The North-West Frontier Prov ince differs from the older provinces of India in having been arti ficially built up out of part of a previous province together with new districts for a definite administrative purpose. The proposal to make the frontier districts into a separate province, adminis tered by an officer of special experience, dates back to the vice royalty of Lord Lytton, who, in a famous minute of April 22, 1877, said :— "I believe that our North-West Frontier presents at this moment a spectacle unique in the world ; at least I know of no other spot where, after 25 years of peaceful occupation, a great civilized power has obtained so little influence over its semi-savage neighbours, and acquired so little knowledge of them, that the country within a day's ride of its most important garrison is an absolute terra incognita, and that there is absolutely no security for British life a mile or two beyond our border." The result of this minute was that a frontier commissionership, including Sind, was sanctioned by the home Government, and Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts had been designated as the first Commissioner when the outbreak of the Second Afghan War caused the project to be postponed. It was afterwards shelved by Lord Ripon. Twenty-three years elapsed before the idea was revived and successfully brought to completion by Lord Curzon, whose scheme was on a more modest scale than Lord Lytton's. It omitted Sind altogether, and confined the new province to the Pathan trans-Indus districts north of the Gomal. The present administration of the province is conducted by a chief commis sioner and agent to the governor-general. It has been specially omitted from the scope of the "reforms" in India.
The census of 1901, omitting the great majority of the frontier tribes, gave a total population of 2,125,480. In 1931, the inclusive total was 4,684,364. The province is mainly agricultural. The towns, except Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan, are either expansions of large agricultural villages or bazaars which have grown up round the many cantonments of the province. The great majority of the population are Pathan by race and Mo hammedan by religion. The predominant language is Pushtu (q.v.). The conquered strata of the population speak servile Indian dialects, called Hindki in the north and Jatki in the south, while Gujari is spoken by the large Gujar population in Hazara and north of Peshawar.
The area under cultivation represents an average of 1.3 acres per head of the total, and of nearly 1.5 acres per head of the rural population. The limit of profitable cultivation has almost been reached. The Pathan, however, is a slovenly cultivator and slow to adopt new methods. The principal crops are—in the cold weather, maize and bajra; in the spring, wheat, barley and gram. Rice and sugar-cane are largely grown
on the irrigated lands of Hazara, Peshawar and Bannu districts, and the well and canal irrigated tracts of Peshawar district pro duce fine crops of cotton and tobacco. In the trans-border agencies the valleys of the Swat, Kurram and Tochi yield much rice.
The climatic conditions of the province are extremely diversi fied. Dera Ismail Khan district is one of the hottest areas in the Indian continent, while over the mountain region to the north the weather is temperate in the summer and intensely cold in the winter. The air is generally dry, and hence the daily and annual range of temperature is frequently very large. There are two seasons of rainfall over the province; the monsoon season, when supplies of moisture are brought up by the ocean winds from the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal; and the winter sea son, when storms advancing eastwards from Persia and the Cas pian districts occasion winds, widespread rain and snowfall. Both sources are precarious and instances are not infrequent of the almost entire failure of either the winter or the summer rainfall.
Canals are the main source of irrigation in the province, and fall under three heads : (I) Private canals in the various districts, the property of the people and managed on their behalf ; (2) the Michni Dilazak and Shabkadar branch in Peshawar, constructed by the district board, which receives water rates; and (3) the Swat and Kabul river canals, which were constructed by and are the property of government, and are managed by the irrigation department. About 2o% of the cultivated area is irrigated by canals, 2% by wells and 3% by perennial streams. In the year 1925-26 the irrigated area was 368,48r acres.
The railways of the province are mostly intended in the first instance for strategic purposes. The main line of the North-Western railway from Rawalpindi to Peshawar after being first extended 9 m., to Jamrud at the entrance to the Khyber Pass, in Nov. 1925 received further extension of 27 m. through the Khyber to the Afghan frontier. From Nowshera a branch runs to Dargai at the foot of the Malakand Pass. From Rawalpindi again another branch crosses the Indus at Kushalgarh (q.v.) and runs to Kohat, whence a 2 ft. line runs to Thal at the foot of the Kurram valley.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Frontier Province Gazetteer (Calcutta) ; Bibliography
Frontier Province Gazetteer (Calcutta) ; Administration Report (annual, Calcutta) ; Paget and Mason, Record of Frontier Expeditions (1884) ; Sir T. Holdich, The Indian Borderland (19oI) ; Sir J. Douie, The Pan jab, North-West Frontier Province and Kashmir (1916) ; C. M. Enriquez, The Pathan Borderland, from Chit ral to Dera Ismail Khan (Calcutta, 1921). (T. H. H.; X.)