Khetran

The earliest genealogical entry that may concern the Khetran is in the Makhzan-i Afghani, in Dorn's translation: Miana had thirteen sons, one of them Ashkun, and Ashkun had two sons, Ziri and Kahtran. The same translation names Kasi, son of Kharshbun, son of Sarbanni, with a line of twelve sons. Dorn's note from the Khulasat al-Ansab says that the Shinwari, Zhabaryani, Alozai and Katran are Kasi's descendants, and that the last three live on the borders of Barohi Baluchistan. Whether the Kahtran of the Makhzan and the Katran of the Khulasat are one name is not stated in either text.

The Loralai district gazetteer of 1907 quotes the superintendent of the 1901 census, R. Hughes-Buller, on the question. Some believe the Khetran to be an offshoot of the Kasi, descended from Khair-ud-din alias Kharshabun, son of Saraban, which would connect them with the Kasi of Quetta. Others consider them of Baloch stock, and the census records classed them so. After visiting their country, Hughes-Buller put them in a separate place in Imperial Table XIII, apart from both Afghans and Baloch, because they are of very mixed race, with Afghan, Baloch and Punjab Jat elements. The gazetteer adds that their tribal constitution resembles a Baloch more than an Afghan tribe, with a chief, a headman at the head of each clan and a headman for each section.

Bellew, in 1891, wrote that the Khatran are commonly reckoned among the Baloch, though they prefer to be considered Pathans. They had their own dialect, Khatranki, which he says is quite distinct from Pashto and different from Balochi, with many Punjabi and Sindi words. He took Khatran as the plural of Khater, a mercantile Rajput name, and noted a tradition that Ganjura, the common ancestor of the Khatran, came originally from the Tarin. Rose, in a footnote in his glossary, says the Khetran, perhaps of Pathan origin, have become the nucleus of a Baloch tribe.^1–4,6

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The Khetran live in the upper part of a long valley called Barkhan, in the Loralai District of the 1907 gazetteer, with 12,894 in the Barkhan tahsil and 692 in Duki at the 1901 census, 13,586 in all. The gazetteer says that the country was one of the sub-districts of Sewistan and of the Hind province of Tatta. Dr Duke's report of 1883, which it cites, says the district was peopled by a Jat community of Hindus who became incorporated with a small Pathan tribe that had come from Vihowa under Muhammad Khan and taken the title of Khetran, meaning cultivator. Local tradition, as the census officer recorded it, is that the Laths, an older people, oppressed the Khetran in the early days and were cursed by a Sheikh; the Laths left in a body for Sangori in the Luni country, and the Khetran then shared out the land.

Barkhan, the gazetteer says, was formerly called Baro Khan, after Baro, the founder of the Barozai family of Pannis, whose deputy visited each year and was killed for an outrage; the Khetran say that no more Barozai came after that. After the Laths left, the descendants of Isa ruled Barkhan, and the Khetran made Girazo Khan of the Mazarani family their sardar. The Mazarani were the ruling family for several generations before British occupation. The tribe was divided into three clans, the Dhara, Ispani and Phalliat, and the census officer thought the grouping was arbitrary, made for military expeditions and for sharing spoil and the dues taken on goods passing through. At the 1901 census the Dhara numbered 4,091, the Ispani 4,190 and the Phalliat 5,279.^3,5

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In the gazetteer's list of chiefs, Mir Haji Khan, who followed Ikhtiar, is remembered for a great defeat he inflicted on the Zhob Kakars. A later Mir Haji, who managed tribal affairs for a nominal chief, avenged a defeat by the Marri by destroying Karam Khan Bijarani's fort at Mirand. After disputes within the ruling family, in which rival claimants brought in Marri forces, the tribe elected Baloch Khan sardar. The Khetran sent a petition to the British officers at Dera Ghazi Khan in 1880, offering to pay revenue and accept British protection. In 1883 Sardar Baloch Khan met Mr Bruce, Political Agent at Thal-Chotiali, with a jirga, and the cases between the Khetran, Luni and Marri were settled; in the same year the management of the Khetran passed to the Agent to the Governor-General. The Barkhan valley was occupied in 1887 at the request, and with the consent, of Baloch Khan and the leading men of the sections. Mehrab Khan, born about 1853, succeeded his father as chief in 1887, was suspended from the sardarship for two years from 24 February 1900, and was restored at the end of that time.^3,5

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The gazetteer says the Khetran took in several other groups. Among the Dhara are the Chacha and the Hasni; the Hasni claim Tor Tarin origin from Pishin and were once counted among the most powerful of the so-called Baloch tribes, but by 1901 numbered only 1,434 and were amalgamated with the Khetran. In the Ispani are the Mazarani, who claim Afghan descent although the suffix of their name is Baloch, and the Nahar, whom the census officer identifies with the remnant of the Naghar Afghans, descended from Naghar, brother of Kakar. Other alien groups it lists include the Kasmani, said to descend from a Bugti, the Jehandun Nahar, said to be Sanzar Khel Kakars, the Phadal, Tarin Afghans, and the Luhma, treated as a priestly class. The great majority of the Khetran, as the name implies, farmed, and some sections, among them the Suman, Lala, Waga, Sheikh and Hasni, also kept flocks.³

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