Sam Ranizai

Sam Ranizai

This is the name given to the plain [sam] country of the Ranizai to distinguish it from the hill [ghar] Ranizai. It comprises a long narrow strip of country between the range of hills which form the southern boundary of Swat, and the border of British India, which runs in the plain at some distance from the foot of the hills.

         It formed until recent years a portion of the country of the Ranizai tribe of Lower Swat. Owing to its lying at a lower elevation than the adjoining Swat valley, to its greater heat, the absence of running water, and scantier rainfall, the Ranizai preferred to reside in Swat rather than in Sam Ranizai, which was left to the occupation of their cultivating tenants, and menial dependents.

          Some 30 years ago, engouraged by Sher Dil Khan , Khan of Alladand, while in temporary exile from his home, these tenant occupants of the country proclaimed their independence and succeeded in successfully defeating all attempts on the part of the Ranizai to subdue them. They have ever since enjoyed, as owners, the lands on which they used only to be tenants. They are known as the Sam Ranizai, but can hardly be considered a separate tribe, as they comprise a heterogeneous mixture of Swatis, Bajazai, Khattaks and Utman Khel.

          The district contains eight villages of considerable size, the most westerly of which. Harian Kot, is wholly occupied by  Utman Khel. The remaining seven are populated by a mixture of all the four above-named tribes. The kandis, or sub-division of the villages, in most cases retain their old names, which correspond to the sub-section of the Ranizai who formerly owned them.

       The Sam Ranizai, heterogeneous as they may be by race, have become a untited people by force of necessity, and are very tenacious of their rights. They are a fine manly people of good physique and valour.s

         The country is a dry tract with no river or stream throughout its area. The lands depend entirely on rain for cultivation, and nature has willed it that the rainfall of the adjoining tract of ghar Ranizai in the  Swat valley should be many times more plentiful than that of Sam Ranizai. Failure of crops is by no means therefore an uncommon occurrence, but in favourable seasons the crops are magnificent. Efforts have been made during the past five years , by grant of advances of money, to encourage the people to dig wells. Water is luckily generally to be found at a reasonable depth in this tract, and the amount of land irrigated by wells is rapidly increasing.

          Owing to the peculiar circumstances under which the Sam Ranizai have come into possession of their country, it is not to be woundered at that their system of land tenure differs materially from that obtaining elsewhere in Dir, Swat and Bajour. The custom of redistributing lands periodically, universal elsewhere, is non-existent here.