Description
In 1895 to 1898, British Indian forces conducted operations against the Pashtun tribes in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), using tactics like burning villages, stealing cattle, and carrying out punitive collective punishment on tribals for individual attacks on British outposts, or by perceptions of threat. In 2009, Pakistan conducted Operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan in response to terrorist attacks in Pakistan, and to support the US's 'war on terror'. This has led to the displacement and killings of thousands of tribals in the region. This paper examines both of these operations as the collective punishment of racialised populations in the frontier region, constructed as requiring permanent military management for state consolidation.
Through a Critical Discourse Analysis (CPA) of British military reports (India Office Records) and Pakistani military press (ISPR), the paper demonstrates the continuities in how operations are legitimised. The construction of the NWFP region as an "ungovernable" space, comprising "savage" tribes that required punitive military operations to induce what Callwell called the "moral effect," was internalised by the postcolonial Pakistani state, which manifested in Operation Rah-e-Nijat. Both framed the operations in civilising terms, with the British emphasising the benefits of colonial rule and Pakistan highlighting "development and security". Both used violence on the grounds of racialised constructions of Pashtun tribals as inherently violent. The use of tactical phrases like "butcher and bolt" becomes Pakistani "clear, hold, build", and control masquerades as winning "hearts and minds".
The comparison reveals counterinsurgency operations as an inherently colonial practice. By placing colonial and contemporary operations in direct dialogue, the paper demonstrates the persistence of violence in postcolonial statehood. It contributes to postcolonial studies by revealing the counterinsurgency's colonial genealogy, examining how postcolonial states inherit and intensify imperial violence.
