| Taghdumbash Pamir, great Game |
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TAGHDUMBASH PAMIR i.e. STRATEGIC WAKHAN CORRIDOR –VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE GENERATIONS OF GILGIT BALTISTAN It is beyond doubt part of Balawaristan / Bolor PAMIR AGREEMENT – ANGLO – RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 11 MARCH 1895. NOTE : CHINESE TURKISTAN WAS THEN UNDER RUSSIAN SUZERAINTY. A.170. [This document is the property of His Britannic majesty’s Government.] Confidential. 1911. Frontier Between Hunza and the Chinese Dominions. PART II. The earlier history of the Hunza boundary question is contained in the Departmental Memorandum of the 19th July 1904 (A.160), which brings the story down to the end of the year 1903. the principal facts are briefly recapitulated below (paragraphs 2-5). Hunza (or Kanjut) is a small hill State situated to the extreme north- Situation and status of Hunza west of Kashmir. The State which acknowledges the suzerainty of the Maharaja of Kashmir, and pays him a nominal tribute, derives its chief importance from its geographical position in the region “where three Empires meet.” As a tributary to Kashmir it forms a northern outpost of the Indian Empire; to the north-east it marches with the Sarikol district of Chinese Turkestan, while to the north it stretches up towards the junction of the Mustagh and Hindu Kush ranges, and is divided only by a narrow wedge of Afghan territory from the Russian Pamirs. The main chains of the Hindu Kush and the Mustagh mountains from what may Hunza claims beyond main water- be described as a “natural frontier”shed : Chinese Counterclaims. between Hunza on one side and Afghan and Chinese territory on the other. But the actual frontier has never been delimited, and certain rights of occupancy claimed by Hunza over two tracts, viz. (1) Raskam an (2)-the Taghdumbash Pamir—lying outside this natural barrier in Chinese territory, have received formal recognition at the hands of the Chinese Hunza’s rights in these tracts have been described by the Government of India (Secret Letter No.198, 27th October 1898) as “indefinite but rather extensive.” As regards (1) Raskam, the Chinese have acknowledged in writing the right of the people of Hunza (commonly known as Kanjutis) to cultivate the tract, but when in 1899 a small contingent of Kanjutis actually started cultivation there, the local Chinese authorities speedily compelled them to withdraw, and they have not since been reinstated. As regards (2) the Taghdumbash Pamir, the Chief (or Mir) of Hunza has since 1896 been permitted by the Chinese to levy a small tribute from the graziers who resort to the Pamir in the summer. On the other hand, China claims to exercise a shadowy “concurrent jurisdiction” over Hunza itself, and we may be said to have recognized this claim--- (1) by permitting the interchange of presents between Hunza and the Chinese authorities at Kashgar to continue; and (2) by allowing two Chinese envoys to be present at the installation of the Mir of Hunza in September 1892. Under the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 11th March 1895 (generally known as the Demarcation of Russo-Afghan “Pamir Agreement”) a joint Frontier,1895; British proposal for Commission was appointed to settlement with China,1899. demarcate the frontier between Russia and Afghanistan in the Pamirs. The demarcation was carried as far as the peak known as Pavolo Schveikovski (about lat.37.20, long 75), a point on the watershed of the Taghdumbash Pamir, where the Chinese frontier was declared (protocol of 10th September 1895) to have been reached. The Government of India there upon urged (dispatch dated 25th September 1895) that the time had arrived for placing “a definite limit..,.. to possible extensions of Russian territory towards the Mustagh and Karakoram mountains.” Eventually, on the 14th March 1899, Sir Claude Macdonald * presented a note to the Chinese Government, in which it was proposed:- (1) that China should relinquish her shadowy claim to suzerainty over Hunza; (2) that the Government of India, on behalf of Hunza, should relinquish the latter’s claim to most of the Taghdumbash and Raskam district; (3) that a line of frontier should be adopted following the crest of the main watershed, subject to--- (i) the inclusion in the British sphere of the western end of the Taghdumbash Pamir; and (ii) a small deviation from the main crest of the Mustagh range, near the Shimshal pass leading to Darwaza, where the Mir of Hunza maintained a post. The Chinese Government did not reply to Sir C. Macdonald’s Note, and the matter was not pressed. · PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR FARE INTELLIGENCE GAMES IN STRATEGIC WAKHAN CORRIDOR No.51-S., dated Camp Gulmarg, the 22nd July 1915. From --- Major A. D. MACPHERSON, I.A., Political Agent in Gilgit, To—H. V. COBB, Esq., C.S.I., C.I.E., I.C.S., Resident in Kashmir. I have the honour to report in continuation of my secret letter No.48-S., dated the 8th instant, that the following items of news have been received through the Mir of Ishkuman from recent arrivals from Wakhan:- (a) The inhabitants of Afghan Wakhan have been told that the German Emperor has embraced Islam and that they should all pray for the success of the Moslem arms. (b) The Russians have spread the report that the Germans and Turks have been defeated and a portion of their territory has been wrested from them. The Afghans are somewhat dispirited by this news but state that if they find that the news is false and that the Turks have been victorious over the Allies they will at once throw in their lot with the former.
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