English judge on Chitral’s history
William Blackburne
It is a privilege for me to be invited to write this foreword. And for principally three among many reasons: first, because I know and admire the young author of this very considerable work; second, because my knowledge of and affection for Chitral extends back exactly 60 years since, as a young student, I paid the first of many visits to what was then still (in 1964), a princely state; and third, because as an English lawyer (initially at the Bar of England and Wales and then on the High Court Bench in London) I have a professional interest in the legal underpinning of a part of the world that I have come to know so well.
Asad-ul-Mulk’s Chitral State: A Legal History is a work of scholarship. The topics that it treats cover a wide canvas. It takes the story essentially up to the time that Chitral’s accession to the newly established Pakistan was formally accepted in early 1948, although, at least in form, princely rule was to last another two decades until 1969 when it came to an end. The book is well-researched, immensely readable, and draws on an extensive variety of sources (all meticulously referenced). Among them is the valuable first-hand experience of events from, as it were, the front row, provided by the author’s grandfather, Shahzada Khush Ahmad-ul-Mulk (a wise and engaging person of beloved memory and last survivor of Sir Shuja-ul-Mulk’s sons). Sitting and listening to his grandfather’s account of the way things were in earlier days helped the then very young Asad to understand (in his own words) “certain events and facts, when old records and files in state archives were silent or soundless”.
As a member of the former princely family, born and brought up and still living in his ancestral home in Lower Chitral, the author is especially well-positioned to tell the story which unfolds in the pages of this book. The author’s reflections of the nature of society, both as an abstract legal concept and as it developed in early Chitral and on issues of paramountcy, draw heavily on his grounding in legal theory provided by his law studies leading to his LLB degree. No less valuable has been his training as an advocate at Lincoln’s Inn when qualifying as a barrister-at-law.
As the title of the book makes clear, this is as much a history book as it is a book about the law, both in describing what the law was and also how it was practiced. The law does not exist in a vacuum but to a very large extent (and this is especially true of Chitral) is a product of its times. Law without some history at least is an empty vessel. In delving into that history, unlike so many published histories of Chitral, this book does not direct its main attention on the well-documented events of the Siege of 1895; indeed, it takes the build-up to the Siege following the death of Mehtar Aman-ul-Mulk in 1892, and the events of the Siege itself, largely as read. Instead, it describes the social framework and local customs that co-existed alongside the wider political power play that led to Britain feeling the need to step in. And then, after the Siege was lifted and order restored, it focuses on the legal and administrative consequences of those dramatic events as they played out during the long years of Mehtar Sir Shuja-ul-Mulk’s firm rule, followed by the all-too-short reigns of his immediate successors. For anyone interested in the history of Chitral, this book is a mine of useful information about the long passage of time between 1895 and the death of Mehtar Muzaffar-ul-Mulk in 1949.
Each reader will have his preferences among the many topics covered by this book. For me at least the subjects that especially fascinate are the relationship over many generations between Chitral and its successive suzerains (both actual and claimed); also, the difficult dividing line between non-interference by the Viceregal Government of India in the internal running of the princely state on the one hand and the need felt by the locally-based agents of the King-Emperor to advise and assist, and occasionally to interfere on the other. Among these was the anomalous position of the Chitral Scouts. The book casts much light on their status and control. Then there are the delicate and at times rancorous relations that developed as the Mehtar sought (not always successfully) to keep good internal governance separate from religious pressures arising both from within the State and from without. All of this is well covered. Another topic that is of interest to me as a lawyer, one of whose special areas of practice was the historically fascinating law of land and landed interests as these matters developed in England over many centuries, is the ownership of land in Chitral and the differing forms of tenure which existed. Chapter VI teaches me that the position in Chitral was every bit as complex as it once was in England. Indeed, I see interesting similarities. Whether the laws governing landholdings have been reformed in Chitral, as they have been in England, only a sequel to this book will reveal. Penal laws and notions of individual and collective responsibility as they operated in princely times also hold much interest.
This is above all a book to dip into and enjoy. Its appeal should be as much to the historian as to the lawyer. It is clearly a labour of love. It is partly an evocation of times past. It is also partly a desire to inform those, curious to know something of what it was that animated such an extraordinary part of the world, about a polity that no longer exists but has left many marks on contemporary Chitral. They say that someone cannot truly understand his or her own place in the world unless that person knows something of his or her own country’s history and customs. I hope and trust that the Chitralis of today, who are curious about their past, will find the time to read this book and learn about an important part of their cultural and legal heritage. They will find it opens some fascinating windows into the past. It helps explain why Chitral is so unusual and why it is important to cherish that past, for all of its ups and downs.
(Sir William Blackburne is a former Chairman of the Lincoln’s Inn and an eminent English jurist who has served as a Judge for over thirty years at the Royal Courts of Justice in England and the above is a foreword he has written for Barrister Asad-ul-Mulk’s book “Chitral State: A Legal History)”.