Future of the indigenous people of Chitral
Chitral is a landlocked country of a very peculiar location with borders with Afghanistan from Arandu to Begusht and this section of our border is porous but onward the sierras rise to glaciated peaks and rise to 6000m and then to 7000m peaks exactly on the Pak Afghan border up to Kankhun pass. From that point the high peaks lose their height and reach Boroghil pass. With this glaciated borderline of high peaks of the Hindu Kush human life within Chitral area, is safe and no intervention for outsider is possible. In the eastern border it touches with Swat, Ghizer, and Dir- all have friendly relations with Chitral or so we have presumed. Inside this mountain boundry the Chitralis have to live with small plots of lands that produce very small amount of land produce and thus Chitral has to depend on supplies from Punjab as KPK has no surplus wheat, rice produce and the same is the case with Afghanistan where there is no stability and have no future supply expectancy. The subsistence farming is very much poor in Chitral except that fruit production, drying and export to other districts is bright but still at very initial stage due to lack of awareness and infrastructure.
The minerals have already been leased out and occupied by tycoons and the man of Chitral can work as miner if he dares to do so but not to be expected so this field is closed to our coming generation. The trade in the markets has been occupied by money lords with roots from other nationalities and are buying assets at high cost. They cannot be competed by Chitralis in business so the indigenous people have to resort to Education- both general and technical and can beat our rivals in various disciplines. We have got to impart the best possible education to our coming generation and must stick to this objective as tenaciously as possible. This is our only chance or avenue that we can take and run to co- exist with the rest of the population of the province where Pathans have overwhelming majority and they are unwilling to do any kind of developmental work inside Chitral but those where the lion’s share goes to their area such as electricity. In my view as Chitralis, we have to focus on education for a better future.
Depending on Tourism for livelihood has no good prospects because as long as the neighbours of Chitral get tourist friendly there will be hundreds of years to be borne.
Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
