The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan
Richard Tapper
Croom Helm
In 1978 and 1979, revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran marked a shift in the balance of power in South West Asia and the world. Shaken by events in Iran and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the world has once more been made aware that tribalism is no anachronism in a struggle for political and cultural self-determination. In Afghanistan the Soviet army is encountering tough opposition from tribesmen, whilst in Iran the onset of the revolution gave the tribes, many of which are separate minority nations, an opportunity to move towards independence. Indeed, Iran is still threatened by the possibility that it may break up into smaller national units. Much new research in this book provides historical and anthropological perspectives necessary to the eventual understanding of the events surrounding the revolutions.
Richard Tapper is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Contents
List of Maps List of Abbreviations used in Notes Preface A Note on Transliteration and Usage The Contributors
1. Introduction by Richard Tapper / 1 The Scope of the Volume / 1 Iran and Afghanistan from 1700 to 1800 / 12 The Population of Afghanistan and Iran around 180 0 / 16 Iran from 1800 to 1980 / 21 Afghanistan from 1800 to 19 80 / 31 The 'Tribal Problem1 and the 'Problem of Tribe' / 42 Notes / 75
2. State, Tribe and Empire in Afghan Inter-Polity Relations by Rob Hager 83 A Model of State, Tribe and Empire as Types of Legal Order / 83 Tribal and Imperial Orders in Afghanistan / 93 Systems of Inter-Polity Relations / 97 Multiple Polities and Structural Change in Afghanistan / 100 Notes / 114
3. Khan and Khel: Dialectics of Pakhtun Tribalism by Jon W. Anderson / 119 Introduction / 119 The Problem of Pakhtun Tribalism / 119 The Terms of Pakhtun Tribalism in Ghilzai Country / 123 Dialectics of Khel / 128 Khan as Patron: the Dual Logic of Leadership / 133 'Tying the Knot of the Tribe' / 138 From Ground to Figure: Qoum into Gund, Atrap into Shahr / 142 Conclusion / 144 Notes / 148
4. Tribes And States In The Khyber, 1838-42 by Malcolm Yapp / 150 Introduction / 150 British Images of 'Tribe' / 154 The Khyber between Afghan and Sikh States / 156 The British in Kabul: Mackeson Appointed to the Khyber / 158 Mackeson's Policies for Controlling the Tribes / 164 Orakzai and Afridi / 16 8 The Shinwari / 173 The British Lose Control of the Khyber / 179 Conclusion / 182 Notes / 187
5. Tribes and States in Waziristan by Akbar S. Ahmed / 192 Introduction: Buffer Zones and the Great Game / 192 Culture and Society in the Tribal Areas / 195 Waziristan and the Wazir Tribes / 200 The Wazir Tribes between Afghanistan and British India / 203 Conclusion / 207 Notes / 209
6. Political Organisation of Pashtun Nomads and the State by Bernt Glatzer / 212 Afghan Nomads and Tribes / 212 Nomads of Western Afghanistan / 215 The Role of Kinship and Descent / 219 Political Organisation and Leadership / 222 Nomads and the State / 226 Notes / 230
7. Abd Al-Rahman's North-West Frontier: The Pashtun Colonisation of Afghan Turkistan by Nancy Tapper / 233 Amir Abd al-Rahman's North-West Frontier / 233 The First Attempt to Colonise the North-West Frontier / 235 Abd al-Rahman's 'Waste-lands' Policy / 238 The Second Attempt / 240 The Establishment of the Nomads in the North-West / 247 The Hazara Revolt and Consequences of its Suppression / 252 Early Leaders of the North-Western Nomads / 254 Conclusion / 256 Notes / 25 8
8. Why Tribes Have Chiefs: A Case from Baluchistan by Philip Carl Salzman / 262 Heuristics / 262 The Yarahmadzai Political Structure, 1850-1935 / 266 Explaining the Yarahmadzai Chiefship / 274 Conclusion / 2 81 Notes / 2 83
9. Iran and the Qashqai Tribal Confederacy by Lois Beck / 284 Introduction / 284 Background / 287 The Ruling Family / 289 The Setting / 291 Pressures from Outside / 296 Internal Tribal Dynamics / 305 Notes / 310
10. Tribes, Confederation and the State: An Historical Overview of the Bakhtiari and Iran by Gene Garthwaite / 314 Introduction / 314 'Tribe ' / 316 'Confederation' / 317 'State' / 321 Historical Survey / 321 Notes / 32 8 Contents
11. On the Bakhtiari: Comments on 'Tribes, Confederation and the State' by Jean-Pierre Digard / 331 Notes / 336
12. The Enemy Within: Limitations on Leadership in the Bakhtiari by David Brooks / 337 Nomads, Tribes and the State / 337 Modern Variation on a Traditional Theme / 340 Nomadic Responses to State Policies / 342 Structural Resilience / 344 The Bakhtiari and the State / 345 European Powers and the Bakhtiari / 355 The Internal Enemy / 35 8 Conclusion / 361 Notes / 362
13. Kurdish Tribes and the State of Iran: The Case of Simko's Revolt by Martin van Bruinessen / 364 Introduction / 364 Kurdish Tribes between Powerful States / 365 Emirate, Confederacy, Tribe / 367 Kurdish Tribes and the Ottoman State / 370 Tribes and Non-Tribal Population / 376 Pan-Islamism and Kurdish Nationalism / 378 Simko and the Shakak Confederacy / 3 79 Simko's Rebellion against the Central Government / 386 The Organisation of Simko's Forces 1 / 390 Postscript / 393 Notes / 396
14. Nomads and Commissars in the Mughan Steppe: The Shahsevan Tribes in the Great Game by Richard Tapper / 401 Introduction / 401 The Russian Annexation of Mughan / 402 Azarbayjan and the Shahsevan in the Mid- Nineteenth Century / 405 Troubles Begin / 410 An Attempt at Settlement / 413 The Russians Increase the Pressure / 419 The Closure of the Frontier / 42 3 The. Aftermath of the Closure / 426 Notes / 4 32
15. The Tribal Society and Its Enemies by Ernest Gellner / 436 Notes / 447
16. Tribe and State: Some Concluding Remarks by Andrew Strathern / 449 Index
List of Maps
1. Sketch-map of Iran and Afghanistan, to show places mentioned in chapter 1, with approximate tribal locations in the nineteenth century / 1-2 2. Sketch-map of Ghilzai country and Waziristan, to show places mentioned in chapters 3, 4 and 5 / 120 3. Sketch-map of the Khyber and surrounding districts, to show places mentioned in chapter 4 / 152 4. Sketch-map of western parts of Afghanistan, to show places mentioned in chapters 6 and 7 / 214
5. Sketch-map of Iranian Baluchistan, to show places mentioned in chapter 8 / 265 6. Sketch-map of Qashqai and Bakhtiari country, to show places mentioned in chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 / 286 7. Sketch-map of Kurdistan and north-western Iran to show places mentioned.in chapters 13 and 14 / 366
PREFACE
In 1978 and 1979, revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran marked a shift in the balance of power in South West Asia and the world. Since then, indeed, events in both countries have regularly dominated the media. Shaken by Khumeyni's overthrow of the Shah and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the world has once more been made aware that tribalism is no anachronism in a struggle for political and cultural self- determination. In both countries there has been the sort of tribal resurgence that so often in the past accompanied political upheavals such as they are now experiencing.
The Shah of Iran, miscalculating the strength of opposition to the secularism, excesses and western orientation of his regime, fell, with a suddenness and completeness that confounded the predictions of almost all the experts, to a genuine popular revolution led by the remarkable Ayatullah Khumeyni. In Afghanistan, where a palace revolution in 1973 had replaced the 200-year-old Durrani monarchy with a Republic headed by the last King's cousin, the government was unable or unwilling to put into effect its programme of reform, but here too the socialist military coup in March 1978 came sooner than expected by most experts, who also failed to predict the scale of the subsequent Soviet military intervention at the end of 1979.
By 1980 both revolutions were in trouble. The Taraki and Amin governments had not merely failed to win popular support in Afghanistan but rather managed to alienate it, while the Soviet forces and their puppet Karmal seemed unlikely to be able, by any means short of genocide, to defeat the nationalist insurgency, widely supported in the country especially by Islamic and tribal elements. In Iran the fundamentalist leaders, though continuing to inspire fanatical loyalties, no longer had the support of all the disparate elements that once united behind them. A major problem for the Islamic Republic was the resistance on the part of regional, ethnic and tribal minorities. Within the country, substantial numbers of pastoral nomads settled over the last decades have now resumed their former way of life, and tribal leaders long used to exile in the West have been welcomed back.
It has been difficult for observers, whether interested laymen or supposed experts on the area, to evaluate reports from the two countries. The main obstacle has been lack of reliable information, particularly on current events and aspirations in the rural and tribal areas, and on the anthropological and historical background to the present crisis. This volume is intended to go some way towards fulfilling the second of these needs. It is based on a series of papers delivered at a conference held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in July 1979. The conference was in fact planned as early as 1977, when the convenors (Richard Tapper of SOAS and David Brooks of Durham) felt that in view of the considerable amount of research that had been done over the last two decades on the ethnography and history of the tribes of Iran and Afghanistan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the time was now ripe for stock-taking and generalisation, and an attempt at systematic comparison within a historical perspective, both between Afghanistan and Iran and also with other areas of the world. By the time of the conference, the topic had acquired added interest and contemporary relevance. Most of the papers were circulated in advance, and some useful and wide-ranging discussions took place. Participants - anthropologists and historians of many persuasions - came from various countries of Europe and North America, but a major disappointment was that the same political developments in Iran and Afghanistan which made the conference so topical also prevented the attendance of several scholars from both countries who had been invited, though there were valuable contributions to the conference discussions from some of their compatriots resident in Britain. Since then, the papers have been reyised to take account of the discussions, of the central focus suggested by the editor, and of more recent developments. A few papers presented at the conference have been withdrawn, and their place taken by others written since.
The main concern of the volume is not an analyPreface sis of the causes and courses of the revolutions themselves, nor of the sparse information available on tribal involvement - though some of this is examined in several chapters. It is rather to provide historical and anthropological perspectives necessary to the eventual understanding of the events surrounding the revolutions. Nor does the volume offer a single hypothesis or approach, but rather combines different approaches to a single theme, explored in a variety of contexts. It is maintained that, despite the spate of publications that have already appeared purporting to explain the revolutions, complete and credible analyses will anyway have to await further documentation of the motives and actions of a rather wider spectrum of society in both countries than has so far been represented. The volume, finally, pretends neither to a complete coverage of the topics addressed, nor to complete representation of experts on those topics - several well-known authorities are not included, though their works figure prominently in the volume through citation and reference.
Thanks are particularly due to the Social Science Research Council (UK), and to SOAS, for jointly and generously sponsoring the conference on which this book is based. The contributors to the book owe much to the other participants in the conference, especially Asger Christensen, Klaus Ferdinand, Alfred Janata, Nikki Keddie, Ann Lambton, David Marsden, David Morgan, Andre Singer and Susan Wright. The editor would like to acknowledge the promptness with which the other contributors, in spite of pressing commitments, responded to his communications, and to thank especially his fellow- convenor David Brooks for help and advice in planning and organising the conference. He is also grateful to the following: to Michael Strange, Keith McLachlan Sarah Ladbury and Hugh Beattie for assistance during and after the conference; to the Editorial Board of the SOAS Bulletin for permission to republish chapter 7; and to Cambridge University Press for permission to make use of material to be published in Volume 7 of the Cambridge History of Iran. Unpublished Crown Copyright material in Public Record Office and the India Office Records reproduced in this book appears by kind permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
The book, finally, owes a great deal to the help and encouragement of Ernest Ge liner and Andrew Strathern, who brought vital and stimulating non- regional perspectives to the conference and have written the two concluding chapters. Neither they nor the other contributors saw the editor's Introduction (the last chapter to be written) before submitting their own final drafts. The editor is responsible for the final condition of the book, including the system of transliteration.
SOAS, London Richard Tapper
Chapter 1
Introduction
Richard Tapper
The Scope of the Volume
The notion of 'tribe' is notoriously vague. For some, 'tribes' are what anthropologists study, for others a 'tribe' is a very specific form of economic and political group. In fact the term has been used in such a variety of ways in social anthropology, as in other fields, that, as with 'race' in physical anthropology, it has almost ceased to be of analytical or comparative value. The issues are conceptual terminological, and to some extent methodological. Can we talk of 'tribal society' as a particular stage of social evolution? Is 'tribal culture' an identifiable complex? Are 'tribes' groups with particular features and functions? Are they found at particular levels in a political structure? How far can 'tribes' or 'tribal groups' be analysed in isolation from wider political, economic and cultural contexts? Are 'tribes' the creation of states? Is it useful to contrast 'tribal' with 'peasant' society? Or 'tribalism' with 'feudalism', or with 'ethnicity'? Or 'tribe' with 'clan' or 'lineage' or 'state'? Is 'tribe' merely a state of mind?1
Such questions are not merely academic. They are live political issues in many countries of the world, and in many cases, ignoring or sometimes deliberately exploiting the ambiguities of the notion of 'tribe', states adopt unfortunate and often disastrous policies towards their 'tribal' populations.
The following chapters tackle some of these questions as they affect two particular states, Iran and Afghanistan, in whose provincial and national history up to the present day 'tribes' and 'tribalism' have always played a prominent part. The relation of tribe and state emerges as two clearly…
Richard Tapper
The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan
Croom Helm
Croom Helm Ltd The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan Edited by Richard Tapper
Croom Helm London & Canberra St. Martin's Press New York
The Conflict of tribe and state in Iran and Afghanistan. 1. Iran—History 2. Afghanistan—History I. Tapper, Richard 955 - DS295 ISBN 0-7099-2440-2
All rights reserved. For information write: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 First published in the United States of America in 1983
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title:
The Conflict of tribe and state in Iran and Afghanistan.
Based on papers from a conference held at the Scool of Oriental and African Studies in London, July, 1979. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Tribes and tribal system—Iran—Congresses. 2. Tribes and tribal system—Afghanistan—Congresses. 3. Iran—Social life and customs—Congresses. 4. Iran— Politics and government—Congresses. 5. Afghanistan—Social life and customs—Congresses. 6. Afghanistan—Politics and government—Congresses. I. Tapper, Richard. DS58.C66 – 1983 - 305.8 00955 - 83-3112 ISBN 0-312-16232-4 (St. Martin’s)
Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Son Ltd, Worcester
