The Gilgit Agency 1877-1935

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This work is based on my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Jammu.

The establishment of the Gilgit Agency was one of the different means that the British Government of India adopted for the protection of their northern and north-western frontier. The subject, the 'Gilgit Agency', therefore is one of abiding interest.

The difficulties that the author faced in collecting material for this study, however, were manifold. One of the serious difficulties that he found himself confronted with was to find the State records closed to scrutiny at 1925 A.D. A similar difficulty had to be faced in the National Archives of India, where the records even after the year 1913 were inaccessible for consultation. Books on this period were found to be helpful only to a very limited extent. The Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India, however, kindly gave a special permission to consult the relevant records upto the year 1935. The study, therefore, is based entirely on contemporary sources, which include published and unpublished records of the Government of India and of the State, private papers of the Governor Generals and Viceroys of India of the time, annual administration reports of the State, newspapers and other printed works, both primary and secondary.

Another difficulty that the author had to face in the completion of this thesis was that the whole account that he found in the records pertaining to events in the area in question was given from only the British point of view, and the tribal view of the situation was not easy to find. This difficulty was surmounted with the help of the contemporary journals and newspapers.

The subject-matter as detailed in the book has been divided into 11 Chapters. It begins with an account of the geography and early history of the Gilgit frontier. This is followed by an examination of the circumstances which necessitated the establishment of the British Agency at Gilgit in 1877. The Agency had to be recalled in 1881 as it was supposed to have failed in delivering the required goods. The mistake in recalling the Agency was, however, soon realised and the Agency was re-established in 1889. How all this happened is discussed in Chapters III and IV. The re-establishment of the Agency brought the British into a real and close touch with the tribal people for the first time. This together with some other causes including the absence of the law of primogeniture resulted in reactions and counter-reactions that adopted the shape of different tribal uprisings and their suppression, which are detailed in the four chapters that follow. In the 9th Chapter are enumerated the different steps taken for the defence and management of the Agency, while in the 10th a reference is made to the different territorial units of the Agency, and a part of their history pertaining to our period that could not be told in the preceding chapters. At the end is placed the epilogue, which after summarising the findings of the author stated earlier, tries to give a few words of justification for the whole exercise the British undertook in the establishment and management of the Agency.