I just finished reading the book Qaid e Yagistan again. I
stumbled on in on my recent visit to Pakistan. I made a special trip to Jhelum
Book Corner to get a book for a friend of mine. It is an amazing bookstore, by
the way. I recommend it to everyone who can stop over on a road trip between Rawalpindi and Lahore. It is next to Yadgar Chowk
in Jhelum. (I hail from District Jhelum
but never lived in the city).
I read the book for the first time when I was in high school in mid seventies.. A chapter
of it entitled “Yagistan say wapsi’ was in our syllabus. We had the book at
home.
The book was a household name in those days. It reads like a suspense novel, a mesmerizing account of a young government official, 23 years of age, in the
remote parts of the then- British India’s NWFP. In 1910, he was kidnapped on
gunpoint for ransom and taken away across the mountains to Khost in
Afghanistan. It is the account of those 45 days of captivity and the escape. In a very poetic
way, and the prose sprinkled with Urdu and Persian verses, he describes
his abduction, the journey on foot as a captive, along with his kidnappers,
avoiding daylight and population, to finally reach the area out of British
control. The story goes on how he is treated by the captors, the ransom and its
negotiations, dealing with different characters in the village including Naik Namay a lady who develops a soft corner for him (and vice versa) , and finally how he runs away along with his fellow captive Lala Sunder Lal.
Mohammad Akram Siddiqui had engineering education from Mayo college of Arts (now NCA Lahore) and was an employee of MES (Military Engineering Service). He was posted in District Bannu in the Tochi area. On that fateful day he was travelling back to Bannu from Miranshah in a private Tumtum with the contractor Lala Sunder Lal, as he missed the official Dak Tanga. They see the security detail on mountain tops retiring as a European passenger crosses their path, noting the extra protection to White officials but not for Desi personnel. They drop a lucky fellow traveler along the way. As soon they turn a fateful corner they are ambushed and kidnapped at gunpoint.
The horse carriage is abandoned along with the horses. It is
too much to take them along a long journey. The carriage driver is let go after a little while, not
because he is a fellow Pashtun but because he has no money.
It is a thriller. The negotiations fail,
partly because his own family does not have the money being asked for and his
employer, the British Raj is interested in getting him freed for free through negotiations
with Afghan Government. Under pressure for the Afghan government, the captors
are advised by the profit sharing intermediaries to ‘get rid’ of the captives. He hears the decision which is essentially their death sentence. That is when they
decide to run away, a plan they had been hatching for a while.
They are able to get rid of their chains and run away in
darkness. They get separated and reach safe haven through different paths. He
does not get the kind of response he expected from the British masters. The
highest ranking British officer Mr. Donald (Later Sir John Stuart Donald, Chief
Commissioner of NWFP) gave just ten rupees and when Mr Akram declined to accept
that, gave another ten rupees.
The language in the book, written in around 1912 for the
first time and had several editions, may not be very politically current in so many
ways. It uses the term Pathan which is now considered improper. Some characterization of certain communities are mentioned as 'facts'.
He is very well aware of the culture and draws a very clear
line trying to avoid the prejudices one would have easily fallen to. He describes these
farraris (fugitives) who had ‘run away’ from the British controlled homeland and adopted the ‘profession’ of abduction. Their targets were either British
nationals, their employees (irrespective of their religion, Hindu or Muslim)
and Non-Muslims. These farraris, outlaws, considered it sanctioned by their
religion to do that. They did make a distinction not to abduct the Muslims who were not servants of the British Raj. At the same time, they abided by a certain standard of chivalry, taking care of the human needs of their captives and
their religious concerns. They did torture the captives to make sure that the
news reached their relatives and prompted an eagerness to come up with
ransom.
There is very literary description of the individuals, the
captors and all other players, the scenes, the emotions, and the drama of the
story.
In the Zinda Kitabain edition, published last year, there
are a few appendices. There is a long article by the author’s daughter, about
the life of Mr Siddiqui. It tells us about the man behind the book in a larger
way than the episode which defined his life. He quitted the job after a while; he was dismayed
at the response of the British Raj to his abduction and wanted to leave earlier
than that. He had a successful life as a construction magnate in Lahore
Cantonment. He built and owned many buildings including the one Rahat Building, now home of the
famous Rahat Bakery, for example. He was involved in the Pakistan Movement at
local level.
There is additional chapter of his later-in-life-travel
to the same area, in 1960’s. It was nostalgic, but he felt
depressed that the culture of abductions and ransom had not gone away with
Independence but continued and now fellow Muslims, and sometimes even females, were the targets; as the non-Muslim rulers and
their non-Muslim subjects have gone away.
I feel a close personal connection with the story. It could
very well have been my grandfather, or his sons, including my father. The author
is about the age of my grandfather, a few years younger. My grandfather was a mid-level employee in British Raj and served in Rawalpindi and Murree. My uncle had
served as a lecturer in Islamia College Peshawar and later as a Principal in Bannu and Mardan. My
father was working in Military Accounts in Razmak at the time of Partition. I
have lived early part of my life in Abbottabad, Kohat and Nowshera. I travelled
uncountable times through Dara Adam Khel, the famous firearms producing tribal
agency between Kohat and Peshawar in my early life.
Much had changed since 1910, but still not that much when I
was growing up. People were still abducted for ransom and taken to the areas
which are not under direct control of the government. One of my elementary school classmate was
kidnapped while I was a fifth or sixth grader.
Thanks to the Atlantis Publications and Zinda Kitabain
series for the revival of this classic.
