Fighting to the End

by C Christine Fair

  While British Indian leaders typically framed their South Asian policies in terms of the “external threat” from Russia, in some cases they exaggerated the threat to increase the prominence of India within political debates in Great Britain or to justify a particular policy approach. At other times, British threat perception regarding Afghanistan was motivated by enduring concerns over the fundamental stability of the British Raj. During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, for instance, the British feared (without justification, it turned out) that the Afghan government would act to further inflame Indian political sentiments and to undermine British ability to restore order. In the early twentieth century, Afghanistan aided those Indians who demanded independence, increasing Afghanistan’s salience for the Raj’s leaders.

  Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British moved between an aggressive forward policy toward Afghanistan and a more internally focused, close border policy. The forward policy of the 1830s was the result of British attempts to preempt the Russians from developing a presence in the area. It called for the protection of British Indian interests by extending the authority of the Raj beyond its official borders and by confronting and defeating external threats before they could threaten British Indian territory. This policy aimed to push the boundaries of the empire as far north and west as possible. To do so, the British invaded Afghanistan in an effort to put Shuja-ul-Mulk (Shuja Shah Durrani) back on the Afghan throne.4 This foray began the first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842). Amid growing opposition, in 1842 the British government ordered an ignominious retreat from Kabul during which Afghans massacred the entire British army, with the exception of one soldier. The British returned in the summer of 1842 with an army of retribution and laid waste to Kabul. Dost Mohammad, who had been exiled from Afghanistan since 1839 and was living in India on a British government pension, returned to govern Afghanistan in 1843 (Barfield 2010; Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002; Tripodi 2011).

  In the wake of their humiliating defeat in the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839–1842) and evident inability to install a client regime in Kabul, the British changed their approach. From about 1843 to 1875 they pursued a close border policy, also known as a strategy of masterly inactivity. Under this policy the territories west of the Indus were considered to be beyond the administrative remit of British India, and the various tribes were left to order their affairs without British interference. Coming after the defeat of the Sikhs and the subsequent incorporation of the Punjab into British India, the close border policy “envisaged drawing British power—fiscal and material—back across the border into India, crafting an impenetrable defensive system that relied not only on military deterrence but also on a fundamentally secure society that bound together colonial rulers and native subjects and would be able to resist the intrigues of both external and internal enemies alike” (Tripodi 2011, 16; see also Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002).

  During this period, the British focused their resources on securing Sindh (which they formally annexed in 1843, after a sustained military campaign) and the Punjab, which they annexed in 1849 (Hussain 2005). The inclusion within British India of the Punjab and other territories formerly under the control of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (such as the frontier town of Peshawar) allowed the British to consolidate their control over the Pakhtun-inhabited areas west of the Indus. Dost Mohammad, for his part, was focused on recovering control of Southern Afghanistan and retaining control over Herat. The British and Afghans thus established a modus vivendi under which Mohammad incorporated Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen territories north of the Hindu Kush but did not disturb the stability of the Pakhtun tribal belt between Kabul and the Indus River (Barfield 2012; Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002).5

  In 1855, Mohammad formalized relations with British India by signing the Treaty of Peshawar, which obliged both parties to respect the existing borders.6 In 1857, Mohammad and the British agreed to a second treaty, under the terms of which the British would provide financial support and weapons as assistance in confronting any Persian threat. When the Indian Rebellion of 1857 began in north India, Mohammad refused to declare a jihad against the British in the North-West Frontier and the rest of India, despite pressure from the ulema (Barfield 2012). Britain’s investment in Mohammad had resulted in a pliant, if weak, Afghan state. The arrangement suited British interests and lasted until Mohammad died in 1863. After his death, his sons fought to succeed him, with Sher Ali eventually prevailing (ibid.).

  Meanwhile, the Russians continued to annex territory north of Afghanistan. While Russia and Britain continued to carry out the Great Game, they also engaged in diplomatic discussions of their respective interests in the region. By 1873, both had conceded in principle that Afghanistan should be a neutral zone, and in that year they agreed that the Amu Darya would form the country’s northern boundary (Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002). (This initiated the concept of Afghanistan as a buffer state, which Pakistan’s Army later embraced.) In February 1874, Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister. Believing that the Russians were redoubling their efforts in Central Asia, he radically revised Indian security policy by reviving the forward policy for both Balochistan and Afghanistan.7

  Balochistan, which provided easy access to British India as well as southern Afghanistan, had long been a point of concern for the British. In 1876, the British facilitated an accord between the Khan of Qalat and Balochistan’s various lesser rulers in an effort to bring to an end the tribal violence and the predations on British territory.8 The treaty reiterated the terms of an earlier accord signed in 1854 and emphasized the Khan’s obligation to support British interests in exchange for British protection from attack (as well as a robust subsidy). To help consolidate their control over the area and facilitate British movement into Afghanistan, the British built roads, railways, and telegraph facilities around Quetta (Tripodi 2011).9

  In 1878, in response to Russian attempts to open treaty negotiations with the then-amir of Afghanistan, Sher Ali, the British viceroy Lord Lytton dispatched a mission to Afghanistan to order Sher Ali not to meet with the Russian delegation. Lytton’s team was turned away at the Khyber Pass. The British, outraged and humiliated, began the second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880) (Hussain 2005; Mahajan 2002; Tripodi 2011). By early 1879, the British had managed to bring much of southern and eastern Afghanistan under their control. When Sher Ali fled from Kabul to Mazar, the British installed his son Muhammad Yaqub as amir and in May 1879. The British forced him to sign the Treaty of Gandamak, which concluded the first phase of the war. The treaty gave the British complete control of Afghanistan’s external affairs, ending the country’s status as a buffer state. It reduced Yaqub from an independent ruler to a vassal of the British empire, like the various heads of princely states in British India. It also ceded the districts of Pishin, Sibi, and the Kurram Valley to Britain: the first two areas became part of Balochistan; the third joined the North-West Frontier. In return, Yaqub received an annual subsidy as well as arms and ammunition (Barfield 2010; Hussain 2005; Tripodi 2011).

  After the incorporation of Pishin and Sibi, the British developed what would turn out to be an enduring administrative system for Balochistan. (It is often referred to as the Sandeman system, after its architect, Sir Robert G. Sandeman.) This system combined a readiness to use lethal force with a commitment to knowing the various tribes as well as their languages; working through tribal leaders whenever possible, identifying and selectively supporting specific leaders when required, and binding the tribes to the government through reciprocal service and compensation. This system of compensated service, known as the levy system, became the mainstay of tribal administration, and a modified form of it persists even today in Balochistan and the tribal areas (Tripodi 2011).

  The British accepted Yakub as the ruler of Afghanistan until mobs attacked Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British head of mission in Kabul. In response, the British dispatched Gen. Frederick Roberts to occupy Kabul. Yaqub was forced to abdicate and flee to India, and after his departur
e the British ruled Afghanistan directly (Barfield 2010). Viceroy Lord Lytton “concluded that if he could not rule Afghanistan through a compliant amir, he would dismember it” (Barfield 2010, 142). While the British managed to separate Qandahar, in the south, from Kabul, the Pakhtun tribes and the ulema continued to foment unrest. Unable to either pacify Afghanistan or break it up, the British desperately sought a way to retreat without abandoning their interests. They found their solution in the form of Abdur Rahman (a nephew of Sher Ali), who returned to Afghanistan in 1880 (Barfield 2010; Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002). While Rahman was not pleased by British encroachment, he was much more concerned by the prospect of further Russian expansion. Perhaps even more importantly, he feared that should the Russians and the British go to war, Afghanistan would be the site of the conflict. These fears motivated him to back the British against the Russians. Per the terms of the agreement eventually reached between him and the Raj, Rahman received a robust subsidy while Britain retained control over Afghanistan’s foreign affairs. In light of the continuing Russian advances, Russian and British authorities became even more interested in delineating the borders of Afghanistan. In a series of protocols signed in the 1880s and 1890s, the two (the Afghans were often not even consulted) finally agreed on Afghanistan’s northern borders (Barfield 2010; Hussain 2005; Rubin 2002; Tripodi 2011).

  After the numerous challenges of the second Anglo-Afghan war, in 1881 the British reverted to a more conservative policy toward Afghanistan: the masterly inactivity or close border policy. This shift was facilitated by the agreement between the British and Rahman, under which he received a subsidy of some 1.2 million Indian rupees, rising to 1.85 million in 1893, when he agreed to demarcate the boundary between Afghan and British spheres of influence. This boundary, which was drawn with little heed to geography or ethnic distribution, became known as the Durand Line, after its British author, Sir Mortimer Durand, who was a British diplomat and civil servant of British India. The 1,519-mile boundary stretched from the southern tip of Balochistan to the base of the Wakhan corridor at the northernmost point of the North West Frontier.10 The British and Russians were keen to make the corridor—the mountainous strip that now protrudes from the northeast corner of Afghanistan—a part of Afghanistan because doing so would remove any common border between the Russian and British empires and thus minimize the possibility of any direct clash between the two armies (Rubin 2002). This agreement allowed Rahman to consolidate the Afghan state, focusing on security rather than development (ibid.). As opposition to his practices mounted, Pakhtuns and the ulema mobilized again, creating the conditions for various raids into the tribal areas on the British side of the border (Tripodi 2011).11

  By the close of the first decade of the nineteenth century, the structure of British Indian administration on the western frontier had taken its current form. The political organization of the frontier was the work of Lord Curzon, who became viceroy of India in 1899. Worried by Kabul’s ability to cause trouble on the frontier, skeptical of predictions of Russian aggression, and chary of the increasing military costs of confronting the tribal rebellion, Curzon promulgated a third phase of frontier policy. Known as a modified close border policy, this involved the creation of the NWFP in 1901 and the redeployment of British resources—including the military—back into India to focus on national defense instead of tribal matters.

  The NWFP, so named because it was located at the northwestern frontier of the Raj, was composed of five settled districts: Hazara; Peshawar; Bannu; Kohat; and Dera Ismael Khan. The frontier also included British Balochistan and five political agencies in the tribal belt along the North-West Frontier: Khyber Agency (created in 1879); Kurram (created in 1892); and South and North Waziristan and Malakand Agencies (created in 1895) (Barfield 2010; Tripodi 2011). These agencies were renamed the tribal agencies in 1901, and they continued to be treated differently than the settled districts of British India, where the British implemented regular forms of governance and taxation. The agencies, in contrast, were governed by a unique political system, the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which was especially designed for tribal management (Hussain 2005; Tripodi 2009, 2011; White 2008).

  The frontier had two distinct kinds of boundaries: one between Afghanistan and British India that was composed of the tribal belt; and another between the tribal belt and the settled areas. Equally important, the establishment of the NWFP also created two distinct kinds of economies. In the settled areas, the state’s revenue system created and empowered a few big landlords (often referred to as Khans), who became a Pakhtun bourgeoisie, as well as an increasing population of landless peasants and proletariat. The tribal areas retained the old economic system, but the general scarcity of fertile land led their inhabitants to develop a market economy dependent on smuggling (Khan 2003).

  The Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR)—the legal framework that applied in the tribal areas—differed markedly from the legal architecture that governed the rest of British India. It was promulgated formally in 1901, although it was derived from previous similar arrangements. The various tribes were allowed to govern themselves according to riwaj, or customary practices, but each agency was also administered by a Political Agent who was usually a British civil servant or military officer. The agent’s decisions were enforced by convening tribal elders (maliks) in a traditional deliberative mechanism known as a jirga. The British provided these maliks with discretionary funds so that they could reinforce their influence through patronage. The elders maintained security with the assistance of militias made up of local tribesmen, who were compensated for providing basic security duties. These militiamen were ultimately led by the head of the Frontier Constabulary, a British Indian Army officer.

  The entire tribal governance framework was placed under the auspices of the NWFP government, so the political agents reported to the governor of the North-West Frontier Province (Hussain 2005; White 2008). When the British introduced governance reforms throughout British India in 1909 and 1920, they did not extend these reforms to NWFP due to their fears of the Pakhtun capacity for unrest.12 Worse, those in the NWFP who clamored for reforms were punished using civil crime regulation (Khan 2003).

  These complicated and carefully considered efforts to indirectly manage Afghanistan and the frontier areas could not prevent violence from erupting throughout the region. In an effort to gain independence from the British, the Afghans initiated the Third Anglo-Afghan War (May–August 1919). Despite experiencing some military success, the British, exhausted by the First World War, agreed to grant Afghanistan complete independence. Britain also ceased all subsidies to the Afghan ruler, Amanullah. This treaty, signed in 1922, marked the formal start of yet another strategic phase: the modified forward policy (Barfield 2010; Hussain 2005; Tripodi 2011). This policy involved returning the army to its pivotal role in South Waziristan (understood to be the epicenter of tribal dissent) while retaining a close border policy toward Afghanistan. Despite persistent and large-scale tribal unrest in 1936–1937, the policy remained in place until Pakistan’s independence (Tripodi 2011).13

  Figure 5.1 Graphical depiction of the security system of South Asia.

  For more than a century, the terrain over which the British played out their concept of strategic depth extended from the border of British India (which moved westward over time) up to the Amu Darya and beyond.14 This strategic geography can be depicted in several concentric spheres (Figure 5.1). The innermost sphere was British India itself (i.e., the territories east of the Indus), which was to be secured from encroachment at all costs. The outmost arc was defined by imperial Russia, which eventually extended to the northern borders of Afghanistan. The space between these two spheres was negotiated differently at different times. The bulk of modern Afghan territory was variously construed as either a buffer area (the close border policy) or an area of active British power projection (forward policy), depending on the date and the prevailing regional, international, and domestic (British) concerns.

 
; The frontier region (classically known as the Trans-Indus because it generally stretched from the west bank of the Indus River up to southern Afghanistan) was seen as an internal buffer area that provided an additional defense for the British Indian heartland. The British developed a complex arrangement for governing this area, coming over time to outsource security to local tribal structures working in conjunction with British political agents. The British wanted to avoid confrontation and expensive deployments and thus employed military force only when necessary (e.g., when British convoys were attacked in the frontier). Notions of citizenship varied across this space. While those living in the Punjab and Sindh were subjects of British India (with the exception of the citizens of the princely states), different legal regimes existed for inhabitants of the North-West Frontier Province (which was under governor rule), much of Balochistan, and all of the tribal areas. The FATA and parts of Balochistan were governed by the FCR, which, with some modifications, still acts as the legal framework in this region. This is the security concept that Pakistan inherited in 1947 (Ali 1999; Tripodi 2009; White 2008).

  Pakistan’s Army Seeks Strategic Depth: Managing Pakistan’s Frontier and Beyond

  At independence, Pakistan’s military leaders, all products of the British Indian army, assumed that Pakistan would continue to follow British Afghan policy; Pakistan’s geography and neighborhood, however, made this very difficult. Kabul saw the Partition of the Raj as an opportunity to disencumber itself from commitments it had made to the British and reassert its irredentist claims on Pakhtun-majority areas in the North-West Frontier Province, the tribal areas, and even parts of Balochistan. Afghanistan was the only state to oppose Pakistan’s inclusion within the United Nations (UN). Even though it eventually relented and withdrew its opposition, relations between the two continued to be uneasy. Afghanistan insisted that the various treaties between Afghanistan and British India became void upon Pakistan’s independence, including the treaty that established the Durand Line as the boundary between the two states.15 Equally discomfiting for Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership, Afghanistan also began demanding the creation of an independent Pakhtun state (variously called Pakhtunistan or Pashtunistan) from Pakistan’s Pakhtun-dominated areas.16