of the Moharam, and in order to understand them it is necessary to say a
few words regarding the history of Islam and the contending sects which
have emerged from that history. Muhammad died in the year 632. He left
no son; but one of his daughters, Fatima, was married to a cousin whose
name was Ali. Abu Bakr, who had been a great friend and supporter of
Muhammad, was elected Caliph or Vice-Regent of the Prophet. Abu Bakr
died in 634, and was succeeded by Omar, who conquered Persia and Syria.
To him Jerusalem capitulated. Omar was murdered in the same year, and
was succeeded by Osman, who was killed in 656. Then Ali, the cousin and
son-in-law of Muhammad, was elected to the Caliphate. Ali was murdered
in 661, and Hasan, his son, was elected Caliph in his place, but was
induced to resign in favour of a Caliph of another family. Husain, the
second son of Ali, never acknowledged the title of the Caliph who had
superseded his brother Hasan, and when the Musulmans of Mesopotamia
invited him to overthrow the usurping Caliph he felt it his duty to
respond to their appeal. Accompanied by his family and a few retainers
he left for Mesopotamia. On the way, at a place called Karbala, on the
west bank of the Euphrates, they were overtaken by the Caliph’s army,
and after a heroic struggle lasting several days were all slaughtered,
save the women and a sickly child called Ali, who died soon afterwards.
Thus ended the Republic of Islam. Up to this time the office of Caliph
had been elective and the government essentially democratic. The seat of
government was now moved from Medina to Damascus.
In the middle of the eighth century of the Christian era a great
revolution took place in Western Asia. The revolt was headed by a
descendant of Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet, and the outcome of it was
that the Abbassides, or members of the family of Abbas, established
themselves as Caliphs, and ruled at Bagdad from the year 756 to the year
1258. When Bagdad was destroyed by the Mongols a member of the
Abbassides family escaped to Cairo, where he was recognised as Caliph by
the Sultan of Egypt. The eighth Caliph in succession from this man
renounced the Caliphate in favour of Sultan Salim, the great Ottoman
conqueror, and it is on this renunciation that the title of the Sultan
of Turkey to the spiritual headship of Islam is based.
It will be seen from this short statement of the history that a great
change took place in Islam when Husain, the descendant of the Caliph Ali
and of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, was slain at Karbala, on the
Euphrates. From that tragedy dates the chief division of Islam. The
Shiah sect traces its foundation to the Caliph Ali and the immediate
descendants of the Prophet, who are regarded as the rightful exponents
of his teaching. Some twenty millions of the Indian Musulmans are
Shiahs, and Shiahism is also the State religion of Persia. There are a
large number of Shiahs also in other parts of the Muhammadan world, but
nowhere, except in Persia, a majority. The Shiahs are advocates of
Apostolic descent and lineal succession to the Caliphate.
The other of the two great divisions of the Musulmans are the Sunnis,
who advocate the principle of election to the Caliphate. Almost all the
Sunnis acknowledge the spiritual headship of the Sultan of Turkey, who
is, of course, repudiated by the Shiahs. At the present time nearly 50
millions of the Musulmans of India are Sunnis, and there are Sunni
Musulmans in China, Tartary, Afghanistan, Asiatic and European Turkey,
Arabia, Egypt, Northern and Central Africa, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Russia,
Ceylon, and the Malay Archipelago.
[Sidenote: 38.
Moharam Time at Agra.] [Sidenote: 39.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 40.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 41.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 42.
The Same.] [Sidenote: 43.
Shiahs burying Tazias.] We are now in a position to understand the
significance of the anniversary of the Karbala. Annually there is held
in the Muhammadan month Moharam a festival in memory of the death of
Husain. The scenes of the battle are reproduced, and the tazia or tomb
of Husain is carried in procession amidst cries of “Hasan, Husain!”
Properly, this is a Shiah festival only, but in India both the Sunnis
and Shiahs take part in it. Here are photographs representing the
festival. The tazias are pagoda-like structures, made of a variety of
materials. They are carried in long procession through the town, and
finally the little biers—representative of the biers of Hasan and
Husain—contained inside the tazias are buried at the Karbala, outside
the city. We have first a street view in Agra showing the crowd at
Moharam time. In the distance is Agra Fort. Next we have three views of
the procession of the tazias, and then a view of the Karbala beyond the
city, where the biers from the tazias are buried. The Shiahs, however,
do not bury their tazias in the Karbala, but on the banks of the Jumna.
Here we see them in the early morning conducting the ceremony with most
solemn ritual.
[Sidenote: 44.
Fields of Wheat and Barley.] [Sidenote: 45.
The Public Audience Hall, Fatehpur Sikri.] [Sidenote: 46.
The Great Capital, Fatehpur Sikri.] [Sidenote: 47.
Gate of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri.] Let us drive out from Agra
southwestward on the road to Fatehpur Sikri, the city erected by the
Emperor Akbar, but abandoned by his successors in favour of Agra. On the
way, we note fields of wheat and barley, separated by an irrigation
channel. We pass villages amid mango trees, and occasional ruins, and
arrive at Fatehpur Sikri. There we enter the great quadrangle and the
Public Audience Hall of the Palace, built of red sandstone. It was in
this hall that Akbar used to sit on certain days to see personally
anyone who had grievances to lay before him. Notice in the quadrangle
the stone pierced with a hole which is fixed in the ground. Criminals
were put to death by being trampled upon by an elephant, and to that
ring the elephant was tied. We pass on to the Private Audience Hall of
Akbar, the Diwan-i-Khas. Note the huge capital of the column in the
centre. Tradition says that Akbar used to sit on the top of this
capital. Finally, here is the magnificent Gate of Victory.
[Sidenote: 48.
Mausoleum of Akbar, Sikandra.] [Sidenote: 49.
The Same—a Marble Inscription.] [Sidenote: 50.
The Same—the Cloisters.] We leave Fatehpur Sikri, and drive back, past
many other tombs, in the direction of the Cantonment at Agra until we
come to the burial place of Akbar at Sikandra. This is the gateway of
the great Mausoleum. Notice the cut marble inscriptions down the sides
of the arch. They are quotations from the Koran. Here is a clearer
photograph of a part of these inscriptions, and here we have the marble
court above the tomb of Akbar. Round the Cloisters are verses
celebrating his greatness. “Think not that the sky will be so kind as
Akbar was,” is the tenor of one of them.
[Sidenote: 51.
Hariki Piri, Hardwar.] [Sidenote: 52.
Sarwan Nath Temple, Hardwar.] [Sidenote: 53.
The Same, from above.] [Sidenote: 54.
Camels at Hardwar.]
Finally we will travel away to Hardwar, some two hundred miles due north
of Agra. It is on the Ganges, at the point where the river leaves the
last foot hills of the Himalayas and enters the plain. Hardwar is a
great centre of Hindu pilgrimage for the purpose of ablution in the
sacred waters. At the annual fair are gathered hundreds of thousands of
worshippers. So great has been the crush of people endeavouring to bathe
that on occasion many have been trampled upon and drowned. The great day
at Hardwar is towards the end of March, when the Hindu year begins, and
when, according to tradition, the Ganges river first appeared from its
source in the mountains. There was a town of Hardwar more than a
thousand years ago, but its ancient buildings have disappeared. Here we
have a view of the famous Bathing Ghat, a comparatively small flight of
steps, where the river is considered to be specially sacred. The water
is purer than at Benares in the plain. It flows swiftly and is as clear
as crystal. Near by we have a temple, the Sarwan Nath, with great stone
elephants, and here is a second view of the same temple seen from a
neighbouring roof. Notice the Trisul, or bronze trident, the typical
weapon of Siva, the Destroyer.
[Sidenote: 55.
Sacred Cow at Hardwar.] Here is a string of camels at Hardwar, and then
a sacred cow—especially sacred because deformed, for a freak of nature
is miraculous.
[Sidenote: 56.
The Road to Mussoorie.] [Sidenote: 57.
The Same, Coolies carrying Baggage.] [Sidenote: 58.
The Same, a Tree across the Road.] [Sidenote: 59.
Mussoorie.] [Sidenote: 60.
The Himalayas from Mussoorie.] Not far northward of Hardwar, among the
foot hills of the Himalayas, is Mussoorie, a hill station supplementary
to Simla. Mussoorie is about a mile above sea level. We have two views
taken on the steep mountain road up to it; the second shows coolies
carrying baggage. In the next view we realise something of the
difficulties of travel in these hill districts of much rainfall, for the
road is blocked by the fall of a great tree. Here we have a view of
Mussoorie itself, and then the landscape from Mussoorie looking towards
the Himalayan ranges to the north. Close by, but lower down, is Dehra
Dun, the headquarters of the Gurkha Rifles, enlisted from Nepal, and
also of the Imperial Cadet Corps, a small training force consisting
wholly of the sons of ruling chiefs. We shall hear of the Gurkhas again
in connection with the defences of India, which will be the subject of
the next and concluding lecture of this Course.
--------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LECTURE VIII.
---
=THE NORTHWEST FRONTIER.=
---
THE SIKHS.
In the British Empire there is but one land frontier on which warlike
preparation must ever be ready. It is the Northwest Frontier of India.
True that there is another boundary, even longer, drawn across the
American Continent, but there, fortunately, only customs houses are
necessary and an occasional police guard. The Northwest Frontier of
India, on the other hand, lies through a region whose inhabitants have
been recruited throughout the ages by invading warlike races. Except for
the Gurkha mountaineers of Nepal, the best soldiers of the Indian Army
are derived from the northwest, from the Rajputs, the Sikhs, the Punjabi
Musulmans, the Dogra mountaineers north of the Punjab, and the Pathan
mountaineers west of the Punjab. The provinces along the frontier, and
the Afghan land immediately beyond it, are the one region in all India
from which, under some ambitious lead, the attempt might be made to
establish a fresh imperial rule by the overthrow of the British Raj. It
would not be the freedom of India which would ensue, but an oriental
despotism and race domination from the northwest. Such is the teaching
of history, and such the obvious fate of the less warlike peoples of
India, should the power of Britain be broken either by warfare on the
spot, or by the defeat of our navy. Beyond the northwest frontier,
moreover, at a greater or less distance are the continental Powers of
Europe.
[Sidenote: 1.
Political Map of Northwest India.] The Indian army and the Indian
strategical railways are therefore organized with special reference to
the belt of territory, extending from northeast to southwest, which lies
beyond the Indian desert and is traversed from end to end by the Indus
River. This frontier belt divides naturally into two parts. Inland we
have the Punjab, where the rivers, emerging from their mountain valleys,
gradually close together through the plain to form the single stream of
the lower Indus; seaward we have Sind, where the Indus divides into
distributaries forming a delta. Sind, as already stated, is a part of
the Bombay Province, with which it is connected by sea from the Port of
Karachi. Of late a railway has been constructed from Ahmadabad in the
main territory of Bombay, across the southern end of the Desert, to
Hyderabad at the head of the Indus delta. The Punjab is a separate
Province with its own Lieutenant-Governor resident at Lahore. It was
conquered from the Sikhs by a British army based on Delhi, and therefore
ultimately on Calcutta.
[Sidenote: 2.
Map of Lower Asia.] To understand the significance of the Northwest
Frontier of India we must look far beyond the immediate boundaries of
the Empire. We have here a map of Lower Asia. Upon it we see a broad
tract of upland which, commencing in Asia Minor, extends through Armenia
and Persia to include Baluchistan and Afghanistan. There is thus one
continuous belt of plateau stretching from Europe to the boundary of
India. The eastern end of this belt, that is to say, Persia,
Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, is known as Iran. On all sides save the
northwest and the northeast, the Iranian plateau descends abruptly to
lowlands or to the sea. Southward and southwestward lie the Arabian Sea
and the Persian Gulf, and the long lowland which is traversed by the
rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Northward, to the east of the Caspian Sea,
is the broad lowland of Turkestan, traversed by the Rivers Oxus and
Jaxartes, draining into the Sea of Aral. Eastward is the plain of the
Indus. The defence of India from invasion depends in the first place on
the maintenance of British sea power in the Persian Gulf and along the
south coast of Baluchistan, and in the second place on our refusal to
allow the establishment of alien bases of power on the Iranian plateau,
especially on those parts of it which lie towards the south and east.
[Sidenote: 3.
Map of the Northwest Frontier.] In the next map we have on a larger
scale the detail of that part of Iran which lies nearest to India. Here
we see, west of the Punjab, a great triangular mass of mountain ridges
which splay out westward and southward from the northeast. These ridges
and the intervening valleys constitute Afghanistan. Flowing from the
Afghan valleys we have on the one hand the Kabul river, which descends
eastward to the Indus, and, on the other hand, the greater river
Helmund, which flows southwestward into the depressed basin of Seistan,
where it divides into many channels, forming as it were an inland delta
from which the waters are evaporated by the hot air, for there is no
opening to the sea. The valley of the Kabul river on the one hand, and
the oasis of Seistan on the other, might in the hands of an enemy become
bases wherein to prepare the invasion of India. Therefore, without
annexing this intricate and difficult upland, we have declared it to be
the policy of Britain to exclude from Afghanistan and from Seistan all
foreign power.
Further examination of the map will show that there are two lines, and
only two, along which an invasion of India might be conducted. On the
one hand, the mountains become very narrow just north of the head of the
Kabul River. There in fact a single though lofty ridge, the Hindu Kush,
is all that separates the basin of the Oxus from that of the Indus. As
we see from the map, low ground is very near on the two sides of the
Hindu Kush. The way into India over the passes of the Hindu Kush is
known as the Khyber route, from the name of the last defile by which the
track descends into the Indian Plain.
If we now look some five hundred miles to the southwest of Kabul, we see
that the Afghan mountains come suddenly to an end, and that a pathway
leads round their fringe from Herat to the Indus Basin, passing along
the border of Seistan. From Herat to beyond Kandahar, this way lies over
an upland plain and is easy, but the last part of the journey is through
a mountainous district down to the lowland of the Indus. This is the
Bolan route, so called from the last gorge towards India. It will be
noticed that the Bolan route debouches upon the Indus opposite to the
great Indian Desert. Therefore it is that the Khyber route has been the
more frequented. It leads directly between the desert and the mountain
foot, upon the inner gateway of India at Delhi.
We conquered the Punjab from the Sikhs, but for many centuries it had
been ruled by the Musulmans. In the break up of the Mogul Empire
invaders had come, during the eighteenth century, from Persia and from
Afghanistan, who carried devastation even as far as Delhi. Thus it was
that with relative ease the Sikhs as contemporaries of the Marathas
established a dominion in the helpless Punjab. They extended their rule
also into the mountains of Kashmir, north of Lahore.
Let us commence our survey of the northwest at Dehra Dun, which is
placed in a mountain valley among the foot hills of the Himalayas, not
far from the hill station of Mussoorie, of which we heard in the last
lecture. Then from Dehra Dun we will travel two hundred miles
northwestward, crossing the Beas, one of the five rivers of the Punjab,
to Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs. Fifty miles west of Amritsar,
on the Ravi, another of the Indus tributaries, is Lahore, the
traditional capital of the Punjab. From Lahore onward we traverse
irrigated strips of fertile ground, with sandy plains intervening, with
a scanty herbage for a few camels. Then follows a broken and more
desolate country in the north of the Punjab. So we come to the Indus
itself, and beyond this, nearly three hundred miles from Lahore, to the
military station of Peshawar, the last Indian city on the great track
leading northwestward from Calcutta, through Allahabad and Delhi. Not
far from Peshawar is the Khyber Pass.
The Khyber is protected by its own hill tribes. We have enlisted them on
the side of law and order by enrolling them into military forces, just
as the Scottish Highlanders were enrolled in the British army in the
18th century.
Then leaving Peshawar we will visit Quetta, some five hundred miles
southwestward, and see there the second great centre of British force on
the Frontier. It has been established to command the Bolan route to
Kandahar and Herat. The whole army in India is organised with reference
to these two points, Peshawar and Quetta, or in other words, the Khyber
and the Bolan. There are many other passes in the frontier mountains,
but they offer merely loopways from the two main routes.
[Sidenote: 4.
12th Bengal Infantry.] [Sidenote: 5.
Bombay Mountain Battery.] [Sidenote: 6.
Heavy Battery in Elephant Draught.] The Indian forces are now grouped
into a Northern and a Southern army. The Northern army is distributed
southeastward from Peshawar past Delhi and Allahabad to Calcutta, so
that all the forces along that long line may be regarded as supporting
the brigades on the Khyber front. The Southern army is similarly posted
for the reinforcement of Quetta. It is distributed in the Bombay
Presidency and immediately around. The conditions of the defence of
India have of course been vitally changed by the construction of the
Northwestern Railway from the port of Karachi through the Indus basin,
with its two branches towards the Bolan and the Khyber. To-day that
defence could be conducted over the seas directly from Britain through
Karachi, so that the desert of Rajputana would lie between the defending
forces and the main community of India within.
[Sidenote: 7.
18th P. W. Tiwana Horse.] [Sidenote: 8.
Gurkha Rifles: Physical Drill.] [Sidenote: 9.
The Same—Bayonet Practice.] [Sidenote: 10.
32nd Mountain Battery, Advancing Down Hill.] [Sidenote: 11.
The Same—Retiring Up Hill.] [Sidenote: 12.
Battery in Action.] As we start for Dehra Dun let us stop for a moment
on the ridge at Delhi to see a squadron of the 18th Prince of Wales’s
Tiwana Horse, recruited partly from among the Sikhs and partly from the
Musulmans. Then at Dehra Dun we have the Gurkha Rifles. We see them at
physical drill and then at bayonet practice. At the same place we visit
a battery of Mountain Artillery, for Dehra Dun is in the Terai, at the
foot of the Himalayas. Mountain batteries are much utilised in
operations over the broken and hilly country towards the Northwest
Frontier. The men are Punjabis; and it will be noticed that the guns are
carried by mules. Here we see the battery advancing down hill, and here
we see it retiring up hill. Then we have a mountain gun in action.
From Dehra Dun we proceed to Amritsar, the chief centre of the Sikh
religion, which resulted from a reformation of Hinduism in the middle of
the fifteenth century. It is therefore modern indeed as compared with
the parent religion itself. The Sikhs abandoned idolatry, and also
distinctions of caste. The word Sikh means “disciple.” In their origin a
religious sect, the Sikhs developed into a powerful military
commonwealth, which rose to great position in the Punjab and surrounding
lands as the Mogul strength decayed at Delhi. The Sikhs only succumbed
to the British after two wars, fought in 1846 and 1849, which were among
the severest in the whole history of British India. Yet they remained
loyal during the Mutiny.
[Sidenote: 13.
The Causeway and the Golden Temple, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 14.
The Golden Temple, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 15.
The Akal Bungah, Amritsar.] The Emperor Akbar granted to the Sikhs a
site for their capital by the shore of a sacred tank, and this capital,
Amritsar, has now grown to be a city of over 150,000 inhabitants, the
third most wealthy and populous of the Punjab. It is surpassed only by
Delhi and Lahore, and Delhi has been included in the Punjab only in
recent times, and for convenience of administration. In this view we see
the famous Golden Temple, built in the centre of the sacred tank. The
bridge across the water leading to the entry is of marble. The doors of
the gateway are of silver without, and on the inner side of wood inlaid
with ivory. The lower part of the walls of the temple itself are of
white marble inlaid with jaspar and mother-of-pearl, but the upper part
is plated with gilded copper. In the middle of the temple, under a
canopy, is the Grant Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, covered with a
cloth of gold. Here we have another view of the Golden Temple seen
across the tank, and behind it is the Clock Tower. Opposite the chief
entry to the temple is a square surrounded by public buildings, of which
the most important is the Akal Bungah, wherein are performed the
ceremonies of initiation and investiture of the Sikhs.
[Sidenote: 16.
School of Sikh and Hindu Children.] [Sidenote: 17.
Street Scene, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 18.
Street Conjurer, Amritsar.] A few scenes follow showing phases of life
at Amritsar. Here we see a part of the tesselated pavement which
surrounds the sacred tank, and a school of Hindu and Sikh children. Next
is a street scene showing the gateway leading to another sacred tank,
and here is a conjurer with a cobra entwined about his neck. Amritsar
has to-day become an important manufacturing city. From raw materials
brought by the Khyber route, from the central Asian markets, are here
manufactured shawls of the famous Kashmir design, and also fine silks,
embroideries, carpets, carvings, and metal work of various kinds.
[Sidenote: 19.
Lahore, from roof of Shish Mahal.] [Sidenote: 20.
West Gate, Jama Masjid, Lahore.] Let us now go on to Lahore, the ancient
and the modern capital of the Punjab. Here is a view taken from the roof
of the Shish Mahal, or Palace of Mirrors, in the Fort of Lahore, looking
towards the southwest, over the Jama Masjid, towards the River Ravi, on
whose left bank the city stands. Next is seen the fine west gate of the
Jama Masjid, a mosque built by the Emperor Aurangzeb, which contains
relics of Muhammad.
[Sidenote: 21.
Zamzamah, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 22.
Sarai, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 23.
The Same, showing Wazir Khan’s House.] [Sidenote: 24.
Old Houses, Lahore.] Do you remember “Kim” in Rudyard Kipling’s book? We
have in this view the Zamzamah, the old gun under the tree on which Kim
sat in the first chapter. Astride on its muzzle is an urchin, just like
what Kim must have been. Here is the Sarai, a quadrangle about sixty
yards square, with round arched verandahs on all sides. Note the well in
the centre. Next is the actual house where Wazir Khan, Kipling’s Mahbub
Ali, used to sleep. Beyond may be seen horses brought for sale. The
Sarai belongs to-day to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who obtains a revenue
from the fees paid by the horsedealers using it. Near by we have a busy
street scene, showing old houses belonging to Hindu merchants.