Sikunder Burnes

by Craig Murray

  Lal is firm that Burnes was not himself active with Afghan women. But Lal’s general thesis about British officers became conflated with Masson’s accusations, and the entire blame for sexual resentment became attached by historians to a single man. Peter Hopkirk’s brilliant The Great Game states of Burnes: ‘His blatant fraternisation with their womenfolk only served to deepen their hostility towards him.’9 But there is a dearth of evidence.

  The season was exactly right for an uprising. The fighting season started when the agricultural tasks of the year ended. As the ethnographer Louis Dupree put it, November marks the start of ‘explosive violence’:

  when the agricultural off-season occurs and the nomads are not moving, long hours of boredom result. Young men sitting idle […] rapidly find suppressed hostilities, sublimated by work during the maximum work cycle, rising to the surface and violence easily erupts. How much better for group survival if this explosive violence can be channeled away from the village or camp, safely directed to outsiders.10

  The harvest now over, Kohistani villagers had started to drift into Kabul. In May 1841 the British had taken over full control of the state revenues, and Captain Trevor had farmed the taxes. Around Kabul the rights to tax the productive fruit farms had been bought out by Indian banking houses.11 The resulting squeeze on the farmers had caused much discontent. The people were taxed more heavily, and local dignitaries lost traditional revenues. The Kohistanis hated Burnes and Sale for their destructive campaign the previous year, and were heartened by Sale’s discomfiture in the passes. It was Burnes’ turn.

  The climax to Alexander’s story was tightly scripted. On the evening of 1 November 1841 Sir William and Lady Macnaghten had finished packing for the start of their arduous journey the next day, to Bombay and to splendour and riches. And Burnes would finally be in full political control of events in Kabul.

  Burnes believed that Shah Shuja’s only hope for a secure throne was for the hated British infidels, and their very expensive occupation, to be gone. He wanted the British to establish a firm line of strategic defence along the Indus, and now that Ranjit Singh was dead and his empire fallen to anarchy, Burnes wanted Peshawar and Kashmir returned to Afghan rule. A larger, richer Afghanistan without a British military presence might be a genuine buffer state.12

  We can well imagine Burnes’ mixture of impatience and satisfaction as the hour approached for Macnaghten to go. He called on Macnaghten at his home and ‘[c]ongratulated him on leaving the country in a state of profound tranquility’. I find it impossible to believe this line was not delivered with tongue firmly in cheek. Colin Mackenzie was an acute observer: ‘Whether Burnes really believed in the tranquillity of the country it is difficult to say; he was certainly anxious for the departure of the Envoy, and he probably believed that he himself could put everything right.’13

  But as Burnes spoke, a mile distant in Sirdar Alikozai’s home Afghan chiefs were breathlessly discussing an urgent plan: to attack Burnes’ house that very night, and to seize the house next door of Captain Johnson, paymaster to the Shah’s force, and the treasure it contained.

  Mirza Ata chronicled the events and Abdullah Khan’s purported address to the nobles:

  Now we are justified in throwing off this English yoke: they stretch the hand of tyranny to dishonour private citizens great and small; fucking a slave girl isn’t worth the ritual bath that follows it; but we have to put a stop […] otherwise these English will ride the donkey of their desires into the field of stupidity, to the point of having all of us […] deported into foreign imprisonment. I put my trust in God and raise the battle standard of our Prophet Muhammad, and thus go to fight; if success rewards us, then that is as we wished; and if we die in battle, that is still better than to live with degradation and dishonor! The other Sardars, his childhood friends, tightened their belts and girt their loins and prepared for Jihad – holy war.

  That very night before dawn had broken, they went to the house of Burnes, and with their pitiless swords killed the soldiers that were on guard there. The news of the fight spread […] and the men of Kabul […] welcomed it as a gift from God […] They […] took up arms and ran to the scene shouting ‘[…] O Four Friends, the rightly-guided Caliphs of Islam!’ As dawn was breaking, locust like, they poured into the streets, and assembled around the house of Alexander Burnes.14

  After a final handshake with Macnaghten, Burnes had ridden back the mile and a quarter up the Kohistan road from the cantonments to his own house. There he held a fine dinner with Charlie and William Broadfoot. We can imagine the toasts among these three young Scots – Alex, the eldest, was 36 – as he finally took political control of the British occupation.

  William had repeatedly urged Burnes that they should move home to a safer location.15 Presumably Burnes passed on to Charlie and William the warnings he received. Brigadier Anquetil, the new commander of the Shah’s forces, and Captain Troup had been lodging with Captain Johnson in the house next door. All three decided to remain in the cantonments that night after they were warned.16

  Burnes believed the only chance to survive in Afghanistan was to carry things with a high hand and rely on belief in the Company’s iqbal. In other words, to bluff it out. As Charles Metcalfe put it, ‘Our power does not rest on actual strength, but upon impression […] Our greatest danger is not from a Russian army but the fading of our invincibility from the minds of the Native inhabitants […]’17 This involved the display of near superhuman levels of courage. Mohan Lal came to Burnes that evening and directly warned him of Abdullah Khan’s plot, but Burnes refused Lal’s suggestion to ask for a strong guard, as this would show fear. He understood this might prove fatal. However he remarked to Lal that ‘the time is not far that we must leave this country’.18

  Lal met with one of the conspirators and was taunted, so he returned to Burnes’ house and warned him again. While they were talking an anonymous note in Persian was delivered, telling Burnes to leave quickly. Two other visitors arrived, Taj Mahomed Dourani and Burnes’ Qizilbash friend Sherif, both with warnings. Burnes turned down Sherif’s offer of a guard of 100 men. He told Lal to show no anxiety, and repeated that the time had come for the British to leave the country. These were the last remarks Lal was to hear from his friend.

  After dinner the three comrades went to bed. Stationed in the courtyard house were Burnes’ guard of twelve sepoys with their naik and havildar in charge, at least two of his Arab bodyguard, a few irregular soldiers including Edul Khan and a number of armed chaprasis. Various servants were around, and also the Kashmiri concubines. Next door in Captain Johnson’s treasury, in a separately walled compound, a guard of thirty sepoys were watching over chests containing Rs170,000.

  The conspirators were collecting men to begin the attack. Mohan Lal named the core group as Abdullah Khan Achakzai, Abdul Salam Khan Uzbek, Amir Ullah and Mir Afzul Khan. Rumour soon spread and noises were heard in the pitch black of the Kabul night. The Shah’s officers were alarmed, and a mounted qasid was sent to Burnes’ house, who gave one of Burnes’ chaprasis named Bowe Singh a message: ‘Go and inform your master immediately that there is a tumult in the city, and that the merchants are removing their goods and valuables from the shops.’

  Bowe Singh replied that Burnes had already been warned and had no fear; he therefore declined to wake his master. When this news reached the Bala Hissar, Usman Khan headed with a strong escort towards Burnes’ house.19 He had attempted to dissuade some of the conspirators that evening, and been abused. In his view the attack was imminent.20 He encountered Bowe Singh, who had repaired to a local tea-house for some early breakfast. Singh conducted the vizier to Burnes’ house. Burnes was awoken and he dressed, and then spoke with the vizier, who urged him to leave for the cantonments or the Bala Hissar. Burnes levelly replied: ‘If I do that, the Afghans will say that Sikunder Burnes was afraid, and ran away.’

  Usman and Burnes conversed for some time. Shuja was now awake, and looking for his vizier. A messenger was sent,
and Usman therefore made to leave, when he saw a group of Aminulla Khan’s men already gathering in the street. He returned to Burnes and offered to bring a force to disperse them. Burnes advised him to return to the Shah as he had been urgently summoned. Lal thought it strange that Usman did not leave some of his escort of sixty men to help defend Burnes.21

  Burnes now sent a qasid with an urgent message to Macnaghten requesting assistance. The initial attack on Burnes’ house started just before dawn, and the shooting was heard in the cantonments by John Conolly, who was up early. He immediately warned Macnaghten; a few minutes later Burnes’ message arrived; the situation was crystal clear.

  Lal was awoken by his maidservant around 7am and informed of the gathering tumult in the city. He sent a message to Burnes to ask what he should do. Burnes replied he should stay inside, and that he had already sent to the cantonments for soldiers, who would soon arrive.22 The principal attackers, only thirty strong, had not unsaddled so they might make a quick escape. Burnes sent out two of his staff to parley, one a Sayid. This man was hacked to pieces, the other mutilated and allowed to return. The assailants then occupied the surrounding rooftops and opened fire on Burnes’ house, shooting out the Russian glass windows.

  Burnes’ house was a typical Kabul home, with buildings around an inner courtyard, and the exterior consisting of a series of stout mud walls, featuring few and small windows and set with heavy gates. At first there were desultory shots and stones were thrown. Several leading conspirators including Aminulla remained warily at the end of the street, horsed. Burnes was determined to resolve matters peacefully. Between sepoys, bodyguards, chaprasis and British officers, there were around twenty-eight armed men to defend the house, but he ordered them not to fire.

  Opposite stood a hammam, or public bath; an official Burnes had dismissed organised fuel from there piled against the gates. Burnes stood in the garden and tried to reason, but was fired upon. While the gate was burning, the attackers broke into Johnson’s house, massacring the sepoys there. The frenzied looting of coin brought a huge increase in the size of what had become a mob.

  Shuja, urged by Usman Khan, acted decisively. Usman fought his way with Campbell’s regiment and Prince Fatth Shah towards Burnes’ house. But the dense central city was in uproar. They were engaged in fierce fighting down narrow alleyways, blocked at intervals by stout wooden gates with high sills; they could not use artillery. They had reached striking distance when an order was received from Shuja summoning them back because of the danger to Fatth Shah. Had Usman followed a slightly longer route he could have gone to Burnes’ house across open ground at the curved base of the hill of the Bala Hissar, and not been held up in narrow streets.23

  It was only a mile and a quarter from the British cantonments to Burnes’ house, and 90 per cent of the route lay along the straight main Kohistan road. There were walled gardens to the side and four forts on the route, but no significant hostile forces. The British had both cavalry and horse artillery, and a strong party could have been at Burnes’ house in minutes.

  On receiving Burnes’ message, Macnaghten passed it on to Elphinstone, with his opinion that the disturbance would ‘speedily subside’. Around 8am Macnaghten, meeting with Elphinstone, dismissed George Lawrence’s suggestion that a regiment be instantly despatched to rescue Burnes and arrest the ringleaders.24 Elphinstone sent orders to Brigadier Shelton’s force, which had returned from Zurmut and was encamped on the Siyah Sang heights, to march in to the Bala Hissar and assist Sir Alexander, but only once permission arrived from Shuja. Lawrence was sent to the Bala Hissar to ask for it. With an escort of only four he passed within 400 yards of Burnes’ residence. Macnaghten and Elphinstone delayed their proposed departure.

  At 8am Captain Trevor, who lived near Burnes, sent an urgent message to Macnaghten, reporting that Burnes’ house was under attack and adding:

  I hope that it is all a lie, but I would earnestly recommend that the business be put an end to before night, at any risk […] The plot is a party one now, but our slackness in driving these fellows out of their houses might make it serious.25

  With the gates burning, Burnes’ position had become desperate and he ordered the defenders to fire. This they did with some effect, but increased the rage of the growing mob. Once the gates fell, the mob surged in. William Broadfoot was shot in the stomach, and dragged into the house.

  After Campbell’s repulse, Prince Fatth Shah took more troops and made a more determined effort to cut his way through to Burnes.26 This time the fighting was fierce and the Shah’s troops suffered seventy killed and 100 wounded. Eventually they reached Burnes’ street, but seeing the gates ablaze and the crowd surging through to the courtyard, they presumed it was too late.

  Lawrence had inexplicably sent Shelton a message from the Bala Hissar that Fatth Shah had matters under control and he need not advance.27 With the smoke from the Residence plainly visible, Shelton sent to ask again ‘in view of the present emergency’. At the Residence, Broadfoot was dying in agony, and Burnes twice addressed the crowd from the balcony, offering to redress their wrongs and finally offering money. The fire spread from the gates to the room where Alex, Charlie and the wounded Broadfoot were barricaded, and Broadfoot was consumed by the flames. Bowe Singh described the desperate last moments:

  The jemadar of chuprassees told Sir A Burnes that there was a report of a regiment having come to assist him; he was going to the top of the house to look, and had got half way, when he met an Afghan, who said […] there was not the least sign of a regiment.

  My master then turned back, and remarked, there was no chance of assistance coming from the cantonments or the king. A […] Cashmeeree, came forward, and said ‘If your brother and the chuprassees cease firing on the people, I swear by the Koran that I will take you safe through the kirkee of the garden to the fort of the Kuzzilbashes.’

  The firing ceased, and Sir A Burnes agreed to accompany him, and for the sake of disguise, put on a chogha and a longee.

  The moment he came out of the door […] with the Cashmeeree, the wretch called out ‘Here is Sikunder Burnes.’ He was rushed on by hundreds, and cut to pieces with their knives. His brother Captain Burnes went out with him, and was killed dead before Sir Alexander.28

  There are at least two people here inside the house, an Afghan and a Kashmiri, apparently unrecognised by Bowe Singh. Both played crucial roles. At one stage the Shah’s troops had indeed approached the Residence. By contradicting the jemadar, the Afghan on the stairs may have prevented Burnes from signalling to his rescuers. And why did Burnes trust the equally mysterious Kashmiri? Who was he? One possibility must be that the Kashmiri was connected to Burnes’ women, perhaps one of the musicians.

  Mirza Ata recorded a quite different version of Burnes’ last moments:

  it is said that Burnes at that moment was in the private quarters of the house, taking a bath with his mistress in the hot water of lust and pleasure […] the guerilla Ghazis burst in and dragged them all from the changing room of life into the ashpit of death […]

  Mohan Lal watched from his rooftop.

  The houses of Sir Alexander Burnes and myself were surrounded […] They were not accompanied with more than fifty men, but not a battalion was sent to our protection. After poor Sir Alexander Burnes was murdered and his house set on fire, I made a hole through the neighbouring house and was nearly cut to pieces, had I not been protected by the good-natured Nuwab Mohammed Zeman Khan.29

  Lal says that he saw Prince Fatth Shah shouting, ‘[D]estroy the infidels and plunder their property’ and was unsure which side Fatth was on: ‘[W]hether he said this to have safe escape back to the Bala Hissar or with the view to excite the people more against us is not known.’30 It still is not known.

  Lal contradicts Bowe Singh in the detail on Burnes’ last moments. Rather than donning a disguise, Lal states that Burnes bound a black cloth over his eyes before entering the garden, so as not to see where the blows came from. The Russian historica
l tradition has Burnes trying to escape in a burqa.31 All agree he put on something. A burqa makes more sense as a disguise than a chogha (tunic) and lunghi (turban).

  The total number in the house was around forty. There were the three Europeans and a sepoy guard of twelve. Then there were some irregular troops, of whom we know that Mohammed Hussain Kasha and Edul Khan (who had escorted Eldred Pottinger to Herat) were both wounded but survived.32 The ever-loyal Ghulam Ali, whom Princess Victoria had so admired, died with his employer,33 as did the Arab bodyguard led by Abdullah, who had refused to leave him. Charlie and Broadfoot would also have had personal servants and of course there were the concubines. Bowe Singh was among the few survivors.

  Burnes died about 10.30 to 11.00am. The cantonment road was not blocked; at least two messengers from Burnes, plus two servants of Captain Johnson and three unidentified chaprasis came down it, all while Burnes was still resisting. Johnson specifies that he received two reports after sunrise, at least an hour-and-a-half apart. Burnes was still alive at least two hours after Macnaghten’s 8am meeting with Elphinstone. George Broadfoot wrote to James Burnes that: ‘all accounts describe the resistance as desperate and prolonged […]’34 Mohan Lal said the attack started around 7am and lasted four hours.

  Macnaghten and Elphinstone could easily have saved Burnes. Johnson had a better grasp than anyone of the timeline; his house was also under attack, so he was getting updates from his own servants. Waiting impatiently by his saddled horse, he was sure Burnes could be rescued:

  In the supposition that the General would immediately order down a detachment to suppress the tumult, as well as to save my Treasury and the life of […] Burnes, from whom another letter had been received ‘imploring immediate assistance’, my horse was kept ready […] Yet to our astonishment […] [h] ours slipped by and no steps taken.35