Miangul Abdul Wadud (Badshah Sahib), founder of the Swat State

At a glance

• Miangul Abdul Wadud, called Badshah Sahib in Swat and Miangul Gulshahzada in British papers, founded the Swat State and ruled it from September 1917 until he abdicated on 12 December 1949. [5]

• He was a grandson of the Akhund of Swat through the Akhund's younger son, Abdul Khaliq. [2, 4]

• The British recognised him as Wali in May 1926, after objecting to the title Badshah, "king". [2, 6]

• British writers, Pakistani scholars and his own account agree that he made peace, roads and schools. They disagree about the cost: dead cousins, exiled saints, a land settlement that critics say favoured his allies, and a state the scholar Sultan-i-Rome calls "completely autocratic". [2, 5, 8]

Names and titles

Aurel Stein, who stayed with him in March 1926, wrote that "Miangul" was the designation the Indian Foreign Department still used, and that people in Swat now called him Badshah, "ruler". [1] Major W. R. Hay, a British officer who by 1934 had visited much of the State by the Ruler's kindness and had "many long talks" with him, calls him "Miangul Gulshahzada Sir Abdul Wadud, K.B.E." [2] Barth, who did his fieldwork in Swat in 1954, writes Abdul Wahdud and calls him the Badshah. [4] Wadud is the spelling Hay, Sultan-i-Rome and Rafiullah Khan use. [2, 5, 6]

The title was a quarrel. When the British recognised him in 1926 they objected to Badshah, because in their view only the Crown could use it, and Rafiullah Khan writes that this angered him before he accepted Wali. [6] Sultan-i-Rome's glossary says Wali is a lesser title than Bacha or Badshah, king or emperor. [5] In Swat the old name stayed. Barth's book of 1959 writes "the Badshah" for the father, who had retired, and "the Wali" for his son. [4]

A grandson of the Akhund

The Akhund's elder son, Abdul Hanan, wanted temporal power and never won it. The younger, Abdul Khaliq, lived as a recluse. Hay says Abdul Hanan died about 1887 and Abdul Khaliq in 1892, and that the four grandsons were all still minors in 1892. Abdul Khaliq's sons were Gulshahzada, the future Wali, and Shirin. [2] Sultan-i-Rome gives 1889 and 1892. [5] Barth calls Wadud "son of the Akhund's junior son" and says he began to build his position as soon as he came of age. [4] Stein, in 1926, put his age at "about forty-five", and added that his grey beard made him look older. [1]

The elder branch of the family did not survive him, and the sources tell the end of it differently. Hay writes that Said Badshah was murdered by his brother and cousins in 1903 and that Mir Badshah was shot dead by Gulshahzada in 1907. [2] Barth says Amir Badshah killed his brother Sayyid Badshah in 1903 and was himself killed soon after, and does not say by whom. [4] Sultan-i-Rome says Wadud murdered both sons of Abdul Hanan, naming Abdur Razaq in 1903 and Abdul Wahid in 1907. [5] Wadud's own history, as quoted by a Canadian reporter in the 1960s, describes meeting Amir Badshah by chance on a hunt. "Both of us moving our hands with lightning speed, pressed the triggers almost at the same instant, and two shots were fired simultaneously," it says, and "Amir Badshah dropped dead on the spot." [8] Hay and Sultan-i-Rome both give 1903 and 1907, and Barth gives 1903, but the names and the killers differ. Hay and Barth agree on the result: the elder line was gone and Wadud was sole heir. [2, 4, 5]

A king from outside, and then Wadud

In 1915 the Swat tribes wanted unity against the Nawab of Dir, who had been taking the right bank of the valley, and they took a king. Hay says they chose Abdul Jabar Shah, a Sayyid from Sitana, and that the Mianguls first worked against him with the help of Dir and were beaten. [2] Rafiullah Khan adds that the tribes had first offered the crown to Wadud, who refused, and installed Abdul Jabbar Shah on 24 April 1915. [6] Caroe, writing in 1958, says the Sayyid was a man of wisdom and prudence who held the position for two years but "proved no match in the field for his opponent of the Akhund's line". [3]

Hay and Barth both say religion was used against Abdul Jabbar Shah as well as arms. Hay says the Sunni inhabitants came to regard him as a heretic because he was an Ahmadi. [2] Barth says Wadud and a holy man called the Sandakei Mullah united "as holy leaders" and denounced him as a heretic connected with the Qadiani sect. [4] Sultan-i-Rome has a harder account: Wadud, who had thought he could not rule, saw that Abdul Jabbar Shah governed easily and "initiated machinations" against him, won over leaders and the Sandakai Baba, and had the secret consent of the Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier Province. [5]

In September 1917 the Swatis sent the Sayyid away. Hay says they invited the two Mianguls to rule jointly. [2] Sultan-i-Rome says a jirga of the clans met at Kabal in Nikpi Khel and a turban was wrapped round Wadud's head as the new Bacha, king, and that at first only five sections of Upper Swat had recognised him. [5] Hay says Shirin was killed in a fight with Dir in 1918, leaving Wadud alone. [2] Barth adds that Wadud had put Shirin in charge of a small party on the Dir border, where Dir forces killed him, and that Jamroz Khan of Babuzai had shifted to Shirin's side to check the Badshah. [4] Sultan-i-Rome writes that Wadud "succeeded in removing his brother" from the scene in 1918. [5] His own history, quoted by the same reporter, says he could not get over losing the brother "for whom I was ever prepared to lay down my life", and then confesses that he was now "unencumbered with the necessity of listening to someone else's suggestions and proposals". [8]

Taking the valley

Hay gives the campaigns in order. The Nawab of Dir was beaten at Harnawai in August 1919, and fighting in Adinzai ended in 1922 when the British made both rulers sign an agreement that gave Adinzai back to Dir. [2] The tribes of Swat Kohistan fell to him, and in April 1923 he sent his Wazir with a large force into Buner, which was occupied "without a single shot being fired". The Nawab of Amb sent troops into Chamla and then withdrew. [2] In 1925 and 1926 he reached the Indus Kohistan and met heavy resistance at Lahor and Besham. [2] Hay describes his method: he made friends with one faction in a district and entered it in support of that faction. [2] The tribes he took over are described in the Yusufzai article.

The British drew the limits. Sultan-i-Rome quotes the Political Agent at Malakand telling the State's Wazir that "the Government does not want to create another Afghanistan on our northern border. You must retire, and not cross the Indus." [5] In 1926 he accepted the agreement of 3 May, which Sultan-i-Rome says made him manage his forests by procedures the Government approved. [5] Hay says the British formally recognised him as Wali in May 1926 and his eldest son Jahanzeb as heir in 1933. [2] Rafiullah Khan sums up the relationship with a sentence of Sultan-i-Rome's: his policy towards the British "was more than friendly and cordial, and was based on conciliation and submission". [6] Stein puts the same fact in the language of a guest: the peace of the new State had been helped by "close and friendly relations" with the Frontier administration. [1]

How the State was run

Hay's picture is of 1934. The Wali ruled "autocratically", helped by his eldest son, a Wazir and a commander-in-chief. He was illiterate and "decides every matter of importance himself verbally over the telephone". The State lived on the ushr, a tax on grain and other produce, and on tolls, about twelve lakhs of rupees a year, which Hay put at £90,000. Whenever he took a new district he had the elders write down their rivaj, tribal custom, and used it for local cases. Offences against the State he settled himself. He disarmed the tribesmen, reissued the better guns to chosen men in each village as State property, and paid an army in kind. [2] Hay lists as his work about 150 miles of motorable road, a school of about five hundred boys at Saidu, a hospital, and a telephone system over the whole State. [2]

Stein's account of Saidu in March 1926 is from the guest tent. He found a workshop turning out copies of Lee-Metford rifles, ammunition and small guns, a new middle school with a garden, schoolboys playing football on a field halfway to Mingaora, and a ruler who "talks practically nothing but Pashtu" and disposed of business by word of mouth. [1] Every morning there were jirgas, khans and plaintiffs outside his terrace. Anyone seeking justice was fed as his guest for up to three days, in three classes of table, and Wadud told Stein he had to feed "a couple of hundred guests" daily. All of them came armed. [1]

Barth, in 1954, studied how the machine worked. He says one of Wadud's first acts as ruler was to build telephone lines from the capital to the main local centres, in a pattern that let him speak to every place while people in different centres could not speak to each other without his knowledge. [4] In the State of 1954 the Ruler kept the opposed blocs of local chiefs in balance by supporting first one and then the other, and moved his tahsildars often so that none grew local roots. [4] Barth adds that the blocs went on after the State was founded, and that rivals kept trying to limit the Badshah's powers by backing his rivals. [4]

Land and forests

The wesh system re-allotted a tribe's fields by lot every few years. Stein was told in March 1926 that the Badshah was "trying hard to wean his subjects from this custom". [1] Barth says that what happened was that the new ruler declared the last temporary settlement permanent, so that in most regions, some time in 1920 to 1930, the allotment was frozen as it stood. [4] Caroe lists the abolition of wesh among the achievements of thirty years of progress. [3]

Wadud's own account, as Sultan-i-Rome quotes it from The Story of Swat (1963), calls the old system "a curse" that "pricked in my side as a thorn" and says the work took five years and was harder than war. [5] Sultan-i-Rome notes that the Pashto edition of that book lacks this passage. [5] He also says that the book gives Wadud the credit alone, though the Wazir brothers Hazrat Ali and Ahmad Ali did much of it, and that Wadud's own dates, 1925 to 1929, differ from his son's, who put it at 1928 to 1932. [5] Akbar S. Ahmed, quoted by Sultan-i-Rome, argues that the reforms consolidated the loyalist khans: "his enemies were permanently deprived of their lands and his allies permanently obligated". Sultan-i-Rome writes that Wadud's adherents denied this in interviews with him, and that all the enemies were never permanently deprived. [5]

On forests, Sultan-i-Rome says Wadud declared the forests State property and paid former owners a share of the sale price, 10 per cent, raised to 15 per cent at the end of the State, ruling "on the whole by issuing verbal orders" and with no written law. [5] The landowners, he says, still considered themselves the owners. He tells of Masam Khan of the Bahrain tract, who refused on the ground that the terms agreed after the accession of 1921 and the occupation of 1923 left ownership alone, and of Pasand Khan of Satal Garhi, who agreed, received the title Khan Bahadur, and was later shot dead by Kohistanis for it. [5] Stein, who had no stake in the dispute, noted that Wadud understood the money in the forests of Upper Swat and the need to protect them. [1]

Saints, rivals and the heir

Barth says Wadud's first action on gaining control of Swat was to expel his open opponents together with all potential rivals of holy status, and that he cleared out the saints and mystics who owned no land and relied on reputation alone, because they were unpredictable. [4] Sultan-i-Rome says the Sandakai Baba, who had the leading part in forming the State and removing Abdul Jabbar Shah, was forced to flee in April 1925. [5] Barth calls Wadud "himself a Saint" who "clearly realized the political importance of such authority". [4] The religious background is in the article on religion among Pashtuns.

The heir was the last great quarrel. Sultan-i-Rome says Wadud named Jahanzeb heir in May 1923 and spent ten years getting the British to accept him. He then grew jealous of his son's following, took away his powers and kept him out of the State until the Governor of the province reconciled them. Jahanzeb blamed the Wazir brothers, but Sultan-i-Rome writes that Wadud "had his own fear and jealousy" of the heir. [5] Barth dates the defeat of the heir's party to 1935 and his return to command of the army to 1943, and puts the banishment of Hazrat Ali in 1944. Sultan-i-Rome puts the Wazir brothers' expulsion in 1943. [4, 5] Wadud abdicated on 12 December 1949. [5] Barth says he did it to give all his time to religion, and adds that "some sceptics" see it as a ruse to trap the dynasty's enemies. [4] By 1954, he says, the Badshah fasted every day of the year from before dawn until sunset. [4]

The man

Hay, who liked him, writes that he was strong in body and will, started his day at dawn with a climb of a thousand feet, ate frugally, shot well and was "the most genial of hosts". [2] Stein found him quick, lean and fond of hunting, and recorded that he spoke of his Mecca pilgrimage and of the shrines of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Iraq. [1] Caroe, who rode with him over the Karakar pass in 1947, writes that his eyes "gleamed" when asked about the Yusufzai victory over Akbar's army in 1586, and quotes him: "Never in all history, not even in the time of Akbar or Aurangzeb, much less under the Durranis, were the Yusufzais of this country the subjects of any empire." [3] Elsewhere Caroe calls him "devout yet free of all cant", "illiterate but blessed with a prodigious memory", and "far-seeing and ruthless". [3]

Rafiullah Khan adds a Pakistani scholar's reservation: Wadud showed little interest in archaeology, though Swat is covered in Buddhist remains. [2] The author says he is reported to have taken down the shades at Jugiano Sar on Ilam and to have discouraged Hindu pilgrims there, a point he has from Sultan-i-Rome in conversation. [6] Rafiullah Khan also sets Wadud's schools and roads inside a political frame: an "enlightened despot" had to manoeuvre against neighbouring rulers and local khans and saints, and to keep the British content. [6]

After Pakistan

On 3 November 1947 Wadud signed the Instrument of Accession to Pakistan, which Jinnah accepted on 24 November. It gave Pakistan control of external affairs, defence and communications and kept the ruler's sovereignty over internal government. [5] Barth wrote that Swat joined Pakistan "enthusiastically". [4] Wadud abdicated two years later, and Jahanzeb ruled until the State merged with Pakistan in August 1969. [5]

How he is remembered

The reports of those who knew him are mostly warm. Hay called the State a "unique achievement" and its ruler's work "beneficent". [2] Stein thanked him for "the enlightened spirit" of his welcome. [1] Caroe wrote that his "wisdom and skill have given security to the Yusufzai border". [3] The official history that Wadud dictated opens with a description of his own face: "A sweet triumphant smile lays on his radiant and dignified face." The same reporter joked that Washington "only had to cut down a cherry tree" and Badshah Sahib "had to cut down most of his relatives". [8]

Sultan-i-Rome, a historian of Swat, writes that the State was "benevolent" but "completely autocratic", that Wadud kept the landowners high in the social order because he knew its complexity, and that his son's later attempt to break their dominance was resented by a section of the feudal class. [5] Fleischner reports that many people in Swat now look back with nostalgia, and that Akbar S. Ahmed gives three reasons: the State's structure was clear, justice was swift and mostly thought fair, and order was strict, because a person who challenged the ruler "would be dealt with harshly". [7] Fleischner adds that life under the Walis "may look better in hindsight than it actually was at the time". [7]