In the 1920s, Ahmad Yar served as an agent of the British intelligence service, reporting on
Russian influence and the spread of pro-Marxist sympathy among the poorer Baloch subjects. He assumed the throne of the
Khanate of Kalat in 1933, and was decorated by the British in the
1936 New Year Honours as a Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent
Order of the Indian Empire (GCIE). With the withdrawal of the British from the
Indian subcontinent in August 1947, the
Indian Independence Act provided that the
princely states which had existed alongside but outside
British India were released from all their subsidiary alliances and other treaty obligations to the British, while at the same time the British withdrew from their obligations to defend the states. The rulers were left to decide whether to accede to one of the newly independent states of
India or the
Dominion of Pakistan or to remain independent outside both. As stated by
Sardar Patel at a press conference in January 1948, "As you are all aware, on the lapse of Paramountcy every Indian State became a separate independent entity."
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was Yar Khan's legal adviser in the early 1940s. Jinnah persuaded Yar Khan to agree to accede to Pakistan, but the Khan stalled for time. After a period of negotiations, Khan finally acceded to Pakistan on 27 March 1948. Yar Khan's younger brother, Prince Agha Abdul Karim Baloch, revolted against his decision and took refuge in Afghanistan to wage an armed resistance against Pakistan, with little support from the rest of Balochistan. He finally surrendered to Pakistan in 1950. On 3 October 1952, as one of the
princely states of Pakistan, Kalat entered into the
Baluchistan States Union with three neighbouring states,
Kharan,
Las Bela, and
Makran, with Yar Khan at the head of the Union with the title of
Khan-e-Azam. The Khanate came to an end on 14 October 1955, when the Baluchistan States Union was dissolved, Kalat was incorporated into the
One Unit of
West Pakistan, and Yar Khan ceased to rule. Yar Khan briefly declared himself Khan again in defiance of the Pakistani state from June to October 1958. On 6 October 1958, the Pakistani government arrested and imprisoned him on charges of sedition during the
1958 Pakistani coup d'état against President
Iskander Mirza, but it later released him and briefly restored his title in 1962. His arrest triggered an insurgent uprising led by
Nauroz Khan in 1959. ==Legacy==