Revisiting Chitral's history

Chitral State
Dated the 28th May 1941.
My dear friend,
During the period of war I did not like to confront the Government with any new request and so cause complication, but the report that a member of the ruling family of Nagar is being appointed the Governor of Yasen has caused such a consternation to the member of my own family and clan that I think it most urgent to bring it to your notice. About three hundred years ago the two brothers Mantaram Shah called Shah Katur the 1st and Khuahwaqt divided the Chitral State among themselves. Yasen since then became the seat of the descendants of Khushwaqt uninterruptedly till the year 1880, when my grand father Annual Mulk occupied all the three districts of Yasen Ghizr and Ishkoman and annexed them to Chitral ousting Mohiudding Pahalwan the ruler of Yasen. Till the year 1895 Yasen Ghizr and Ishkoman remained a part of Chitral. In 1895 these three districts were separated from Chitral state and the eldest son of the late ruler of Yasen, Abdurrahman Khan by name was appointed the ruler of Yasen, and Ghizr was also given to him. Ishkoman was given by my grand father to the exiled ruler of Wakhan, and remained in his hands till his death and was not annexed to the reconstituted principality of Yasen. As it was an act of clemency on the part of Government, it did not disturb our minds very much Later on Ghizr and Kuh were separated from Yasen and were made separate governorships under one Murad khan. As Murad Khan did not belong to any of the ruling houses of Gilgit Agency, his appointment was not very much resented being considered as a temporary measure. Now the crux of the whole question is that from Poonial to Chitral it is the heritage of one family and the members of this family are spread throughout the length and breadth of this country and many of them are in the service of the Government in different capacities. If a member of the ruling family of a state, who does not belong to our race is made Governor in any of these districts, then it shall be giving them a right which they never had in the history and depriving us all of our legitimate heritage.
As the beginning Government always looks to the rights and privileges of the people in all the corners of the Empire, so we have also a right to crave justice of the benign Government to our cause and not to dish out our heritage to outsiders while our own cousins who are the rightful rulers of the country are also aspirant to the kind favours of the Government. In the presence of a legitimate son of late Abdurrahaman Khan no one can claim Yasen by right. After the Khushwaqtas the second rightful clan is the Katur family of Chitral, both by right of conquest and by right of descent. The Burushas, a side branch of Khushwaqtas have always remained confined to Poonial, and before Abdurrahman Khan's time have never taken any interest in the affairs of Yasen buy they are also the possible claimant after the two aforesaid clans. But to bring a man from Nagar or Hunza shall be considered a great act of injustice for us all, because those people for the last three or four hundred years have never dared to come out of their valley and to interfere in the possessions of our family. I also attach herewith a position, which the members of my family have given me. A Genealogical tree of the Descent of Khushwaqtas is also attached.
Your most sincere friend.
Sd/-
Mehtar of Chitral
4. These instances show that weak old men cannot function properly as Governors in these District and therefore it seems only a wise precaution to ensure, by means of the proposal now under consideration, that in future no Governor shall remain in official harness beyond the age when it may reasonably be expected that his mental and physical powers will decline. Sixty is, I think, the latest age which can safely be adopted if this precaution is to be effective. 5. There remains the question of the Maharaja of Kashmir's concern with the proposed changes. As Suzeain of these Districts, His Highness should I think be consulted, and his approval to the new rules should be obtained before they are made public. I propose therefore to refer the proposals to the Kashmir Government as son as I hear that they have been accepted by the Government of India and to obtain His Highness' formal consent before authorising the Political Agent to announce the changes.
6. All this must take time, but the earlier the retirement of Raja Mir Baz Khan and His succession by Khan Saheb Mahbub Ali Khan Takes place the better, and so I would request that the Government of India's approval of these proposals may kindly be conveyed to me as early as possible. I have etc.,
Sd/- D.M. Fraser,
Resident in Kashmir

Govt asked to import power thru Chitral route

By Zar Alam Khan


ISLAMABAD: Elected representatives of Chitral have called upon the government to go for the shortest and most viable Wakhan-Chitral route for the proposed import of 1,000 megawatts electricity from Central Asia.

Talking to this correspondent, MNA Shahzada Mohiuddin, MPA Ghulam Mohammad and tehsil nazim Mastuj Shahzada Sikendarul Mulk pointed out that for the NWFP such an initiative also translates into opening up of a much-needed second trade corridor along the Khyber Pass, as the proposed route was not only geographically closer to Tajikistan and Kryghistan, but was also very secure since it had remained peaceful throughout the three decades of war and strife in Afghanistan.
The World Bank estimates the project cost at around $600 million. Given NWFP's close proximity to Tajikistan by a mere 35 miles, that is the distance separating Chitral from the Central Asian country, it becomes the natural choice for laying the high voltage transmission line via Boroghil Pass, the very junction separating the Amu Darya (Oxus River) from River Chitral (better known as Kabul River in NWFP).

They said on the Chitral side, a jeep track already exists up to Chikar (Petch Utz) at a distance of only 11 miles from Boroghil right across which a truck-able road exists on the Afghan side of Darwaza. The Tajik border town of Langar is a mere 13 miles away from Darwaza while the distance from Chitral's border to Khorog, the provincial capital of GABO (Gorno Badakshan Autonomous Oblasc), is just 137 miles - all having a truck-able road.

Moreover, Chitral is already linked with the national power grid and in contrast to the 1,300 kilometers to be covered if the Northern Areas route is taken the transmission line via Chitral will only be 700 kilometers to reach Peshawar.

They said the two other proposed routes were exorbitantly costly besides being danger prone. The first to pass via Kabul and connect to Quetta will have to cover 2,500 kilometers of treacherous insurgency-prone Taliban territory. Policy makers will have to think twice about the Kabul route, as Nato and Afghan forces have been unable even to ensure continuous gas supply from Balochistan. The second proposed route via the Ishkuman valley of the Northern Areas covering 70 per cent hard rock passes through three major glaciers and three mountain ranges - Karakoram, Hindukush and Himalayas - before covering around 1,300 kilometers to reach Pakistan's nearest national grid. It makes it a very costly and unfeasible proposition. The Northern Areas currently has no link with the national grid and work on the Basha-Diamer Dam will take at least 10-15 years. In contrast, if the transmission line were to follow the natural plateau of the Boroghil route into Chitral, it encounters no glaciers and follows the river bank with no mountain passes at all. Interestingly, studies by the German GTZ put Chitral's power generation capacity at 6,000-8,000 megawatts making it a potential source of cash to propel the national economy. Indigenous electricity generated from River Chitral, the NWFP's largest river, can be added to the same Central Asian transmission line thereby making it a dual purpose system besides making it a cost-effective proposition.

Without electricity, the province’s industrialisation through the creation of US-sponsored Reconstruction Opportunity Zones will remain a pipe dream and so will be the desire to wean people away from militancy into gainful employment. Americans who are encouraging this $600 million project to resolve the power crisis of Pakistan should also be keen to boost the NWFP economy by seeing that the landlocked province is linked to Central Asia. Upon completion, this route will also supplement the province’s income side-by-side the Khyber Pass as both the northern and southern portals of the Lowari Tunnel meet around November this year.--chitraltoday.com