Provincial Geographies of India/Volume 1/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
AREAS AND BOUNDARIES
Introductory.— Of the provinces of India the Panjab must always have a peculiar interest for Englishmen. Invasions by land from the west have perforce been launched across its great plains. The English were the first invaders who, possessing sea power, were able to outflank the mountain ranges which guard the north and west of India. Hence the Panjab was the last, and not the first, of their Indian conquests, and the courage and efficiency of the Sikh soldiery, even after the guiding hand of the old Maharaja Ran jit Singh was withdrawn, made it also one of the hardest. The success of the early administration of the province, which a few years after annexation made it possible to use its resources in fighting men to help in the task of putting down the mutiny, has always been a matter of just pride, while the less familiar story of the conquests of peace in the first sixty years of British rule may well arouse similar feelings.
Scope of work.— A geography of the Panjab will fitly embrace an account also of the North West Frontier Province, which in 1901 was severed from it and formed into a separate administration, of the small area recently placed directly under the government of India on the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, and of the native states in political dependence on the Panjab Government. It will also be convenient to include Kashmir and the tribal territory beyond the frontier of British India which is politically controlled from Peshawar. The whole tract covers ten degrees of latitude and eleven of longitude. The furthest point of the. Kashmir frontier is in 37° 2' N., which is much the same as the latitude of Syracuse. In the south-east the Panjab ends at 27° 4' N., corresponding roughly to the position of the southernmost of the Canary Islands. Lines drawn west from Peshawar and Lahore would pass to the north of Beirut and Jerusalem respectively. Multan and Cairo are in the same latitude, and so are Delhi and Teneriffe. Kashmir stretches eastwards to longitude 8o° 3' and the westernmost part of Waziristan is in 69° 2' E.
Distribution of Area.—The area dealt with is roughly 253,000 square miles. This is but two-thirteenths of the area of the Indian Empire, and yet it is less by only 10,000 square miles than that of Austria-Hungary including Bosnia and Herzegovina. The area consists of:
sq. miles
- (1) The Panjab 97,000
- (2) Native States dependent on Panjab Government . . 36,500
- (3) Kashmir 81,000
- (4) North West Frontier Province 13. 000
- (5) Tribal territory under the political control of the Chief
Commissioner of North West Frontier Province, roughly 25,500
Approximately 136,000 square miles may be classed as highlands and 117,000 as plains, and these may be distributed as follows over the above divisions: ij AREAS AND BOUNDARIES Highlands Plains sq. miles sq. miles (I) Pan jab, British 11,000 86,000 (2) Panjab, Native States 12,000 24,500 (3) Kashmir 81,000 — (4) North West Frontier Province 6,500 6,500 (5) Tribal Territory • 25,500
On the north the highlands include the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan (Siwalik) tracts to the south and east of the Indus, and north of that river the Muztagh-Karakoram range and the bleak salt plateau beyond that range reaching almost up to the Kuenlun mountains. To the west of the Indus they include those spurs of the Hindu Kush which run into Chitral and Dir, the Buner and Swat hills, the Safed Roh, the Waziristan hills, the Suliman range, and the low hills in the trans-Indus districts of the North West Frontier Province.
Boundary with China.—There is a point to the north of Hunza in Kashmir where three great mountain chains, the Muztagh from the south-east, the Hindu Kush from the south-west, and the Sarikol (an offshoot of the Kuenlun) from the north-east, meet. It is also the meeting-place of the Indian, Chinese, and Russian empires and of Afghanistan. Westwards from this the boundary of Kashmir and Chinese Turkestan runs for 350 miles (omitting curves) through a desolate upland lying well to the north of the Muztagh-Karakoram range. Finally in the north-east corner of Kashmir the frontier impinges on the great Central Asian axis of the Kuenlun. From this point it turns southwards and separates Chinese Tibet from the salt Lingzi Thang plains and the Indus valley in Kashmir, and the eastern part of the native state of Bashahr, which physically form a portion of Tibet.
Boundary with United Provinces.—The south-east corner of Bashahr is a little to the north of the great Kedarnath peak in the Central Himalaya and of the source of the Jamna. Here the frontier strikes to the west dividing Bashahr from Teri Garhwal, a native state under the control of the government of the United Provinces. Turning again to the south it runs to the junction of the Tons and Jamna, separating Teri Garhwal from Sirmur and some of the smaller Simla Hill States. Henceforth the Jamna is with small exceptions the boundary between the Panjab and the United Provinces.
Boundary with Afghanistan.—We must now return to our starting-point at the eastern extremity of the Hindu Kush, and trace the boundary with Afghanistan. The frontier runs west and south-west along the Hindu Kush to the Dorah pass dividing Chitral from the Afghan province of Wakhan, and streams which drain into the Indus from the head waters of the Oxus. At the Dorah pass it turns sharply to the south, following a great spur which parts the valley of the Chitral river (British) from that of its Afghan affluent, the Bashgol. Below the junction of the two streams at Arnawai the Chitral changes its name and becomes the Kunar. Near this point the "Durand" line begins. In 1893 an agreement was made between the Amir Abdurrahman and Sir Mortimer Durand as representative of the British Government determining the frontier line from Chandak in the valley of the Kunar, twelve miles north of Asmar, to the Persian border. Asmar is an Afghan village on the left bank of the Kunar to the south of Arnawai. In 1894 the line was demarcated along the eastern watershed of the Kunar valley to Nawakotal on the confines of Bajaur and the country of the Mohmands.
Thence the frontier, which has not been demarcated, passes through the heart of the Mohmand country to the Kabul river and beyond it to our frontier post in the Khaibar at Landikhana.
From this point the line, still undemarcated, runs on in a south-westerly direction to the Safed Koh, and then strikes west along it to the Sikaram mountain near the Paiwar Kotal at the head of the Kurram valley. From Sikaram the frontier runs south and south-east crossing the upper waters of the Kurram, and dividing our possessions from the Afghan province of Khost. This line was demarcated in 1894.
At the south of the Kurram valley the frontier sweeps round to the west leaving in the British sphere the valley of the Tochi. Turning again to the south it crosses the upper waters of the Tochi and passes round the back of Waziristan by the Shawal valley and the plains about Wana to Domandi on the Gomal river, where Afghanistan, Biluchistan, and the North West Frontier Province meet. The Waziristan boundary was demarcated in 1895.
Political and Administrative Boundaries.—The boundary described above defines spheres of influence, and only in the Kurram valley does it coincide with that of the districts for whose orderly administration we hold ourselves responsible. All we ask of Wazirs, Afridis, or Mohmands is to leave our people at peace; we have no concern with their quarrels or blood feuds, so long as they abide in their mountains or only leave them for the sake of lawful gain. Our administrative boundary, which speaking broadly we took over from the Sikhs, usually runs at the foot of the hills. A glance at the map will show that between Peshawar and Kohat the territory of the independent tribes comes down almost to the Indus. At this point the hills occupied by the Jowaki section of the Afridi tribe push out a great tongue eastwards. Our military frontier road runs through these hills, and we actually pay the tribesmen of the Kohat pass for our right of way. Another tongue of tribal territory reaches right down to the Indus, and almost severs the Peshawar and Hazara districts. Further north the frontier of Hazara lies well to the east of the Indus.
Frontier with Biluchistan.— At Domandi the frontier turns to the east, and following the Gomal river to its junction'with the Zhob at Kajuri Kach forms the boundary of the two British administrations. Henceforth the general direction of the line is determined by the trend of the Suliman range. It runs south to the Vehoa pass, where the country of the Pathans of the North West Frontier Province ends and that of the Hill and Plain Biluches subject to the Panjab Government begins. From the Vehoa pass to the Kaha torrent the line is drawn so as to leave Biluch tribes with the Panjab and Pathan tribes with the Biluchistan Agency. South of the Kaha the division is between Biluch tribes, the Marris and Bugtis to the west being managed from Quetta, and the Gurchanis and Mazaris, who are largely settled in the plains, being included in Dera Ghazi Khan, the trans-Indus district of the Panjab. At the south-west corner of the Dera Ghazi Khan district the Panjab, Sind, and Biluchistan meet. From this point the short common boundary of the Panjab and Sind runs east to the Indus.
The Southern Boundary.— East of the Indus the frontier runs south-east for about fifty miles parting Sind from the Bahawalpur State, till a point is reached where Sind, Rajputana, and Bahawalpur join. A little further to the east is the southern extremity of Bahawalpur at 70 8' E. and 27 5' N. From this point a line drawn due east would at a distance of 370 miles pass a few miles to the north of the south end of Gurgaon and a few miles to the south of the border of the Narnaul tract of Patiala. Between Narnaul and the south-east corner of the Bahawalpur State the great Rajputana desert, mainly occupied in this quarter by Bikaner, thrusts northwards a huge wedge reaching almost up to the Sutlej. To the west of the wedge is Bahawalpur and to the east the British district of Hissar. The apex is less than 100 miles from Lahore, while a line drawn due south from that city to latitude 27' 5 north would exceed 270 miles in length. The Jaipur State lies to the south and west of Narnaul, while Gurgaon has across its southern frontiers Alwar and Bharatpur, and near the Jamna the Muttra district of the United Provinces.