Sikunder Burnes

by Craig Murray

  from the moment I heard of the difference I was satisfied that you had been undeservedly compromised to promote views and ends which it was not part of your own desire to promote – Your exculpation is complete but it is humiliating to me even to think that exculpation ever was necessary.23

  Burnes was here unwise; firstly in vouching for a man he had never met, and secondly criticising Claude Wade in correspondence with Masson:

  Captain Wade – To that gentleman I owe something for hospitality and kindness […] but I fear that poor Gerard’s opinion of him in his public character is very much my own – My journey is […] happily terminated but, however much I feel Captain Wade’s private kindness, I owe him nothing publicly indeed much the reverse – All this I am bound to state to someone whose feelings have been trifled with as yours.

  In fact, Wade had judged Masson’s character much better than Burnes.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Return to the Indus

  Burnes found himself kicking his heels at Bhuj. After turning down Persia, he had been offered nothing else. One reason for this was the inopportune promotion away from Indian affairs of Charles Grant, after a brief Tory hiatus.

  In May 1835 Burnes was despatched on a diplomatic mission to Sind over an Indian cargo vessel wrecked on the coast. Local custom was that any wrecked vessel and its cargo became the property of the rulers. Burnes now found the Amirs anxious to co-operate. They were preoccupied with the threat of invasion by Ranjit Singh. Burnes found it impossible to confine discussion to the narrow case of commercial compensation. Rather the Amirs were offering a complete opening of the Indus to free trade, British control of their foreign policy, and the stationing of a British Resident at Shikarpur. What they wanted in exchange was a guarantee of British protection.4

  Burnes and Pottinger strongly recommended a treaty to establish these arrangements and achieve longstanding policy goals. But the Acting Governor-General, Charles Metcalfe, loathed the idea of military commitments beyond existing frontiers and rejected the idea.

  A farcical turf battle between the British occurred in Haidarabad. Nur Mohammed, who had succeeded his father as principal Amir in 1832, requested a British physician to attend him. Pottinger sent Dr Hathorn of the 15th Regiment, stationed in Cutch, to join Burnes. Lord Clare also sent a physician, Dr J F Heddle, on a steamer under Lt Corless. This was another British attempt to use a pretext – delivering the physician – to forward the survey of the Indus.

  Although as Resident in Bhuj, Pottinger was subject to Lord Clare, as Envoy to Sind he had been appointed by Calcutta. Pottinger now argued that Clare had no right to send Dr Heddle as Calcutta was responsible for relations with Sind. This was the precise opposite of Pottinger’s position when he had been despatching Burnes to Sind, and a direct insult to Clare who was, in all normal circumstances, Pottinger’s boss. Pottinger instructed Burnes to stop Heddle from seeing the Amirs. Burnes complied, adding the breathtakingly hypocritical observation that to send a boat with Heddle was an unworthy ruse for spying. The Amirs refused to see Heddle and he left affronted, though Lt Corless’ steam survey was to continue for two years. There now occurred a monumental disagreement between Burnes and Pottinger. It involved Pottinger’s role as head of the Cutch Durbar, or Council of State, and seems to have concerned control over the port of Mandvi, which was important to British troop movements and where the Resident at Bhuj and the Rao of Cutch, had their summer residences. Burnes believed that Pottinger was abusing his authority against the interests of the Rao. By his own account, Pottinger was devastated by the blazing row. Four years later he was to write to the Governor-General:

  I am unwillingly obliged here to trouble Your Lordship by reverting to Sir Alexander Burnes’ conduct to me […] and to the long series of indignities and reprehension I suffered through the support his unfounded misrepresentations met with from the then Governor of Bombay, the late Sir Robert Grant

  […] they were such as many persons would have sunk under […] they bid fair for a time to blacken and ruin my public character […] and […] plunged me in a state of such misery and anxiety as I cannot at all describe1

  Burnes had the opposite view, that Sir Robert Grant had not done enough:

  he was a good man but an execrable Governor, he meant well but did nothing […] Is it true that the court have reversed the Mandavee decision? I cannot believe it. I do think however that they might leave the sovereignty (but only that) with the Rao. Nothing showed Grant’s incapacity more, than his allowing Pottinger to bully as he did […]2

  Life at Bhuj must have been very difficult. As Burnes was taking the side of the local ruler against the British Resident, it is unlikely that he was supported by the officers of the garrison. The rift, however, is not surprising. Burnes’ description of Pottinger as bullying seems accurate, while Burnes’ liberal views on Indian government would not have endeared him to Pottinger. Burnes believed that locals should be given much more responsibility. He wrote ‘Men will say, “wait till they are ready.” I can only say that, if you wait till men are fit for liberty, you will wait forever […] Will a man ever learn to swim without going into the water?’ Burnes doubted the entire Imperial venture: ‘Instead of raising up a glorious monument to our memory, we shall impoverish India more thoroughly than Nadir, and become a greater curse to it than were the hordes of Timour.’3

  Once the expansionist Lord Auckland arrived to take over as Governor-General, Pottinger was despatched to Sind to take up the Amirs’ offer. Furthermore the Bombay Presidency was authorised to send troops into Sind if needed to deter the Sikhs from Shikarpur.

  Wade gave the message to Ranjit Singh that the British Government ‘could not but view with regret and disapprobation the prosecution of plans of unprovoked hostility, injurious to native states with whom that Government is connected’. It was enough, and Ranjit Singh cancelled his project against Shikarpur.5

  The reinvigoration of Burnes’ career was prompted by events in Persia. In Kandahar, the Dil Khans were alarmed by the ambition for eastward expansion of Mohammed, the new Shah of Persia, and by the continuing desire of Kamran Saduzai in Herat to attack them. They had therefore sent an Envoy, Aziz Muhammad Khan, to persuade the Persian Shah to enter an alliance for the removal of the Saduzais from Herat. The Ambassador’s message finished with a rhetorical flourish that the Muslims of Afghanistan were ready to put themselves in the Shah’s service for a united march to free Delhi from the infidel.

  There was no chance of the mostly Sunni Afghans marching under the Shia Shah of Persia anywhere, but nonetheless the event was picked up by the British Ambassador in Tehran, Henry Ellis. He was getting nowhere in trying to conclude a new commercial treaty, while at the same time seeking an annulment of Britain’s guarantees of defending Persia against European attack. Ellis reported that the Shah intended to invade Herat in the spring and press his claim to Kandahar and Ghazni as well, with Russian support.

  Ellis suggested Britain needed an entirely new regional strategy:

  since, in such an event, Persia will not or dare not place herself in a condition of close alliance with Great Britain, our policy must be to consider her no longer an outwork for the defence of India, but as the first parallel from which the attack may be commenced or threatened.6

  In response, on 25 June 1836 the President of the Board of Control, John Cam Hobhouse wrote to Lord Auckland, instructing him to act:

  whether by despatching a confidential agent to Dost Muhammad of Kabul merely to watch the progress of events, or to enter into relations with this chief, either of a political or merely, in the first instance, of a commercial character, we leave to your discretion, as well as the adoption of any other measures […] in order to counteract Russian influence in that quarter, should you be satisfied […] that the time has arrived […] to interfere in the affairs of Afghanistan.7

  There was never any real doubt who the confidential agent would be. Alexander Burnes was back in play. Auckland had already prepared
a despatch to London outlining Burnes’ mission and added in a postscript that he had anticipated Hobhouse’s instructions.8

  Auckland considered from the start the Burnes mission as a political one; it was never a purely commercial undertaking. Auckland gave private instructions to Burnes:

  I am unwilling to give the alarming colour of political speculation to a mission, the main object of which is commercial, but it is impossible to divest of political interest any observation of the Countries on the Indus and to the West of the river. It is difficult to see without some anxiety the exertions made on every occasion by the ruler of the Punjab to extend his power […]9

  So Burnes’ initial instruction was that his mission was not political, but that it was understood that this was ‘impossible’. At this time Auckland saw Ranjit as the aggressor.

  Alarm at Russian expansion caused a flurry of British intelligence activity which is the context of Burnes’ mission. Russia was fighting spirited resistance in its newly-conquered Caucasus territories. Palmerston sent a British ship, the Vixen, into the Black Sea in 1836 to run arms to Dagestani rebels, under cover of a cargo of salt. It caused a diplomatic incident when the ship was intercepted by Russian forces, but Palmerston sent an assurance to the Russian Foreign Minister Nesselrode that the British government had no knowledge of the venture. Palmerston was an accomplished liar. The Vixen was part of widespread activity by the British secret service in sending arms and advisers to the Chechen, Dagestani and Circassian rebels, which has modern echoes. The operation had been organised by David Urquhart ‘who had brought all the scattered mujahedin units together and even created a single command structure for them to direct their military action against the Russian army’.10 Urquhart then took up his appointment as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Constantinople. Four years earlier Palmerston had organised secret smuggling of arms for the Polish uprising. Colin Mackenzie, who served in Kabul with Burnes, had taken part.11 The anti-Russian mood of the British establishment went well beyond rhetoric.

  Burnes’ second navigation of the Indus is darkened by the shadow of looming disaster, and attention has naturally focused on events in Kabul at its conclusion. Burnes recounts this journey in his posthumously published Cabool. He was obliged to omit any reference to the diplomatic negotiations. But as a story of travel and adventure Cabool is a delightful book.

  Alexander commanded a party of four British officers, the other three being Lieutenant Robert Leech of the Bombay Engineers, Lieutenant John Wood of the Indian (Company) Navy and Dr Percival Lord of the Bombay Medical Service and his instructions from the Government of India were:

  to work out its policy of opening the River Indus to commerce, and establishing on its banks, and in the countries beyond it, such relations as should contribute to the desired end […] to prosecute the commercial inquiries with extreme caution, […] and in all to act so as to mark the anxious desire of the British Government for the restitution of tranquillity and for the establishment of friendly relations.12

  Burnes was expected thoroughly to survey the rivers for steam navigation, to locate sources of wood, coal and other fuel, to explore the market for British manufactured goods, to report on possible trade routes and make commercial contacts, to outline the current agricultural and manufacturing output and prospects for future economic growth, to explore for mineral deposits capable of commercial exploitation, to find the best site to hold an annual trade fair on the Indus, and to negotiate with the various governments from Sind to Kabul for trade access, reduction of tariffs and protection of goods and merchants.

  It is a tribute to the spirit of the age that scientific investigation of the geology and natural history of the region, including the collection of a large number of specimens of both flora and fauna, were considered part of the official activities of the mission and supported with public funds. Archaeological investigation and collection of ancient coins, artefacts and inscriptions held a kind of semi-official status, but were certainly approved activities. It went without saying that the mission was also to report on military forces and fortifications, the practicability of roads for artillery and the availability of food, fodder and shelter for armies.

  The commercial mission was not simply a front for espionage. The British wanted to make money from new markets for what was still the world’s most efficient manufacturing industry. They also believed that such trade would enrich the Afghans, stabilise their government, and bind them to Britain through commercial ties, all of which would increase their value as a buffer state to the Empire.

  Accordingly the group carried manufacturers’ samples to show Afghan merchants, and Burnes’ instructions on security and tax immunity of British merchants and duties for British goods, were real business. I spent some of my own diplomatic career engaged in this kind of work. The pressure from taxpayers for diplomats to earn their keep by bringing a flow of wealth back to the home country is a constant political reality. Burnes’ reports13 on manufactures, commodities, raw materials, trading routes, distributors, retail outlets, financial networks and credit availability, prices, tariffs and tolls were painstaking. The British merchants to whom they were made available commented that you would think that Burnes had been nothing but a trader himself his whole life.14

  Burnes’ plan of establishing trade fairs to coincide with the Lohani tribal migrations made sense. These Afghan nomadic migrations were as much about trade as pasture. The maldar or wealthy nomad could be a merchant and financier on a large scale. Louis Dupree found this still to be true in the 1960s:

  the search for grass has its commercial side. In fact, several nomads told me that they consider herding secondary to trading. The system involves both cash and barter, with barter more important than cash in some areas. Items brought in by nomads include kerosene, matches, cloth, sugar, tea, spices, peppers, guns, ammunition, iron tools, milk and milk products, livestock, hides, leather, rugs, carpets.15

  The Russian government had established an annual fair at Nizhni Novgorod to boost the trade with Central Asia which had been flowing through that city since at least the fourteenth century.16 This had proved attractive to merchants from Central Asia and even India. It had been a huge investment –a then astonishing £1m in the trade grounds and warehouses, including flood containment works on the river. By 1836 40 per cent of all Russia’s imports flowed through Nizhni Novgorod. Unfortunately, then as now, the Russian economy was not well developed for the production of consumer goods, and imports much exceeded exports. The annual caravan from Bokhara to Orenburg had 5,000 laden camels going out, but only 600 returning. Russia became alarmed at the outflow of bullion through the fair and tried from the 1820s to ban the export of ingots and coin, with little practical effect.

  Burnes divided the work among his little mission – he took on most of the commercial, economic and political reporting, Lt John Wood as a naval man was naturally in charge of surveying the rivers, Lt Leech was tasked with noting the military features, and Dr Lord was asked to focus on geology and natural history. There was a fifth European with the party, a Goan Portuguese draughtsman named Jose Goncalves. Burnes had a new secretary, a young Parsi named Nourozji Fourdonji, a graduate of Elphinstone College, Bombay. Burnes had deliberately sought another young Indian to promote: ‘I hope only that Nawazjee may do as well as Mohan Lal & I am sure of his being cherished by Government & of his deserving to be so – Having been instrumental in bringing forward a native of Delhi, I now feel anxious to do what I can for one of the Bombay Presidency that both may run the race fairly.’17 The professional ranks of the mission were completed by Dr Mahomed Ali of the Bombay Medical Service, one of the first local doctors trained, again Burnes’ deliberate choice.

  The expedition set out from Bombay at midnight on 26 November 1836, after dinner hosted by the Governor on Malabar Point.18 After a five-day halt in Mandvi, they sailed westward towards the Indus Delta, where they disembarked into Sind on 13 December. They were minus Dr Lord, who would be joi
ning them further up river.

  Burnes was delighted that many of the boatmen who had taken him up to Lahore on his previous trip were anxious to serve with him again. He noticed that the hostility towards the British which had been so dangerous six years earlier had almost disappeared. He also witnessed the extraordinary movement of channels and silt in the Indus Delta; he could now ride his horse for two miles up what had been the main channel last time. Twenty-three-year-old Lieutenant Wood from Perth had already spent two seasons exploring the lower Indus on a specially constructed steam boat. The British had put the first steamer on the Indus, under the command of twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Corless, only three years after Burnes’ pioneering voyage up it.

  Sailing up the Indus, the mission met Corless and Pottinger sailing down, after the latter had concluded negotiations with the Amirs. Pottinger briefed Burnes on his success, which included further free trade provisions and a permanent British Resident at Shikarpur.19 Burnes noted that all this only formalised what he had been offered by the Amirs on 5 December 1835 but Metcalfe had vetoed. He also briefed in detail Sayyid Azimal Din, who had been appointed British Agent at Karachi, finding Din ‘a highly qualified public servant’.

  On 27 December, proceeding slowly up river in luxurious state jumtis supplied by the Amirs, Burnes received instructions from Auckland to establish communication direct with John McNeill, and co-ordinate their positions. Burnes wrote, ‘the state of Persia and her designs backed by Russia already engage attention & before I reach Tatta on my commercial mission I find the seeds to be sown for important political concerns. I shall give this subject my most anxious consideration’.20