ABSTRACT
The orthodox appreciation of India's security concerns during this period tends to focus upon the vexatious issue of a remorselessly expansionist Russian Empire. The former, the epitome of the 'noble savage' to the late Victorian and Edwardian mind, occupies a prominent place in historiography of British India and Afghanistan. There are the tribes, striving to protect their way of life in face of external interference but often entering into local alliances with forces of Empire, serving in its military units, policing themselves on its behalf and even on occasion inviting the British into their territories in order to provide protection against their own. By far majority of attention paid by historians to frontier affairs has been directed at Waziristan, and for good reason in many respects. A British presence remained in the tribal areas, however, with matters left exclusively to a combination of political officers and tribal levies acting under the auspices of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) administration.
