Kakar

In the Makhzan-i Afghani, compiled in 1609–11, Kakar is a son of Dani, son of Ghurghusht, son of Qais Abdur Rashid, and the brother of Naghar, Dawi and Pani. The Makhzan says God gave Kakar twenty-four sons, though its list names twenty-three, among them Togruk, Jadram, Sabrad, Fermulli, Targhari, Musazye and Taren. It treats Taren as a Sayyid by birth and gives him a separate pedigree back to Imam Husain.

The best-recorded branch descends from Togruk's son Sondan, "surnamed Sanjar". The Loralai gazetteer of 1907 calls him Sanzar, son of Sughruk, and records the local story: Sanzar was born after his father's death to a Sayyid mother named Lazgi, came to Hindubagh, escaped a plot by the Mughal governor Miro, destroyed the Khanki fort and married Miro's daughter, who bore him twelve sons. The twelve Sanzar Khel sections are named after them. In the same story the son Arabi won the Bori valley by driving his palm onto a knife stuck in the ground. The gazetteer notes that the 1901 census split the Sanzar Khel into thirty-two sections, while local authorities counted twelve, and that the Dumar claim to descent from Sanzar is disputed.^1,4

Elphinstone, writing in 1815 from travellers' reports, described the Kakar country as a square of about a hundred miles, bounded by the Ghilzai to the north, Toba, Arghasan and Pishin to the north-west, the Baloch to the west, the Spin Tarin to the south and the Sulaiman range to the east. He followed the Zhob river from its source at Hindubagh north-east to the Gomal, and described Bori as a populous valley of farmers. He counted at least ten Kakar clans and said there was no single chief of the whole tribe. The Kasi Kakar held Shal (Quetta), which Ahmad Shah had granted to the Baloch ruler Nasir Khan.

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1908 calls the high country between the Gomal and the Kand peak "Kakar Khorasan". Bellew in 1891 named the main valleys as Zhob, Bori and Kanchoghai, with the smaller valleys of Barshor and Hana. He also recorded Kakar settlements in the Bulandshahr and Rohtak districts of India, a colony at Kandahar and Kakar living among the Taimani of Ghor. Bellew's further attempts to link the Kakar name to Indian and classical peoples are speculative. Two Sanzar Khel sections moved far from Zhob: the Parezun settled in Pishin and the Hindu Sanzar Khel at Shikarpur in Sind, while the Taimani section joined the Chahar Aimaq in the Siahband mountains of Herat.^3,6,7,4

Under Akbar, Duki on the eastern edge of the Kakar country was a garrisoned dependency of the province of Kandahar. In 1653 Prince Dara Shikoh marched through the Sangar pass, Duki and Pishin to besiege Kandahar, and his advance guard reported that the Kakar Afghans had closed the pass called the Kotal-i Ziaratgah.

Elphinstone heard that the grandfather of the Sanatia khan of his day appealed to Ahmad Shah (r. 1747–1772) while the shah was hunting on Toba, appearing "with fire on his head" as a sign of distress. The shah sent troops against the Tarin raiders and an order commanding obedience to the khan. Ahmad Shah also gave the title of Ruler of Zhob to Bekar Nika, head of the Jogizai family of the Zhob Kakar, and the family kept authority over the Kakar until the British arrived. Elphinstone also recorded the Sanatia chief Tahmas Khan's victory over 6,000 Baloch sent by Nasir Khan, whom he trapped below the plateau of Dozhakh and destroyed with their commander Fazil Khan.^5,3,6

Shah Jahan of the Jogizai family was defeated at Baghao near Sanjawi in 1879 but kept up raids into British territory. In 1883–84 Kakar clans under his influence attacked British subjects in Thal-Chotiali, and on 21 April 1884 killed seven labourers building the new cantonment at Duki. In October 1884 a force of 4,800 men and ten guns under Major-General Sir O. V. Tanner, with Robert Sandeman, entered the Bori valley and took Shah Jahan's fort at Akhtarzai. On 22 November 1884 the Bori and Zhob chiefs signed an agreement accepting British supremacy and a fine of Rs 20,000.

In November 1888 Sandeman marched to Mina Bazar in Lower Zhob, and the Zhob maliks asked for British protection. A garrison was placed at Fort Sandeman in 1889, and the Bori valley later formed part of the Loralai District, created in 1903. The 1901 census counted 105,444 Kakar in Baluchistan, the largest Afghan tribe in the province, living mainly in the Zhob, Quetta-Pishin and Loralai districts.^5,6