Biloches: Advance into the Panjab
This article is an extract from PANJAB CASTES SIR DENZIL CHARLES JELF IBBETSON, K.C. S.I. Being a reprint of the chapter on Lahore : Printed by the Superintendent, Government Printing, Punjab, 1916. |
Advance into the Panjab
The Biloches had thus spread as far north as the Bolan ; but apparently they had not yet encroached upon the Suleman range which lay to the east of them, and which was held bv Pathans, while a Jat population occupied the valley of the Indus and the country between the Sulemans and the river. But about the middle of the 15th century, the Turks or Mughals under their Arghun leader invaded Kachhi and Sindh, and twice took Sibi, in 1-1.79 and in 1511 A.D. About the same time the Brahoi, a tribe beheved to be of Dravidian origin,* and who appear to have followed in their tracks, drove the the Biloch out of the fertile valley of Kelat and established a supremacy over their northern tribes. Yielding to the pressure thus put upon them, the Kelat tribes moved east wards into the lower Sulemans^ driving the Pathans before them along the
' Shoran is probably another reading of Sara wan, the country between Quetta and Kelat ; Gaudava is on the northern frontier of Mudh, south-east of Sarawan ; Sevi and Dhadon are doubtless other forms of Sibi and Dadar, north of Gandava and south-cast of Quetta.
-This name should fix the date of the coute^t; but 1 have been unable to identify the sovuruigu in question, who is also described as Sultau Shah Husen, King of Persia. Mir Chakar lived in the time of Humayun, about the middle of the I6th century ; but it is probable that these events took place at least two centuries earher. Mir Chakar and Mir Gwahram are renowned in Biloch story as the national heroes, and it is not unnatural that any great event should be referred to them.
3 When the name apphes to a tract, the tract may have been called after the tribe ; but where the name belongs to a mountain, river, or other natural feature, the converse seems more probable.
4 It is thought probable by some that the Brahoi language will be found, when we learn more about it, to be Iranian and not Uravidian.
s One account postpones the occupatiou of the lower Sulemans by Biloches to the expedition with Humayun to be mentioned presently. It is trae that about the time of Humayun's conquest of India the Pathans of the Derah Is mail frontier were at their weakest, as will be explained when those tribes come under discussion. But it is also true that there is a tendency to refer all past events to the time of any famous incident, such as the mareh to Dehli with Humayun.
Range while the Bilocbos from Sindh began to spread tap the Indus. Many of these latter took serviee with the Langali rulers of Multun and were granted lands along- the river ; and about 1480 A. D. Ismail Klian and Fatah Khan, the two sons of Malik Sohrab Khan and Ghuzi Kbau, son of Haji Khan, all Dodai Biloohes and of Rind extraction, founded the three Derahs which still bear their names, overcame the Lodis of Sitpur_, and established themselves as independent rulers of the lower Derajat and Muzaffargarh, which position they and their descendants maintained for nearly 300 years.
Thus the Southern Biloches gradually spread up the valleys of the Indus, Chanab, and Satluj ; while the Derah Ghazi tribes came down from their hills into the pachhad or sub-montane tract, displacing a Jat population and driving them down to the river, where they still form an important element of the popula tion even in tracts owned by Biloches. In 1555 a large body of Biloches accompanied Humayun, whom they had previously harassed in his retreat, in his victorious re-entry into India, under the leadership of Mir Chakar, the great Rind hero of Biloch stoiy. They are said to have consisted chiefly of Laghari, Drishak, Gopang, and Jatoi. Mir Chakar eventually settled in Montgomery, where a considerable tract, still partly held by Biloches, was granted to him by the grateful sovereign, and died and was buried at Satgarh in that district. It is probable that many of the Biloch settlements in the eastern districts of the Province sprang from Humayuns attendants.
The tribal organisation of the Biloches now covers the whole of our southern frontier as far north as the boundary between the two Derahs, being confined for the most part to the hills and the land immediately under them, but stretching east to the Indus in the neighbourhood of Rajanpur. There is also a large Biloch element throughout the river lands of the Indus in both the Derahs, more especially in the southern and northern portion of Derah Ghazi and just above the Derah Ismail border ; while in Bahawalpur and Muzaffargarh they form a large proportion of the whole population, and they hold considerable areas on the satluj in Multan, to the north of the Ravi in Montgomery, on the right bank
Of the Chanab and along the Jahlam in Jhang, and on the latter river in Shahpur. But outside the Derah Ghazi Khan district, and indeed along the greater part of the river border of that district, the Biloch settlers own no allegiance to any tribal Chief, are altogether external to the political organisa tion of the nation, and do not hold that dominant position among their neighbours which is enjoyed by the organised tribes of Derah Ghazi. Many of them have been settled in their present holdings within comparatively recent times or, to use the words of Mr. Tucker, have acquired them as cultivating proprietors, rather than as a military caste which ruled the country but left the occupation of the land to the Jats.'Figures showing the dis
♦ P 38-9 tribution of the Biloches will be found in Abstract No. 65, page 191.*
