An experienced and senior airman with a long record of service, Air Commodore Leonard de Ville Chisman’s military career began in 1917, when he joined the Royal Naval Air Service. During the First World War he saw action in the Mediterranean theatre, serving in Malta, Alexandria and Taranto; in 1919 he was mentioned in despatches for distinguished service, and was subsequently decorated with two Italian medals, the Croce di Guerra and the Libyan medal. In 1922 he became an RAF armament specialist, before being transferred to India where he commanded Army Co-operation Squadrons in Peshawar and on the North-West Frontier. He was later decorated with a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross), awarded for gallantry during operations in Waziristan during the period 17 January – 15 September 1937 (BECM, accession files). Reels 14 and 15 of the Chisman collection date to this year, and both are composed of footage taken in Waziristan, in India’s North-West Frontier Province  (NWFP).

The years 1936-37 in the NWFP saw the Indian Army engaged in a serious asymmetrical conflict against forces lead by a figure who has been described as ‘the most determined, implacable enemy the British Raj had to face amongst its own subjects’ (Hauner, 1981, 183) – Mirza Ali Khan, better known as the Faqir of Ipi. It is estimated that at its height the conflict against the lashkars (war parties) raised by the Faqir engaged around 40,000 Indian Army soldiers; despite this huge number of troops, the revolt was never quelled, and rumbled on through the war years up to Partition in 1947. The Faqir, who was reputed to have magical powers, was never captured or killed, and on reports of his death in 1960 the Times described him as a ‘doughty and honourable opponent’ (even going so far as to say he was ‘a man of saintliness and principle’. The Times April 20, 1960, 15).

Born in 1901, the Faqir belonged to one of the extended clans of the Tori Khel Wazirs of Northern Waziristan. He had a religious schooling in both British India and Afghanistan, and completed Hajj to Mecca in 1923. Thereafter he returned to Waziristan and settled amongst the Daurs of the Tochi valley in a small village called Ipi where, according to Hauner, ‘he gradually acquired [a] reputation for saintliness’ (Hauner, op. cit., 189).

The 1936 conflict ostensibly began with the case of the ‘Islam Bibi’ – a Hindu girl of fifteen, Ram Kori, who had married a Daur Pathan schoolteacher and converted to Islam. However, a case of abduction was brought by the girl’s parents, and the case reached Bannu court, which found the husband guilty. In the local district and beyond,  the case was seen as an affront both to tribal legal process and also to Islam, and it greatly exercised tribal opinion. The Faqir became involved and a Daur lashkar was raised; with serious trouble apparently in the offing, two British columns were despatched on a punitive expedition to Tochi.

Following the traditional policing policy, the expedition imposed fines and destroyed the property of any known ringleaders, including a house belonging to the Faqir. Under pressure, the lashkarwas eventually dissolved, and the Daurs heavily fined for their trouble. The Faqir, his incipient revolt defeated by events, left the area to live among the Tori Khel to the south. It seems he spent the summer of 1936 attempting to organise a united tribal front against the Government with the intent of launching a jihad to drive the British entirely out of Waziristan, and the ‘Islam Bibi’ case was an opportune religious rallying point (this at least was the view of the British Resident; see ibid., 96). However, while this was evidently an ideologically effective pretext, Warren’s history of the revolt makes it quite clear that the underlying reasons for the willingness of the Tori Khel and other groups to join with the Faqir had at least as much to do with the high-handed British penetration of the Khaisora valley as it did with his own charismatic leadership. Hauner also draws attention to the numerous other reasons for discontent in the NWFP generally (Warren, 2000; Hauner op.cit., 190)

The revolt started in earnest in November 1936, when a provocative expedition by two British columns entered Khaisora with several aims in mind. The expedition was in the first instance determined to exercise British rights to free military movement under a 1935 agreement, and make a symbolic show of force to the Tori Khel for their growing recalcitrance on this matter; it was also presumed that the presence of troops would pressure them into expelling the Faqir, as they had been warned to control his activities or be held responsible for them. It was, according to the official history of the 1936-37 campaigns, ‘purely a peaceful demonstration’ (Govt of India, 1943, 7).

However, the columns came under unexpectedly heavy attack by forces largely marshalled by the Faqir, and from here the revolt deepened and spread through late 1936 and into 1937, with growing raids by tribal forces into government areas. These drew the inevitable punitive responses by the British, who soon found themselves drawn into a complex, poorly defined conflict in very difficult terrain, against a fluid, motivated and well-armed enemy. The Faqir, meanwhile, remained elusive and at large; his reputation as a holy warrior with miraculous powers spread widely, and he moved from hideout to hideout, slipping into Afghanistan when necessary, always a step ahead of the British.