Diverse & Tribal Domains Gojal Hunza
Diverse & Tribal
Domains Gojal Hunza
Reviewed by: Aafiyat
Nazar
The focal point of the
great game which engaged the great powers; mainly the Great Britain and Russia
for around a century has been the tiny independent and later princely state:
Hunza. Even in modern time the ex-state is the starting point of China Pakistan
Economic Corridor and has been important junction in the international politics
and trade due to its strategic location.
Historically the state
has been home to different ethnic and linguistic groups namely, Brushaski, Wakhi,
Shina, and Domaky. The annalist and writers who mostly gathered intelligence
information, wrote about politics and played key role in the great game had
also great contribution on documenting considerable information on the social lives
and history of the area. They have recorded useful information in the form of
reports, books and left behind with photographic evidences which have provided
the basis for subsequent researchers. Since their prime objectives were
political maneuvering, intelligence gathering, and checking the Russian
influence from penetrating the in the domain of British India. Therefore, they
were naturally, more focused on their mission and their documentations
reflected the same.
Accessing and extracting
required information from those documentations required lots of energy and
means. Being an ex-bureaucrat Zafar Iqbal had the means and opportunity to
travel to different parts of the world, which enabled him to meet intellectuals
as well as access important documents and archival records from the libraries
in different countries. Besides, he has been able to work with a renowned
scholar Ahmed Hasan Dani during his research on the History of the Northern
Areas. These exposures and experience enabled the author of the book under
review to put rigor in his research. The book covers the history and origin, of
the Wakhi people of Gojal in particular and their settlement and traces in
other areas of Pamir region in general. Besides, it also briefly mentions to
settlement of Brushaski speakers in the Gojal. He has also discussed how living
on the high mountains and boarder demarcations affected the people speaking
Wakhi which is now declared as an endangered language by UNESCO. He has extracted
the history of the people their origin and settlement after analysis and
evaluation of different sources, books, annals, archeological and geographical
records and information. The writer has research well, by gathering evidence
from diverse sources in the form of personal and official correspondence.
The most important thing
for any author is to not make tall claims and I am glad that the author’s
approach is purely academic as he has not made any tall and unsubstantiated
claims. The analyses are very good and substantiated with lots of letters and
official correspondence. Moreover, he is cognizant of his limitations which he
has expressed in the preface of the book.
The book is comprises on
five chapters and is spread over 514 pages. He has endeavored to situate and
contextualize the Wakhi people in the broader framework in Chapter One under
the title of Tajik people and Tribe comprising 24 pages. Chapter Three covers
Boundary settlements of Hunza comprising 69 pages while Chapter Four: The
System of Taxation in Hunza, consists of 67 pages of which the author has made
only one pager write-up. The rest of the pages are documentation related to taxation
mostly in Persian while some in English language. Part of the Persian documentation
is translated in English while some are left without translation, which is
likely to make it difficult to fully comprehend the chapter. Similarly Chapter Five,
which consist of 65 pages, contain only a page and half write up by the author
while the rest comprise on the letters to and from Mir of Hunza and other
official and correspondences. These chapters could have been better analyzed on
the basis of the documents the mentioned chapter contained. Putting every
document as part of the chapters makes it difficult to make sense. Instead he
could have put the correspondence and other documents in the appendices.
The second Chapter: The
Kingdom of Gojal is the longest chapter which consist of 267 pages where they
author has very thick and in-depth analysis of settlement of different tribes
their cultural, economic and historical backgrounds and relations with
neighboring areas and regions. Even information and analyses of this chapter
can organized in additional chapters to make it more reader friendly.
The author has
highlighted the difficulties a researcher comes across while making sense of
the work of Chinese scholars in the following word: “Unfortunately the European
authors and scholars had mis-understood the actual names as pronounced by the
Chinese and never tried to understand such names from the local inhabitants:
rather than to correct name of the places and commanders, the[sic] had
translated name of the places and persons. Because of this reason…names of
places, commanders and persons have been misconceived and
misinterpreted…(p.162).” The writer has
rightly pointed out the issue of mispronunciation and misspelling names of
different areas by non-locals and scholars, yet he himself has ignored certain
terms and names such as “Sust” instead of “Sost” and “Yarfa” instead of writing
“Yarpa”. Sost being the actual name
pronounceable has been distorted by non-locals and even the name of the dry
port situated in the area has been given name of “Sust” Dry Port”, which shows lack
of consideration for the local culture.
Though the author has spent
ample time in researching the book, however, at some points it appears that he
has kept limited audience in mind while writing the book. Therefore, certain
terms remained without definitions which need to be explained. For example the
term Jamat has many connotations, which pop up on page 85 of the book. Similarly,
there are certain definitions that need to be brought at the earliest part of
the book e.g. Taghdumbas an area frequently discussed in the book but it is
defined too late at page 319 which can make it difficult for readers to
discern.
Finally, definition of
key terms and names at the beginning of book along with the improved and
legible map could have further increase the worth of the book. I think now the
author should aim to bring a revised edition while considering the mention
points.
Diverse & Tribal
Domains Gojal Hunza
By Zafar Iqbal
Publisher and
Distributors
North Books
Madina Super Market,
Gilgit
E-mail:
northbooksglt@yahoo.com
Online Distribution
DevSocius
ISBN 978-696-23269-1-9
516pp. Rs. 1000
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