The three Afridis in the following video and photograph, along with other Pashtuns, entered Kashmir on 22nd October 1947, where they defeated the Dogra state forces and their allies, the Sikh soldiers of Patiala State, and then pushed forward toward Sri Nagar, the capital of Jammu and Kashmir. The enemy awaiting them there was the large, regular Indian Army, equipped with all sorts of advanced weaponry, including aircraft, artillery, and armoured cars. The Pashtun tribesmen, armed only with Lee-Enfield rifles, had not anticipated that they would face the Indian Army—formerly the British Indian Army—inside Kashmir. Nonetheless, they resolved to advance and confront the Indian Army in order to capture Srinagar.
From 27th October to 7th November, they made determined efforts to seize Srinagar. They realized that they had no support from the local Kashmiris of the valley, while the Indian Army was actively aided by Kashmiris aligned with the views of Sheikh Abdullah. Against the superior numbers, weaponry, and discipline of the Indian Army, the tribesmen proved no match and suffered defeat in an intense battle. The Indian Air Force bombed their positions, and with no shelters in the open plains, they were left exposed. Recognizing that they could not overcome the Indian Army in the open plains, they abandoned what had become a foolhardy attempt to capture the city and began their retreat.
They withdrew using their own transport lorries, a business in which many of them had been involved even during the 1940s. The three Afridi Pashtuns in the video and photo, however, were unable to board the lorries and were left behind. They were captured by the pursuing Indian Army and subsequently paraded through the streets of Srinagar. Mounted atop a truck, they endured a barrage of chappals, abuse, and spit from the local Kashmiris. The tribesmen, however, did not flinch and maintained their composure, much to the frustration of the crowd. “Those people, they were really looking like brutes—very ferocious-looking. They were also very defiant. They were just roped, and they were standing there,” recalled Harshi Anand, one of the onlookers present that day. [1]
As seen in the video, they were also put on display for the observation and amusement of politicians and journalists. One of the Pashtuns is notably dressed in a blue British Royal Air Force uniform, which he may have looted from a British soldier he had killed at some point in his past. Sat Paul Sahni, then a young journalist, covered Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to the Kashmir Valley a few days after Indian troops had taken control of Baramulla. “The Prime Minister was invited into a tent,” he recalled, “where three members of the lashkar—soldiers, you might call them—were present. They were all Pathans, Afridis. We met them, we spoke with them, and they told us they didn’t know why they were there. They said they had simply been asked to go for a jihad, that Muslims in Kashmir were facing atrocities, and they had come to liberate them.” [2]
American reporter Margaret Parton of the Herald Tribune saw three Afridi prisoners, along with a local Kashmiri fakir, and described them with disgust as follows:
"There were four prisoners who had been left behind in the flight from Kashmir and captured by Indian troops. Never have I seen such disgusting, grotesque figures. One of them, a hulking giant with a filthy grey beard through which jutted a single protruding yellow tooth, wore blue-checked plus fours, khaki puttees, a blue RAF jacket, and torn sandals. An unclosed knife wound slashed across his right eye and part of his cheek, the blood dried without any attempt to wash it away. Then there was a little gnome of about five feet, eighty years old, who cackled; a middle-aged tribesman in a bloodstained burnoose, with the flashing eyes of a zealot; and a half-naked 'monkey-man' wearing a string of red and blue beads, who claimed to be a local fakir." (as cited in 'A Mission in Kashmir' by Andrew Whitehead, p-187)
I have been unable to find information about the ultimate fate of these captured Afridis.
References
1- Interview of Mrs Harshi Anand by Andrew Whitefield.
2- 'A Mission in Kashmir', by Andrew Whitehead, p-187
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