Reza Shah and The Disintegration of Bakhtiari Power in Iran, 1921-1934

International Society for Iranian Studies
Riza Shah and the Disintegration of Bakhtiyari Power in Iran, 1921-1934 Author(s): Stephanie Cronin Reviewed work(s): Source: Iranian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 3/4 (Summer - Autumn, 2000), pp. 349-376 Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of International Society for Iranian Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4311378 . Accessed: 04/01/2013 17:22
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Iranian Studies, volume 33, numbers3-4, Summer/Fall2000
StephanieCronin
Riza Shah and the Disintegrationof BakhtiyariPower in Iran, 1921-1934

Introduction
DURING THE YEARS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION AND THE GREAT
War,Iranexperienceda widespread generalreassertionof tribal power and by and 1921 much of the country was under tribal control. Riza Khan's seizure of power, however, inaugurateda transformationin the relationship between the center and peripheryin Iran. For the new regime and for the nationalist elite which supportedit, the suppressionof the tribes was an indispensableelement of theirlargerproject:the constructionof a modern,centralized state, with a culturally homogeneous population. Their agenda was clear: the destructionof the autonomy and feudal authorityof the tribal leadershipswas to be closely followed by the subjectionof the tribalpopulationsto the unmediated power of the modernizedstate and their integration into settled society. From the very moment of seizing power in Tehran,the new regime embarkedon a sustained effort to establish its militaryand administrative hegemony over the tribes. The extirpationof tribalpower was of absolute centrality to the state-building effort of the early Pahlavi period.Like their contemporarieselsewhere in the Middle East, the newly empoweredIraniannationalists insisted that sovereignty andindependence were only possible on the basis of the complete disarmingof the civilian population and the concentrationof physical power in the hands of the state. For this trendthe establishmentof a single national authority in Iran, which commandedthe universaland directallegiance of the populationand which alone conductedrelations with foreign powers, was essential to the country's political survival. For the nationalists,furthermore, tribes were the antithesis the of modernity,the regime and its supporters,and indeedthe settled population at large, viewing the tribes as both primitive in themselves and as symbolizing Iran's backwardness.Riza Shah himself, like his counterpart,Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,was especially sensitive to the image his country presentedto the West and the archaic,exotic, and picturesqueappealof the tribes for Europeanvisitors was especially galling. Iraniannationalists in this period had little interest in conditions in the countrysidegenerally, and the ruralareas, whetheragricultural or pastoral,experiencedgreathardshipunderRiza Shah.Althoughthe urbanelite
Stephanie Cronin is Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow in Iranian History, University College, Northampton,and Senior Research Associate, School of Oriental and African Studies.
350 Cronin as tribalsedentarization desirablein social and political terms, the conceptualized and policy was implementedwith little preparation with little or no regardfor its consequences for pastoral productivity or for its cost in human suffering, bequeathingto the late 1930s and early 1940s a legacy of economic dislocation and political bitterness. The prevalence of these broad ideological prescriptions within hunian nationalismis well-known. However, of the first Pahlavi regime's practicalorientation towards the tribes, either nationally or towards particulargroups and sub-groups,therehas been little concreteand precise discussion.' Two particular, and related,aspects of the regime's tribal policy which have receivedlittle attention, and which this paperseeks to address,are, firstly, the question of the methods which were utilized in tribal managementin this period, and secondly, the partplayed by variouslevels and sectors of tribalsociety itself in either resisting or collaboratingwith the regime in the execution of both its immediateand its long-termgoals. In 1921 much of south-central Iran was controlled by the khava1nin-i The buzurg, the great khans, of the Bakhtiyaritribal confederation.2 great Bakhtiyarikhans had become some of the wealthiest and most powerful of the tribal leaderships.As well as their dominationof the confederationand its territories the greatkhanshad, as a result of their contributionto the restorationof constitutionalrule in 1909, established themselves as a factor in national politics and had also since then come to dominatethe governmentsof several provincesringbecome extremely wealthy, partiing Bakhtiyariproper.They had, furthermore, cularly in termsof landedproperty,as a resultof their monopoly of tribal leadership, the spoils of office, and their British connections. Nonetheless, despite their political influence and their wealth, they succumbedeasily to the new power in Tehran.With the reversalof British policy broughtaboutby Percy Lorainein the early 1920s, they forfeitedthe support of theirimperialpatron.They were demoralizedby a series of financial blows, parof ticularlythe indemnityimposed afterthe "Shalilincident"and the arrears taxes demandedby Dr. Millspaugh.Then, in the mid-twenties,the endemic and enervating factionalismand rivalrywhich had beset relations between the senior khans by was finally and fatally transcended a new and permanentpolitical schism Ascad3taken into the cabinet and made minwhich saw Ja'afarQuli KhanSardar
1. There is some discussion of the first Pahlavi regime's tribal policies in Richard Tapper, Frontier Nomads of Iran: a Political and Social History of the Shahsevan (Cambridge, 1997); Lois Beck, The Qashqa'i of Iran (New Haven and London, 1986); and Pierre Oberling, The Qashqa3iNomads of Fars (The Hague, 1974). 2. For the Bakhtiyari prior to the rise of Riza Khan, Gene Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs: A Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran (Cambridge, 1983) is invaluable. Some historical information and attempts at constructing theoretical frameworks for the study of the Bakhtiyari, although from an anthropological perspective, may be found in David Brooks, "The Enemy Within: Limitations on Leadership in the Bakhtiari"and Jean-PierreDigard, "On the Bakhtiari:Comments on 'Tribes, Confederation and the State"' in Richard Tapper (ed), The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan (London, 1983). 3. The memoirs of JacafarQuli Khan SardarAscad have been edited and published
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 351 ister of war and the rest of the khans reduced political marginality and impoto tence. Yet the downfall of the khans was not solely due to the irresistible ascendancy of the new state power. Processes were advancingwithin the Bakhtiyari confederation itself which auguredthe end of traditionaltribal organization and relationshipsand which were renderingthe rule of the great khans obsolete. The authorityof the greatkhans began to encounterchallenges from various internal sources. The confederationitself collapsed when the resentment of the minor khans of the ChaharLang subdivision at Haft Lang domination, encouraged by Riza Khan,broke into the open and resultedin the secession of the ChaharLang. An intergenerationalconflict erupted within the leading Haft Lang families themselves resulting in the formulation,by the younger khans, of a novel and radicalsolution to the problemof weakening Bakhtiyaricohesion and the ossification of triballeadership-the establishmentof a reformistpolitical party based explicitly on concepts of Bakhtiyariethnic identity. The alienation of the elder khans from the tribalmilieu, a process in train since 1909, had produced gena eral attenuationof triballoyalties, and encouraged both the emergenceof a middle-rankinglayer of kalantars the focus for triballeadershipand an increasingly as vocal resentmenton the partof the tribal rank and file at what they perceivedas the political and economic oppression of the khans. The emerging, albeit still unsophisticated,class consciousness of the tribespeoplewas reinforced their by in proletarianization relatively large numbers as workersin the oilfields and by the emergence of yet another direct threat to the khans' position-the rapid spreadin the late 1920s of a radical anti-landlord movement among the nonBakhtiyaripeasantry in khan-owned villages. The demystification of chiefly authorityin the eyes of the tribespeople was furtheraccelerated the khans' by rapidloss of function to the new modernstate institutions. The Bakhtiyarikhans' inability to defend themselves against the Pahlavi regime thereforeclearly stemmedpartlyfrom theirperceptionthat their position, as hereditary rulersand as landlords,was more acutelyand immediatelythreatened from below and within than from outside, i.e. from the external power of the state itself. After a brief and muddledattempt at resistance, the tribal leadership, between 1923 and 1933, largely co-operated with the regime, to which it was openly subservient,in an attempt to preservefor itself a definite, even if much reduced,role. The great khans were instrumentalin securing the state's increasing control over the tribes, making direct military interventionunnecessary.The Bakhtiyari tribes were, for example, disarmedby the khans themselves, who were confidentenough to decline Riza Khan's offer of military assistance, and the uprising of 1929 was also quelledby the pacific interventionof the Tehranbased senior khans. Nonetheless the nationalist characterization the khans as feudal and as of puppets of the British persistedand in 1933 the regime finally tumed against
but although they are mostly concerned with the 1920s and early 1930s when Sardar Ascad occupied a succession of high government positions, they provide little insight into the inner workings of the regime. JacafarQuli Khan Amir Bahadur(ed),
Khatirit-i Sardar As cad Bakhtiyari (Tehran, 1372).
352 Cronin them, their political destruction,alreadylargely accomplished, being now followed inexorably by their physical destruction. As part of the reign of terror which swept throughthe Iranianelite in these years, several khans were executed and many more sentencedto long terms of imprisonment.Yet by now so completely had the khans severed themselves from the tribalpyramidthat this repression in the capital evoked no response from the Bakhtiyariin the south. With the removal of the tribal leadershipand with military officers controlling the apex of the tribe,the regime was able to embarkon a majorexperimentin social engineering:the settlementof the tribesand the suppressionof nomadic pastoralupsurge in ism. Although the countrysidein these years experienceda dramatic partiallydisarmedand leaderless, were no longer the banditry, tribes,fragmented, capable of mountingthe large-scalerevolts of the past. The Army and the Tribes Although Riza Shah's skill in manipulating political conflict of every kind, conflict, has been widely recognized, yet the pacificationof includingintra-tribal the countrysidein the 1920s and 1930s is still imagined, by both apologists for and critics of the regime, to have been largely, if not wholly, a military undertaking, enforcedin the teeth of armedtribal resistance. Yet in fact direct carnpaigning, or even its threat, was only one, and in practice the least effective, methodof tribalmanagementutilized by the regime. Wherethe state resortedto military operations most readily, notably in the case of the Lurs, results were and difficult. As most uncertainand the imposition of control most protracted the example of the Bakhtiyariclearly shows, the regime achievedits objectives most completely and most easily where it was able to eschew military tactics and rely instead on exploiting the political and financial vulnerabilitiesof the triballeaderships. Of course, many military operations against different tribal groups were by undertaken the army, particularly in the 1920s.4 Such campaigning was indeedthe army's sole military function in these years. Yet the army suffered from certainendemicandchronic defects and weaknesses which made the results of these engagementsat best unpredictable.5 A particulardifficulty with which the army was confrontedwas that the tribes were, in the 1920s, much betterarmedthan they had been in the past, the majorityhaving acquiredmodernmagazinerifles duringand since the GreatWar. The tribeswere indeed at least as well armedas the army itself, and only slowly, and as part of a major reorganization,was Riza Khan able to overcome the
4. For some Iranianarmy views of tribal campaigning see, inter alia, Kavih Bayat, cAsha3ir az didg5h-i manabic-i nizami-yi mucasir 1300-1350," Tanrkh-i Mu?isir-i iran, 1 (1372/1993): 121-39; Ahmad Amirahmadi, Khdtirdt-i nakhustYnsipahbud-i Irain(Tehran, 1373/1994); Kavih Bayat (ed), cAmaliyyat-i Luristiin: Asniad-i Sarttp MuhammadShahbakhti, 1303 va 1306 shamsr (Tehran, n.d.). 5. For a discussion of the army's operational difficulties in this period see Stephanie Cronin, The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran (London and New York, 1997).
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 353 problems resulting from the army's deficiencies in armamentand to ensure its definitive superiorityover the tribes.6 A conventional army of the type then in being constructedby Riza Khanfaced other disadvantages tribal campaigning. Tribal territory was for the most part mountainous and devoid of good communicationsand this made militaryoperationsby regulartroops difficult and prolonged in the face of determinedopposition. There were also, in the circumstancesprevailing in the country at the time, general organizationaland political constraints upon the concentrationof large numbersof troops for specific campaigns. The total strength of the army reachedaround40,000 men by the mid-twenties, yet owing to the difficulties of mobilization, the distances involved and the lack of transport,to the necessity for maintaininggarrisonsin the northand east and retaining enough of the Tehrangarrisonto guaranteestability in the capital and the protectionof the main lines of communications, the maximum that the War Minister had available for dealing with any tribe or group of tribes in this period was about 10,000 men. This was actually the numberthat he was able to concentrateagainst the Kurdishtribal leaderSimko in Azarbayjanin 1922. Any combination of tribal forces, or simultaneousoutbreaks of tribal insurrectionsin differentparts of the country, presented the regime and the military authorities with grave dangers,as was demonstrated by the nearcollapse of governmentcontrol in southernIranin 1929. The military capacity of the tribes was also limited and contingent. They possessed no artilleryor machine-guns,decisive weapons in tribal campaigning, and although they had acquiredmodem rifles, ammunition was faulty and in short supply, and they lacked the sophisticationto maintainreserve stocks. They had no militaryorganizationother than thatof being groupedinto followings led by their own khans, and they would rarelyfight outside their own territoryor far from their own homes. For both the military authorities and the tribal leaderships therefore the resortto force was an unattractiveoption and one, furthermore, that was almost always indecisive, leading only to a stalemate. The tribal campaigning which was undertaken the army,largely a featureof the 1920s and early 1930s, was by rarelya deliberateinitiativeof the regime but rathertendedto be dictatedby the need to respondto tribalrebellion.The armyin fact had a much more significant role to play in tribal management in terms of maintaining control once the submission of the tribes had been securedby non-military means. Whereverthe regime established its political dominanceover tribal leaderships,the army was instrumentalin confirming and renderingpermanentstate control through the establishment of military government and the appointmentof army officers in place of deposedchiefs andkhans. The Emergence of the Khavanin-i Buzurg Riza Shah's overarchingstrategic objectives towards the Bakhtiyari, and the methods he employed to achieve them-the threat, if not the actual deployment of military force, the weapon of the tax demand, the encouragement of
6. Stephanie Cronin, The Army, 131-133.
354 Cronin fissiparous tribal sub-groupsand the patronageof dissident factions within the leadership-were entirelyin keeping with the regime's treatmentof other tribes. The internally generated centrifugal pressures, although undoubtedly more within the Bakhtiyari,were also sharedby other tribal groups in this advanced periodof rapidhistoricalchange. The interactionbetween the Bakhtiyariand the new Pahlavi regime was, however, in certain respects unique. One of the key factorsexplainingthe relative ease with which Riza Khan was able to establish control over the Bakhtiyari is to be found in the characterof confederational leadershipas it had emerged since the late nineteenth century. The Bakhtiyari and confederationwas unusualin its possession of a relatively large, centralized collective leadership,consisting of the sons and nephews of Husayn Quli Khan Ilkhani, who had first unified the Bakhtiyari tribes in the mid-nineteenth century.7In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century these ruling Haft Lang khans of the Ilkhani and Haji Ilkhani families, the khavanTn-ibuzurg, and consolidatedtheir control of the Bakhtiyariconfederation then ensuredtheir by political and financial ascendancy cultivating permanentand unchallengeable links with the British official presence and the oil company. Their access to wealth and power again increaseddramaticallyas a result of their role in the restorationof constitutionalrule in 1909.8 Like the Bakhtiyari,other tribal groupings in southernIranappearto have greaterstability, particularlyin terms of their leaderships,in the late acquired twentiethcentury.It was in this periodthat Shaykh Khazcalof nineteenth/early Muhammarah the Qavamis of the Khamsah,as well the great khans of the and Bakhtiyari,establishedthemselves as permanentfeatures of the political landscape. This was undoubtedlylargely due to the imperial context. These leaderships were successful in replacing their fluctuatingand unstable links to Iranian power sources with durableand profitableties to the immensely powerful British imperial presence. British support artificially promoted and maintainedthese their permanentpolitical and economic ascendancy, leaderships,and guaranteed causing them to ossify and become impervious and unresponsive to internal equilibriumand balanceboth within the pressures,thus destroyingthe traditional tribal groupings themselves, between the leaderships and subordinatelayers, between the tribal leadershipsand Tehran, and between the various elements across southernIran. By the early twentieth century the position of the grat on khans of the Bakhtiyari,for example, no longer depended their capacities as tribal leaders,or the success of their political relations with local, regional or centralIranianauthorities,but entirely on their links with the British. This was to have serious consequencesfor their ability to sustain themselves in the very differentpolitical context of the 1920s.9 Yet the specific formationof the Bakhtiyarileadershippresenteda striking contrastto the political expressions of otherconfederationsand tribesin southern
7. For the Bakhtiyari in the nineteenth century see Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs, 62-95. 8. Garthwaite,Khans and Shahs, 112-20. 9. The Qashqa'i seem, paradoxically, to have stabilized in opposition to the British. For the Qashqa'i confederation,see Beck, The Qashqa'i of Iran.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 355 Iran.On the one hand, the historical developmentof the large confederations of the Khamsahand the Qashqa'ihad producedleadershipresiding,in a more or less stable and permanentway, in a single individual, Qavam al-Mulk and Ismacil KhanSawlat al-Dawlahrespectively,while ShaykhKhazcalhad achieveda particularlysecurepersonalascendancyin Arabistan.'? the other hand, fragmented On tribal groups with considerableinternal autonomy, such as the Lurs and the Kuhgilu,had avoidedthe politicaldangerof any centralizedleadershipat all. The greatkhans of the Bakhtiyari,however, constituted a leadershipwhich was both numerically large and theoretically collective, and which was accordingly uniquelyand fatally vulnerableto internalfactionalism and thereforeto external manipulation. Although the great khans had, by 1909, succeededin acquiringpositions of unprecedented wealth and power within the Bakhtiyari confederation, across southernIranand at Tehran,theirnew eminence containedwithin it two dangers. Firstly, it led to a rapidabandonment the khans of the confederation by as the central focus of their interests and responsibilities. Following the constitutionalist victory in 1909 the senior great khans left the tribal territories for Tehranor one of the provincialcapitals.They gave up their nomadic way of life and adoptedurbanmannersand mores, acquiringconsiderablepropertyin Isfahan and Tehran. They thus forfeited the independence state control which their of physical inaccessibility had hitherto guaranteedthem and, in a development heavy with significance for the future,placed themselves within the reach of any power which might establish itself in the capital. They became absentee landlords first and foremost, indistinguishablefrom the urbanelite in general. The permanentremoval of the senior khans from the tribal environmentand the general transformation their position also had negative implications for the conin tinued legitimacy of their authority.The gulf between the great khans and the rest of the confederationalpyramid,in terms of wealth, political power, and culturallevel and orientation, wideneddramaticallyand was continuing to grow had both quantitativelyand qualitatively,weakeningthe links of the tribalhierarchy. The second dangerlay in the fact thatalthough the great khans had managed to arrogateexclusively to the Ilkhaniand Haji Ilkhanifamilies supremacywithin the confederation, they had devised no method of regulating relations between themselves and of mitigating the factional rivalries and intrigues to which they had always been prone and which worsenedproportionallyas the opportunities for wealthandpower increased.11 The Khavanin-i Buzurg and the New Regime in Tehran During the summer of 1921, although Riza Khan had established himself in control of Tehran, the authority of the central government barely extended beyond the capital. As well as the political challenge presentedby provincially10. W. T. Strunk, The Reign of Shaykh Khaz'al ibn Jabir and the Suppression of the Principality of 'Arabistan: a study in British imperialism in south-western Iran, 1897-1925, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Indiana, 1977. 11. See Garthwaite,Khans and Shahs.
356 Cronin based radicalmovements, Colonel Pasyan in Mashadand the Jangalis in Gilan, there had, as a result of the collapse of central authority during the years of revolution and war, been a widespread reassertion of tribal activity and approximately tiree-quartersof the country was under tribal control. The the situationin the northwas most urgent and compelling and commanded first attention of the new power in Tehran. By latel921/early 1922 the army was consolidating its position throughoutnorth, north-westand north-eastIran and the authorityof the centralgovernmentwas being imposed in the wake of military control. At the time of Riza Khan's coup in 1921 southernIran, unlike the north, was relatively quiescent. Although the central government had little or no lived in conditions enforceableauthorityand the tribes and tribal confederations of practicalautonomy, yet there were no active challenges in the form of open tribal rebellions or radicalseparatistmovements. Another factor suggested cauand tion. In northernIranthe Russian presencehad been first disorganized then largely eclipsed by the 1917 revolution. In the south, however, British power and influence remainedintact,and the clients and allies of the Britishretained,for the moment, all the protection of their imperial patron. Indeedcertain British interestsin southernIran,particularlyits control of the oil industryand its role as a Persian Gulf power, were assuming increasing importancein the post-war world.Accordingly,Riza Khan'sadvance southwards,although relentless, was a slower and more delicate operationthan had been his military occupationof the northern provinces. Riza Khan had himself little or no personal knowledge of southern Iran. Indeedhe first set foot there only at the end of 1922. For him the south was a region which had been lost to Iran, where Iraniansovereignty did not prevail, where Britishpower was supreme, and where oil, a vital national resource,was a enmity towardsthose local in foreignhands.He accordinglyharbored particular the leaderships,particularly Bakhtiyarikhans and Shaykh KhazCal of Muhammarah,whom he consideredresponsiblefor having invited in and benefitedfrom the British presence. Not only were these and other traditionalelements outside by centralcontrol, as represented their armed strength and their refusal to pay taxes, and impedimentsto the achievementof modernityand national unity, but they constituteda permanentfifth column, and were a perennial dangerto the integrityand politicalindependenceof the Iranianstate. The ultimate destruction and the reorientationof their followers towardsthe new Iraof these leaderships nian authorities,the elimination of directBritish involvement in local politics, the establishmentof Iraniansovereignty over the oil-fields and the assertion of an Iranianpresencein the Gulf, were essential steps in the realization of Riza Khan'swideragenda. Havingturnedhis attention towardssouthernIranonly at the beginning of 1922, Riza Khan had, by the end of the following year, largely succeededin and freedomof action of the Bakhtiyari destroying the political independence khans, and had substantially diminished both their prestige and their wealth. Long before launchingany frontalassaulton tribalpower, which he was later to conscription,and settlement, Riza Khan do throughthe policies of disarmament, khans to a condition of impotence and most of them hadreducedthe Bakhtiyari
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 357 to docility also. By fanning the flames of an endemic internecinediscord, Riza Khanproducedwith the ruling families a chronic and debilitating, almost fratricidal, strife. Relying on the supportof a small minority of khans to control the tribes, he confined the majority of the tribal leadershipto grumbling passivity, leaving them perpetuallyhostile yet incapableof coherentresistance. Riza Khan's first step was to attempt to extend peacefully the reachof his army, initially to the towns of the south and then throughoutthe tribal territories. As Riza Khan had succeededin consolidating his position in Tehran and extending his military control across northernIran, it had quickly become clear that a fundamental change had occurred both in the natureof political power in Tehranand in the character the relationshipbetween the centre and the provof inces. As 1921 turned to 1922, this new reality permeated consciousness of the the Bakhtiyarikhans who began openly to express their fears that the central governmentwas launchinga systematicattackon Bakhtiyariinfluence.'2 The Shalil Incident In August 1922, determinedto halt Riza Khan's efforts to establish military control all the way down to the Gulf, the khans secretly organizedan attack on the army at Shalil on the Bakhtiyariroad. The Shalil incident, as it becarne known, proved to be the downfall of the khans. In mid-Julya detachmentof Irnian troops numbering274 of all ranks,including 12 officers, had left Isfahanfor Shushtar in northern Arabistan. On 2 August it was suddenly attacked by tribesmen in the MurvaridPass on the Bakhtiyariroadnear Shalil in Luristan, losing about 115 killed and a similar number woundedor missing, and all its weapons, animals,and baggage.'3When the shattered remnantof this detachment straggledback to Isfahanthey immediately identifiedtheir assailants as Bakhtiyaris,'4 although the khans publicly and steadfastly denied any involvement.'5 This incident, with its humiliation of the army, enragednationalist opinion and unleashed a storm of anger and bitterness against the Bakhtiyari and their patrons,the British. The Bakhtiyariwere denouncedas traitorsand murderers in the press and in the Majlis and by the population at large and the press clamouredfor the summary execution of the khans and the mobilization of a large military force to punish the tribes. The specific allegation that the British had instigatedthe attackin order to prevent troops being sent to Arabistanand were aiming at the partitionof the countrywas repeatedeverywhere.'6 The Bakhtiyarikhansappearto have been takenaback by the ferocity of the reactionfrom Tehran.They had graspedneitherthe new appeal of Riza Khan for
12. Loraine to FO, 30 December 1921, F0371/78021E6/6/34. 13. Loraine to FO, 13 August 1922, F037 1/7807/E8043/6/34. 14. Loraine to FO, 22 August 1922, F0371/7808/E8385/6/34. 15. Fitzpatrick, Isfahan, to Minister, Tehran, 3 August 1922, F0371/7809/ E9337/6/34; Loraine to FO, 13 August 1922, F0371 /78071E8043/6/34. 16. Intelligence Summary no. 33, 19 August 1922, F0371/7828/E10849/285/34; Loraine to FO, 22 August 1922, F0371/7808/E8403/6/34; IS no. 35, 2 September 1922, F0371/7828/E10188/285/34.
358 Cronin nationalist circles, nor the extent of their own unpopularity,their role in the restorationof the constitutionhaving long been obliteratedby their subservience to the British.They now suddenlybecame conscious enough of the depth of the regime's hostility and were keen to deflect the anger and vengefulness of Tehran and avoid an open conflict with the government.'7 Riza Khan also wantedto postpone a showdown with the khans as the political situation in the capital was becoming increasingly unstable. Finding himself embroiledin a burgeoningconflict with the Majlis, on 23 SeptemberRiza resorted to a tactical resignation, producing a genealized crisis."8 At this moment the militarywas also fully occupied in its operations against Simko in For Azarbayjan. this campaignthe armyhad been mobilized to its full strength, with 8,000-10,000 troops concentratedin the north-west. Riza Khan and the Bakhtiyarikhans thereforeboth indicatedtheir readiness to embarkon negotiations. Nonetheless Riza Khan continuedto use the opportunity presentedby the widespread anger at the khans to whittle away at their position. By the end of the year the khans had lost all their governorshipsoutside Bakhtiyariitself, including the prizedgovernor-generalship Isfahan;their of to personalretainers had been forbidden carryarms, Bakhtiyariofficers had been dismissed from the army and, in a move especially resentedby the khans, the militaryauthoritieshad begun recruitingin Bakhtiyari-owned villages and among the ChaharLang Bakhtiyaritribes.'9 to Sardar Jang, one of the senior khans residentin Tehran,had undertaken negotiate with both the governmentand with Riza Khan personally on behalf of all the Bakhtiyari. In late September he left for the south on a mission of enquiryand, although his apprehensionsand the fears and resentments of the other khans remainedfar from allayed, by December he believed that he had termswhich would allow the affairto be settled. Underthese terms the arranged khans still deniedany involvement in Shalil but would pay 10,000 tumans to the victims and their families in view of the fact that the attack had taken place in their territory.20 Riza Khan,however, had no intentionof allowing the khans to regain their political equilibrium.He was well awareof the conflicts among the khans and began to exploit systematically their family quarrelswith the objective of destroyingthem from within and his task was made easier by elements among the khans themselves. So deep was the enmity within the Bakhtiyariruling elite that a faction of khans,led by JacafarQuli KhanSardarAscad, was actively willing to side with the War Minister against the Haft Lang majority in orderto
17. Loraine to FO, 9 August 1922, F0371/7807/E7956/6/34. 18. For the general political background see Houshang Sabahi, British Policy in Persia,1918-1925 (London, 1990); Cyrus Ghani, Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah: From Qajar Collapse to Pahlavi Power (London and New York, 1998). 19. Annual Report 1923, Loraine to MacDonald, 4 March 1924, Crow, Isfahan, to Minister, Tehran, 19 November F0371/10153/E3362/2635/34; 1922, F0371/90431E6343/1416/34. 20. An account of SardarJang's mission of enquiry may be found in Loraine to Curzon, 10 May 1923, F0371/9043/E6343/1416/34.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 359 secure an advantageover its rivals. Riza Khan apparentlyhad an old military campaigning friendship with SardarAscad2I and, in late 1922-early 1923 he devised and began to implementa scheme to use him, together with his younger brotherAmir Jang, and theiruncle, SardarMuhtasham,to undermineand weaken the khans' efforts to defendthemselves. These three khans were alreadyon very bad terms with the rest of both ruling families and they eagerly embracedthe War Minister'spatronage. At the very moment that SardarJang returnedto Tehran to arange the details of the final settlement of Shalil with the Chief of the General Staff, a serious quarrelamong the khans, enflamedby the War Minister, eruptedin the south. The pro-Riza Khan faction first denounced, then openly campaigned against, the incumbent ilkhan and his deputy, the ilbayg, finally succeedingin the forcing the resignationof both.22 They then frustrated khans' efforts to agree on successors and the confederation was left without any formal leadershipfor the next three and a half months, throughout the heightening political crisis. Meanwhile the War Minister's attitude towards the Bakhtiyari hardened,the requestfor a cash indemnity of 10,000 tumans, which Sardar Jang had accepted in December, rapidlybecoming a demandfor 480,000 tumans, practically as a fine. The War Minister had, however, publicly exemptedSardarAscad's faction from responsibility for the original attack and thereforefrom any share in the paymentof the fine. The Haft Lang majority, although awareof the worsening situation, were unableto formulatea coherentresponse.They announcedthat they neither could nor would pay the sum demanded, practicallydefiedthe War Minister to do his worst, talked freely of armed resistance, and at the same time importuned Loraine, the British minister, to protect their interests.23 the same time Riza At Khan's own position had been considerablystrengthened his success in perby suadingSardarAscad and his clique to side openly with him. Towardsthe end of March,Riza Khanmade it clear thathe was determined upon a definitive resolution of the matterand he began militarypreparations an attack on Bakhtiyari. for BrigadierAmanallahJahanbani,the Chief of the GeneralStaff, went to Isfahan where he made a stirringspeech to the officers of the garrisonenjoining them to spare no efforts in putting matters right in the south and promising rewardsand decorationsto all who distinguishedthemselves in the service of their country.24 The khans believed themselves still able to rely on British help and protection. Loraine, however, from the moment of his arrivalin Tehranin late 1921, had begun a fundamentalreassessmentof British policy. His reevaluation of Britain's interestsin the rapidlychanging post-war world, together with his per21. Annual Report 1923. According to MuhammadTaqi Bahar, for example, Riza Khan served underthe command of SardarAscad in an operation against the tribal forces of Rahim Khan Chalabianlu in the Ardabil region during the constitutional wars. MuhammadTaqi Bahar,Malik al-Shucara,Tarikh-imukhtasar-iahzab-i siydsT-yi Iran (Tehran, 1323), 1: 71. 22. Loraine to Curzon, 10 May 1923, F0371/9043/E6343/1416/34. 23. Annual Report 1923. 24. IS no. 16, 21 April 1923, F0371/9019/E5824/69/34.
360 Cronin sonal admirationfor Riza Khan,was to culminate, in 1923-24, in the abandonment of Britain's traditionalfriendsin southernIranin favourof good relations with a strong centralgovernment.Although,duringthe first half of 1923, a certain amount of ambiguity was still present in Loraine's attitude,nonetheless it was clear thathe would take no decisive action to supportthe khans in any defiance of Tehran.The khans themselves, however, throughoutthe Shalil crisis and change in directionwhich was takbeyond, showed no graspof the fundamental oblivious to their own growing place in British policy, and were in particular ing irrelevance,to the fact thatthe Britishin Iranno longer needed the Bakhtiyari as they had done in the days when the south lackedeffective centralgovernment or security. The khans continued to try to cling to the vestiges of British protectioneven as the British themselves were in the process of changingsides. On 1 April the crisis came to a head. Riza Khan revealedto Lorainethat he had had in his possession, since the previous autumn,actual proof of the khans' complicity in Shalil, in the form of a telegramfrom SardarJang and Samsam alSaltanah, the senior khans in Tehran, instructingthe ilkhan and ilbayg to stop the troops by any means.25The Bakhtiyarimajority immediately collapsed and admittedtheir involvement in the Shalil attack. A furious Loraine, while complaining of "theextremedifficulty of navigating in this sea of duplicity, tchadvised them to accept Riza Khan's ery, mendacity, and concealedpurposes"26 demandfor a cash payment large enough to be equal to the restorationof the The khans were by now completely demoralhonor of the army and to pay up.27 as ized and had collectively disintegrated a result of their internalconflicts which levels of bitterness due to the defection to the War had reachedunprecedented Minister'scamp of SardarAscad's faction. At the end of April, as if in evidence of their helplessness, the khans, in what Lorainedescribedas the "extremityof their folly"28finally declaredthat they had failed to agree among themselves regardingwhom should be the new ilkhan and ilbayg. They then, paralyzedby their own dissensions, requestedthe govermnent itself to make the appointments.29This effectively turnedthe choice over to Riza Khan himself who had apparentlyalready promised SardarAscad's faction that the tribal govemors would be chosen from among them. On the same day, in a dramaticdevelopment in the south, the armyenteredand occupied ChaharMahal,takingover several of the khans' homes. It was now becoming clear that the crisis had peakedand the capitulationof the khans, though not yet actually accomplished, was nonetheless inevitable. There was no longer any serious risk of arned resistancefrom the tribes owing
25. Loraine to FO, 2 April 1923, F0371/9042/E3431/1416/34; Loraine to FO, 6 May 1923, F0371/90431E4580/1416/34; Consul, Ahwaz, to Loraine, 15 July 1923, F0371/9043/E8161/1416/34. 26. Loraine to Curzon, May 10 1923, F0371/9043/E6343/1416/34 27. Riza Khan set out his demand for compensation "commensurate with the honour of the Army" in two letters to Loraine, dated 1 and 3 May. F0371/9043/ E6343/1416/34. 28. Loraine to FO, 30 April 1923, F0371/9043/E4392/1416/34. 29. Loraine to FO, 30 April 1923, F0371/9043/E4392/1416/34.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 361 to the dissensions within the Bakhtiyarileadership. The tribes in the south were without their principalkhans, who were all in Tehran, and were certaineither to collapse or be dividedby intrigue if they tried to engage in military operations underthese circumstances. Therewas furthermore nothing to prevent Riza Khan from arrestingall the khans in Tehranshould they attemptto mobilize the tribes in the south. He could even resort to a forcedsale of their propertiesin Chahar Mahal and Tehran should they prove recalcitrant.The khans, relying on the mediation of the British minister Loraine, and a loan from the Oil Company, capitulatedand agreedto pay an indemnityof 150,000 tumans.The same day, 23 May, the appointmentof the pro-governmentSardarMuhtashamand Amir Jang as respectivelyilkhanand ilbayg was confirmedand SardarAscad was made governor-general Khurasan.Thisfaction was also formally exoneratedfrom all of complicity in the Shalil incident30 absolved of any share in the fine. The and ascendancyof the pro-Riza Khan faction within Bakhtiyariwas now complete. SardarAscad in particular benefited from his alliance with Riza Khan.In 1924 he was taken into the cabinet, as minister of posts and telegraphs,becoming minister of war in 1927, a post he retaineduntil his fall from favor in late 1933. Riza Khan had now succeededwhere the British and the khans themselves had failed and had stabilizedthe apex of the tribalpyramid,having brought about a decisive breachamong the senior khans by permanentlyco-opting Sardar Ascad to the side of the government and imposing a crushing financial penalty on the majority tribal leadership.This apparentlypermanenttriumph of SardarAscad meantan end to the conventional uncertaintyand instability inherentin the former, collective, Bakhtiyarileadership.From 1923 to 1933 SardarAscad constituted the sole, but enduring,Bakhtiyaripresence at the centre of power, the majority of the khans abandoningany pretenceat a nationalrole. The Khavanin-iBuzurg and Dr. Millspaugh No sooner had the khans capitulatedto the War Minister's demandsover the Shalil settlement, however, than the governmentbrought fresh pressureto bear on them in the form of a bill from Dr. Millspaugh, the American Financial Adviser, for arrears revenueamounting to the enormous sum of 2,300,000 of tumans.31 The AmericanFinancial Mission, headedby Arthur C. Millspaugh, had arrivedin Iranin the autumnof 1922. Millspaughhad immediately embaiked on a thoroughand fundamentaloverhaul of the financial administration. large A numberof new taxes were introduced, tax exemptions grantedby the Qajar all shahs, including those conferred a rewardfor services to the state, were canas celled, and Millspaugh also publicly identified particularindividuals whom he identifiedas guilty of gross delinquencyin the payment of taxes.32Among the most importantof the latter were the Bakhtiyari khans who, accordingly, sud30. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10191/1416/34. 31. For an appreciationof the size of this sum, it may be noted, for example, that the budget for the year 1924-5 only provided for revenue of nearly 23 million tumans. IS no. 42, 18 October 1924, F0371/10132/E10388/255/34. 32. A. C. Millspaugh, The American Task in Persia (New York, 1925), 185-8.
362 Cronin denly found themselves tumed into a test-case for the new Financial Mission. was For Millspaughthe enforcementof the payment of taxes, including arrears, vital to the restructuringof Iranian finances. For Riza Khan, however, the demandfor the payment of revenue, including large accumulationsof anears, constituted,as well as a symbolic assertion of authority,a powerful weapon in elements among the old elite and he used his immediatestrugglewith refractory it with devastatingeffect throughoutthe south. The ministryof finance had originallydemanded2,300,000 tumans from the this figure to khansbut, underBritishpressure,re-examinedthe case and reduced 1,500,000 tumans, offering the khans the option of paying in instalments sread over a numberof years. Nonetheless the khans rected with appalledincredulity. Sardar Jang as usual appealedto Loraine for advice, insisting that the money claimed was far in excess of what the khanscould possibly owe, and that in any case there were very substantialsums which ought to be offset against this total. According to SardarJang, these counter-claimsconsisted of the remission of to revenue in respect of services rendered the governmentby the khans at their own expense, particularlyfor their armedassistance in the constitutional wars, and as compensationfor Bakhtiyariskilled in these wars, and were supportedin some cases by royal frmans and other documents.33 Loraine made the British position clear. Although he promised he would work towardsa fair and reasonableassessment of the khans' arrears,he wamed the khans that there was no question but that they must now accept their financial obligations towardsthe governmentand must come to a proper agreement with the ministry of finance regardingboth the settlement of arrearsand the future payment of revenue. This was exactly the same advice that he was then giving to Britain's other protege in the south, Shaykh Khazcalof Muhammarah. Loraine specifically advisedSardarJang to preparea statement of the revenue which the khans admittedto be owed by them to the governmentand to produce the various firmans and other documents to which he had referre in orderthat the whole question might be discussedand resolved at a conferencebetween the khans and the Financial Adviser.34At the same time Loraine did his best to moderatethe attitudeof the ministry of finance, urging Dr. Millspaugh to be conciliatory towards the khans and not to reject their counter-claims without carefulconsideration. The khans, however, were unusedto the formal, legalistic approachrecommendedby Loraine. They attempted rather to resist the Financial Adviser's They tried to argue that the demandwith theirhabitualtactic of procrastination. governmentowed them money ratherthan vice versa, and generallyresistedthe spiritof Loraine'sadvice, showing a markedtendencyto evade ratherthan accept what the governmentinsisted were their obligations.35It was only when Peel, the Britishconsul at Ahwaz, arrivedin Tehranfor his annual visit to the capital that the khans, at his insistent prompting, took any definite steps to preparea financial statement.Peel also, at Loraine'srequest, had a number of meetings
33. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10191/1416/34. 34. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10191/1416/34. 35. Annual Report 1923.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 363 with the Americanofficial who was handling the case, and presentedthe khans' argumentthat the ministry's claim was inaccurateand that their ability to pay was strictly limited.36 The khansthemselves still took few practicalsteps in their own defence and, in particular,failed to make any official reply to the Financial Adviser's letter which had containedthe original demand.They were clearly unprepared the for speed and decisivenesss with which the ministry of finance would act when officials of the revenuedepartment, supportedby the army, promptly seized a number of privateestates owned by the khans. This suddenand drasticaction had its intendedeffect. Althoughthe khans first engaged in a bout of protracted haggling amongst themselves, punctuatedby threatsthat they would throw themselves on the mercy of the shah, they nonetheless eventually wrote to Dr. Millspaugh nominatingSardarJang and the ilbayg, Amir Jang, to representthem in discussions with the ministry of finance. A numberof conferencesduly followed, in which Peel played a crucialrole in assisting the khans in the presentation of their case, and the AmericanAdviser flnally agreedto accept in full settlement the sum of half a million tumans, 50,000 tumans in cash at once, and the balance in yearly installments.37 Internal Conflicts within the Bakhtiyari Confederation i) The Junior Haft Lang Khans The great khans of the Bakhtiyari had been placed on the defensive by Riza Khan's seizureof power and, from 1921 onwards,were clearly retreatingpolitically. By the end of 1923 their defeatand the ascendancyof the new regime had been clearly demonstrated the character the final settlement of the Shalil of by incident and their capitulationfollowing the shock of their confrontation with the ministry of finance. In this period, however, the nascent state power in Tehranwas not the only dangerto the khans' position. The rule of the khavantn-i buzurgwas also threatenedfrom within the tribe itself. Indeedby the early 1920s the Bakhtiyariconfederation was alreadydisintegratingunderthe pressure of a number of internal dynamics. In these few years, dangerous and overt schisms threateningconfederational cohesion developed with greater or lesser rapidity on several levels. These internal fracturesand challenges forced the khans, in orderto survive as an elite, to try, however reluctantly, to accommodate themselves to, and to seek supportfrom, the new regime in Tehran. One early challenge came from within the Haft Lang elite itself, from the younger generationof khans. In fact, for some years before and throughoutthe 1920s the leadershipof the khavanrn-i buzurg was riven by a generational conflict of a new type, with ideological and political, as well as personal, dimensions. This conflict, although it had first arisen in the post-1909 situation, and thus in origin pre-datedthe contextual transformationwrought by Riza
36. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10191/1416/34. 37. Loraine to Curzon, 6 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10191/1416/34.
364 Cronin Khan's coup, was broughtto a head by the tensions and crises eruptingin Bakhtiyari as a resultof the assertivenessof the new regime. The hostility displayed by the younger generation of Haft Lang khans towardstheirelders had two principalcauses. It resulted,firstly, from the consistent exclusion by the senior khans of the numerousyoungergenerationfrom any position of power either within or outside Bakhtiyari.The resulting resentment by of the younger generationwas dangerouslyaggravated the rapidshrinkageof After this date opportunityavailable to the Bakhtiyarielite after the 1921 coup.38 the immediateand visible decline in Bakhtiyaripower and influence caused the younger khans' general insecurity and uncertaintyabout the future to increase relatedto the first, exponentially.The second cause of the conflict, undoubtedly dissatisfactionof the younger generation at what they perwas the widespread ceived as the generalincompetenceand failure of their elders and their awareness of the threatthis representedto the survivalof a Bakhtiyarientity. In the chaotic conditions prevailingin southernIranduringand immediately after the GreatWar, the younger generationof Haft Lang khans appearto have developeda certainconsciousness of themselves as a group, and they shareda in perceptionof the deterioration the circumstancesof the Bakhtiyariand the need The cohesion of the junior khans, and their determifor reformand regeneration. the nation to act to effect change was increasinglyevident throughout summer of 1921 and in September assumed a visible and organized form. They openly formed an association or party among themselves called the Bakhtiyari Star, Sitarah-i BakhtiydrT,and publishedin Isfahan a pamphlet which outlined the The program of the Bakhtiyari Star contained a programof this association.39 large numberof organizationalproposals and political demands.The organizational proposalswere sophisticatedand the politicaldemands of a fairly advanced andradicalcharacter. The main body of the programbegan by making various recommendations the for the political organizationof Bakhtiyari.It advocated establishment of a centralassembly, (anjuman), to deal with all questions of importance and also the establishment of assemblies in the districts and amongst the tribes. The had assemblies were to be elected by universal suffragealthough representatives to be educated.Elections were to be secret,equal, directand universal. the The programwent on to make a numberof demandsregarding political, of social and culturaladvancement Bakhtiyariand for the establishmentof general democraticfreedoms.These included:the abolition of distinctions, ranks and titles; security for people in their homes; freedom of speech, of writing, of
38. Annual Report 1922, Loraine to Curzon, 16 July 1923, F0371/9051/E8057/ 8057/34. 39. The program may be found in Bridgeman to Curzon, 5 October 1921, A very slightly amended version of this program, F0371/6407/E13435/2/34. producedin response to the severe criticism which had greeted its first appearance, may be found in Consul-General, Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, F037 1/7805/E4742/6/34. The programme is also reproduced in Rawshanak Bakhtiyar, "Zindigi va marg-i Khan Baba Khan Ascad,'' Kitaib-i Anzan, vizhah-i farhang, hunar, tarikh va tamaddun-iBakhtiydrf,1: 76-98.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 365 thought, of forming associations, of the press; separationof religion from the state; compulsory primaryeducationfor both boys and girls; free compulsory primaryeducationfor the childrenof the poor, both boys and girls; technical, scientific and industrial schools for both boys and girls; compulsory military educationfor compulsory military service when the state required compensait; tion to be paid to anyone illegally arrestedor sentenced;public sanitation, medicines and doctorsto be free to the poor. A secondchapterwas devoted to proposals regardingland and agriculture.It began by demandingthe abolition of any financial revenues which were modifications of slavery and the abolition of forcedlabour. It then, ratherstartlingly, put forwardthe demandthat the sub-assemblies assume control of all forests, grazing-grounds, vaqf lands and mines. The next articlestipulatedthat proprietors should only own land in reasonableproportions, so that Iraniandemocracymay be safeguarded. Therethen followed several articlesproposing measures aimed at improving the lot of the peasantry.These includedfixing fair rents for the lease of land; compensationfor naturaldisasters such as floods or droughts;and the establishment of agriculturalschools. The next section of the programdealt with workThese includedthe men and labour and made similar sorts of recommendations. eight-hourday; a day's holiday on Friday;no work at "unusualhours";no child labour; no hardand strenuous tasks to be given to women; two months paid maternityleave for women; wages to be fixed by a council consisting of representativesof the workmenand of the employers and of the central assembly; and the supervision of industrialrelations by the provincial assemblies. Subsequent articles also advocated respect for the rights of women, and specifically insisted thatinheritanceshouldbe accordingto the laws of Islam, noting that at present nothing was given in Bakhtiyarito female children. The programthus set out exhibited certainremarkable features.The articles calling for the limitation of land ownership and linking such limitation to the preservationof Iraniandemocracy, and proposing the collective ownership of naturalresources,and the demandsfor the establishmentof formal institutions of democraticself-government,struckat the heartof both the political power of the khans within the tribe, and the basis of their wealth. Furthermore there was, in the program,a clear and strongawarenessof identityand the BakhtiyariStar was both explicitly and implicitly an ethnically based party. The first article of the section entitled "GeneralPrinciples"stated unambiguouslythat only Bakhtiyaris might enjoy membershipof the party. The introductionemphasizedthe differences between the variouspeoples of Iranand theirdifferentstages of culturaland political development, and insisted on the need for separate and autonomous developmentwhile anotherarticle insisted that each tribe separately should be allowed to enjoy internalliberty and autonomy. Two issues immediately arise concerning this document. The first concerns the general significance and wider meaning of the Bakhtiyari Star project. The second concernsthe origins of the political ideas which the program expressed and the routeby which these ideas had been transmitted the junior khans. to The younger generationof khans was more clearly and more acutely aware thantheirelders of the weakening of traditionaltribal ties. They themselves had
366 Cronin been profoundly affectedby the differentenvironmentwhich the Bakhtiyarielite had come to inhabit, having grown to maturity in the cities of Isfahan and divorcedfrom the tribal way of life and without intimate knowledgeof Tehran, their followers, and they keenly felt their own irrelevanceto tribal life. They observedthe emergenceof a new triballeadershipin the form of a layer of middle rankingkalantars,who lived alongside the ordinarynomads and canried out the everydayduties formerlyreservedfor the khans. They also perceivedthe alienation of the tribesmen from the khans and the consequentdangerto their own leadership.They realizedthe essentialneed to carve out a new and plausible role for themselves, distinct from the discreited rule of their elders. If the existing situationcontinuedthey would never be able to oust their seniors, but would be obliged to wait for their own succession by seniorityof age. But they feared that, when eventually theirtime arrived,they could claim little legitimacy in customary tribaltermsand the tribes would no longer want or need them. In the Sitarah may be seen the junior khans' attempt to reorganizeBakhtiyari on a new and modem basis. Insteadof asserting their authority as tribal khans, they would now do so as political leaders,preservingfor themselves both their own leadershipand the loyalty and allegiance of their constituency, mobilizing the rank and file on a democraticand radicalbasis. The junior khans believed the degenerationof conditions in Bakhtiyari to be a result of the stranglehold a corrupt ossified leadershipandthe general thrust of the proof and gram is strongly democratic.This radicalismwas a weapon against their elders, with democracyused to engage the rank and file against the authority of the khans,and with legitimacy conferredby modem ideals which acted as a countera weight to the pull of traditionalloyalties. The Sitarah would also undertake redefinitionof Bakhtiyariethnicity. This would be made overt and would be no longer a tribal sense of belonging based on kin and genealogy, but a modem, quasi-national identity. Interestingas they are, the individualprovisions of the programmay be less importantthan its overall intentions:to guaranteea leadershiprole for the detribalized Haft Lang families, to preserve Bakhtiyaridistinctiveness and to constructa new identityfor the Bakhtiyari,to interpretthe needs of the population, to articulatethe necessarysocial change, and to introducea mode of political activity which was capable of carryingthe tribal population and its leadership throughthe transitionto modernity. The junior khans had largely grown up in the cities of Isfahanand Tehran where many had receiveda modem education.They had extensive experienceof Europe,throughtravel or, in some cases, through an English educationin missionary school in Isfahan.It was naturalthat they would, in these environments, imbibe the nationalism and social reformism prevailing among the educated urbanelites duringthe constitutional and post-constitutional years.' The Sitarah programwas in many respects typical of this outlook and there is some evidence of concretelinks between the junior khans and local urban reformers such as Kay Ustuvan Khan-i Muctamid,the presidentof the Isfahan branchof the Kumitah-iAhan, the Iron Committee, who seems to have suggested to them
40. RawshanakBakhtiyar,"Zindigi va marg-i Khan Baba Kha.nAscad," 86.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 367 some of the program' main features.4'The influence of European socials democratic thought on the program is clearly evident, perhaps as mediated throughthe newly-establishedSoviet presencein Isfahan.42 The program'sconcernfor the lot of the peasantryand the conditions of workmen is particularlysurprising,in that it emanates from a class of landowners, and has little directrelevanceto nomadiclife. It indicatesthe extent to which the junior khanshad moved away from the tribal and nomadic milieu, there was indeednothing in the program which relateddirectly to the needs of pastoral nomadism. The programwas entirely and recognizably the product of modem urbantraditionsof political reform. It is also possible that demandsrelating to the conditions of industrialemployment, such as the eight-hour day etc., may have been raisedas a directconsequenceof the experience of many Bakhtiyari tribesmenof working in the oil-fields. The BakhtiyariStar, with its objective of constructing a modem identity for the Bakhtiyariand articulatingthe need for and directionof political and social change, containeda clear challenge to the traditional rule of the senior khans. The reaction of the latter was predictable.They began their counter-attack by severely criticizing individual points contained in the program and ended by denouncingthe younger khans as Bolsheviks.43The Sitarah continued to exist throughoutthe summer of 1922, underthe leadershipof SardarFatih, and the junior khans, while attaching great theoreticalimportanceto generalizedreform, concentrated theirefforts on minorimprovementsand obliged the reluctantsenior khans to undertakesome improvements to local roads and communications.44 However the senior khans' uncooperativenessand cynicism successfully frustratedany broadersocial changes which the junior khans attemptedto initiate. The eruptionof the Shalil crisis in mid-1922 and the ensuing assault by the regime on the khans temporarilysubmergedthe discontent of the junior khans and the Sitarah then sank without trace. Nonetheless the junior khans remained unreconciledto the rule of their elders and to the confederation's increasing subordinationto the centralgovernment, and certainof them continuedto play an oppositionalrole in internaltribalpolitics, a generationalfaultline continuing to fissurethe confederation throughout decade. the
41. Bridgeman to Curzon, 5 October 1921, F0371/6407/E13435/2/34; ConsulGeneral, Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, F0371/7805/E4742/6/34. The Kumitah-i Ahan was an association of moderate reformers once headed by Sayyid Ziya, see Husayn Makki, Tirrkh-i bTst-siilah-i Iran, 8 vols. (Tehran , 1323), 1: 188-89. 42. The Soviet consulate in Isfahan opened in June 1922. 43. Consul-General, Isfahan, to Loraine, 17 February 1922, F0371/7805/ E4742/6/34; Annual Report 1922. 44. Fitzpatrick, Consul, Ahwaz, to Minister, Tehran, 20 July 1922, F0371 /7809/E9958/6/34.
368 Cronin ii) The Tribal Rank and File One of the most importantfactors promptingthe junior khans to try to develop new political strategies and initiatives had been the increasing, and increasingly obvious, alienation of the mass of ordinarytribes-peoplefrom chiefly rule. By the early 1920s the khans' ties with, and their influence over, the tribes were rapidlyweakening.The senior khans were losing, indeedwere abandoning,their tribalbase, from which they had historicallyderivedtheirstrengthand which had always been the source of theirpower. The discontentof the tribes with their khans was, in 1921, not new. Indeed a certainresentmentwas perhapsendemic.45 However as a dangerousphenomenon it had, like the frustrationsof the junior khans, its origins in the situation which had arisen from 1908-11 when the khans had begun to play a national role and to acquireboth greatwealth and the trappingsof office. Since that time the tribes' dissatisfactionhad incmasedsteadily. By 1921 these feelings showed no sign of abating but had reachedsuch a pitch that the tribal hierarchythreatened to disintegrate underthe pressure.' After 1909 a gulf had opened up between the rulingkhans and their nomadic followers, and the distance separatingthem, in cultural, political, economic and even purelygeographical,termshad continuedto widen. The fathersof the senior khanshad been in every respect tribal chiefs. They had lived with their families in black goat-hairtents, migratingeach spring and autumn with their followers. They lived intimatelywith their tribesmenand derivedlegitimacy from the quality of their leadership.By the 1920s, however, the khans had long since ceased to accompanythe tribes. They had settled down in what their followers regaided as palaces, which they had built in Chahar Mahal, a province adjacentto but quite distinct from Bakhtiyari. Many of them had taken up a more or less permanentresidencein Tehran, and only visited Bakhtiyariat long intervals. Their wives had adoptedveiling in imitation of town-dwellers.They no longer sharedtheirpeoples' lives as their fathers had done and their position as leaders, on and arbitrators, rulers no longer depended their abilities and experience but was artificiallymaintainedby their wealth and theirties with the British.47 The Bakhtiyari people keenly resentedthese developments.They arguedthat them to take up it was by exploiting tribal ties that the khans had persuaded arms and leave their country to win for them their national eminence. Having won for the khans their high positions the tribesmen believed themselves entitled to a shareof the new power and wealth in the same way as they were entitled to sharesof resourcesin Bakhtiyariitself. They felt cheatedby the growing gulf between themselves and their khans, who now lived in grandhouses, sent their childrento Europe, and governed provinces, and they consideredthe reciprocal basis of triballife to have been violated. They accused the khans of appealing to
45. Major Noel's report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921, F0371/6405/E9256/2/34. 46. Major Noel's report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921. 47. Major Noel's report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 369 their sentimentsof Bakhtiyarisolidaritywhen convenient, but of going back on this principle when it came to dividing the spoils.48 The disillusionment felt by the tribespeople towardstheir khans was fully The reciprocated.49 khans' wealth was now mainly drawn from their landholdings and their oil interests,their salaries as ilkhan and ilbayg being of minor importance and their own flocks a negligible factor. The khans, their transformation into absenteelandlordsand their absorptioninto the traditionalurbanelite now largely complete, were by the 1920s eager to divest themselves of responsibility for their followers. This was especially so because of the system of bastahkashi. With their rapidascent the khans had dispensedwith the customary tribal division of resourcesbut, aware of the necessity of maintaininga hold over their followers, had converted them into armed retainers, bastagan, dependenton regularcash payments,the system known as bastahkashi. By the early 1920s their bastagainno longer servedany useful purpose for the khans, who found them only a drain on their resources and they were highly receptive to suggestions thatthe bastagian disarmedand dissolved.50 be The khans' opportunityto rid themselves of their bastagaincame in 1925. In the summer of 1925, after the submission of the Shaykh of Muhammarah, the regime in Tehranmade a major attempt to disarm the civilian population throughoutthe south.5 But ruraldisarmamentwas a complex and difficult task and the military authoritiesmet with only mixed success, imposing the policy mainly on the settled communities while leaving much of the nomadic population with its weapons. Yet althoughother southerntribal confederations such as the Qashqa&i the Khamsahlargelyescaped or avoidedthe military authorities' and efforts in this period, the army was largely successful in disarmingthe Bakhtiyan. But even among the Bakhtiyaritribes themselves the policy was imposed unevenly, the Haft Lang being almost completely, but the Chahar Lang only The Haft Lang Bakhtiyarisuccumbedto disarmament partially,disarmed.52 relatively easily and quickly because of the active co-operation of their khans. his ImmediatelyRiza Khan had declared intention to begin disarmamentin the the south, he had begun negotiations with the ilkhan regarding implementation of the policy, Riza asking the ilkhan whetherhe neededtroops to help him, the ilkhan declining. In fact the senior Bakhtiyarikhans, unlike other tribal leaderships, welcomed the measureandco-operatedreadily with the government.53 The policy was implemented in Bakhtiyarionly and entirely by the khans themselves, without any outside intervention,either civil or military. In this way the khans threw off the financial burdenof maintaining their bastagan but in so doing lost one of their remainingpillars of influence among the tribes.
48. Major Noel's report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921. 49. Major Noel's report, Isfahan, 12 May 1921. 50. Loraine to Curzon, 13 November 1923, F037 1/9043/E 11754/1416/34. 51. IS no. 21, 8 August 1925, F0371/10842/E5218/82/34. 52. The Bakhtiari Tribe, C. A. Gault, Consul, Isfahan, 1944, IOL/P&S/12/3546. 53. The Bakhtiyari governor of Chahar Mahal, SardarMucazzam, was especially instrumental in the implementation of the policy. Bahram Amiri, "Zindiginamah: hamasa-i cAli Mardan Khan Bakhtiy5r-i," Kitaab-i Anzan. 2: 73-90.
370 Cronin
iii) The Chahar Lang During 1923 another faultline within the Bakhtiyari tribal confederationhad consisted of the two major lineages of the begun to fissure. The confederation Haft Lang and the ChaharLang and, duringthe late nineteenthcentury, the Chato harLang had driftedinto subordination the Haft Lang and its khans had found In no place within the Ilkhani/HajiIlkhani ascendancy."4 the early 1920s Riza Khan's primarytargetsamong the Bakhtiyariwere the ruling great khans of the Haft Lang whose autonomy and power he wished to weaken and undermine.He ChaharLang accordinglyadopteda policy of conciliationtowardsthe subordinate tribes, attempting to drive a wedge between the two branchesof the Bakhtiyari confederation.As in the case of his overturesto SardarAscad, he again met with an enthusiastic response. Elements among the Chahar Lang, led by the to formidableBibi Maryam,were eager to seize the opportunity break away from the control of the Haft Lang khans and pressedRiza Khan to adopt a policy of complete separation."In the early summer of 1923, while the crisis over the Shalil incident was still unresolved,Riza launcheda campaign which had as its objective the removal of the ChaharLang from the authorityof the Haft Lang the separationof the ilkhan and ilbayg. The Tehran government duly ordered numbering some 2,000 families, from the Bakhtiyari Chahar Lang tribes, hukumat, and placedthem undertheir own ilkhan and ilbayg, who were made of completely independent any centraltribalauthority,and the Bakhtiyariconfederation, unified since the mid-nineteenth century, collapsed. The Haft Lang threatenedto resign unless Riza Khan restoredtheir ilkhanand ilbayg repeatedly authorityover the whole of Bakhtiyariyet, in response to these threats and to ardentappealsfrom both the Haft Lang khans and the Britishabout the dangerof chaos and anarchyamong the tribes and especially in the vicinity of the oilfields, Riza Khan merely insisted that the only the ChaharLang themselves When the Haft Lang could decidewhetherto submit to the Haft Lang khans."6 attemptedto reasserttheir authorityand fighting broke out between them and the ChaharLang, Riza Khan sent the arny to support the Chahar Lang chiefs in having been theirautonomy.The centrifugaltendencies within the confederation thus stimulated, another sub-division, the Janaki, also began to demandtheir autonomyfrom the Haft Lang hukumat,which they achieved in 1924.57
54. The Bakhtiari Tribe, C. A. Gault, Consul, Isfahan, 1944, IOL/P&S/12/3546. For 55. Loraine to Curzon, 20 September 1923, F0371/9043/E10202/1416/34. Bibi Maryam see Julie Oehler, "Bibi Maryam: A Bakhtiyari Tribal Woman," in EdmundBurke I1I(ed.), Struggle and Survival in the Modem Middle East (London and New York, 1993), 129-42. 56. Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 10 October 1923; ConsulGeneral, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 11 October 1923; Peel, Ahwaz, to Tehran, 13 October, 1923; Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 14 October 1923; Consul-General, Isfahan, to Consul, Ahwaz, 15 October 1923; Monson, Tehran, to Peel, Ahwaz, 16 October 1923; Peel, Ahwaz, to Loraine, 21 October 1923, F0371/9043/EI 1815/1416/34. 57. Loraine to Curzon, 13 November 1923, F0371/9043/El 1754/1416/34;
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 371
iv) The Peasantry As the 1920s wore on, the khans began to experienceanothertype of challenge to their position, this time in their capacity as landowners. The khans, in common with the landowning elite in general, frequently imposed extremely harshconditionson their peasantry.In 1928 the peasants in the khans' villages in ChaharMahal revoltedagainst their authority, claimed that the land and the waterbelonged to God, and that the produceof the land belonged to those who worked the land, namely, themselves."8They refused to pay anything to the khans or to give them the shareof the producecustomarilydue to them. Discontent and action of this kind had in fact begun in one or two villages several years before, in 1924, but it was only in the summer of 1928, when it receivedsome definite official encouragement, thatit spreadto a large numberof villages and a committeeof peasantswas formed.This committeeadopteda programand began to direct the movement and from this point on the peasantsbegan to demonstrate an openly threateningattitudetowardstheir landlords,the khans.59 In this peasant movement the government saw an opportunity furtherto strike at the position of the khans. The khans themselves were refusedany official help againstthe peasants,and any action which the khanstried to take resulted in appeals by the peasants, assisted by the village committee, to the new cAdliyya courts-60 prestige of the khans was dealt a furtherblow when they The were, in the middle of this dispute, deprivedof their last remaining non-tribal official position, the governorshipof ChaharMahal itself.6' The khans, awareof the suspicion with which they were still regardedby the shah, and convinced that he was determined damagetheir interests still more, found themselves powerto less againsttheirpeasants,who received a consistently sympathetichearing from the authorities.During the summer some of the committee went to Tehranand were actuallyreceived by the primeminister.
Annual Report 1924, Loraine to Chamberlain, 22 May 1925, F037 1/10848/ E340 1/3401/34 58. Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R. G. Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, F0416/83/141-6. 59. There is a brief description of the general character of relations betwen landownersas a class and the peasantry in Ann K. S. Lambton, Landlordand Peasant in Persia (London, 1953), 263. For a discussion of peasant movements in modern Iran, see Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism ( New York, 1996), 145-76. 60. The modern secular courts established through the reorganization of the judicial system by cAli Akbar Davar, minister of justice, in 1927. 61. Their last in the sense of a post as a Bakhtiyari right or possession. Although SardarAscad remainedministerof war this was because of his own personal standing with the shah, not because the Bakhtiyari had any special customary rights in relation to the post.
372 Cronin At this point, however, the governmentbegan to retreatand sent a commission to ChaharMahal to investigate. This commission examinedthe peasants' gnevances and the khans' title to the land in dispute, and in July submittedtheir reportwhich, in almost all villages, was in fact in favour of the khans. The villagers neverthelessrefusedto accept the decisions of the commission, with the resultthatTehranreplacedthe new civil governor of ChaharMahal with a milito taryofficer, who was authorized use force if necessaryto oblige the peasants to abide by the decisions of the commission and to pay the landlordstheir dues. The militarygovernorwas determinedto carryout his instructions, and with his help the khans again began to receive from their peasants the payments in kind and cash to which they believed themselvesentitledas landowners.62 Although the governmenthad initially supportedthe peasants as a tactic to weaken the Bakhtiyari khans, an awareness appears quickly to have spread throughthe landowningelite at large and to Riza Shah himself of the dangerof any permanentpeasantsuccess againstthe khans,especially in stimulating peasants elsewhere to try to emulate their actions. It was probablyonly this danger that inducedthe shah finally to uphold the khans' rights as landowners.The khans themselves, however, had been thoroughly cowed by their experienceand now confined themselves to seeking to obtain only what they consideredthe minimum of theirjust dues. The khans were furtherworriedby the fact that the Bakhtiyaritribesmen,althoughthey had not been involved in the peasantrebellion, had nonetheless followed it with close attention. The khans fearedthe possibility that the revolutionaryideas animating the peasantrymight lead to trouble among the tribes. Such a developmentwas by no means unlikely given the political radicalismperiodically expressed by some of the younger khans, the resentment of the rank and file, and the latter's inchoately but insistently expresseddemandfor a moreequitabledivision of resources.There was no doubt thatthe tribesmenwere being influencedto some degree by theircontact with the new ideas currentamong the peasantryof ChaharMahal. The British took the khans' fears one stage further, expressing concern that, should the tribesmen adoptthe ideas of the peasants,the resultingturmoilmight reach the oil-fields at were employed.63 Masjid-iSulaymanwhere a large numberof Bakhtiyaris The Bakhtiyari and the Modernizing State: the 1929 Rebellion By the late 1920s the great khans had lost all of their power, most of their influence and a considerableproportion of their wealth. Their authority was limited solely to their chieftainship of the Haft Lang tribes and even this was now disputedby the raft of reforms introduced the regime in the mid to late by 1920s. For example, the new ministryof justice, the cAdliyya, began to undermine the patriarchal dispensationof justice by the khans within the tribe while into little Millspaugh's financialreforms had tumed the khans from tax-farmers more than officials of the ministryof finance.
62. Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R. G. Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, F0416/83/141-6. 63. Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R. G. Monypenny.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 373 Furthermore regime's radical agendawas no longer threateningonly the the position of the great khans. In these years several major pieces of legislation were enactedwhich promisedto have, cumulatively and in the long-term, a profound effect on generalconditionsin Bakhtiyariand on the tribal way of life. In 1924 the Majlis passed laws providing for a national census and for the establishment of a bureaufor the registration of births and deaths. These measures were the necessary preliminaries the introductionof conscription, the compulto sory military service law being passed in 1925. Although no systematic attempts to take recruitsfrom the tribes were made until the 1930s, yet apprehension at the measurewas widespreadand profound.i' The Uniform Dress Law, passed by the Majlis in December 1928, threatened symbolic expression and the reproduction tribalidentity. In 1928 and 1929 extensive legislation was passed of concerningthe registrationof landedpropertyand title deeds, potentially undermining the tribespeople's customaryrights to pastures. During 1927 a policy with which Riza Shah was to become particularly identified, and for which he attracted especial opprobrium from the tribes, also began to be discussedin earnest: the prohibition of pastoral nomadism and the forced settlement of the nomadic tribes on the land and their conversion into agriculturalists.65 In 1929 the fears of the tribes at the imposition of the accumulatingnew legislation allied with the resentments of some of the younger generation of khans to producethe most serious disturbancein Bakhtiyariof the Riza Shah period. At the beginning of 1929 the apparentcalm prevailing throughoutmost of ruralIranwas abruptlyshattered.One by one, the tribal areasof western, southern, central, and southeasternIraneruptedinto rebellion, the south almost slipping out of governmentcontrol altogether.These upheavals were all precipitated by broadlysimilargrievancesarisingfrom Tehran'scentralizingdrive. The tribes were angry at the attempts made by the governmentto disarm them, they were embitteredover the ever increasingtaxes they were forcedto pay, they hatedthe new dress law, fearedthe growing reach of the conscription commissions, and the imposition of the census registrationwhich was their preliminary, resented the frequentreplacementof their own leadersby military officers, sufferedfrom the establishment of new government monopolies on commodities such as opium and tobacco and were apprehensiveof the activities of the Departmentfor the Registrationof Title Deeds and at rumorsof forced sedentarization. The tribal revolts began in Januarywith a serious outbreakin Kurdistan,in the early summer the provinceof Farsdescendedinto turmoilas first the QashqaDi then the and
64. See Stephanie Cronin, "Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 19251941," International Review of Social History, 43 (1998): 451-71. 65. This policy appears to have been first considered concretely in relation to the Lurs. See Annual Report 1927, Clive to Chamberlain, 21 May 1928, F0371/13069/E2897/2897/34. By 1928 the government was already building walled villages for the settlement of the nomadic Lurs. Annual Report 1928, Clive to Henderson, 14 July 1929, F0371/13799/E3676/3676134. For the shah's intention, by 1928, to apply this policy to the Bakhtiyari see Report on the Situation in Bakhtiari, 22 September 1928, R. G. Monypenny, Consul, Ahwaz, F0416/83/141-6.
374 Cronin Khamsahrose, and by early July therewere signs of impending trouble in Bakhtiyari.i Although generally motivated by similar grievances, each tribal outbreak also had its own specific concerns. An important element of the Bakhtiyari revolt was the continuing discontent of the junior khans at the rule of their elders, now living the lives of absentee landlords in Tehran and completely divorced from tribalaffairs.A numberof junior Haft Lang khans, notably Sardar Fatihand SardarIqbal, together with the ChaharLang khan, cAli MardanKhan Fatih's brother in law, Sartip Khan of the Kuhgilu, ChaharLang, and Sardar thus put themselves at the head of a groundswellof discontentto lead a moveThe ment which was as much directedagainst the senior khans as at Tehran.67 The rebels were Bakhtiyariwere, however, not in open revolt as a confederation. tribeof the Haft Lang, the tribe from composed almost entirelyof the Zarasvand Lang under cAli MardanKhan which the greatkhanswere drawn,and the Chahar and it seems thatthe overall leaderof the revolt was cAli MardanKhan.68 the Apparentlyinspiredby the example of the Qashqa&i, rebel Bakhtiyariput forwarddemandsthatthe UniformDress Law and conscription not be appliedto them, and that the Census Department,the Departmentfor the Registration of Title Deeds, and the government monopolies be abolished.69There is some evidence, however, that certain of the younger khans had more ambitious change not just objectives and hoped to use the rebellion to realize fundamental Fatih, for example, within Bakhtiyaribut in the regime at Tehranitself. Sardar drew up detailedplansfor the captureof IsfahanandTehranandfor the apparently deposition of Riza Shah.70 SardarAscad Bakhtiyari, the minister of war, had himself concludedthat by subversivepropaganda the youngerkhansagainst their elders was responsible for the rebellion and that it was a movement of the younger khans against both the old leadershipand the government.Expressing the view of many of the senior khans in Tehran,he favoreda strong response to the rebellion and informed the shah that, in his opinion, the only thing to be done was to send the army to khans and tribesmena lesson.7' give these recalcitrant Hostilities between the Bakhtiyariand the armyactually began in early July when a series of military engagements left the tribesmenwith the upper hand. The army had been forcedto fall back to a defensive position outside Isfahan
66. Annual Report 1929, Clive to Henderson, 30 April 1930, F0371/14543/ E2445/522/34. An account of the Qashqa'i rising may be found in Kavih Bayat, Sharish-i cAsha3ir-i Fiars (Tehran, 1372/1993). 67. Clive to Henderson, 27 July 1929, F0371/13782/E3918/95/34. Jacafar Quli Khan 68. IS no. 15, 27 July 1929, F0371/13785/E3919/104/34; Amir Bahadur(ed.), Khatirat, 232-33; BahramAmiri, "Zindiginamah,"78-79. 69. Clive to Henderson, 27 July 1929, F0371/13782/E3918/95/34. 70. Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, 1 December 1934, F037 1/17889/E7530/ 40/34. 71. Consul-General Bristow, Isfahan, to Clive, Tehran, 11 July 1929, F0371/13781/E3668/95/34; Ja'afar Quli Khan Amir Bahadur(ed), Khatirat-i Sardar As'ad Bakhtiyari (Tehran, 1372), 232-233.
Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 375 itself when Riza Shah, in a state of intense anxiety and aware of the army's weakness, decidedit was necessary to have recourse to conciliatory methods.72 He summoned the senior khans in Tehranto several meetings and finally sent two of the most venerable,Samsam al-Saltanahand Amir Mufakhkham,to the south to use their influence to restrainthe tribes. Samsam succeededwhere the armyhad failedand persuaded tribesmen to disperse. In returnthe unpopular the ilkhan, the brotherof SardarAscad, the minister of war, and the ilbayg were removedand the tribes allowed to choose their successors, the hated military governorof ChaharMahalwas removed,and the leaders of the revolt were given pardonsby the shah, who also promised that conscription would not be applied to the Bakhtiyarifor five years. The tribal insurgencies of 1929, particularlyof the Bakhtiyari and the Qashqaai,threatenedthe government with the loss of its control throughout and south-central southernIran.The popularperceptionof the weakening of centralcontrolencouragedthe peasantryto defy the new governmentopium monopoly and gave renewedimpetus to those elements in the towns who were determined to resist the clothing law and conscription. During July, for example, when the Bakhtiyarirevolt was at its fiercest, Pahlavi hats were discarded the by poorer classes in Isfahanwith impunity.73By the autumn, however, the tribes had largely been conciliated and had dispersedon their migrations. They had achievedno real redressof their grievancesbut only paper concessions and the civil and militaryauthoritieswere able to regroupand rebuildtheir position. The 1929 uprising was the last attempt by the Bakhtiyarito resist the central government.In 1932 Tehranbegan to make serious efforts to implement the policy of sedentarization, which had first been discussed in the mid-twenties. At the beginning of the year the ilkhan gave a guaranteein writing that after that winter the tribes would give up the migration and would settle permanentlyin either the summer or winter quarters. the same time Riza Shah aggressively At pursuedhis objective of severing the southerntribesfrom theirhereditaryleaders. The Bakhtiyarikhans, as well as other tribal leaders, Sawlat al-Dawlah of the Qashqa'i, Qavam al-Mulk of the Khamsah, and Shaykh Khazcal of Muhammarah,had all been for some time compelled to remain permanentlyin Tehran. Now matters came to a head. In August 1932 Sawlat al-Dawlah and his eldest son were imprisoned and in August 1933 Sawlat was murdered prison. In in November SardarAscad, still minister of war, a large number of Bakhtiyari khans,and Qavamal-Mulkof the Khamsahwere arrestedand accusedof plotting against the shah's life.74In April 1934 SardarAscad was murdered prison and, in in November, eight people implicated in the so-called Bakhtiyariplot were executed, four were Bakhtiyaris,two Boyr-Ahmadis,one Qashqa'i and one Mamasani. Among those executed were SardarFatih, cAli MardanKhan ChaharLang, and SartipKhan Kuhgilu,leadersof the 1929 revolt who had all previously been
72. Clive to Henderson, 10 August 1929, F0371/13782/E4084/95/34. 73. Clive to Henderson, 10 August 1929, F0371/13782/E4084/95/34. Isfahan had been the center of the anti-conscription movement two years before, see Stephanie Cronin, "Conscription and Popular Resistance." 74. Hoare to Simon, 16 December 1933, F0371/178891E41/40/34.
376 Cronin by pardoned the shah. Twenty others, all Bakhtiyaris, were sentencedto long prison terms.Four khans were jailed for life." These imprisonments and executions producedlittle reaction among the tribes in the south. Even as the arrestswere being carriedout, Riza Shah had been able to rely on elements within Bakhtiyariloyal to him to carry out his orders.The shah told the ilkhanand the ilbayg that they were to remain at their posts and they telegraphedthis informationto the tribal kalantarsand kadkhudas with the instructionthat things were to carryon as normal. In any case the tribes were in no position to show any resistance. Their for economy, like that of ruralIran generally, had been deteriorating some time, while the introductionof conscriptionin the more accessible areasof Bakhtiyari Disarmed, to had added the tribes' hardshipby creating a shortage of labour.76 heavily taxed,underpressureto settle, despite the fact that a governmentbuilding commission had itself enumeratedthe massive difficulties involved in prepardwellings, and now effectively leaderless,the tribal popuing suitablepermanent lationwas profoundlydemoralized.77 During the 1920s each sector of tribal society had perceived the consequencesof and opportunitiespresentedby rapid social change differently.Each group had respondedaccordingto its own immediate interests, eagerness to secureadvantagein internaltribal conflict easily overcoming fear of the Tehran regime, and each had allowed itself to be co-opted by the regime in the pursuit of its own limited objectives. By the early 1930s Riza Shah was able to dispense with all the Bakhtiyarifactions. The power of the khans was destroyedand, from then on, the only response available to the tribes to the political repression, economic hardship and forced settlement of the 1930s was a retreat into
banditry.78
75. Knatchbull-Hugessen to Simon, 1 December 1934, F0371/17889/E7530/ 40/34. See also RawshanakBakhtiyar,"Zindigi va Marg-i Khan Baba Khan As'ad." 76. Annual Report 1933, Hoare to Simon, 24 February 1934, F0371/17090/ E 1620/1620/34. 77. Memorandum respecting the Bakhtiari Tribes, A. E. Watkinson, Consul, Ahwaz, October 1933, Mallet to Simon, 20 October 1933, F0371/16970/E6755/ 5362/34. 78. Despite the hardshipsof the 1930s and the elimination of the confederational leadership, Garthwaite stresses the general durability and adaptability of the lower levels of the tribal structuresand the survival and persistence of Bakhtiyari roles and identity under both the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic republic. Gene Garthwaite, "Reimagined Internal Frontiers: Tribes and Nationalism- Bakhtiyari and Kurds,"in Dale F. Eickelman (ed.), Russia's Muslim Frontiers: New Directions in Cross-Cultural Analysis (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1993), 130-45.

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International Society for Iranian Studies

Iranian Studies, volume 33, numbers3-4, Summer/Fall2000

Riza Shah and the Disintegrationof BakhtiyariPower in Iran, 1921-1934

Riza Shah and the Bakhtiyari 371

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