Taming the Turbulent Pathan: Crime and Control on British India's Northwest Frontier

According to conventional wisdom, the British empire achieved territorial dominance over the Indian subcontinent with the conquest of Punjab in 1849. However, imperial stability at the northwestern and northeastern boundaries of the empire remained tenuous and tumultuous into the twentieth century. Alternately using the carrots of accommodation and conciliation and the sticks of repression and control, the colonial state continuously struggled to secure dominance on its vulnerable frontiers. British administrators across the spectrum of political opinion believed that the security of India depended upon the security of its borders. The logic and rhetoric that defined frontier policy rested on the assumption that exceptional circumstances demanded exceptional treatment. At the heart of this paper sits a fundamental question: what does this space of exception reveal, if anything, about the core nature of colonial control? I seek to answer this question by exploring the formation and implementation of legislation on the northwestern frontier of British India. In territories bordering Afghanistan that were predominantly populated by Pathans, a series of special laws were passed to protect British subjects and to promote imperial interests. The Frontier Murderous Outrages Regulation and the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which were both designed to suppress violent crime (especially murder), afforded the state extraordinary powers to try and punish alleged criminals. Such powers included summary execution upon sentencing (denying defendants the right to appeal and dismissing the requirement in the ordinary criminal law that a capital case be confirmed by a higher tribunal), collective punishment (fining and confining entire families and villages found to harbor or sympathize with alleged criminals), and preventive jurisdiction (taking security from or arresting persons suspected of being about to commit certain crimes). The paper examines official debates about the framing of this legislation (law on the books) as well as actual trials (law in action).