Rulers and administrators representing a strong center tended to view the
periphery as an unattractive or less than admirable segment of society. The
periphery, in turn, saw the center as predatory, corrupt, and dishonorable, an
entity to be kept at arm’s length. From the time of the Mughals to that of the British,
for example, the Indian center referred to the Pukhtun areas as yaghistan, or
a “land of rebellion,” and ghair ilaqa, which means alien, strange, or foreign (as
opposed to ilaqa, which means area under central government control).