Sir John Ramsay AGG and the Pacification of Makran (1911-14)

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Abstract

In late nineteenth/early twentieth century, British India had to face a state of almost uninterrupted turmoil along its borders. Since political, strategic and economic considerations all conjured in excluding outright military occupation, local authorities had to deploy, to cope with it, a series of tools ranging from small-scale military intervention to more ambitious efforts, aimed at integrating local powers in the imperial security framework. Along western borders, the treaty of Jacobabad (1876) had formally settled relations with Kalat (a semi-independent proto-state ruled by a Brahoi Khan of the Ahmadzai family) but it had also dangerously compromised them to support a largely resented ruler. Situation proved most intractable in Makran, where headmen (mostly Baloch) repeatedly tried to assert their independence, forcing the Raj representatives, to have the upper hand with an ever-resurging guerrilla, to stretch their commitment beyond the limits that central authorities deemed fit. The advent of Sir John Ramsey as AGG and Chief Commissioner in Baluchistan (1911) seemed leading to a break in this vicious circle. Favoured by a safer regional environment, Ramsey tried, on one hand to modernize Kalat's administration by containing the Khan's autocracy, on the other to normalize the relations with the Makrani sardars by recognizing their role within the system of the imperial dignity. His efforts peaked at the eve of the First World War. Implementing a politics "of conciliatory intervention, tempered with lucrative employment and light taxation", he managed to re-establish both the Khan’s authority and military stability on the base of the (largely apocryphal) "federal tradition" embodied in the "Brahoi constitution". This model too emerged, nonetheless, as inherently unstable. In 1915 violence spread out again in Makran, while the Baloch Camel Corps –- the main symbol of Kalat’s newly found political harmony -– ingloriously returned from Basra, where it was supposed to support the action of the ill-fated Indian Expeditionary Force "D" and where it did not even land.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInsurgency and Counterinsurgency: Irregular Warfare from 1800 to the Present, XXXVI International Congress of Military History, Amsterdam, 29 August-3 September 2010
Pages303-309
Number of pages7
Publication statusPublished - 2011
EventXXXVI CIHM [Commission Internationale d'Histoire Militaire] Congress, "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: Irregular Warfare from 1800 to the Present", Amsterdam - Amsterdam
Duration: 29 Aug 20103 Sept 2010

Conference

ConferenceXXXVI CIHM [Commission Internationale d'Histoire Militaire] Congress, "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: Irregular Warfare from 1800 to the Present", Amsterdam
CityAmsterdam
Period29/8/103/9/10

Keywords

  • Baluchistan
  • British India (XIX-XX Century)
  • India britannica (XIX-XX secolo)
  • Khanate of Kalat
  • Khanato di Kalat
  • Makran
  • Politica di sicurezza dell'impero indiano
  • Security Policy of Imperial India

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