File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎525r] (697/1080)

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tQ 21
Intelligence Summary^for the week ending July 16th, 1921.
No. 30.
177. Khorasan.
Meshed.— The situation in the —Province and in the city is normal.
The number of burglaries in the city shows no signs of diminution.
Local Politics. Although it has been said above that conditions are normal
such constitutes really only a half truth. Beneath the surface forces are at work
which may cause an upheaval and a resulting secession of Khorasan from the
central authority at Tehran.
If the history of the local coup Petal of last April be reverted to it will be
remembered that the commander of the gendarme force in Meshed on his own ini
tiative deposed, imprisoned, and treated with contumely the Governor-General of
the Province, assuming in his own person the chief authority and placing the
Province under martial law. The man he had deposed eventually became Prime
Minister and substituted a Civil Governor-General for the usurper, Muhammad Taqi
Khan, who, after some bargaining mingled with threats, reverted to the status
of Commandant of Gendarmes.
% ...
The person who was raised temporarily to the position of Governor-General
is aged, averse to assume authority, and prompted by little else save the wish to
accumulate money to pay off certain liabilities, an aid to which he finds in the sale
of civil offices. Though de facto Governor-General he has never been able to im
pose his will upon Muhammad Taqi Khan as is proved by the latter’s continued
maintenance of martial law in districts which have long since ceased to require
such measures—this because martial law requires the appointment of a gendarme
officer as Military Governor of the district or sub-province concerned, hence subordi
nating such areas to Muhammad Taqi Khan. In this way the latter has kept
control of practically the whole of the northern portion of the province, though the
predetory acts of his regime stopped at the borders of the hereditary khanate of
Bujnurd.
The enactment of Zia-ud-din’s Cabinet ordering the absorption of all military
cadres into the gendarme force considerably increased the power of Muhammad
Taqi Khan, virtually making him what he styles himself, “ Commander-in-Chief
of All the Forces in Khorasan ”. By expanding the numbers of his command, by
clothing them decently, and, what is more important, by paying them regularly
out of arrears of revenue forced from the wealthy, he has created for himself a force
second only to those existing at the Capital.
The authorities at the present head of affairs appear to be incapable of doing
anything to reduce the pride and self-ordained status of Muhammad Taqi Khan or
to enforce measures that may be deemed odious or inconvenient by him.
The motives inducing him to assume his present attitude of passive resistance
to the Tehran Government are mainly ascribed firstly, to a love of his country and
a sincere wish to abolish the abuses that constitute her system of government and,
secondly, to the brief but hectic period of rule as Governor-General of the Province
awakening in him an appetite which grows by what it feeds on. His general
attitude, his resolves to plunge his country into civil war if he is not given his own
way, force one to the conclusion that it is personal vanity and gn overweening ambi
tion rather than a pure patriotism which are prompting him to defy the Central
Government.
That body, being unable to subdue him by force of arms, or for other reasons,
is credited with recourse to plans of political assassination in order to rid themselves
of a troublesome subject. He professes to have been warned that four malefactors
have been released from a Tehran gaol with a promise of pardon if successful in
the permanent removal of their quarry.
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