[PHOTOGRAPHY - AFGHANISTAN]. TUNDAN, B. R. , photographer. Two albums of original primary source photographs of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps Marching Through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. [Waziristan, 1936-39].
2 volumes, oblong 8vo. 44 gelatin silver print photographs, most with embedded inscribed numbers and photographer’s name, some with further captions, mounted onto black cardstock leaves, not necessarily in sequential order. Photographs measure approximately 200 x 150 mm. Housed in string-tied albums with black cardstock boards, each approximately 199 x 248 mm, chips to album covers, varying degrees of fading and mirroring to some images.
Two albums of photographs taken by a professional Afghani photographer known simply as Tundan, while accompanying the King’s Royal Rifle Corps through the passes and plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Northern Waziristan Agency) during the Waziristan Campaign of 1936-39. Tundan, a professional photographer from Kabul, is best remembered for his work performed directly alongside the British troops during the Waziristan Campaign of 1936-39, photographing not only the soldiers and convoys, but capturing recognizable scenes, structures such as forts and bridges, as well as villages along the way. The Waziristan Campaign was a series of operations by a combined British and Indian force intended to restore Imperial hegemony in the Waziristan region of the Northwest Frontier of British India. The campaign began in response to a revolt incited by the Waziri leader Ghazi Mirzali Khan Wazir, nicknamed the Fakir of Ipi by the British, who had launched a jihad against British rule for their intervention in a religious conversion and planned marriage of a young Indian girl.