The Uprising of 1897: An Appraisal of the Tribals Attempt against the Mighty British Power on the North-West Frontier of British India

Abstract

The history of the North-West Frontier of India is one long record of strife with the wild and war-like tribes that inhabit the difficult mountainous region which is the Borderland between British India and Afghanistan.
F. M. Roberts
The year 1897 witnessed the most serious conflagration which has ever disturbed the North-West Frontier.
Administration Report on NWFP
from 9th November 1901 to 31st March 1903.
Since their occupation of the trans-Indus Pukhtun area in 1849, the English faced stiff and persistent opposition and resistance of the tribesmen of the neighbouring tribal area from the Black Mountain to the border of Balochistan. The tribal belt not only became a refuge of outlaws and rendezvous for the discontented elements but also a base of operations against and centre of raids upon the directly English occupied territory. The, annexation of Punjab and the trans-Indus Pukhtun area was, therefore, ‘followed by a series of encounters with almost every tribe along the whole of the North-West Frontier.’1 James W. Spain opines: