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MUCH the most interesting thing about the North-West Frontier of India is the persistence of the traditions of the Pathans on the one hand and of the British administration on the other. A study of the relevant literature, drama and film reveals that in all their dealings with each other, the natives and the British punctiliously observe a pattern of behaviour which practically never varies in detail, and certainly never in essentials. Korda's new film. The Drum, is a valuable document, in that it sets out authoritatively all the principles involved.
Since the Pathans are a warlike people who
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live, so to speak, by killing each other, and the British are there to keep them in order, most of the business transacted — in fact all of it — is in the form of revolts, and since each side always behaves in the same way, all the revolts are exactly the same.
The opening gambit always rests with the native side. There are no instances of British troops starting a native revolt. The practice is for one chief to murder another, usurp his throne and prepare to start a revolution "'along the entire frontier." All these affairs take place "along the entire frontier." The main tradition of the actual murder is that the
usurper invariably allows someone to escape from the victim's household, in order to bring word to the British. This lets the British troops know that they have an away fixture.
The formality is always observed, but always unnecessary, for the Governor at Peshawar invariably knows all about the impending revolt beforehand. The reason for this is, that all British officers above the rank of a second lieutenant dress up, as part of their regular duty, in native clothes, dye their beards, and fetch information about machinegun emplacements and revolts "along the entire frontier." But now we come to one of the