Sikunder Burnes

by Craig Murray

  At least Burnes now had clear instructions to enter political negotiation and to discuss sympathetically an arrangement for Peshawar. A further letter of 20 October from Macnaghten reiterated agreement with the proposal to restore Peshawar to one of the Barakzai brothers.10

  Dost was given to calling in on Burnes to chat. An example of 27 September gives a good illustration of the Emir’s character and of their relationship:

  In the afternoon the Amir dropped in without ceremony and sat till 8 o’clock his son & all his court having followed him […] He told us of the utility of cavalry in war which he rated far below infantry if the infantry stood – he explained the bridging of the Indus – he told us of the beasts and birds of Kabul – of the grapes & gardens […] of the lineage of his race from the children of Israel – of the law preventing customs of giving a daughter no inheritance & marrying a brother’s wife which is not Mohammedan but I have neither time nor inclination to record all […]11

  Even for such a dedicated ethnographer as Burnes, the Emir could be exhausting. The next day Jabbar Khan visited, but his talk was much more directly political, on his desire to reconcile his brothers Dost and Sultan.

  On 5 October a London paper reached the mission bearing news of the death of William IV and the accession of Queen Victoria. They drank the young Queen’s health with Jabbar and Akbar Khan and commissioned the decoration of a Kabul fountain in her honour.12

  On 24 October the Emir and Jabbar came to see Burnes, and declared their regret at having entered into discussions with Persia, and desire to ally with Britain. They pledged to refuse to receive Qambar Ali, and Dost wrote to the Dil Khans, ‘We have an enemy like Runjeet Sing in our neighbourhood, and the English may get the affair of Peshawar settled. How then can we enter into an alliance with others […] I see nothing for the Mussulmans, in their wars against the Sikhs, but to be friendly with the English government.’ 13

  The Emir also turned down a proposal from Sobdar Khan, one of the Amirs of Sind, canvassing a wider alliance with Persia against the Sikhs. Burnes’ diplomacy was going well, but he worried about the lack of clarity in his intructions. He wrote to James Holland on 30 October 1837, ‘I hardly know what the Government of India will make of my measures, for my line of conduct is only indicated by them, not marked out.’14

  That was certainly fair comment as his most recent relevant instructions ran:

  If you believe that the Sikhs and Afghan Amirs should have but little disposition to advance […] and that the desire has been evinced by both the contending parties rather for political adjustment than for conflict and that without committing your Government to the exercise of direct influence, you may either safely act on your original instructions or perhaps contribute something to the restoration of peace.15

  This is typical of the stream of back-covering faux-wisdom with which Burnes was bombarded by Macnaghten and Auckland. But Burnes was able to report that he had made remarkable progress in squaring the circle of achieving agreement with Dost Mohammed, while at the same time persuading him to acknowledge Sikh overlordship of Peshawar.

  Burnes was correct that Ranjit Singh was prepared to compromise over Peshawar. The occupation of the province was costing more than the revenue raised. The Sikh troops stationed west of Attock, essential to defend Peshawar, were continually mutinous, in part because the location broke a religious taboo. As Henry Durand observed, the consequence was that: ‘These considerations had disposed Runjeet Singh […] to assent to any arrangement which might relieve him of his troublesome conquest, without compromising his own position.’16

  Alexander had talked Dost round to what might be a reasonable solution. The Emir would send Akbar to Lahore to acknowledge Ranjit’s sovereignty over Peshawar, and apologise for Afghan aggression (sic). Ranjit would then give Peshawar back to the Barakzais as a fiefdom; they would pay him a symbolic tribute. Burnes’ view was that this would be in practice a temporary arrangement until Ranjit Singh died, when he expected the Sikh Empire to disintegrate. Dost would declare himself a firm British ally and renounce any contact with Russia or Persia. The Emir accepted this proposal in full.

  Burnes reported, ‘I have […] offered to stand as mediator between the parties, and Dost Mahomed has cut asunder all his connection with Russia and Persia, and refused to receive the ambassador from the Shah now at Kandahar.’

  One of very few men on good personal terms with both Ranjit Singh and Dost Mohammed, Burnes had discussed Peshawar with each. If he could not broker peace, then who could? At the end of October 1837 Burnes certainly believed he had achieved agreement, writing that Dost

  met me as an old friend […] instead of putting forward extravagant demands, urged his views in such a reasonable manner that I am sure I only await answers to my dispatches to enter on a negotiation for peace between him and Runjeet […] It is probable the Sikh will withdraw from Peshawar, and Dost Mahomed Khan agrees to pay him tribute for it. How delightful it is to be the humble instrument of calming a nation’s fury!17

  Burnes viewed Wade as the main obstacle to a settlement, mocking him in a private letter: ‘Runjeet will accede to this plan I am certain, but Wade is a great little man […] and while he is looking to the horizon (to use his own words) of politics, events crowd on, and spoil his speculations.’

  On 12 July 1837, while Burnes was still in Peshawar, Wade had already written to Macnaghten warning against any agreement with Dost, on the grounds that this would negate the possible British use of Shah Shuja, a key British asset. Wade went so far as to withhold from Auckland at least one of the letters Dost Mohammed sent about Peshawar.18 He was at or beyond the limit of professionally acceptable behaviour in his selective summaries of Masson’s reports, in his heavy commentary on, and sometimes delay of, the dispatches of Burnes, and his handling of the Emir’s letters. Henry Durand, who knew both men, wrote

  The correspondence, having to pass through Wade’s hands, was always forwarded to the Governor-General with his opinions and surmises; and, there being no inconsiderable jealousy between the two men, Wade was ever inclined to frustrate rather than to adopt Burnes’ views […]

  It appears that Wade was reprimanded for excessive interference with Burnes’ despatches. Burnes wrote in a note to Masson, ‘You will see Wade had got it again from Government for “commenting” on my letters.’19

  But Burnes and Wade did not enjoy a bad personal relationship. Burnes always stayed with Wade in Ludhiana, sometimes for several weeks. On 7 September 1838 Burnes wrote to James asking him to accommodate Wade’s nephew, arriving at Bombay, as ‘it is the only mode which I am ever likely to have of returning much civility from Wade’.20

  Close contact with Shuja led all the British21 to be contemptuous of him, except Wade, who had the closest and longest contact of all. Henry Durand said, ‘Wade had been won to the Shah’s interest by flattering […] attention, and by the skill with which the ex-monarch had […] engaged Wade in his confidence.’ Malcolm Yapp describes Wade as ‘probably’ corrupt, but offers no evidence. The institutional model seems to me a more likely explanation; the more important Shuja was, the more important Wade was. If Shuja were merely a bypassed failure, nursemaiding him would hardly be career-enhancing.

  Durand, who was eventually Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, states that the British government had a Machiavellian motive against peace, which was to tie up Sikh forces towards Afghanistan, and thus away from their border with the British.22 Auckland Colvin, whose father was Lord Auckland’s Private Secretary, confirms this.23 The Russians were playing exactly the same game, encouraging the Persian Shah to attack Herat to draw his forces away from the border with Russia.

  But a vital internal policy memo from Auckland to his Secret Committee dated 9 September 1837, is not looking to push Ranjit to war with Kabul. Auckland states that both Kandahar and Kabul have ‘proffered submission to Tehran’, but argues that this is understandable as ‘the declared motive has been the alarm of Sikh invasion’. Auckland con
tinues:

  I have, on these grounds, seen with uneasiness the continuance of acrimonious and violent differences in the vicinity of Peshawar. I am thoroughly convinced that it is for the best interests of Runjeet Singh himself that he should come to terms of proper accommodation with the Afghans.24

  While Auckland gives no precise formula, there is no doubt that in the early winter of 1837 Burnes’ proposals in Kabul were entirely consistent with both the letter and spirit of the policy as set out at that time by Auckland. The accepted view of historians, that Burnes was acting contrary to policy, is a nonsense. Burnes cannot have been expected to predict that Auckland was to change his mind.

  Burnes felt grateful to Masson for the briefings he had sent him and the support he offered in Kabul. On 9 October he wrote to Auckland: ‘I shall owe much to Mr Masson, whose […] accurate knowledge of people and events afford me […] the means of coming to a judgement, more correct than, in an abrupt transition to Cabool, I could have possibly formed.’25 In passing this letter on, Wade added his own warm commendation. The only result was a letter to Masson conveying the thanks of Lord Auckland. Masson wrote on the bottom of this, plainly in sarcasm, ‘Oh be joyful in the Lords all ye lands, come before their presence with thanksgivings, and shew yourselves glad in them with psalms.’26

  The following day Burnes sent Macnaghten a substantial paper on the Qizilbash of Kabul. Shia Persians, they had been brought to Kabul by Nadir Shah around 1740 as loyal central troops. Literate, they had come to dominate the state bureaucracy. Around 5,000 families in Kabul, inhabiting a substantially walled quarter, they were in sporadic conflict with their Sunni neighbours. Originally loyal to Dost Mohammed, whose mother was a Qizilbash, they had become alienated when he transformed into a fiercely Sunni Emir. If Persia conquered Herat and marched on Kabul, they would be very significant. Otherwise, Burnes concluded that long term they faced extermination.27

  He spent some pleasant evenings at a country estate outside Kabul with his old Qizilbash friend, Mohammed Sharif Khan, who had travelled from Peshawar to Kabul with Burnes and Gerard in 1832.28 The Qizilbash were under suspicion of Persian loyalties, so their leader Khan Shirin Khan was not able to communicate with Burnes direct; but he opened friendly communication through Sharif.29

  Things seemed to be going so well that the mission felt able to make an excursion for a few days, north of Kabul, into the Kohistani countryside. Burnes urged Masson to join them, but he declined.30 Alex waxed lyrical in his diary:

  In a day exactly as one finds in Autumn in Europe we worked our way through gardens to the commencement of the famed gardens of Thukundurra – Famed they might well be for the landscape is at once glorious and mellow – The gardens are in terraces over each other and […] the very hills are clad with gardens high up […] overlooking the King’s Gardens we had a delightful prospect.31

  Here, they celebrated the anniversary of the start of their mission. After four more days of delight, Burnes declared himself speechless by 16 October when they reached the most famous beauty spot of Istalif. On 20 October Burnes returned to Kabul with Don Goncalves and Leech, while Lord and Wood with kafilbashi Hyat headed into the Hindu Kush.32

  Burnes remained very popular in London, where the President of the Board of Control, John Cam Hobhouse, consistently supported building a strong Afghan buffer state under the Barakzais; but a dispatch from India to London took three months, and vice versa. Hobhouse was too distant to have any practical effect on Burnes’ negotiations. Alex wrote to Holland that he still had no clear indication from Calcutta of support for his proposed Peshawar settlement, but felt confident: ‘I am inspirited by their free use of laudatory adjectives regarding my proceedings hitherto.’33 Those adjectives were about to come to a screeching stop.

  Alex seemed to be making good progress. On 28 October 1837, at Burnes’ urging, Dost wrote to his half-brothers in Kandahar rebuking them for seeking to accommodate Persia: ‘What fruits do you hope to reap by sending your son to Persia? If the British would not be friendly then you might make friends with others. The former are near to us and famous for preserving their word. The latter are nothing in power compared to them.’34

  Every day Alex had sent painstaking letters and long reports on every detail of the economy, commerce, politics and geography of the towns and country through which he passed. It was beginning to take its toll. On 29 October 1837 he wrote from Kabul to George Jacob:

  I find I have ceased to be my own master, or rather become a slave of the public […] The very hours of rest are passed in thinking, and the very mechanical labour of writing is such that my eyes and hands alike suffer.35

  He was feeling the strain of responsibility and wished there was somebody else on the mission with political experience. However:

  The party accompanying me is all I could wish. Lord is a very superior man in every way – a gentleman and a companion without Indianization in his head, and consequently I drink with him fresh from the spring […] Wood and Lord are everything I could wish, and if we do not give satisfaction the fault may be my own.36

  On 26 November Burnes sent a detailed analysis of the politics of Kabul to Macnaghten, remarking that the Afghan people are motivated by a ‘Republican genius’ and that no central authority could impinge on the traditional tribal rights. But Dost’s limited territories, and his continual maintenance of a war footing against the Sikhs, had forced him to exact taxes from tribes never subject to central authority, particularly in Kohistan. He praised Dost’s trade policies, but said he maintained an army larger than the country could sustain, which was building up political problems.37

  The mission’s work continued. Robert Leech had been in charge of surveying the route and collating information, although all the party contributed. In Kabul, Leech finished drawing up his survey and sent it to Calcutta.

  He gave physical descriptions of the Khyber pass with altitudes, rates of incline, width of gorge and several alternative trackways. He described defensive strongpoints and barriers where transit dues were collected. He outlined the distribution, numerical strength, arms and allegiances of the various tribes. He then listed the subsidies they received from central government for keeping the passes open. In the time of Ahmed Shah Dourani the tribes received an annual total of Rs130,000, divided between seven tribal chiefs. Now annual subsidies paid by Dost amounted to Rs19,500 divided between eight chiefs, who between them mustered 28,000 fighting men.

  Leech’s conclusions were that the geography of the pass and number of warriors made it very difficult to force, but that the tribes were co-operative if paid a modest stipend (the equivalent of £2,000 a year), while the earlier, much higher subsidies showed the potential value of trade given peaceful conditions.38 Leech is credited as being the first to identify the Mughals around Ghor as a distinctive ethnic group and to chronicle their culture.39 This report was followed by one from Wood detailing the practicality of the Khyber pass and the route of the Kabul river for an army and guns.40

  Burnes continued to oversee the work of the mission in its original purpose. Exhaustive studies were made of the shops, merchants, warehouses, manufactures, bankers, taxes, prices and trade volumes of Kabul. Burnes became more than ever convinced of the centrality of the annual Lohani caravan migrations. He was happy to meet his old friends, the brothers Sarwar and Omar Khan Lohani. Dost Mohammed – who had never quite lost his taste for brigandage – had seized the very large sum of 20,000 ducats, about £9,000, from them and Burnes repeatedly lobbied the Emir on their behalf, pleading for the sanctity of trade. He eventually achieved partial restitution, which cemented their friendship. Burnes wrote to Macnaghten that the Governor-General should receive the Lohanis, and noted that in 1836 the Central Asian merchants visiting the Nizhni Novgorod fair had all been introduced to Tsar Nicholas, with great impact.41 Burnes also arranged for the brothers to take 300 sheep and twelve rams to Mithankot as breeding stock for the government of Bombay.

  Writing privately, Burnes rev
iewed the irritable history of European communication with Murad Beg of Kunduz and came to a remarkably liberal conclusion: ‘it would seem that the Europeans have hitherto behaved as ill to Murad Beg as he to them’.42 He therefore sent a friendly message, and received greetings in return, with a present of a horse and request that Dr Lord come to Kunduz and treat Murad’s brother, who was suffering from blindness. In return Murad offered to hand over papers and books of Moorcroft.43 Burnes seized this opportunity to send Lord and Wood to extend their survey, telling Jacob that ‘while I hope the cure may be affected, I am certain of a geographical section through these mountains, with chronometrically fixed positions […] which will be sinking a geographical mine in Asia’. He added gleefully that Murad Beg ‘does not know that I am the man who was dragged to his door in 1832, nor shall he know’.

  Lord and Wood were caught in a blizzard on the Saraulang pass in the Hindu Kush. They were travelling with an envoy from Dost Mohammed to Murad Beg, who insisted on pressing on when Lord and Wood turned back. The envoy and all his party perished in the snow.44 Once they were able to get through, with Murad Beg’s favour Lord gathered much intelligence, particularly on the transit trade between Kabul and Bokhara. Murad Beg encouraged caravans and charged duty only at the Koranic two and a half per cent. On high value items like Cashmere shawls he charged no duty at all, to encourage wealthy merchants. Despite his vicious reputation, he was a shrewd ruler. Kunduz stood not just on the main route between Kabul and Bokhara, but on a route to Kashgar in China. Lord reported that Murad’s annual income from taxes on Kafilas amounted to Rs60,000.