of the Punjab, one Gauhar Aman reigned in the Khushwakt district, while Shah Afzul II. ruled in Lower Chitral. About 1854 the Kashmir State, having long suffered from the encroachments of the ruler of Upper Chitral, appealed to Shah Afzul for assistance, and he, induced thereto far more by hatred of his kinsman than by any wish to oblige the Kashmir authorities, seized, in 1855, Mastuj, then the headquarters of the Khushwaktia chief. Possession was, however, regained in the year following, but the place was again captured by the Chitralis in 1857.

In this year Shah Afzul II. died quietly in his bed—the demise of a ruler from natural causes was almost unprecedented in this country—and was succeeded by his second son, Aman-ul-Mulk, known as “the great Mehtar.” In 1860 the eastern chief also died, being succeeded in the Mehtarship of Khushwaktia by Mir Wali, who was deposed and slain by his own brother; while in 1880 Aman-ul-Mulk invaded and possessed himself of the eastern portion of Chitral, uniting the whole country under his sovereignty. Not long after this, during the viceroyalty of Lord Lytton, it was decided that the policy of the Government of India should be so extended as to control the external affairs of Chitral in a direction friendly to our interests; so as to secure an effective guardianship over the northern passes, and to keep watch over what goes on beyond them. To initiate and carry out this policy, Major Biddulph was sent to Gilgit in 1877 and spent some years there, succeeding in entering into relations with Aman-ul-Mulk, then Mehtar of Chitral. No very definite arrangement was come to at this time, the position was considered rather too isolated, and Major Biddulph was withdrawn. Then in 1885 Lord Dufferin despatched the late General Sir William Lockhart at the head of an important mission, to enter into more definite and closer relations with the Mehtar of Chitral, and to report upon the defences of the country. Colonel Lockhart, as he then was, spent more than a year in Chitral; he wintered at Gilgit, traversed the State of Hunza, crossed the Hindu Kush, passed through Wakhan down the southernmost branch of the Oxus, and travelled over Chitral territory from one end of the country to the other. Similar visits were paid to Chitral by Colonel Durand in 1888 and 1889, and in this latter year the Agency at Gilgit, withdrawn in 1881, was re-established, and certain allowances, doubled in 1891, were granted to the Mehtar, Aman-ul-Mulk.

Beginning of Trouble