Royal Jirga and tribal administration under British rule in Balochistan

In the previous chapter we saw the railway climb the Bolan and Harnai mountains. But tribal disputes were not settled by rail. For that, the British made an old local tradition, the jirga, part of their administration. In this chapter we will see how the Shahi Jirga of Sibi came into being, what legal form the Frontier Crimes Regulation gave it, and how the Levies system was tied to it. There are two different views of this system. We will present both with their own sources.

An old tradition, a new use

According to the Sibi Gazetteer (1907), settling all kinds of disputes through the elders of a village or tribe is a method "indigenous to the country". In the colonial period, the work of turning this tradition into a regular institution is attributed to Robert Sandeman.

Muhammad Fiaz Anwar (2019), a researcher at the Islamia University Bahawalpur, writes that Sandeman first called jirgas for disputes among the Baloch tribes of Rajanpur tehsil in Dera Ghazi Khan. From 1875 he began holding an annual gathering of the tumandars of Punjab and Balochistan at Fort Munro, a hill station in the Koh-e-Suleman. Later the same gathering came to be held at Sibi in winter and at Quetta in summer.

Sandeman’s biographer, T. H. Thornton (1895), cites the Agency Report of 1886. According to it, after the treaty of 1876 the Agent to the Governor General (AGG) "took the place of the Khan" in nominating chiefs, summoning jirgas for tribal disputes and keeping the peace. Thornton says that in important cases the AGG’s representative, often Rai Bahadur Hittu Ram, was present at the jirga, and every decision took effect only with his approval. In the end a "standing council" of chiefs was formed, which sat at Sibi in winter and at Quetta in summer.

Sibi: jirga, durbar and fair

According to the Sibi Gazetteer, the annual Sibi horse fair was held every February and was first held in 1885. The 1887-88 administration report of the Baluchistan Agency clearly shows the link between the jirga and the fair. According to it, in the spring of 1888 the "jirga assembled at Sibi during the Horse Show" settled an old dispute of the Langav tribe and fixed Rs17,602 as blood money.

According to the Sibi Gazetteer, the Shahi Jirga met at Sibi in winter and its proceedings usually ended with a general durbar of the AGG. The horse show was also held in those days. The jirga sat in the Victoria Memorial Hall, built in 1903 with public subscriptions. According to the Imperial Gazetteer, it cost Rs38,800.

According to Denys Bray, Superintendent of the 1911 Census, the form for the tribal census was settled in spring 1910 at Sibi, in discussion with the chiefs, at the "great half-yearly session" of the Shahi Jirga. According to the 1931 census report, in winter most Secretariat offices and all the Political Agents moved from Quetta to Sibi for the "annual Shahi Jirga", and the horse and cattle show was held in the same season.

Backed by law: the Frontier Crimes Regulation

According to the Imperial Gazetteer (1908), the traditional jirga system was "developed" under British administration, and for this purpose the Punjab Frontier Crimes Regulation was applied to Balochistan in 1890. A footnote on the same page records that Regulation III of 1901 was later applied with some amendments. According to the Gazetteer, the AGG himself also held judicial powers under this Regulation. According to Thornton, these rules also gave the district officer the power to use the jirga as a court and to move frontier villages elsewhere.

The Sibi Gazetteer describes the procedure:

• Ordinary cases were referred to a council of at least three elders.
• The jirga’s task was only to establish the facts. The decision and sentence rested with the Deputy Commissioner.
• The Political Agent could award up to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment. Sentences of up to 14 years needed the AGG’s confirmation.
• There was no appeal against these decisions; only the AGG could review them.

According to the Imperial Gazetteer, in the five years to March 1898 jirgas disposed of an average of 2,871 cases a year. In 1902-03 the number was 4,230.

Local jirga and Shahi Jirga

According to the Sibi Gazetteer, almost all cases of tribesmen, such as murder, adultery, marriage disputes, theft, cattle lifting and land disputes, first went to local jirgas. Ordinary cases of tribesmen of two districts were heard by joint jirgas. Cases not settled there, or involving tribal custom or two tribes, were sent to the Shahi Jirga. For cases involving Punjab tribes, an inter-provincial jirga was held at Fort Munro every September.

The Gazetteer also notes the difference in the choice of members. Local jirgas were made up of influential local sardars, headmen and maliks who knew the custom. For the Shahi Jirga, the leading chiefs and headmen of the tribes were chosen, especially those whose tribes were party to the case. Some Shahi Jirga decisions also became rules for the future, such as the decision of 8 February 1898 that cases of the Domki tribe and the subjects of the Khan of Kalat would generally go to the Shahi Jirga at Sibi or Quetta.

The Levies: arm of the jirga

The jirga gave the decision, but arresting the accused and bringing witnesses was the work of the Levies. According to the Imperial Gazetteer, this system too began with Sandeman. In 1867, as Deputy Commissioner of Dera Ghazi Khan, he took a few horsemen of the Marri and Bugti tribes into government service. After coming to Balochistan he began paying allowances to chiefs to keep armed horsemen and footmen. According to the Gazetteer, the system rested on two assumptions: that every tribe has influential chiefs who can secure obedience when given government support, and that no tribesman will work for the government without payment.

In 1904 the directly administered areas had 2,022 Levies and 1,173 police. The Zhob Levy Corps was set up in 1890. According to the Sibi Gazetteer, the jirga system worked well only together with the Levies, because outside the towns crime was investigated by the chiefs and the Levies.

Both systems continued in this form into the 1930s. According to the administration report for 1936-37, in Quetta-Pishin district alone 663 civil and 1,318 criminal cases were disposed of under the Regulation during 1936. According to the same report, some tribal leaders, displeased by the reorganisation of the Levies, did not attend the Sibi Durbar, but later withdrew their opposition.

Two views

The colonial account: The Sibi Gazetteer describes the system as a continuation of local tradition, with a "simple procedure" and "many" advantages. According to the Imperial Gazetteer, Shahi jirgas decided cases that, if unsettled, could lead to bloodshed and political complications. But the same Sibi Gazetteer also admits that constant supervision by officers is necessary to guard the system against abuses arising from "ignorance and partiality".

The critical account: According to Muhammad Fiaz Anwar (2019), the Sandeman system was in fact a system of patronage of the tumandars. It gave the chiefs great material and administrative power and turned the "egalitarian" nature of the Baloch tribes into authoritative structures. He supports his point with this sentence from Sandeman’s colleague R. I. Bruce: "It is the Sirkar who makes or unmakes these men".

Next Sunday: 31 May 1935: the Quetta earthquake