ABSTRACT
On 10th June 1897 British political officers posted in Tochi, North Waziristan, sent communications to the British Government in India that a large military party had been attacked while visiting a village. The British suffered heavy casualties and had to beat a retreat. This incident was the first attack of the 1897 Great Tribal Revolt, and was represented in colonial historiography as a case of ‘unparalleled treachery’, ‘contrary to all Pathan codes of honour’.
Apparently the tribesmen had offered the British officers and soldiers food and then suddenly and inexplicably attacked them. In order to punish the tribe responsible for the attack, the British sanctioned a military expedition to destroy their villages, burn their crops and capture the maliks (headmen) accused of organizing the attack. In an unusual turn of events, a military tribunal was established to put the Maizar Maliks on trial. The proceedings of the Maizar tribunal, recorded in rich detail, provide a counter-narrative to the still-dominant colonial account. This chapter examines testimonies that provide first-hand sources of Pukhtun views of British imperialism in Waziristan in the 1890s, and reveals civil–military tensions at the lower levels of empire on the frontier of British India. It is argued that the evidence presented in deciphering the course of the Maizar military tribunal reflects a conjuncture of law, war and resistance that is critical to understanding and depicting the realities of colonial expansion and occupation on the North-West Frontier.
