Indian Defence Review

Fig. 1: The empire of Afghanistan under Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani

If the United States had been sincere and provided aid to the Afghan Mujahidin after the Russians were ousted from Afghanistan, Afghanistan might have not gotten into its current situation.  Recall that the Taliban destroyed the tall Bamian statues[1] in March 2001 and were angry with the international community, in part, for not providing any aid whatsoever for industrial development.  The lack of aid forced them to resort to heroin production, though the Taliban could have participated in a better industry. However, heroin production had a vicious cycle of its own, as the West served as the ultimate outlet and target of it.

The question of providing aid to the Mujahidin would not have risen if the United States had not supported the Mujahidin during the Russian invasion.  But incidentally, the threat of a Russian invasion had existed since the onset of the 19th century.  In 1798, Napolean I had sent an invasion fleet to Egypt and India.  Soon thereafter, Tsar Paul I of Russia proposed to Napolean I in 1801 to invade India.  In fact, in 1801 itself, Tsar Paul dispatched an invasion force to India, only to be recalled upon his death in 1801.  The Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1792 resulted in a Russian victory that saw Russia capture Turkish provinces.  Russian aspirations for a portion of the great Ottoman empire and bases on Russia’s southern borders provoked British fears over Russian naval domination of the Mediterranean and control of the land and sea routes to India, thus denying the British access to India[2]. The intricacies of this intrigue are well recorded in documents related to the Great Game.[3]

Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)

However, the Russians would not have invaded Afghanistan if it had received aid in earlier decades and was made as strong as the other CENTO allies of the 1950 and 60’s — Iran and Pakistan — even though Afghanistan begged to be included in the CENTO alliance against Russian communism.

The Americans planned to – and would have — logically included Afghanistan in CENTO.  However, the British influenced the United States in the 1950s to perceive the Afghans as very difficult and often useless and unreliable people.  There was also pressure from Pakistan to keep Afghanistan out of CENTO because it had a border dispute with Afghanistan.  And, Russia had undermined the very concept of Pakistan in 1946, and incited Afghanistan to actively contest the Durand Line with British India.[4]  USA had no doubts left in its mind as to who should be in its camp, and therefore left Afghanistan out of CENTO.

Also, the British never forgot the invasions into India of Mahmud Ghazni, Ahmad Shah Abdali, and Mohammed Ghor and feared that abetting the Afghans would reignite their spirit of invasion and mischief, which was often thought to be culturally and perhaps genetically ingrained in the Pathans.

Dost Muhamed Khan Barukzye’s Diplomatic Efforts to Regain Peshawar

The British came to that conclusion after their encounters with the Afghans in the 19th century when they found it difficult to administer the country.  Moreover, in 1839 they placed on the throne of Kabul one Shah Shuja Durrani[5], grandson of the insensitive Ahmad Shah Abdali of Durrani who is often known as the founder of modern Afghanistan (His empire included modern-day Pakistan; see Figure 1).  However, Shuja proved to be worthless and could not maintain his position, partially because of being conceived as a puppet of the British.  He was assassinated in 1842.  The British were then eventually led to allow Dost Muhamed the Barukzye[6] to rule Kabul, but Dost Muhamed hated the British.

A few months before the first British invasion of Afghanistan, Dost Muhamed, calling himself the Amir-ul-Momerin and sitting on the seat at Kabul, had written on multiple occasions to Lord Auckland, the British Viceroy of India.  Dost Muhamed sought Lord Auckland’s help against the intrusions of Maharaja Ranjit Singh the Sikh, grieved the loss of Peshawar to the Sikhs (1839), and desperately wanted back that famed Pathan city.  The British replied to each letter of his — once by saying that the British do not interfere in the internal policies and affairs of other countries, and another time to say that he should reconcile with Maharaja Ranjit Singh and renounce his claims to Peshawar.  The British could not, at that time, turn against their staunch ally, the Sikhs.

However, Dost Muhamed was a wretched and ambitious man.  For instance, he had grievously insulted the ladies in the harem of Haji Firuzudin — another grandson of Ahmad Shah Abdali — and close relative of Mahmud Shah, the reigning monarch.  As a result, Dost Muhamed’s oldest of twenty Barukzye brothers, the Vizier Fathi Khan, Governor of Herat, paid the price by being blinded on orders of Mahmud Shah[7], even though Fathi Khan had supervised the invasion of Kashmir for Mahmud Shah.  As a result, all 20 of the influential Barukzye brothers, including Dost Muhamed, started a revolt.  They all served as ministers and prime ministers of various provinces of Afghanistan, including the Sindh and Kashmir provinces, sought to eventually dominate the country, and even turned against one another.  That revolt came to fruition in 1823 and signaled the end of the Sadoozyi Durrani dynasty of Ahmad Shah Abdali and propelled the Barukzyes to power.  Dost Muhamed Khan Barukzye became the monarch. Who says harassing the ladies of a harem cannot pay some dividends, even though Dost Muhamed’s oldest brother lost his eyesight?  But what did Dost Muhamed care?

But right when Dost Muhamed asked the British forhelp with Peshawar, his brothers at Kandahar felt greatly perturbed and feared the great power and benefit that the alliance with the British would give to Dost Muhamed.  Consequently, the Barukzyes of Kandahar immediately asked the Persians and Russians for help and protection, laying themselves prostrate to them as a vassal to a suzerain.  Court intrigues and family jealousies knew no bounds.

Furthermore, since the British had refused to help Dost Muhamed in the recapture of Peshawar, he felt pushed[8] to approach the Russian ambassador, who by then had arrived in Afghanistan at the request of the other Barukzyes. This ambassador, Captain Vikovitch, promised to help Dost Muhamed appease the ruler of the Sikhs.[9]

The Russians thus sought to coerce Maharaja Ranjit Singh to bend to Dost Muhamed’s demands on Peshawar by demonstrating they could come physically closer to his kingdom[10].  So this resulted in the attempted invasion by Persia of herat in 1838, supported by Russian officers, and strategized by Vikovitch.  French and Italian officers also fought in that invasion.  But the Russians were supporting both sides even then, and the invasion was ill-conceived, though the siege of Herat lasted eight months.  Consequently, the invasion was repulsed, since the Persians could not get their military to perform effectively[11].

British Fears

However, the effect of the Herat invasion on the British Government of India was galvanizing. They were jolted and increasingly feared Russian penetration into Afghanistan.  As it is, the British were paranoid of a Russian extension into Central Asia because that not only made Russia a stronger world power, but also brought them closer to their Jewel in the Crown, India.  In addition, the British were always cautious, wary, and scared of the Afghans and feared sorties by the Afghan vandal descendants of Ahmad Shah Abdali and Mahmud Ghazni into the Indian territories.

Fig. 2: Artistic rendering of the sole survivor of the First Anglo-Afghan War

But this invasion of Herat by Persia, orchestrated by Russia, was the smoking gun that proved that Russia harbored eventual intentions on their Indian Possessions.  The Herat invasion was a first of its kind, since never before had the Russians physically penetrated Afghanistan[12]. Consequently, the British ultimately invaded Afghanistan in 1839 in the First Afghan War. There, they were utterly routed to the last man (See Figure 2) [13], but this war later lent to them their bitter experience against the Afghans and their ruthless character.

Ironically, at one point in 1798, the British themselves tried to energize and incite the Persians to invade Herat.  This was because they had watched with trepidation and anxiety Ahmad Shah Abdali’s forays into the Punjab and how he defeated the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761.  They never stopped suspecting the Afghans attacking their territories in India.  So, the fear of the Afghans was what led Britain to stall a possible Afghan invasion of India by motivating a Persian invasion of Afghanistan.  It would keep the Afghans busy and unbalanced, pre-empting them from thinking of invading British India.

Annexation of Peshawar by Sikhs

However, what made Maharaja Ranjit Singh take Peshawar, a city that became a bone of contention between the Afghans and its Sikh occupants? This issue vexed Dost Muhamed, resulted in bringing the Russians into Afghanistan in the botched invasion of Herat, and then caused the British to attempt to penetrate Afghanistan to counter the Russians.  If the Russians were indicating they were after Afghanistan, the British reckoned that they should be in Afghanistan first to gain the upper hand there.  It was a great game that saw similar British actions along the entire southern front of the vast Russian empire extending from Punjab to Turkey.

The history of the occupation of Peshawar by Sikhs actually started around 1818 when Vizier Fathi Khan contracted with Maharaja Ranjit Singh to occupy Kashmir.  For this purpose, the Sikh warrior maharaja contributed a contingent of 10,000 men.  Ranjit Singh was to receive nine lakh rupees for this effort, the money of which was to be taken from the treasury and revenues of Kashmir.  It was robbery, but that wasn’t how the wars of the day were termed back then.  After the successful and, shall we say, easy conquest of Kashmir, Fathi Khan confided the government of Kashmir to his brother, Azim Khan, but instructed him deviously to avoid paying the nine lakh rupees to Ranjit Singh.

Incensed at this betrayal, but not losing sleep or hope, Ranjit Singh swore to teach the Afghans a lesson.  He retired his troops very early from Kashmir and came to occupy Attock — an Afghan city close to Peshawar en route to the Khyber, which was the only route back home to Kabul for the Afghans.  Ranjit Singh knew very well that Fathi Khan’s returning troops must pass through Attock on their way back to Kabul from Kashmir.  But surprisingly, Fathi Khan did not conceive of Sikh revenge, probably smugly satisfied by his conquest of Afghanistan and gleeful that he had outwitted Ranjit Singh.

Unbeknown to Fathi Khan, Ranjit Singh had placed in position 16,000 soldiers to Fathi Khan’s 9,000 under Dost Muhamed’s command.  Caught in a bind, Dost Mohammed, whom his brother Fathi Khan had sent in an advance party, decided to charge Ranjit Singh’s superior forces at Attock.  In that charge, Dost Mohamed’s forces were totally decimated virtually to the last man, though their courage to attack must be recorded.  Fathi Khan’s oncoming forces were also squarely defeated, nay, annihilated.  However, both he and his brother, Dost Muhamed, along with only four other soldiers, escaped to reach Kabul by a circuitous route across the rough mountain terrain.  By decimating the Afghan forces, Ranjit Singh gained dominance over Kashmir and access to much more than the nine lakh rupees he had wagered for.

Events were somewhat quiet on the Western Front of the Sikhs till 1838.  At that time, Shah Shuja was living in exile in Ludhiana under British protection, and from whom Maharaja Ranjit Singh had deviously extracted the marveled Koh-i-noor by holding him hostage in his (Ranjit Singh’s) own residence.  After much pondering and reluctance, Shah Shuja invaded Kandahar from the Southern route, having recruited Indian troops through the encouragement of the British.  While this battle was ongoing, Dost Muhamed, who was now the reigning monarch, had rushed to aid his brothers in Kandahar to repel Shah Shuja, which he did.  While Dost Muhamed was so engaged, Maharaja Ranjit Singh had taken advantage of the temporary absence of Dost Muhamed from Kabul by moving his forces from Attock to Peshawar, a relatively short distance, thus occupying the major Pathan city of Peshawar.  This was a great blow to Pathan pride, but the Sikhs came to rule the northwest frontier province with a strong boot and iron hand.  The Sikhs tolerated no rebellion by Pathans, retaliating spontaneously by burning and razing their villages at the slightest military offense, thus killing the very motivation and zealotry of the Pathans, and teaching them civilization, law, and order for probably the first time since Islam came to the region.

Fig.3: The Sikh empire under Ranjit Singh

The empire of the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, see Figure 3, was literally carved out of Ahmad Shah Abdali’s south eastern territories.

Return of Peshawar

But later, Ranjit Singh was no more, and the Sikh royal durbar had fallen into disarray, betrayed by their own Queen and the Dogra King Gulab Singh of Kashmir who had entered into a secret deal with the British.  During the final Anglo-Sikh battle at Gujrat (1848), the Sikhs sought the assistance of Dost Muhamed, knowing that their kingdom was at stake, for which they agreed to trade their kingdom west of the Indus for his military support.  By then, Dost Muhamed had lost his sense of adventure, having been wizened by the British power during his own exile in Ludhiana.  However, his followers were eager to help the Sikhs, and Dost Muhamed still wanted Peshawar.  As a result, Dost Muhamed’s army of 13,000 walked into Peshawar amid great rejoicing.  But then, true to Afghan character, in a repeat of the treachery of 1818, Dost Muhamed became reluctant to send his troops to assist the Sikhs. However, 5,000 of his followers insisted on fighting alongside the Sikhs, but not to much avail: the Afghans were on the right flank that was not attacked by the British, and it was already a complete route for the Sikhs by the time the British could get to the Afghans.

After the Gujrat battle, Dost Muhamed promptly and unilaterally relinquished Peshawar, not wishing to enter into any debate or acrimony with the British over it[14].  The British then walked into Peshawar, where it stayed with them and was given to Pakistan at partition.  Moreover, because the British had annexed all of Punjab, and because Peshawar fell in the Punjab of Ranjit Singh, the British laid a claim to Peshawar, which the Afghans were in no mood to contest.

A stone-age nation, Afghanistan altered the world in 2001.  Who doesn’t say that the world has become different after 9/11?   And Peshawar is the south-eastern gateway to the Khyber Pass, Kabul, and Afghanistan.  Today, Peshawar is the center of the military-industrial complex of the Taliban.  The copycat arms manufactured in Peshawar are exported to all around the world, and allegedly, to the terrorist outfits in Pakistan that attack India, the Maoists in Nepal and India, and drug smugglers in South and Central America.  It has often been said that he who rules Peshawar rules the Khyber; and he who rules the Khyber has the Afghans bottled.  By plugging the Khyber, Ranjit Singh had plugged invasions into India via the Khyber going back 2,000 years to the time of Sikander.

Closure

So this is the story of Peshawar, how it vexed Dost Muhamed, and how because of this he asked the British for help against Ranjit Singh.  When denied this help, he fell into the arms of the Russians.  Subsequent to the Russian sponsored invasion of Herat by Persia, the British in India grew alarmed.  Thus, they invaded Afghanistan to implement their puppet regime.  To make a long story short, the British were frustrated in Afghanistan.  Subsequently, Afghanistan was denied any technological advancement in the century to follow owing to British machinations in the region, largely the fear of Russia and continuous harassment by tribal Pathan forces, and an agreement with Russia to keep Afghanistan as a buffer state between them.  This spilled over to the United States denying Afghanistan membership in CENTO at the British insistence, and not to forget that Pakistan resisted Afghanistan’s inclusion in CENTO owing to their long-standing dispute of the Durand Line.  Consequently, Russia developed the gall to invade a weak Afghanistan in 1979, but not after further international political intrigue[15].  Thus, Peshawar was the cause, center, and city of the way the historical logic unfolded for the outside invasions of Afghanistan going back two centuries.  If only Ranjit Singh had not captured the major Pathan city of Peshawar, the Russians may not have strategized the Herat invasion, which would not have set into motion the British invasion and denial to Afghanistan.  The rest is recent history.