The Consequences of World War II in Kerman

With Iran's occupation by the British and Russian forces and disruption of situation in the army as well as the release of prisoners, the effects of insecurity had spread everywhere especially in the roads in addition to famine and livelihood difficulties. At this time, my father was busy grafting pistachio and almond to forest and wild trees in the areas of Jebal Barez and Baft in southeastern province of Kerman. He had set up office in both areas for grafting affairs. The head of Baft office was a middle-age and right person named "Shakiba" who was also the secretary of Hossien Khan Shoja (the leader of Bachaqchi tribe) and the head of Baft's Statistics Office. One day, I asked Shakiba: "All of the tribes have sheep, water and land and are well-off, so why has everywhere become unsafe after Reza Shah's departure?" He said: "It's mainly the fault of military forces whose conditions have become worse, and just one month ago, two of the commanders were here, and had talked to the leaders of the tribe." They had said: "Now that everything is messy, you block the roads and rob the passengers, and take your cut and giver our cut regularly." When they had said that the old times had passed and we did not need such things, they had said your old dossiers are available in the army headquarters and if you don't take any action, we will take them out and punish you. One of the tribe's leaders had said that they did not have any arm. The commander had asked them not to be worried about this and the guns would be supplied with the cooperation of each other. Our police station is in this area and you can find whatever you need. You need to fix one night because we have to have a guard at nights in front of the gate of the police station. In the scheduled time, since the weather is war, we guide the soldiers to the roof by ladder and then take it. You come here with a number of others at midnight, kill the guard, enter the armory and take whatever you need and hide them in hide-outs and start your work in practice. As Mr. Shakiba narrated, this was the beginning of the robbery which still continued. One night, we were also caught in them but survived. That night, I along with my father, the driver and two others were moving towards Kerman through the forest by a personal automobile. It was around 10 pm that we stopped to have dinner beside a stream.  The moonlight was our single light. A pedestrian asked the driver to take him to Kerman. The driver answered: "Don't you see the car is full?" The pedestrian went but my father asked the driver to call and give him some food. He did and we were still having dinner. Suddenly, we saw that the driver was shouting fearfully, asking us to get in the car immediately. We saw the robbers who were coming down the mountain and shot two times but they did not hit at us. The driver took us out of the scene so fast that we all survived. Years later when the area became safe, I heard that the government had sent the local commanders like generals Azizi and Hejazi to Kerman. They immediately arrested and executed the notorious murderer and armed robber "Morad Ali Morad" and imprisoned several others and exiled some leaders of the tribes temporarily to nearby cities, and then later they were returned to their home and continued farming and husbandry.  
Parliament during Reza Shah
The bills which should have been approved in the parliament during Reza Shah had earlier been discussed, and were brought in the parliament after approval. For instance, the warning of the subservient to the finance minister about the budget bill was that why he had used the word "especial" instead of "particular" as approved in Academy and why the ministerial official had not paid attention to. Thus they called for the amendment and other lawmakers praised it.  In such a situation, there were two lawmakers Nosratol Mamalek and Yadollah Dehestani from Karaj and Rafsanjan who were landowners and farmers. They were sitting at the end of the hall and talked about farming, gardening, irrigation and so forth and sometimes after the end of the session, went to each other's houses for luncheon. According to a narrator, one day he had been in the house of Nosratol Mamalek and Mr. Dehestani had also been present there. After having lunch and taking a nap, Dehestani told Nosratol Mamalek, today we as usual did not realize what happened in the parliament. And then Nosratollah asked his servant to buy a newspaper to see what happened in the parliament today.

Ali Agah
Translated by: Mohammad Baqer Khoshnevisan

Bokhara Bimonthly, No. 42