British annexation of Sikh territory transferred frontier jihad to colonial hands

Evidence

Initially, the British did not perceive Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi and his followers as a significant threat since their jihad was directed against the Sikh kingdom. … With the commencement of the Anglo-Sikh wars in the 1840s, the British inherited the frontier problems that had plagued the Sikhs. Between 1850 and 1863 the British sent 20 expeditions of troops into the frontier region. According to accounts written in the 1870s, colonial officials started to notice the presence of Bengali and Bihari men in the region from the late 1840s, purportedly the last remnants of Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi’s followers. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 38

Categorization

• SEED: An essay on how counterinsurgency threats are inherited rather than discovered — empires acquire enemies along with territory, as with the Soviet and American experience in Afghanistan.