by Craig Murray
Given British brutality, submissions started to come in. Burnes was receiving much intelligence on Dost’s whereabouts. On 8 October the force returned to Charikar to try to intercept him, then pursued him to Karabagh and Nijrow. This period when Dost Mohammed was a fugitive resistance leader naturally entered into Afghan lore. Burnes was the arch-villain. This is from the epic Jangnama of Ghulam Kohistani:
At the Amir’s order, those courageous rebels
Rode their horses through the mountainous lands
Nowhere was there a moment’s respite or hesitation
Dreading in their hearts a Firangi attack
For fear that he would beat them to it
That wretched Burnes at Charikar.13
Burnes was receiving intelligence from double-dealing Kohistanis, while the Emir was receiving intelligence from among the janbaz. On 11 October 1840 Burnes heard that Dost with a small band had entered Ghurband, just two marches from Kabul. Macnaghten immediately ordered Dennie from Bamian back to the capital, which he described as ‘in a very weak and defenseless state’. Cannon were strategically placed and British troops moved into the Bala Hissar.
On the 13th Lieutenant Dowson was sent on with the cavalry to catch the Emir at Tutundera, who narrowly escaped them. On the 17th Burnes and Sale razed the town of Babukushkar, despite their being no resistance. They destroyed two miles of beautiful vineyards and gardens. This provoked the first serious attack on Sale’s force the following night, but it was beaten off without difficulty. Macnaghten was scathing: ‘Burnes and Sale, with nearly 2,000 good infantry, are sitting down before a fortified position about twenty miles distant, and are afraid to attack it. The enemy made an attack upon them the night before last – killed and wounded some of our people, and got off unscathed – all this is very bad.’14
On 19 October Burnes and Sale received substantial reinforcements of six companies of the 37th NI and two nine-pounder guns. Two days later they approached a large Kohistani force at Kardera, which dispersed without a fight. Kardera too was levelled. This systematic destruction of homes as well as fortifications, with winter fast approaching, amounted to a campaign of atrocity in which Burnes was deeply implicated. This is the more remarkable as Burnes had, just six months previously, gone to great lengths to intercede on behalf of the Kohistanis, believing their grievances genuine. The humane traveller and writer, the officer who had opposed the invasion, who had tried to stop British reprisals in the Bolan pass, appeared to have disappeared. Burnes had been captured by his metier and by the pressure on the beleaguered British force. When he had sacrificed his principles and gone along with the invasion, it was inevitable that his honour would end up deeply compromised and the bitterness of bad conscience start to curdle his personality.
The Emir had succeeded in slipping through to to Nijrow, where a Kohistani army of 4,000 foot and 400 horse had assembled to support him just three easy marches from Kabul, in which direction he now moved. He had reached Parwandera when Burnes and Sale finally caught up with him.
The vanguard was under Colonel Salter and Dr Lord, and consisted of two guns, seven companies of Native Infantry, the two squadrons of the Second Cavalry and 200 of the Shah’s horse under Captain Anderson. Burnes and Sale were at the head of the main force a mile behind. It was a beautiful morning, the sun sparkling off the mountain streams and irrigation canals.
Lord had met with village elders at the valley entrance. The villagers represented themselves as Shuja loyalists, and complained that the Emir’s forces had plundered them. They indicated a track skirting the hills to the right, and said that a quick move by this route would enable the British to cut off Dost’s force. Lord pressed this idea on Salter, who despatched the two squadrons of the 2nd Cavalry by this route, while Anderson’s horse deployed to the left. Lord and Broadfoot, who had built the boat-bridge at Sukkur, rode with the 2nd Cavalry, forcing the pace to cut off the Emir.
As they blindly raced around the track, they were unaware that this led them right underneath Dost Mohammed, on a hill above with his cavalry. Seizing the moment, the Emir with about 400 irregular cavalry swept down. The vast majority of the sepoys of the 2nd Cavalry turned and galloped away, leaving just twenty men and ten British officers, who spurred their horses uphill to meet the Afghan charge. Lord was killed by a jezzail shot before he got ten yards. Broadfoot was allegedly killed by sepoys he tried to stop from fleeing.15 Burnes had spotted the disaster unfolding, and was racing up with the horse artillery under intense fire – he kept as a souvenir a ball which struck close to him. He wrote to Davie, ‘How I escaped unscathed God only knows.’ But typically he downplayed his personal danger and urged Davie to ‘Make no parade of these facts.’ Burnes had now seen three friends – Edward Conolly, James Broadfoot and Percival Lord – killed before his eyes in the space of a fortnight. He wrote that in Broadfoot and Lord he had lost ‘two of my dearest friends’.16
The Emir’s forces now turned back towards Nijrow, but Dost himself, with a single attendant, carefully skirted the British camp and headed for Kabul.
Following Parwan, Burnes wrote a detailed letter to Macnaghten on strategy, arguing that, in the face of growing resistance across Afghanistan, the British force was not strong enough to occupy the entire country, and its isolated garrisons might find themselves cut off. As a matter of survival, the British should now concentrate their forces. Macnaghten received Burnes’ letter and had read it with George Lawrence just before they went out together for the evening ride. Macnaghten was indignant. On his ride, he was astonished to be approached by Dost Mohammed, who surrendered.
Burnes was right. The Army of the Indus was too small to occupy Afghanistan, and its dispersed contingents were in grave danger. Burnes argued this in two further memoranda to Macnaghten at four-month intervals. The concomitant of Burnes’ analysis was that the British Army had not only to concentrate, but then to leave the country. Burnes said so privately and often, but not to Macnaghten as he knew it would be summarily rejected. Rather, he waited for Macnaghten’s planned departure.
Dost was well treated in captivity, including by Macnaghten, who underwent a complete change of heart on meeting the Emir. Dost’s first visitor, naturally, was Burnes, who wrote to Davie:
My interview with Dost Mohammed was very interesting and very affectionate. He taunted me with nothing, said I was his best friend, and that he had come in on a letter I had written to him. This I disbelieve, for we followed him from house to house, and he was obliged to surrender. On that letter, however, I hope I shall have got for him a stipend of two lakhs of rupees instead of one. On our parting, I gave him an Arab horse, and what think you he gave me? His own, and only sword, and which is stained with blood.17
Dr Atkinson attended the Emir and liked him, noting ‘the remarkable self-possession he displayed under circumstances certainly embarrassing’. Atkinson reckoned that Dost tricked Burnes, and that ‘the sword presented by Burnes was of a superior description, while that presented by the Ameer was only worth a few rupees’. Dost told Burnes that he hoped they could be good friends again.18
One of Dost’s wives had remained in Kabul, and Lady Macnaghten provided her with various feminine desirables and took her to stay with Dost. The Emir gave Macnaghten a remarkable bit of advice. It would be better for Afghanistan, he said, if the British took the government into their own hands rather than let Shuja decide internal policy. He also warned that many of Shuja’s courtiers, growing fat on British gold, were at the same time plotting against the British.19
On 13 November 1840 Burnes wrote: ‘The surrender of Dost Mohammed has made the country as tranquil as Vesuvius after an eruption. How long it will continue it is impossible to say.’20 Alex felt they were sitting on an active volcano.
For a while, things went well. The very day Dost had surrendered Kabul, General Nott reoccupied Kelat unopposed. Two weeks later Colonel Marshall launched a surprise attack on the mountain camp of young Nassir Khan at Kotrah, massacring his followers
and capturing or killing seventeen chiefs. Nassir, to whom Burnes once gave a music-box, fled almost alone into the hills. Communications through the Bolan pass now seemed secure. On 12 November 1840 Dost was escorted from Kabul to exile in India, leaving with Cotton, who this time succeeded in getting out of Afghanistan. Macnaghten and Shuja left for another winter in Jalalabad, leaving Burnes again in charge in Kabul.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Discontent
In the winter of 1840 Captain Henry Palmer, Persian interpreter to Cotton and friend of Burnes, was offered the chance to transfer to the new commander designate and remain in Kabul. Palmer refused:
‘Why then won’t you stay with General Elphinstone, and not give up 900 Rupees a month by returning to your regiment as a captain on 450?’ ‘Because, Sir’ I replied ‘it is impossible that the present arrangement of four European Officers to command and officer regiments of Afghans from 800 to 1,000 strong, can last more than a few months before every European officer is murdered.’1
Many officers with units returning to India were offered substantial financial inducements to transfer to the Shah’s forces, with British official approval, and all refused. Morale was already terrible: ‘the regret of those who were destined to remain behind in Afghanistan was […] unanimous’.2
Shahamat Ali (a munshi with Wade, and a former classmate of Mohan Lal) had a feel for the discontents of Kabul and the currents of Afghan society. In his short time in Kabul, he identified that Shuja’s autocratic manner was alienating the major chiefs whose support was vital to the British strategy. He also noted a dangerous phenomenon – the ridicule of Shuja by rhyming couplet.
These mocking little verses may be considered the social media of their day – a casual form of social communication, turned to awaken political consciousness. The Afghan historian Ghulam3 has preserved one of these couplets for us. The verse on Shuja’s coinage was:
Coin struck in silver and gold brighter than the moon and sun.
Light of the Eye, Pearl of Pearls, Shah Shuja al-Mulk Shah.
which was passed around the wits of Kabul as:
The Armenian Shah Shuja, the light of the eye of Lord Burnes,
The dust of the foot of the Company, put his stamp on silver and gold.4
The two versions have elements of wordplay in the Persian which cannot be captured in translation. ‘Armenian’ probably meant no more than Christian. ‘Light of the eye’ is a standard phrase in Persian love poetry, often translated in English as ‘apple of the eye’. The homosexual imputation is deliberate. Such couplets, portraying Shuja as a puppet, Christian and catamite to the British, were an effective weapon in public opinion. To the Afghans it was Sikunder Burnes, not Keane or Macnaghten, who was the personification of the occupation. Burnes had indeed earned a great name; but it was becoming despised.
The acknowledged attributes of kingship in Islamic states were the issuing of coins and the recital of prayers in the mosque on Friday in the king’s name. Burnes was concerned to learn that in the mosques of Kabul, prayers were not said in the name of Shuja. He despatched Lal to call on the religious authorities, who was met with brazen defiance: he was told that Shuja was brought in by the British and a mere nominal king; it would be unlawful to say prayers in Shuja’s name.5 Burnes decided not to seek a religious confrontation.
In January, Dennie was ordered to vacate the Brigadier’s warm quarters in the Bala Hissar and return to his mud hut in the snows of the cantonments, as Shuja sought to recover more of palace grounds. Burnes was furious.6 It is worth noting that officers were charged rent by the Company for their accommodation. Half of the surviving 13th Foot were that winter declared medically unfit through cold-related illness – often frostbite – by Dr Brydon, who was himself reprimanded for excessive leniency to the troops.
Burnes was interfering to an increasing degree in Kabul’s administration, exercising his responsibility as Resident just as British Residents behaved toward their puppet princes throughout India. The situation led him into continual conflict with Mullah Shukhr. Lal believed that Shukhr was putting out the story that Shuja was only waiting for his family to return from Ludhiana before attacking the British. In Kohistan, Shuja was again playing all sides, conniving with Ghulam Khan to levy and steal excess taxes, while telling local chiefs that Ghulam’s oppressions were the fault of the British. Almost all the Afghan nobility were contriving to have a foot in every camp, including Shuja.
The British and Shuja had very different ideas about how to govern. We are able to look at one particular argument, over the price of food in Kabul. Burnes wrote to Macnaghten:
In the last winter, [Shuja’s] notions of Political economy led him to seize all the granaries around Cabool […] from which he drew forth the grain, and had it exposed for sale in the Bazaar […] at a price fixed by himself […] The next freak of this minister was to reduce the number of Butchers’ shops […] and to compel these to sell at his own price, thereby ensuring a monopoly of meat to a few, and injuring many. For days the loudest complaints were uttered, till free trade was at last established. As I write, the shops in which flour is sold are now shut, the minister having turned his views from meat to bread […]7
Compare this to the same events reported by Shuja’s chronicler Mohammad Hussan Herati:
if the price of wheat was fixed at a particular rate, any trader who flouted the rules would be punished by Mullah Shakur in his role as assistant governor of Kabul – but whenever Alexander Burnes sent his chaprasi to protest that the trader in question was under his protection, the offender would be released […] Burnes and Macnaghten did not like to be contradicted in any way […] and day by day they grew more hostile to the Mullah.8
This is ideological conflict. For Scottish intellectuals of Burnes’ era, belief in the economic doctrines of Adam Smith, and in the science of political economy, was fundamental. The market would operate most efficiently, and reach the best balance of supply and price, if left well alone. Mullah Shukhr had attempted to force a reduction in bread prices, and in consequence the traders had simply shut up shop and caused a bread crisis. But the British military presence had led to a steep rise in food prices: farmers and grain merchants had started to benefit, but the urban poor to suffer serious hardship. Burnes was not insensible – he was distributing 1,000 free loaves daily to crowds around his house.9 But he could not see past free market doctrine in a severely distorted market, and was writing just when when free trade was about to become the official doctrine of the British Empire.
Mullah Shukhr and Mohammad Hussain Herati were coming from the opposite direction. For them, one of the prime functions of paternalistic kingship was to regulate trade and supply; the balance between producers and consumers should not be left to chance. They were baffled by Burnes’ insistence that Shuja be prevented from exercising what was in their view an essential kingly activity. It appeared a deliberate attempt to denigrate Shuja’s position.
We can sympathise more fully with Burnes in another complaint:
[Shukhr] conceived it would please His Majesty to adorn the royal Gardens […] long neglected, a measure most laudable and […] highly popular, but this was to be done gratis, and by conscription […] The poor peasantry were dragged in […] at seed time, when their lands required their care, and compelled to labor without any reward. Discontent rose to such a height that I sent […] plainly told [the minister] that he was disgracing his King and himself; and that I would no longer stand silent […] unless he at least gave the poor wretches bread.
Burnes started to acquire a reputation for arrogance. Lal complained that he would keep even senior Afghan nobles waiting for hours, and then might send them away. Doubtless Burnes was busy, and also frustrated by his lack of executive authority to help petitioners. But his rudeness was uncharacteristic, and evidence of personality changes that were increasingly apparent.
One accusation is ubiquitous. ‘Alexander Burnes seems to have been one of the leaders in lechery.’10 Y
et the evidence is scanty. Unlike many other British officers, there is nothing connecting Burnes with a named Afghan woman or incident. I find Lal’s explanation that Burnes’ sexual needs were catered for by Kashmiri women brought along for the purpose much more convincing than if Lal had declared Burnes a paragon of chastity.
Kashmir had long been famed for sexual pleasure and the beauty of its females. The people of Kashmir had a legend of two good angels, Harat and Marat, who had been sent by Allah to reform mankind, but been seduced from their purpose by the irresistible Kashmiri girls. We have noted Ranjit Singh displaying his Kashmiri women to William Osborne; a generation earlier Mountstuart Elphinstone had been regaled by Musa Khan Alikozai with praises of the ‘licentious pleasures’ of Kashmir.11 Victor Jacquemont observed in Kashmir ‘toutes les petites filles qui promettent de devenir jolies sont vendues a huit ans, et exportee dans le Penjab at dans l’Inde. Elles sont vendues, par leurs parents […] Il se presente chaque jour aux portes de mon jardin des bandes innombrables de filles.’12 No fewer than twenty-three of those contemporaries of Burnes documented in Gray and Garrett’s European Adventurers are listed as having Kashmiri wives or concubines. Burnes’ Kashmiri women are very credible.
After the Kabul force met disaster, Shuja sent a self-justificatory letter to Auckland claiming that all the occupation’s mistakes had been against his advice, and criticising British officers at length. Here Shuja includes Burnes for outraging Afghans over women, but again does not give detail, though he does in relation to others.13