Centralitas telefónicas

The Yusufzai are the largest Pashtun tribe resident in Pakistan, second only to the Ghilzai of Afghanistan in overall population (Barth 1959: 5). The Yusufzai are spread over a large area stretching from the Bajaur agency contiguous with the Durand line, to the eastern most reaches of Mansehra (Caroe 1958: 182-3). Yusufzai territories include the Pashtun heartland areas of the Swat Valley, Dir, Malakand, Swabi, Mardan and the extremely mountainous Kohistan in northern KP. Prominent Yusufzai clans include the Mamund, Hassanzai, Akazai, Chagharzai, and Khan Khel. The Yusufzai are the most widely studied Pashtun tribe, having been the subject of study by Elphinstone (1815), Caroe (1958), Barth (1959), Spain (1962), Ahmed (1976), and Lindholm (1982).⁵⁰ These studies have annotated Yusufzai tribal and clan structures, politics, history, language and marriage practices.

According to Yusufzai oral traditions, the tribe originally emerged from Kandahar and by the thirteenth century had moved westward to Kabul. Instrumental in ushering in Ulugh Beg into the Kingship of Kabul in the early fifteenth century, then persecuted by him in an attempt to protect his throne, the Yusufzai moved eastward to avoid continued persecution, crossing the Indus River into the fertile valleys of present day KP (Caroe 1958: 173-175). By the mid-fifteenth century the Yusufzai had begun a drive into the Swat Valley, displacing the indigenous Swati peoples (Barth 1959: 7). The valley and its environs were particularly fertile lands, drawing the Yusufzai to continue eastward into the irrigated foothills of the Pir Pangi and Hindu Kush ranges in what was then the Hazara region.⁵¹ Consolidating these conquests, the Yusufzai adopted an agricultural orientation, growing rapidly in population. By the advent

49 Ahmed (1980: 107) addresses the concept of millennial uprising, as part of a millennial Pashtun consciousness resulting in pan-Pashtun militancy usually precipitated by the presence of a foreign force in Pakhtunkhwa.

50 All of the abovementioned have written on the Yusufzai extensively, with Caroe and Barth having compiled comprehensive writings on the tribe. However, Akbar S. Ahmed remains the authority, with Millenium and Charisma among Pathans (1980) in which he submits an excellent critique of Barth‟s Political Leadership among Pathans (1959).

51 Caroe includes a map in addendum entitled „Tribal Locations of the Pathans’ placing the various tribal concentrations across KP.

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of the British presence in KP, the Yusufzai were the principal tribe east of the Indus River (Caroe 1958: 365, 385-387).

Ahmed (1976: 73) identifies two elements diverging elements with the Yusufzai: nang and qalang. The former tend to reside in hill tracts around upper Swat and exhibit conventional practices of pashtunwali, renown for their Pashto (Pukhtu in their pronunciation). In contrast, the qalang exhibit an adaptation to agrarian lifestyle. Among them, the practice of nang tends to be interpreted in the context of land ownership, as does khangi. Qalang Pashtuns have also evolved the system of wesh (Ahmed 1976: 35-40), a Swat specific practice for the inheritance of agricultural land in the Swat valley, derived from the forces of growing population and a limiting topography. The variation in the two is manifest in the reaction of each to the presence of the British during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The agrarian clans that had settled east of the Swat valley largely acquiesced to the British presence.⁵² For them, the British represented an administrative presence and opportunity for economic and political development. These clans took up positions with the British administration of KP.⁵³ Some even travelled to various corners of the British Empire, including East Africa, South East Asia and the United Kingdom.⁵⁴ Many gained British citizenship during the period between partition and the independence drive of the 1950s and 1960s that saw most of Britain’s imperial possession gain nominal political independence.

Elements of the Yusufzai characterised as nang, maintained a belligerent attitude towards the British presence. Lashkar-men based at the Asmaas centre in the Malakand agency undertook a religiously inspired, or justified, jihad against the British occupation of parts of Pakhtunkhwa

52 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara division in September-December 1999, November-December 2000, November-November-December 2001 revealed the historical importance attributed by the British to Baffa, Hazara Division. Baffa, populated almost exclusively by Yusufzai, was given the status of

„town‟ as early as the 1870s, and saw the establishment of a Boys High School from that era. Baffa lies in the Pakhli plain, a vast agricultural tract in north-central KP. Its inhabitants were, at the time of the British administration of KP, largely farmers.

53 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara division in September-December 1999, November-December 2000, November-November-December 2001 included an interview with Abdullah Khan of Khwajgan, Mansehra division (born 1916), who rose to the position of Inspector of Schools in the British administration. Another individual, Mohmmad Umar Khan, (since deceased) had fought with British forces in then Siam prior to the partition of the subcontinent.

54 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara Division in September-December 1999, November-December 2000, November-November-December 2001 revealed that individuals from Hazara had resettled in Malaysia, the United States, Uganda, Kenya and the United Kingdom. A significant number had departed from KP while the province was under British administration.

(Khalil 2000: 70). Despite facing reprisals from the British, this struggle continued until Partition and the withdrawal of the British presence.⁵⁵

By the end on the nineteenth century, British administration saw the Swat Valley descend into violence arising from internecine conflict over increasingly sparse agricultural lands, as well as doctrinally inspired violence directed at the British presence (Caroe 1958: 387-8). It was during this period that the phenomenon of the clergyman emerging as a leader in battle and in tribal affairs, a primarily Yusuzai phenomenon, first arose in the Swat valley and its environs.

Examples of this phenomenon included the 1897 uprising of the ‘lewaney mullah’ or ‘mad mullah’, who was able to raise an army of ten thousand predominantly Yusufzai tribesmen in what came to be known as the ‘great Pathan revolt’ (Barth 1995: 21-2). A similar lashkar was raised in 1948 and marched to Kashmir.⁵⁶ The activities of Sufi Muhammad of the TNSM are seen by many Yusufzai as a continuation of this trend.

Following Partition, the question of Swat’s accession to Pakistan was formally raised among the rulers of Swat and rejected on a number of occasions. It was during the presidency of Ayub Khan in 1969 that Swat was formally admitted to Pakistan as a part of the then NWFP (Barth 1995: 126). Many Yusufzai areas outside the valley continued to remain autonomous tribal areas under federal or provincial administration, but independent of any interference from Pakistan in any practical sense.⁵⁷ However, by the 1980’s most of the smaller autonomous tribal areas had acceded to Pakistan, at least nominally. The remoteness of many Yusufzai areas insured the government’s lack of involvement, both developmentally and politically.⁵⁸

A result of US involvement in Pakistan and Afghanistan through the 1980’s was that emigration to the United States amongst Yusufzai males increased significantly.⁵⁹ Many of the young men who emigrated were soon joined in the US by their families and have remained there. This trend has led to a large flow of remittances of foreign currency back to the Yusufzai

55 Khalil (2000: 305-12) describes the last major British military operation to combat the mujahideen based at Asmaas in 1935, noting the failure of that operation. The base continued to function until the British withdrawal in 1947 made its purpose obsolete.

56 Interview with family members of participants in the „jihad of 1948‟, Shinkiari, KP January 2001.

57 Interview with Sultan Mahmud Khan Swati, March 2000, one of the first school teachers in the area who travelled around the PATA, lying to the east of Swat, most of which has since acceded to the Mansehra Division.

58 Batgram, Kohistan and the Malakand division remained Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) until the 1970s. Mountainous terrain and small, dispersed centres of population underscored the lack of involvement from the provincial capital Peshawar.

59 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara Division in September-December 1999 revealed that emigration to the United States amongst Yusufzai peaked between 1982 and 1989.

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areas, particularly Swat and Mansehra.⁶⁰ The impact of this flow of foreign currency has been significant. While the position of khans and maliks within the clans hasn’t been eroded altogether, the autonomy of other households, and of clans with less influence has been significantly increased. The ability to purchase automobiles and electricity generators has reduced the dependency of corollary families upon the khans and maliks for patronage. The availability of money has also meant greater opportunities for education, further compounding the structure of clan politics as new centres of influence develop around the previously politically weak.

The collective impact of these developments, the integration into Pakistan and the greater availability of wealth due to remittances from foreign sources, have had a measured effect on eroding the tribal aspect of Yusufzai identity. Although there is no standing Yusufzai lashkar, and no singular leadership jirga of the Yusufzai tribe, the root concepts of pashtunwali including badal and ghairat are still dominant. Clan feuds and retributive killings still occur, although clashes between lashkars are less common among the Yusufzai than among the Waziri and Mohmand for example. ⁶¹