The Baluchi Struggle against the Qajars and the British

The history of Perso-Baluch relations under the Qajar Dynasty has been characterized as a history of successive Qajar military expeditions sent for collecting taxes and pacifying the country followed by constant Baluchi revolts.

Heavy taxes were collected twice annually at gunpoint. As observed by Naser Askari, an Iranian writer, those Baluch not able to pay the requested tax were, themselves or members of their families, seized as part of the tax which they could not afford to pay.(18) In 1883 Major Mockler, a British official then serving in coastal Baluchistan, recorded in an official report dated March 28 that the taxes collected from the two districts of Bahu and Dashtiari were raised year by year from 5,000 reupees per annum in 1865 to 15,000 rupees in 1883, "without, of course, anything whatever having been done for the welfare or improvement of the country by the Persian government"(19) He adds that,' as a result of heavy taxation and the lack of rainfall at the time, the district of Bahu was depopulated and its chief, on being unable to reduce the amount of the tax, refused the sardarship and retired to the port of Guadar. (20) In this regard, the words of Lord Curzon about Persian rule and its consequences in Baluchistan remains highly .expressive and authoritative, thus given in extensor.

It cannot be contended that their rule has been a success. On the contrary, it has been attended with oppression, corruption, and consequent revolt. I have frequently depicted the Persian petty governor or official as one of the most undesirable and flagitious of the human (ace; and with a poor unarmed population, such as they have encountered in Baluchistan, the members of his class have found ample scope for all their talents. Taxes have been collected twice over at the point of the bayonet; local chiefs have been arrested or removed; the' people have been driven from their homes. The consequence is that agriculture has fallen into decay, the irrigation system has broken down and the miserable peasants have flocked out of the country in hundreds by India or Muscat. Owing to the neglect and collapse of the dykes on all the smaller rivers whereby their waters were held up and diffused in canals over the land, the channels of the main rivers have widened to an enormous extent the water furrowing an aimless course down their sandy beds. Thus the Dasht, which in 1876 was 357 yards in width, in 1889 was 860; the Rapch or Rabj, which in 1869 was 220 yards across, in 1889 was 616. (21)

 Consequently, the Baluch were in a state of constant revolt against the British -Qajar rule. As soon as the work of the Perso-Baluch Boundary Comn1ission was finished in 1871-72, there were, disturbances at Jaskin 1873 when Mil' Abdul-Nabbi, the Hakom of Byaban district, revolted and cut the British telegraph wires, an action which brought a strong Anglo-Persian response. (22) The tribes of Sarhad revolted in 1888, (23) and the next, year saw a general uprising in which the exasperated Baluchi chiefs revolted, besieging and capturing the Persian Governor of Baluchistan, Abdul Fath Khan in 1889. Subsequently, in 1891, the Qajar Prince Farman Farma, the Governor-General of Kerman and Baluchistan took sweeping measure of arresting and executing several Baluchi chiefs after having invited them to Pahra (a major Baluchi town now called Iranshar) with the solemn promise of Protection.(24)

In 1896, again the Baluch rose up in arms and attacked the Persian Governor Zeein-al-Abidin Khan titled Asad al-­Dola near Sib, and the following year swept away the Qajar troops and officials, disrupted the British telegraph lines, and killed the acting British telegraph superintendent. The revolt engulfed the whole country from the port of Jask in the northwest to the port of  Chah Bahar in the southwest and from Dizak in the east to the provincial capital of Bampur in the north. The leader of the insurrection was Sardar Hussain Khan Narui who established yet another confederacy of the Baluchi chiefs. (25) As mentioned earlier" the Naruis were the feudal rulers of western Baluchistan in the' first half of the century.

Therefore, he was described by Farman Farma in a telegram to the Grand v azir, Amin aI-Sultan, as "the cause of sedition in Baluchistan.” “This ungrateful Hussain khan." added the, author “is the same person who claimed Bampur, together with the crown-land situated therein as his inheritance and wanted to take possession of the Government forts." (26) Although he had served as governor of ChahBahar, Sarbaz, and Kasarkand under the Qajars, he did not hesitate to declare his independence upon the death of Nasir ai-Din Shah the Qajar King in 1896.

Subsequently, at the urging of the British a joint Anglo-Persian naval detachment landed at Jask, while another British force was stationed in Chah J3ahar to stem the tide of revolt in 1898. In this connection, the "Karawan expedition” was jointly organized with the purpose of proceeding from the coast inland to punish the Kirwan Baluchi tribe held responsible for the disruption of the British telegraph and the death of its superintendent. Simultaneously, another Persian expedition under Asef-un-Dowlah, Governor-General of Kerman, was ordered to march from the north against the rebel chief's headed by Sardar Hussein Khan. During the course of the joint operation the British commander, Baker persuaded his Persian counterpart, Ahmad Khan Daria Begi (the lord of seas) that “he souId at once proceed and cut down trees [palm trees] now that there was so large a force in British camp" and promised to cover "his proceedings and retreat if necessary’s (27) Such punitive actions proved effective in shaking the Baluchi resistance. Another factor, however, was the British policy of imposing a total arms embargo on the Baluch. Sir Percy Sykes, a known Persophile and the author of several volumes on Persia and Persian history who then participated in that joint pacification operation, has asserted that because of this policy “Persian Baluchistan is today more under subjection than it has ever been, but the outlook is not very bright (28) The pacification lasted for nearly two years and eventually, Hussein Khan was defeated and captured in 1898.

The widespread revolt is attributed to several major factors. Sir Percy Sykes has asserted that there were two major factors at work. The first was the assassination of the Qajar Shah Nasir-aI-Din in 1896 which prompted Hussein Khan to take the opportunity for establishing yet another independent Baluchi confederacy. The second major reason was the victory of the Ottoman Sultan over Greece which had become, at the time, the cause of intense rejoicing among the Sunni Muslims everywhere, including the Baluch. (29) However. it should be noted that the revolt also coincides with the final stage of the delimitation of the Perso-Kalat boundary in 1896. Therefore, it is highly likely that the Baluch took notice of that event which effected the separation of western Baluchistan from, the rest of the country.

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The official British documents and reports, however, cite heavy taxation and the "tyranny and oppression" of the Qajar governors as the cause of rebellion. Colonel Mead, the British official in charge of investigating the assassination of the telegraph superintendent, determined three causes for the uprising. These were I (1) a desire to "Plunder", (2) (much ferment among the Baluchis and desire to throw off the Persian yoke," and (3) the low ebb of British prestige at the time. (30) More important, another official report,' written in 1907, attributes the major cause of the revolt to heavy taxation, stating that,

Nominally forming part of Persia, the littoral  from the entrance to the Gulf to the border of British Baluchistan, is occupied by a number of13aluch Clans ruled over by their own headmen, who yield but a reluctant and passing' submission to the Central Government of Tehran. The Persians keep no regular troops permanently, in the country, and their rule is maintained by periodical raids to levy revenue, in the course of which the country i_ laid waste, and cultivation destroyed, innocent people being killed or ruined. The Baluchis have in consequence a deep hatred for the Persians, and the history of the country of late years consists of successive revolts followed by successive conquests by the Persians, who are always able to overcome the Baluchis, who can never unite to .resist attack but are on the contrary, always ready to betray each other should a favorable opportunity offer Though the harvest had failed the Persians enhanced the revenue demand and this caused deep and widespread discontent and hatred of the Persian Government. (31)

The heavy-handed Qajar policies have left their marks on Baluchi history and Perceptions ever since. To this day the only synonym used in Baluchi for the term "Persian" is the word "Qajar," pronounced as "Gajar." Relying on the testimony of every traveler without exception” Lord Curzon observed that "politically they [the Baluch] have but two feelings, an intense' passion for tribal independence, with all its murderous accompaniments of blood feuds and border raids, and an out-spoken dislike of the Persian, whom they call Gajars.II(32) As has been pointed out by Naser Askari there is a Baluchi proverb invoked to demonstrate the feeling of oppression which says, "I have been subjected to such atrocity which has not been committed even by the Gajars." The saIne author attributes the heavy-handed Qajar policies to Baluchi collaboration with the Afghans against the Safavids in the eighteenth century. (33) Another likely factor appears to have been the periodic tribal raids by the Baluch on the Persian border towns and villages. During the course of his military operations against the tribes of Sarhad in 1916, General Dyer with nested how a group of raiders from the Yar Mohammad Zai tribe had captured and carried away hundreds of innocent Persian women and children from Their Hometowns alter a deadly raid Into the province of Kerman.(34) <<---Go to Index---