North-West Frontier Province

The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) is the smallest of the four provinces of Pakistan and is home to the Pashtuns and various other groups. Neighbouring regions include Afghanistan to the west and north, and the Northern Areas and Kashmir to the northeast and east. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas form a buffer between the NWFP and parts of Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Punjab and Islamabad Capital Territory are to the south and east. The principal language is Pashto and the provincial capital is Peshawar. Some Pashtuns refer to the province as Pakhtunkhwa which means 'Land of the Pashtuns' in Pashto, while the province is sometimes referred to as 'Sarhad' in Urdu.

Geography

The NWFP sits mainly on the Iranian plateau and lies primarily in Central Asia, while parts of it overlap onto South Asia as well and this has led to considerable seismic activity (see 2005 Kashmir earthquake) in the province. The famous Khyber Pass links the province to Afghanistan, while the Attock bridge is a major crossing point over the Indus river in the east. The province has an area of 74,521 km² and its districts include Hazara Division, home to the town of Havelian, the western starting point of the Karakoram Highway. The capital and largest city of the province is Peshawar and other main cities include Nowshera, Mardan, Mansehra, Charsadda and Abbottabad.

The province's main districts include Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Bannu, Peshawar, and Hazara Division.

The region varies in topography from dry rocky areas in the south to forests and green plains in the north. The climate can be extreme with intensely hot summers to freezing cold winters. Despite these extremes in weather, agriculture remains important and viable in the area. The hilly terrain of Swat, Kalam, Naran and Kaghan is renowned for its beauty and attracts a great many tourists from neighbouring regions and from around the world. Swat-Kalam is also termed 'a piece of Switzerland' as there are many landscape similarities between it and the mountainous terrain of Switzerland.

The chai-khanas of Peshawar's Old City allow visitors to witness the multicultural inhabitants in a relaxed setting. The Khyber Bazaar, Qissa Kahani Bazaar and other parts of Peshawar can remind visitors of an Arabian Nights tale.

The Takht-i-Bahi is perhaps the most impressive Buddhist ruin in the province and dates back to the 1st century BCE.

It covers an area of 74,521 km². According to the 1998 census, the total population of N.W.F.P. was approximately 14 million out of whom 52% are males and 48% females. The density of population is 187 per km² and the intercensal change of population is of about 30%. Geographically the province could be divided into two zones: the northern one extending from the ranges of the Hindu Kush to the borders of Peshawar basin; and the southern one extending from Peshawar to the Derajat basin. The northern zone is cold and snowy in winters with heavy rainfall and pleasant summers with the exception of Peshawar basin, which is hot in summer and cold in winter. It has moderate rainfall. The southern zone is arid with hot summers and relatively cold winters and scantly rainfall. Its climate varies from very cold (Chitral in the north) to very hot in places like D.I. Khan. The major rivers that criss cross the province are Kabul River, Swat River, Chitral River, Panjgora River, Bara River, Karam River, Gomal River and Zob River.

Its snow-capped peaks and lush green valleys of unusual beauty attract tourists and mountaineers from far and wide while its art and architecture no less known than the historic Khyber Pass. Once the cradle of Gandhara civilization, the area is now known for its devout Muslims who jealously guard their religion and culture and the way of life that they have been following for centuries.

Climate

The climate of North-West Frontier province varies immensely for a region of its size, encompassing most of the many climate types found in Pakistan.

Chitral District

The north, comprising Chitral District, has a typically continental steppe climate similar to Afghanistan and Tajikistan, with average annual precipitation ranging from 100mm per year in the far north to 570 mm (23 inches) in Drosh in the south. Most of this precipiation originates from frontal cloudbands during the winter and heavy thunderstorms in the spring. Of Chitral's average 414 mm (16.5 inches) of rainfall per year, 350 mm falls from December to May. At high elevations in the Hindukush, snowfall can be much heavier than this and consequently large glaciers are a prominent feature of the landscape. snow also cuts off even Chitral town from the outside world for most of the year. Temperatures in the valleys vary from 35 °C (86 °F) in July to as low as -10 °C (32 °F) in January.

Dir, Swat and Hazara

Further south, in the districts of Dir, Swat and Hazara, the climate becomes more typical of the Indian subcontinent, although a considerable proportion of the annual precipitation still comes from frontal cloudbands during the winter months.

The combination of a short but powerful (owing to orography) summer monsoon with frequent winter cloudbands gives a bimodal rainfall regime in central parts of NWFP. Dir and Hazara districts are some of the wettest places in Pakistan: annual rainfall at Dir averages 1,469 millimetres (58 inches), of which 400 millimetres falls during the summer monsoon from July to September and twice that amount during the winter rainy season from December to April. At Abbottabad further east, the annual rainfall averages about 1,200 millimetres (47 inches), but as much as 650 millimetres (25 inches) falls during the south-west monsoon. In Swat, rather more sheltered, the annual rainfall averages around 850 millimetres (33 inches), with about 440 millimetres (17 inches) expected between June and September. A similar climate to that of Dir, though drier, prevails in a small area around Parachinar near the Afghan border.

In all areas October and November are the driest months with rainfalls generally under 30 millimetres per month except in the most exposed areas.

Temperatures in this region are somewhat warmer than in Chitral, and even at 1200 metres in Abbottabad the heat and humidity can be oppressive during the monsoon season. In winter, most of Swat receives significant snowfall, but in Hazara temperatures usually are around 5 °C (41 °F).

Southern North-West Frontier Province

This region, south of the Himalaya/Hindukush foothills, has the typically hot and dry climate of much of Pakistan. Temperatures in summer are quite oppressively hot, and in the south around Mardan temperatures of 45 °C (113 °F) are not uncommon, whilst in Peshawar 40 °C is par for the course in summer. In winter, however, this region is both warmer and generally drier than the rest of NWFP, with temperatures being around 17 °C (62 °F) in Peshawar and over 20 °C (68 °F) in the extreme south of the province. Nights, however, can still be quite cold during the winter.

Southern NWFP experiences little (and very erratic) monsoonal rain, with Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan both averaging around 110 millimetres (4.5 inches) of rain in July and august and almost nothing in June or September. Moreover, in many years no summer rain of significance occurs. In winter, rainfall usually peaks in March but Peshawar averages less than 250 millimetres (10 inches) between December and May and Dera Ismail Khan less than 110 millimetres (4.5 inches). On certain mountain slopes such as around Kohat, winter rainfall may predominate, though this is unpredictable

Demographics and Society

The NWFP has an estimated population of roughly 21 million that does not include more than 3 million Afghan refugees and their descendants in the province.^*^*

The major language spoken in the NWFP is Pashto and most of its residents are Pashtuns, especially in the lowlands and the southern areas of the NWFP. The main local tribes include the Yusufzai, Khattak, Marwat, Afridi, Orakzai, Bangash, Mahsud, Mohmand, Wazir, and Gandapur and many other smaller tribes. Further north, live other prominent Pashtun tribes including the , Swatis, Tareens, Tanolis, Jadoons and Mashwanis.

The mountainous extreme northern regions of the province is also home to diverse ethnic groups and languages, such as Khowar, Hindko, Kohistani, Shina, Torwali, Kashmiri, Kalasha and Kalami.

In addition, Afghan refugees, although predominantly Pashtun (including the Ghilzai and Durrani tribes), include hundreds of thousands of Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras as well other smaller groups found throughout the province.

Nearly all of the inhabitants of the NWFP are Muslim with a Sunni majority and significant minority of Shias and Ismailis. Many of the Kalasha of Southern Chitral still retain their ancient Animist/Shamanist religion.

History

Ancient History

Since ancient times the NWFP region has been invaded by numerous groups including the Persians, Greeks, Scythians, Kushans, Huns, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Mughals, Sikhs, and the British. Between 2000 and 1500 BCE Aryans split off into an Iranian branch, represented by the Pakhtuns who dominated most of the region, and various Dardic peoples which came to populate much of the north.

The Vale of Peshawar was home to the Kingdom of Gandhara starting around the 6th century BCE and later ancient Peshawar became a capital of the Kushan Empire. The region was visited by such notable historical figures as Darius II, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, Mountstuart Elphinstone, and Winston Churchill among others.

The region was, in ancient times, a major centre of Buddhism as attested by recent archaeological and hermeneutic evidence. Kanishka, a prominent Kushan ruler was one of the prominent Buddhist kings.

"The region of Gandhara has long been known as a major centre of Buddhist art and culture around the beginning of the Christian era. But until recently, the Buddhist literature of this region was almost entirely lost. Now, within the last decade, a large corpus of Gandharan manuscripts dating from as early as the 1st century A.D. has come to light and is being studied and published by scholars at the University of Washington. These scrolls, written on birch-bark in the Gandharan language and the Kharosthi script, are the oldest surviving Buddhist literature, which has hitherto been known to us only from later and modern Buddhist canons. They also institute a missing link between original South Asian Buddhism and the Buddhism of East Asia, which was exported primarily from Gandhara along the Silk Roads through Central Asia and thence to China".

Lecture: " Rediscovering the lost Buddhist literature of Gandhara" by Prof. Richard Salomon, University of Washington, Seattle at Stanford University (2005)

Arrival of Islam

Buddhism remained prominent in the region until the Muslim Arabs and Turks conquered the area before the 2nd millennium CE. Over the centuries local Pakhtun and Dardic tribes were converted to Islam, while retaining some local traditions such as Pashtunwali or the Pakhtun code of honour. The NWFP became part of larger Islamic empires including the Ghaznavid Empire and the empire of Muhammad of Ghor and was nominally controlled by the Delhi Sultanate and Ilkhantate Empire of the Mongols. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia including NWFP.

The NWFP was an important borderland that was often contested by the Mughals and Safavids of Persia. During the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the NWFP required formidable military forces to control and the emergence of Pakhtun nationalism through the voice of local warrior poet Khushal Khan Khattak united some of the tribes against the various empires around the region. The area, as a predominantly Pakhtun region, merged following a loya jirga with the Durrani Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747 and remained mainly under Afghan control until the coming of the British.

British Era

A series of conflicts known as the Anglo-Afghan wars during the imperialist Great Game between the United Kingdom and Russia led to the eventual dismemberment of Afghanistan. The annexation of the region led to the demarcation of the Durand Line and administration as part of British South Asia. The Durand line is a term for the poorly marked 2,450-kilometre (1,519 mile) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. After fighting in two wars against Afghans, the British succeeded in 1893 in imposing the Durand line, dividing Afghanistan and what was then British India. Named for Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the British colonial government, it was agreed upon by representatives of both governments, while the Afghan side greatly resented the border and viewed as a temporary development as opposed to a permanent settlement as the British viewed it as being. One of the two representatives of the Afghan government was the revered Ahmadi Sahibzada Abdul Latif of Khost. The border was drawn intentionally to cut through the Pakhtun tribes.

The British who had captured most of rest of South Asia without significant problems, faced a lot of difficulties here. The first war with the Pathans resulted in a devastating defeat, with just one soldier coming back alive (out of a total of 14,800 people). Unable to enforce their writ in the region they changed tactics and played a game of divide and rule here, installing puppet Pashtun rulers as well as dividing the Pashtuns through artificially created regions and ruling indirectly so as to reduce the chance of confrontation.

The province was formed on November 9, 1901 as a Chief Commissioner province. The Chief Commissioner was the chief executive of the province. He ran the administration with the help of his principal advisers and civil servants better known as judicial and revenue commissioners.

The formal inauguration of the province took place five and half months later on April 26, 1902 on the occasion of the historical "Darbar" in Shahi Bagh in Peshawar held by Lord Curzon. The province of NWFP then comprised only five districts. They were Peshawar, Hazara, Kohat, Bannu, and Dera Ismail Khan. The Malakand, which consisted of three princely states of Dir, Swat, Chitral was included in it. NWFP also included the four tribal administered agencies, Khyber, Khurram, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan (now seven). The first chief commissioner of NWFP was Harold Deane. A strong administrator, he was followed by Ross-Keppel in 1908, Keppels whose contribution as a political officer was widely known amongst the tribal/frontier people.

The NWFP was raised to a Governor full-fledged province in 1935. The decision was actually made in the Round Table Conference held in 1931. It was agreed upon in the conference that the NWFP would be raised to a governor province with its own Legislative Council. Therefore, on January 25, 1932, the Viceroy inaugurated NWFP Legislative Council. The first provincial elections were held in 1937 and independent candidate and noted landlord Sahibzada Abdul Qayyum Khan was elected as the provinces first Chief Minister.

After Independence

During the early 20th century the so-called Red Shirts led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan agitated through non-violence for the rights of Pakhtun areas. Following independence, the NWFP voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in 1947. However, Afghanistan's loya jirga of 1949 declared the Durand Line invalid. During the 1950s, Afghanistan supported a secessionist movement in the NWFP known as the Pakhtunistan movement.

President Yahya Khan, in 1969 abolished the one unit scheme and added Swat, Dir, Chitral and Kohistan to the new borders and included Attock and Mianwali with the Punjab.

The issue kept Pakistan and Afghanistan at odds for decades until the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Following the invasion over 5 million Afghan refugees poured into Pakistan, most residing in the NWFP. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the NWFP served as a major base for supplying the Mujahideen who fought the Soviets during the 1980s.

The NWFP remained heavily influenced by events in Afghanistan and the civil war led to the rise of the Taliban, which had emerged in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan as a formidable political force that nearly took-over all of Afghanistan. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the NWFP became a frontline region again as part of the US-led 'war on terror'.

Districts

There are 24 districts in NWFP.

Important Cities

Economy

NWFP is on the way to economic recovery, largely due to stable political and law-and-order conditions. Agriculture remains important and the main cash crops include wheat, maize, rice, sugar beets, as well as various fruits are grown in the province. Some manufacturing and high tech investments in Peshawar has helped improve job prospects for many locals, while trade in the province involves nearly every product known to man, as the bazaars in the province are renowned throughout Pakistan. Unemployment has been reduced due to establishment of industrial zones.

Numerous workshops throughout the province support the manufacture of small arms and weapons of various types.

Trade with Afghanistan remains important as well, including illegal drug trafficking that largely moves through the province on its way to markets in the West.

Education

The trend towards higher education is rapidly increasing in the province and the NWFP is home to Pakistan's foremost engineering university (Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute), which is located in Topi, a town in Swabi district. The University of Peshawar is also a notable institution of higher learning. The Frontier Post is perhaps the province's best-known newspaper and addresses many of the various issues facing the local population.

Major Universities & Colleges

Folk Music

Pashto folk music is popular in NWFP and has a rich tradition going back hundreds of years. The main instruments are the Rubab, mangey and harmonium.

Khowar folk music is popular in Chitral and northern Swat. The tunes of Khowar music are very different from those of Pashto and the main instrument is the Chitrali Sitar.

A form of band music composed of clarinets (surnai) and drums is popular in Chitral. It is played at polo matches and dances. The same form of band music is also played in the neighbouring Northern Areas.

Social Issues

The NWFP continues to have an image problem. Even within Pakistan it is regarded as a "radical state" due to the rise of Islamist parties to power in the province and purported support for the remnants of the Taliban who are believed by some to be hiding in the province. The plagues of sectarianism, terrorism and insurrection have not been a problem in the North-West Frontier and the local economy has met with significant gains in spite of hosting millions of Afghan refugees, many of who have been integrated into the local society.

Pashtuns within the NWFP have sought to rename the province Pakhtunkhwa, which translates to "Land of the Pakhtuns" in Pashto. This has been opposed by the people of the mountainous northern regions of NWFP, many of who are non-Pashtuns.

Personalities

Pre-Independence (pre-1947)

Khushal Khan Khattak

Post-Independence (post-1947)

External links

Official

Unofficial

2005 Kashmir earthquake | North-West Frontier Province | Provinces of Pakistan | Subdivisions of Pakistan

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