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Khyber-Pakhtunwa (North-West Frontier Province): 1

April 13, 2008

ARTICLES: Beautiful Indeed

Dawn

Khyber-Pakhtunwa (North-West Frontier Province)

In some places sheets of yellow flowers bloomed in plots; in others sheets of red (arghwani) flowers, in some red and yellow bloomed together. We sat on a mound near the camp to enjoy the site. There were flowers on all sides of the mound, yellow here, red there, as if arranged regularly to form a sextuple. On two sides there were fewer flowers but as far as the eye reached, flowers were in bloom. In spring near Peshawar, the fields of flowers are very beautiful indeed.

— Emperor Babar

When Babar first set eyes on the valley of Peshawar, he echoed the words of the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang who began his pilgrimage to the land of Gandhara in 629AD. Describing the land and the people, Hiuen Tsang said: ‘The country is rich with cereals, and produces a variety of flowers and fruits; it abounds also in sugarcane, from the juice of which they prepare ‘solid sugar’… The disposition of the people is timid and soft; they love literature; most of them belong to heretical schools; a few believe in the true law. From old time till now this border-land of India has produced many authors of Shastras… There are about 1,000 Sangharamas (monasteries) which are deserted and in ruins. They are filled with wild shrubs and solitary to the last degree. The Stupas are mostly decayed. The heretical temples, to the number of about 100, are occupied pell-mell by heretics…’

Fourteen centuries later, M. Athar Tahir describes this ancient land as one of the most legendary places on earth. In the first chapter of his well produced and competently researched book, Frontier Facets, he describes the Frontier in the following words: ‘In contrast to other provinces of Pakistan, this is a province where each season casts its own spell. If spring is fragrant, summer is warm, even hot, in the valleys, and invigoratingly cool on the mountain slopes. Autumn turns trees from russet to brilliant scarlet and yellow, and winter ushers in freezing winds and snow. Through the ages this land has enjoyed a unique position and character.’

This aptly-titled book concerns itself not just with the terrain and the creatures which live upon it, but is actually a scholarly work made accessible to the ordinary reader through the use of simple and lucid text and the most stunning photographs, most of which have been taken by the author himself. At this point in our troubled political history, when the province is marked by the blood of countless young and old men, women and children killed in a war not necessarily of their own making, it is an extremely important work which traces the history of the region from the earliest written record chronicled by the Greek geographer Hecataeus and the historian Herodotus, as well as the campaigns of Alexander. Archaeological records indicate that life existed here since Paleolithic times and evidence of tools, blade flakes and scrapers having been found in the Sanghao Cave, Mardan. In Bannu district, evidence exists of a culture which flourished between 3500 and 3000BC. The region was also home to the Harappa Culture (2700-2000BC), remains having been discovered at Maru, Dera Ismail Khan.

Tahir draws a historical outline which moves onto the migration of the Aryans into the region between 1800-1200BC. The region and people are mentioned in the scriptures of the Aryans, in particular the Mahabharata and the Rg Veda. In the sixth century BC, Darius the Persian sent a Greek seaman to explore the course of the Indus, brining the region under his empire. In 331 BC that empire was conquered by Alexander the Macedonian, but not before meeting fierce resistance from the Kamboja clans, the Aspasios of Kunar, the Guraieans of the Panjkora valley and the Assakenois of the Swat and Buner valleys.

The theme of popular resistance by the people of the Frontier against the invader runs throughout the picture which Tahir paints with masterly strokes. Moving on to the establishment of the Kushan Empire, Tahir treats us to wonderful visuals of stucco heads of the Buddha, as well as photographs of the seated and standing Buddha, followed by the masterpiece of stone sculpture called ‘Fasting Siddhartha’. He traces the contribution of the greatest Kushan ruler, Kanishka, to the Gandhara civilisation which flourished in the region, with the first capital of the empire being founded at what is today Charsadda.

The author pays painstaking attention to historical movements of invaders and conquerors in the Frontier, dwelling in detail on the British colonialists, and in doing so weaves layers of meaning into the fabric which is today the North-West Frontier Province, beleaguered by a new wave of would-be conquers who wish to deny the rich history of their homeland. In a way, this book is not just a tribute to the sons of the Frontier, including those who conquered it and made it their home, learning its many languages, tasting its waters, singing its music. It is also a work which enables one to understand a complex region which has become the focus of local and global attention in recent years.

Commissioned by a former Chief Secretary of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (old NWFP), Shakil Durrani, this book could not have come at a better time, when we all need a better understanding of the land which has given us Ashoka’s message of peace and harmony and which is now scarred by hostility and at risk of being buried by obscurantism. In a chapter titled ‘Guardians of the Frontier’, Tahir writes about the British colonialist policy of ‘Butcher and Bolt’. ‘This policy consisted of punitive expeditions; killing men of the offending tribe, burning down their villages, destroying long standing crops on terraced fields an d then withdrawing. During the first decades of the 20th century even aircrafts of the Royal Air Force were inducted to bomb villages. First white leaflets of warning were dropped. The day before the bombardment, red leaflets were dropped. Then the RAF… went into action.’

It took Athar Tahir four years to gather the information, photographic material, paintings, personal histories, historical facts, political processes, legends, myths, and poetry of the Frontier region. He undertook this gigantic task while serving in various capacities as a civil servant who expresses himself best as a poet. Through Frontier Facets, he has given us another kind of poetry, one which sings of the tenacity of a people who still dare to celebrate despite the pall of gloom thrust upon the region by the doctrinaire of self-professed saviours. Beautifully composed and designed, the book forces one to believe once again in the words of Kushhal Khan Khattak:

From whence hath the spring again returned unto us,

Which hath made the country round a garden of flowers?

This coffee-table book explores the history and culture of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan