Sir Winston explaining the reputation of 'treacherous" nature of pathan soldiers in their army.
"During the stay of the brigades in Bajaur, there had been several cases of desertion among the Afridi Sepoys. On one occasion five men of the 24th Punjaub Infantry, who were out on picket, departed in a body, and taking their arms with them set off towards Tirah and the Khyber Pass.
It should not be forgotten by those who make, wholesale assertions of treachery and untrust- worthiness against the Afridi and Pathan soldiers, that these men are placed in a very strange and false position. They are asked to fight against their countrymen and co-religionists. On the one side are accumulated all the forces of fanaticism,patriotism and natural ties. On the other military associations stand alone. It is no doubt a grievous thing to be false to an oath of allegiance, but there are other obligations not less sacred. To respect an oath is a duty which the individual owes to society. Yet, who would by his evidence send a brother to the gallows ? The ties of nature are older and take precedence of all other human laws. When the Pathan is invited to suppress his
fellow-countrymen, or even to remain a spectator of their suppression, he finds himself in a situation at which, in the words of Burke, " Morality is perplexed, reason staggered, and from which affrighted nature recoils."
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