Uighurs are unlike any other people in the annals of mankind: they do not trace their origins to neolithic times. They do not claim that antiquity is littered with their linguistic and cultural traces. Or that they have cantered, sabres drawn, the length and breadth of Asia. They have no enviable history, rich in incident, worth recording or writing about. This vacuum in Uighur history has invariably led their Chinese masters to write their own version and use it to perpetuate power. At every turn the Uighurs are told that it is only China that prevents them from falling prey to foreign aggressions of the kind they endured in days gone by.

A large part of known Uighur history has been their disagreeable brush with China. About 2,000 years ago, when the earliest reference was made to Kashgar, the region was under Chinese domination. Off and on the Chinese lost power over the region. Tibetans, the Kharakhanid Khanate, Mongols under Chingiz, and Uzbeks under Timur — all held sway over the region during different periods. Himalayan Buddhism flourished here from 2nd to 10th century. In the 16th century, Kashgar was ruled by the Khojas of Uzbekistan. The ensuing theological split was exploited by the Qing Dynasty of China that intervened and moved into the region in the 1800s. The instinctive determination of the Chinese to bring the Uighur under central control provoked an Uighur uprising. Yakub Beg, a boy dancer-cum-soldier, organised the Muslims and ruled lavishly from Kashgar to Urumqi, Turfan and Hami from 1866-1877. He declared independence and concluded treaties with both Britain and Russia. It took a 60,000-strong Chinese Army three years to evict Yakub Beg, now a symbol of Muslim separatism in Xinjiang.

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