The Wakhan
Corridor a high mountain valley, sparsely populate with
about 12,000 inhabitants, in the shape of a narrow strip in
Afghanistan that extends to China shouldering with th a
part of Gilgit baltistan belt of the Jammu and Kashmir state, A trade
route through the valley has been used by travellers going to and from East, South and Central Asia since
antiquity.
‘Time never stops’ is
often quoted but it does not hold good in the vicinity of Kashmir. Where time
has remained stand still from the day one, it seems so. One of the most remote,
high-altitude, bewitching landscapes on Earth. It’s a heavenly life—and a living
hell. A visitor seen once in a fine moon here. Is greet with the words that you
have watch we have time. It is perfect living well preserved specimen from
which civilization has risen. Nothing changes here except season.
It is called
Wakhan a very mountainous and rugged part of the Pamir, Hindu Kush and
Karakoram regions of Afghanistan. Located in the extreme north-east of
Afghanistan, Wakhan is connected to Tashkurgan Tajik County, China, by a long
narrow strip called the Wakhan Corridor, which separates the Gorno-Badakhshan
region of Tajikistan from the Khyber Pakhtunkh Pakistan and Gilgit-Baltistan of
Jammu and Kashmir State.
The Wakhan River flows through the corridor from the
east to Qila-e Panja where it joins the Pamir River to become the Panj River
which then forms the border. In the south the corridor is bordered by the high
mountains of the Hindu Kush, crossed by the Broghol pass, the Irshad Pass and
the disused Dilisang Pass to Pakistan. It contains the headwaters of the Amu
Darya (Oxus) River, and was an ancient corridor for travelers from the Tarim
Basin to Badakshan.
Historically, Wakhan has been an important region for
thousands of years as it is where the Western and Eastern portions of Central
Asia meet. The western part of the Wakhan, between Ishkashim and Qila-e Panja
is known as Lower Wakhan which includes the valley of the Panj River. The
valleys of the Wakhan River, the Pamir River and their tributaries, and the
terrain between, are known as Upper Wakhan.
The Western Wakhan was conquered in
the early part of the 1st century CE by Kujula Kadphises, the first “Great
Kushan,” and was one of the five principalities that formed the nucleus of
the original Kushan kingdom. Strange but true the area from inception till date
has remained peaceful. Its remoteness together with its inaccessibility proves
blessing in disguise and resulted to remain unaffected during the recent Afghan
War and thus its innocent natives were spared from the miseries which other
parts are reeling under.
Wakhan is sparsely populated; had 12000 souls in 2016
compromising of Wakhi, Kyrgyz and Khowar are the major ethnic groups speak the
Vakhi or Wakhi language. The Nomadic Kyrgyz herders live at the higher
altitudes. The only road into the Wakhan is a rough track from Ishkashim past
Qila-e Panja to Sarhad-e Broghil. Paths lead from the end of the road to the
Wakhjir Pass, a mountain pass leading to China which is closed to travellers.
Until 1883 the Wakhan included the whole valley of the Panj River and the Pamir
River, as well as the upper flow of the Panj River known as the Wakhan River.
Wakhjir Pass is part of the Silk Road. It is believed that the famous Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang travelled via this pass on his return trip to China
in approximately 649 AD.
Traditionally, the
pass is inaccessible for at least five months out of the year and is accessible
irregularly for the remainder of the year. The terrain is extremely difficult,
although Aurel Stein reported that the immediate approaches to the pass were
“remarkably easy”. There are few records of successful crossings by
foreigners. Historically the pass was a trading route between Badakhshan and
Yarkand, used by merchants from Bajaor.
It appears that Marco Polo came this
way, although he did not mention the pass by name. The Jesuit priest Benedict
Goëz crossed from the Wakhan to China between 1602 and 1606. The next oldest
accounts are from the period of the Great Game in the late 19th century.
In
1868, a pundit known as the Mirza, working for the Great Trigonometric Survey
of India, crossed the pass. There were further crossings in 1874 by Captain
T.E. Gordon of the British Army, in 1891 by Francis Young husband, and in 1894
by Lord Curzon. In May 1906 Sir Aurel Stein crossed, and reported that at that
time the pass was used by only 100 pony loads of goods each way annually. Since
then the only Westerner to have crossed the pass seems to have been H.W. Tilman
in 1947.
A 1873 agreement between UK and Russia split the Wakhan by delimiting
spheres of influence for the two countries at the Panj and Pamir rivers, and an
agreement between Britain and Afghanistan in 1893 confirmed the new border.
Since then, the name Wakhan is now generally used to refer to the Afghan area
south of the two rivers.
The northern part of the historic Wakhan is now part
of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan. The only road into
the Wakhan is a rough track from Ishkashim past Qila-e Panja to Sarhad-e
Broghil.The eastern extremity of Upper Wakhan is known as the Pamir Knot, the area
where the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges meet.
West of the Pamir Knot is the Little Pamir, a broad U-shaped grassy valley 100
km long and 10 km wide, which contains Chaqmaqtin Lake, the headwaters of the
Aksu or Murghab River. At the eastern end of the Little Pamir is the Tegermansu
Valley, from where the closed Tegermansu Pass (4,827 m) leads to China. The
Great Pamir or Big Pamir, a 60 km long valley south of Zorkol Lake, drained by
the Pamir River, lies to the northwest of the Little Pamir.
The mountain range
that divides the two Pamirs is known as the Nicholas Range west of the Nicholas
Range, between the Great Pamir and the Lower valley of the Wakhan River, is the
Wakhan Range, which culminates in the Koh-e Pamir (6,320 m).The roads in the
region have small shrines to Ismaili Muslim pirs and are adorned with
“special stones and curled ibex and sheep horns”, which are symbols
of purity in the Zorastrian faiths, once present in the region before the
arrival of Islam.
Last October Rebecca
Taylor, a British journalist carried a write up about the “The Wakhan corridor,
home to about 12,000 villagers” , who live a simple, relaxed life, at an altitude
of 4,500 meters, in the harsh, desolate terrain with their livestock and few luxuries. No idea about the Taliban or the subsequent US invasion and war that raged
across. Just imagine a large area and with thousands of Humans and wildlife
sustaining where clock of development hardly clicked and stands still for
centuries till date.
Despite it has been one of the quite essential Silk routes
Wakhan Valley, a place where cultures and trade have intersected for centuries.
It is as before Hsuan Tsang traversed the area during 640 AD followed by Marco
Polo, through Ishkashim in c. 1271. Alexendra the Great too marched through.
In January 1842,
Lieutenant Wood of the British India Navy having crossed the Afghan Hindu Kush
from Kabul, arrived at the Pyanj River at Ishkashim and followed it up to
Langar , where he proclaimed the Pamir River to be the main feeder, and thus Lake
Zorkul (at that time named Lake Victoria) the source of the Oxus / Amu Darya,
and, subsequently, the southern extent of Russian Turkestan.
In 1885 came Ney Elias on behalf of the British Government (armed with a personal letter of introduction from the Aga Khan – how we would wish for one of those now…. he travelled east across the Murghab plateau and surveyed several passes between the Bartang and Yazgulom valleys (where he is still remembered).
In 1890 (the
year after his Russian counterpart and rival Gromchevsky), Captain Young
husband entered the Murghab plateau from the east, visited Alichur and Rangkul,
before returning to what is now the upper Wakhan Corridor (Little Pamir) in
1891, from where he was unceremoniously ejected to British India by the Russian
Colonel Yonov.
The Dane Olufsen visited the Pamirs (he referred to it as
Mountain Boukhara) during his 1911 expedition and wrote extensively of Pamiri
culture. Imperial Russian and Soviet expeditions took place but are recorded in
Cyrillic. Gustav Krist, an Austrian fleeing east up the Alai Valley with the
Kyrgyz ahead of the Soviet advance in 1923 wintered with his Kyrgyz hosts at
Karakul Lake on the Murgab plateau at 4,000m.
In 1947, Bill Tilman, having
failed on his Mustagh Ata attempt with Eric Shipton, walked out down the entire
length of the Wakhan Corridor on the Afghan side, wryly noting the convoys of
Soviet trucks on the Tajik side.
Wakhan has always been
an important cultural link between ancient Bactria and China and its conditions
hardly ever changed from the times of Hsuan Tsang and Marco Polo. Evidently it
held lot of interest for Stein’s exploratory inquisitiveness. Returning from
his 3rd Central Asian Expedition on homeward journey Stein reached Kashgar on
31 May 1915. There he received his Russian visa and permission to cross Pamir
through the valleys of Wakhan, Shignan, Roshan, Darwaz and Karategin. At the
time, he also received letter from John Marshall, DG, ASI that his collections
from the 2nd Expedition and that of the 3rd as well will be housed in a museum
to be built in Delhi.
Stein’s collection from the 3rd Expedition comprised 182
boxes and 8 large trunks; all made of tin to prevent water and moisture.
Finally, Stein began his return journey on August 1, from Yarkand accompanied
by his surveyors Lal Singh and Afrazgul. To enter Wakhan Stein started across
Ulguhart Pass where he met Russian military commander Col. Jagello of the
Pamirs.
Next Stein crossed the
Alai Valley to reach Daraut Kurghan where he used Russian, Persian and Turki to
speak with the locals . On August 23, 1915 Stein arrived at Bashgumbaz, Alichur
in Pamirs followed by Tash Kurghan and Yerkh. On September 1, 1915, Stein
reached the edge of Russian Wakhan at Zang. From there trevking the edge of
Tange Glacier he arrived at Lashar Kisht. He found this place green and balmy
like Kashmir.
At Langat Kisht, Stein explored Buddhist ruins dating Indo-
Scythian period. In the high snowy ranges of Ishkashim he also examined many
old ruins. Ishkashim served as buffer between Wakhan and Badakashan. Here Stein
took the opportunity to collect the local language specimens.
The place was
inhabited by about 150 families. Accordingly Stein collected vocabularies and
text of the local language for Grierson’s Linguistic Survey and thus felt
rewarded to have contributed to his magnum opus survey of 384 languages.
At
Ishkashim, Stein stayed with Captain Tumanovich and his wife and young
daughter, providing him a family feel of a comfortable living arrangements.Next
Stein crossed Dozakh Darra to enter Shughnan Valley where his coolies waited
for him at the snout of a glacier that led to Bartang Valley.
Two days
extraneous clamber negotiating Bartang River Stein reached Hunza where he
rested in the fort owned by Mir of Roshan. It was a chance that Stein here
found Buddhist ruins on the way. But the real work which he did with scholarly
application was collecting language samples for Grierson’s Linguistic Survey, a
fact seldom acknowledged and barely known.
Bushan Parimoo
(The writer is a Jammu based environmentalist and a regular contributor to this Website.)
(Feedback at: blparimoo@gmail.com)
