Copyright by Brandon Douglas Marsh 2009 The Dissertation Committee for Brandon Douglas Marsh Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE: INDIA’S NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND BRITISH IMPERIALISM, 1919-1947 Committee: Wm. Roger Louis, Supervisor Gail Minault Antony G. Hopkins Bruce J. Hunt Peter John Brobst RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE: INDIA’S NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND BRITISH IMPERIALISM, 1919-1947 by Brandon Douglas Marsh, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2009 For Anne ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people and institutions without whose help this dissertation would not have been possible. First I would like to thank my advisor, Wm. Roger Louis, who provided welcome opportunities and much needed guidance throughout my graduate career. I am also grateful for the members of my dissertation committees: A.G. Hopkins, Gail Minault, Bruce Hunt, and John Brobst. Over the last six and a half years they have all made unique and substantial contributions to my development as a scholar. I owe my entire committee a deep debt of gratitude. The research for this project, which was carried out in the United States, the United Kingdom, and India, was made possible with the financial support of a number of institutions. The initial stages of research benefitted greatly from support from the British Studies program at the University of Texas and a month-long seminar on decolonization at the Library of Congress under the auspices of the National History Center and supported by the Mellon Foundation. My long-term research in Britain and India was supported by a Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in the Humanities from the Institute for Historical Research in London, and two generous fellowships from the History Department at the University of Texas. I would like to thank the staffs of the Library of Congress, the British Library, the National Archives of the United Kingdom, the Centre of South Asian Studies at Cambridge University, the National Archives of India, and the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. My greatest research debt, however, is owed to Dr. Richard Bingle, formerly of the India Office Library. His hospitality, vast knowledge of British India, and willingness to patiently listen as I went v on and on about whatever bit of marginalia I had discovered in the archives on any given day were indispensible to this project. Several of my fellow graduate students at the University of Texas also contributed substantially to this project through intellectual stimulation and personal fellowship. This includes the “Kindergarten” of imperial and commonwealth historians: Adrian Howkins, Michael Anderson, Lauren Apter, Shereen Ilahi, and Gregory Harper. I must also thank Jose Barragan, Matthew Heaton, and Tyler Fleming for their unstinting and impressive friendship over the years. I also wish to give special thanks to my family. I am grateful to my parents, Tim and Christy Marsh, who have provided constant love, support, and encouragement. My grandparents, Dean and Elaine Nelson, and Lela Marsh, are owed a debt of thanks as well. From all of them I have learned the value and importance of hard work and curiosity: two crucial components of any doctoral dissertation. My in-laws, Nick and Mary Turnbull, were instrumental in introducing me to the world of the academy and were always sympathetic to the plight of the graduate student. Closer to home, our border terrier, Mollie, was a constant companion throughout the writing process: every seemingly insurmountable paragraph was quickly conquered after a brisk ten minute walk with Mollie in the lead. Lastly, I thank my wife, Anne, to whom this work, “warts and all,” is dedicated. Words cannot describe my debt to her. Brandon Douglas Marsh Austin, Texas May, 2009 vi RAMPARTS OF EMPIRE: INDIA’S NORTH-WEST FRONTIER AND BRITISH IMPERIALISM, 1919-1947 Publication No._____________ Brandon Douglas Marsh, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009 Supervisor: Wm. Roger Louis This study examines the relationship between British perceptions and policies regarding India’s North-West Frontier and its Pathan inhabitants and the decline of British power in the subcontinent from 1919 to 1947. Its central argument is that two key constituencies within the framework of British India, the officers of the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service, viewed the Frontier as the most crucial region within Britain’s Indian Empire. Generations of British officers believed that this was the one place in India where the British could suffer a “knockout blow” from either external invasion or internal revolt. In light of this, when confronted by a full-scale Indian nationalist movement after the First World War, the British sought to seal off the Frontier from the rest of India. Confident that they had inoculated the Frontier against nationalism, the British administration on the Frontier carried on as if it were 30 years earlier, fretting about possible Soviet expansion, tribal raids, and Afghan intrigues. This emphasis on external menaces proved costly, however, as it blinded the British to local discontent and the rapid vii growth of a Frontier nationalist movement by the end of the 1920s. When the Frontier administration belatedly realized that they faced a homegrown nationalist movement they responded with a combination of institutional paralysis and brutality that underscored the British belief that the region constituted the primary bulwark of the British Raj. This violence proved counterproductive. It engendered wide-scale nationalist interest in the Frontier and effectively made British policy in the region a subject of All- Indian political debate. The British responded to mounting nationalist pressure in the 1930s by placing the Frontier at the center of their successful efforts to retain control of India’s defence establishment. This was a short-lived stopgap, however. By the last decade of British rule much of the Frontier was under the administration of the Indian National Congress. Moreover, the British not only concluded that Indian public opinion must be taken into account when formulating policy, but that nationalist prescriptions for the “problem” of the North-West Frontier should be enacted. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Maps ..................................................................................................... xii List of Illustrations ...................................................................................... xiii Abbreviations ................................................................................................. xiv Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 British Perceptions of the Pathan .............................................................................3 The Frontier Administration and Indian Political Service .....................................13 The Frontier, India, and Imperial Retreat ..............................................................20 Chapter 1: The North-West Frontier and the Crisis of Empire, 1919- 1923 ......................................................................................................................25 The Frontier Problem and Waziristan ....................................................................27 A New Approach to Waziristan? ...........................................................................32 The Financial Crisis and Viceroy's Council ..........................................................37 Conclusion .............................................................................................................48 Chapter 2: A Cigarette in a Powder Magazine: The Frontier, Nationalism, and Reform, 1919-1930 ...................................................... 51 Rowlatt, the Hijrat, and Reforms ...........................................................................53 The Bray Committee and the Question of Reforms ...............................................61 The Frontier and the Simon Commission ..............................................................64 Conclusion .............................................................................................................76 Chapter 3: "A Considerable Degree of Supineness" : Nationalism, and the British Administration, 1928-1930 .......................................... 79 The Emergence of Frontier Nationalism ................................................................80 The Dam Bursts: The British Version, April 23rd 1930 .........................................90 The Dam Bursts: The Congress Version, April 23rd 1930 .....................................99 The "Loss" of Peshawar .......................................................................................103 ix Conclusion ...........................................................................................................108 Chapter 4: "These Infernal Khudai Khidmatgaran": Defining and Repressing Frontier Nationalism, 1930-1932 .....................................111 Peshawar and the Spreading Revolt .....................................................................112 Defining the Red Shirts ........................................................................................120 The British Response ...........................................................................................128