Jamilkhone and Annand, two cousins in Kalash valley of Rumbur, returned to their village from the district kutchery and surrendered themselves to their elites for the decision of a dispute between them over a piece of land, which they had brought to the court of law. An arbitration committee decided the case during the next three hours which the parties readily accepted and four goats were slaughtered the same evening to arrange a feast to mark the hours of joy.

They were repenting over their past three months during which they attended the court and made payments to their respective counsel in fee. Everyone in the village knew that Jamilkhone had sacrificed his right for the sake of peace in the village as the feud between them was being looked as deviation from the Kalash code of life.

The villagers jubilant over the end of the three-month enmity between the two relatives thronged their homes to congratulate and appreciate them. For the world outside Kalash valleys, it is an ordinary practice that people drag each other to the court of law and the litigation spans over many decades, but for the Kalash people it was really an extraordinary incident, as they are highly peaceful by nature. The two had decided to withdraw their case in the court.

The picturesque Kalash valleys of Bumburate, Birir and Rumbur in the south of Chitral are known not only for their natural beauty, but also for the exemplary peace and amity among the dwellers. They know only and only peace and pay every price for it. The social fabric of Kalash society is such that people there do not afford the use of abusive language for each other and do not know how to brawl. The most effective tools used to control the Kalash from the use of physical force are expression of abhorrence, censure and social boycott employed by the society apart from the penalty imposed by the elites. The social harmony in Kalash society is prevalent to the maximum and it is free from any kind of violence and bickering.

The peace-loving nature of Kalash people can be gauged from the fact that in the history of Kalash not a single murder case has ever been recorded.

Deputy superintendent of police, Chitral, Mohammad Khalid corroborated that not a single Kalash had ever been booked by the police in a murder case. He said that the crime rate among the Kalash people was nearly zero and they abstained from quarrelling each other. He said that if any such incident occurred it was resolved through their internal mechanism before it was reported to police.

Mr Khalid said that the people exhibited a high degree of tolerance and flexibility even when they were agitated and troubled by outsiders. They do not report to the local police and go beyond protest when some tourists trespass their homes and annoy them.

He said that during past few years suicides among women had recorded steep rise with a frequency of over 20 cases a year, but strangely enough no name of Kalash had ever been reported. The police officer said that the Kalash were law-abiding people and fully cooperated with police when needed while they maintained cordial relations with the Muslim community of the valleys and no clash had ever surfaced.

The Kalash people treat their females with kindness and hold them in high esteem, leaving no room for gender-based violence. Niaz Ali Shah, the chairman of Legal Aid Programme for Human Rights, said that gender-based violence was not known to the Kalash society. He said that executing a project on ‘gender-based violence’ he found that womenfolk enjoyed the same status in the family hierarchy as the men did and no case of gender-based violence was reported from the Kalash population of 3,800.

Mr Shah said that girls were free to choose their life partners within or outside their community and such a liberal approach of the parents gave the girls self-confidence. Human rights violation by the Kalash community is also unheard of in the valleys due to the uprightness and tolerance of the people. Tash Khan Kalash of Rumbur valley said that no Kalash could dare to perpetrate any kind of aggression or usurpation of other’s rights due to the strong social bond in which a perpetrator had to face a complete social sanction. He said that he knew no person of his valley going to the police with a complaint against another.

However, Luke Rahmat, a young and educated social worker of Bumburate valley, apprehended that the young generation could lose the track in the face of new developments in which drunken outsiders trespassed into their homes and made hue and cry.

He said that being non-Muslim the Kalash were allowed to consume grape wine distilled locally, while drinking was part and parcel of their culture. He said that taking advantage of it some people were preparing wine on commercial scale and the outsiders thronged the valleys for drinking due to its availability. Mr Rahmat said that young people of Kalash community now tended to resist the drunken hooligans and use physical force to keep them away from entering their homes.

“This will change the very attitude of the Kalash young man who cannot tolerate such rude and unbecoming behaviour of the intruding outsider or tourist,” he said. In the past, he said, grape wine used to be distilled for local consumption during festivals, but some outsiders introduced the ‘Tara Culture’ in the valleys for their monetary profit. He termed the commercial scale production of wine as the biggest threat to peace in the valley and said that it was not an indigenous practice. Mr Rahmat said that the aggression from the bordering Afghan area had also forced the Kalash youth to remain alert for self-defence.

Published in Dawn January 18th , 2015

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