The Iron Amir: Britain’s Afghan Legacy
In 1880, the British withdrew from Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman Khan, the new ruler installed after the Second Anglo-Afghan War, unified the fractured nation at a terrible cost.
The year 2014 sees the scheduled withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan. The prospect of their departure continues to cause widespread concern that the Kabul government, without the support of foreign armies, will be swept away in a tide of civil war. There is even speculation that in this chaos neighbouring countries – Pakistan, Iran and the central Asian states – will be tempted to intervene and carve up Afghanistan among themselves.
Yet this is not the first time the country has been in such a situation. Following the Second Afghan War (1878-80) its circumstances were in many respects similar to those of today. In 1878 Britain had invaded Afghanistan from India for the second time, fearing that Russia, its long-term rival for Asian hegemony, was gaining influence in Kabul. An attempt in 1879 to install a pliant amir on the throne had failed and the British occupying forces unexpectedly found themselves in direct charge of the country. The native government collapsed and the country began to disintegrate into autonomous zones or outright lawlessness. The British occupied Kabul and Kandahar but, as the viceroy of India, Lord Lytton later admitted: ‘The range of our effective administration or influence went no further, so that the country at large was without a governmnent.’ Mullahs, such as the notorious Muskh-i Alam, preached jihad and British troops were ground down by dealing with constant uprisings and skirmishes. Herat and its surrounding districts broke away under a rebel member of the royal family, Ayub Khan, who went on to inflict a humiliating defeat on the British at Maiwand in July 1880, before succumbing at the Battle of Kandahar in September that year.
From the end of 1879 into 1880 British policy over Afghanistan was in chaos. Some, such as Gladstone and the Liberal opposition in London, argued that Britain should pull out entirely; others, including General Roberts, the British commander in Kabul, believed that the country should be dismembered and the southern portion absorbed into British India. However, under pressure from the prolonged insurgency and following Gladstone’s victory over Disraeli in the April 1880 election, it became clear that annexing the territory from Kabul to Kandahar was unrealistic. A face-saving exit for Britain was required.
Nevertheless, as with the current situation, the British feared what their withdrawal might bring. Russia was pressing on northern Afghanistan and Persia was eager to reclaim the city of Herat, which it had once controlled. With central government virtually absent, tribal chiefs and regional magnates were left with a free hand. Prolonged instability on India’s north-west frontier, or in the worst case an invasion, was a worrying possibility.
Desperate for a solution that would allow an honourable withdrawal and also the prospect of stability, British officials decided to support the claim to the throne of a minor member of the Afghan royal family. Abdur Rahman Khan had spent the previous 10 years in exile in Samarkand, but in January 1880 he had appeared in the north of the country with money, weapons and an army of supporters ready to bid for power. Discovering that he was not ill disposed towards them, the British invited him to enter Kabul as its ruler. Having given him more weapons, a subsidy of two million rupees and a commitment not to interfere in internal affairs so long as Britain retained control of Afghan foreign relations, the British left Kabul to Abdur Rahman in August 1880.
At first sight it seems strange that Britain should hand over power so readily to this apparent newcomer. During Rahman’s exile Samarkand was under Russian control and he had received a generous pension from the tsar. There was a serious risk he might have been under Russian influence. Despite this the British gamble paid off. Not only did Rahman eschew Russian interference but he became known as arguably Afghanistan’s most successful ruler ever. Over a 21-year reign he managed to unify the country, establish a strong central government and secure its borders. On his death in 1901 the country passed peacefully into the hands of his nominated heir, a feat that no previous Afghan ruler had achieved. At the root of Rahman’s success was a radically different approach to the philosophy of Afghan kingship, which he discussed at length in his autobiography, The Life of Abdur Rahman (1900).
Afghanistan had emerged as an independent entity in the mid-18th century. It was originally a border region between the Safavid Persian and Indian Mughal empires. Both were in decline by the early 1700s and this gave the subject tribes in the southern area of Afghanistan the chance to secede. By the 1750s these tribes, known variously as Pashtuns, Pathans and Afghans, were able to unite and carve out a large empire – the first incarnation of modern Afghanistan – reaching from western Iran to Kashmir to the Arabian Sea.
The new empire fragmented rapidly, however. Its geography, divided by mountains ranges and deserts, was only part of the problem. The main difficulty was the Pashtun tribes’ determined independence. Having been ruled for centuries by foreign emperors, they were deeply hostile to the idea of authoritative rulers, even if home grown. They would offer military service to the new Afghan kingdom but they were not prepared to follow any laws decreed by a central government and certainly would not agree to pay taxes, which they viewed as an obligation of the empire’s subject peoples, not themselves.
As a result, the early Afghan kings wore a hollow crown. They maintained their authority only under sufferance of the Pashtun and were viewed as of no greater than equal status by other tribal rulers. They knew that they could achieve little in the way of active government and consequently their role was limited to providing leadership in war and mediation between the tribes in peacetime. They did not attempt to change the fundamental state of Afghanistan or the way that people lived. In an earlier age this state of affairs might have continued indefinitely without problem but during the 18th and 19th centuries Afghanistan was caught between the rapid expansion in Asia of two European powers, Britain and Russia, which were intent on modernising their conquered territories. Through its impotent leadership Afghanistan was unable to compete with these external forces and seemed doomed to weakness.
There is much in Abdur Rahman’s upbringing that suited him to rule Afghanistan. The grandson of Dost Mohammed (1793-1863), a previous Afghan king, Rahman grew up accustomed to power. Born around 1844, he had been educated by a Scottish former officer of the Indian Army captured during the First Afghan War (1839-42). Consequently he possessed a depth of knowledge of European military science unusual among fellow Afghans. At the age of about 16 Rahman was made governor of the northern city of Tashkurgan, an office he performed with independence and skill. By the end of his teens he was appointed commander of the northern division of the Afghan army. Immediately he was plunged into the maelstrom of tribal politics, in which he proved himself adept both in the use of diplomacy and military force in quashing the rebellions of local chiefs. In 1863 Dost Mohammed died and civil war broke out over who should succeed him. Rahman fought on behalf of his father, Afzal Khan, and over the next five years came close to winning him the throne. Afzal died in 1867, however, and Rahman’s cousin Sher Ali gained ground, securing his rule fully by 1869. Rahman fled to Samarkand.
When his time came in 1880 it was not only Abdur Rahman’s experience that led him to succeed as amir. He saw that a strong centralised state was a necessity, if the country was to develop and maintain independence. He therefore redefined the concept of kingship, insisting that the right to rule Afghanistan did not rest on tribal consensus but on divine right. Kings in an Islamic state held their thrones not at the sufferance of the people but thanks to God’s will. It was the role of the king of Afghanistan to defend religion, uphold the honour and welfare of the people and protect the nation from infidel attack. It followed, therefore, that treason against the king was the act of an unbeliever, an attack against God.
Rahman’s first practical enactment of this new principle, designed to shatter the status quo and consolidate his rule, was manifested in his decision to break the power of the tribes. At the beginning of his reign, when he had little by way of an army, he did not hesitate to exploit tribal rivalries, allying with one tribe to crush another. He would use sectarian differences, for example, calling a Sunni jihad against Shi’a Hazara ‘heretics’ to provoke people to fight. To pacify the tribes he then used terror. Anyone who rose against him could expect to be killed or enslaved, their property seized, their crops and villages burnt, their forts destroyed, their trees cut down, their women raped. In rebellious areas he erected pyramids of skulls to intimidate survivors. To break their cohesion, some tribal sub-groups were uprooted en masse and moved to distant parts of the country. Elders who refused to pay taxes were either killed or imprisoned, replaced by obedient successors whose sons were usually held hostage in Kabul to ensure compliance. Once a tribe was pacified and had consented to pay taxes, Abdur Rahman enforced conscription, usually taking one man in eight. With a swelling personal army – around 60,000 strong in 1890, rising to 100,000 in 1900 – he was able to reinforce the work of pacification. He demarcated fixed boundaries with the neighbouring states and brought under his control areas of eastern and central Afghanistan, which had never before shown obedience to Kabul.
Rahman’s philosophy of kingship also underpinned the way he constituted his government. He once stated that a king should be regarded as a master and his ministers as his slaves. He took every measure to prevent any other individual from creating a power base to challenge his authority. To streamline administration, he divided the country into several small provinces, separated the civil and military powers and reduced the power of officials. He demanded that even matters of minor importance be referred to him personally. Only men who showed little ambition were chosen for office; these Rahman frequently shuffled from post to post, confiscating their wealth if there was the slightest suspicion of dissent.
The presence of government was felt more than ever before. As the army grew, so did a bureaucracy charged with assessing and collecting taxes and administering revenue. Its work throughout the country was supported by the army, but the many officials lived in as much fear as ordinary citizens. Abdur Rahman demanded that detailed records be kept of all transactions. He surveyed the documentation personally and ordered the imprisonment, blinding or execution of officials for the smallest irregularity. Besides the bureaucracy, he developed an extensive spy network. This was purportedly based on the Russian system, which he had seen and admired. Claims that one in four Afghans at this time were spies are perhaps exaggerated, but copious reports were brought to the amir daily about officials and people of consequence and he would read these late into the night.
Decisions of government were for Rahman alone. He despised western parliamentary democracy and once commented that he imagined the House of Commons to be no better than a gossip-filled Turkish bath. He did maintain a hand-picked bicameral council to rubber stamp his decisions, but its most important function was to keep the chiefs and mullahs detained for long periods in Kabul away from their regional power bases to reduce their strength.
As ‘vice-regent of God’, Rahman also extended his authority over religion. He alone had the power to decide on doctrine or call a jihad. He sacked dissenting clerics on the grounds that they lacked religious knowledge or simply for opposing him. In 1881 he strangled to death with his bare hands a mullah who had called him un-Islamic for taking a British subsidy. He issued pamphlets stirring up xenophobic hatred of the infidel British and Russians and established a religious police (muhtasibs) to punish impious behaviour. People who could not recite their prayers, appeared to disdain Islam, or who caused a breach of public decency, for example by swearing, were beaten.
Punishment was the most visible manifestation of government. Rahman realised that a standardised legal system was necessary for a unified state, desiring shari’a courts to supersede the patchwork of tribal assemblies previously responsible for justice. Yet he made himself the supreme tribunal and ordered even low-level cases to be referred to him. His sentences were a primary means of terrifying the country into submission. The prison population rocketed from 1,500 in 1880 to 20,000 in 1896. Prisoners were kept in crowded, insanitary conditions and fed usually just two pieces of bread a day. It is thought that 60-80 per cent of those held in custody died and many were killed to free up space. Executions and torture were commonplace and public. Offenders might be hanged or blown from a gun. Robbers were locked into iron cages suspended above roads and left to starve. Adulterers were bayonetted in sacks or boiled into a broth that would be fed to their partners. Lesser offences merited the cutting off of hands or tongues, the sewing up of lips, blinding or the pouring of boiling oil on scalps to roast the brain.
Abdur Rahman succeeded in unifying Afghanistan, but historians continue to argue over whether the price paid was too high. By his own admission he killed around 100,000 people during his reign. The country was peaceful, but living standards did not rise. He stifled trade with relentless taxes, but was still unable to balance the books without British subsidies. He refused to develop the county’s infrastructure, transport network and natural resources, believing that this would make it prey to invasion. He also stood against the growth of modern education and links with the wider world, fearing that this would encourage the people to question his authority and their circumstances. The violence, isolationism and lack of development that characterised Abdur Rahman’s methods of achieving unity in Afghanistan have left their mark on the country. Their effects are still visible today.