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Afghanistan - a cauldron
By J. Daulat Singh
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No Afghan regime has accepted the validity of the Durand Line... With what is being widely perceived by most Pashtuns now as Pakistan's perfidy, Pashtun irredentism could rear its head again.
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AFGHANISTAN IN its present form came into existence with Dost Mohammad establishing himself as Amir in 1826. From then till the ouster in July 1973 of King Zahir Shah, it was un-interruptedly ruled by various branches of Dost Mohammad's Mohammaadazi family/sub-tribe, which itself belonged to the omnibus Saddozai-Poppalazai-Barrakzai Pashtun tribal group. This Pashtun tribal group, numerically not very large and hailing from the Kandahar region in south-eastern Afghanistan, had gotten used to wielding disproportionate politico-military power. The around 150-year-long rule of the Mohammadzais was unremarkable in most respects, and did not certainly endear itself to the greatly more numerous mainstream Pashtuns of south-central and eastern Afghanistan. All these Pashtuns could be said to belong to the omnibus Gilzai-Ahmedzai Pashtun tribal group, and emanating therefrom are the scores of tribes/sub-tribes such as the Afridis, the Wazirs and the Momands.
Afghanistan's total population is anyone's guess. In 1980, it was around 15 million. Today, with greater than usual mortality due to strife and pestilence, it could be around 20 million. Of these, the ethnic composition is: Pashtuns 42-44 per cent, Tajiks 36-38 per cent, Uzbeks 5-7 per cent, Hazaras 6-8 per cent, and the rest (Turkomen, Qizilbashs, Pharsiwans, Hindus, Sikhs) 2-4 per cent. South-central and eastern Pashtuns comprise 30-35 per cent of the total population.
While the Mohmmadzais ruled like the familiar 19th century oriental despots within, they did not cavil at pandering to imperial Britain without. Despite taking serious casualties due to foolhardiness on two occasions in the 19th century, imperial Britain soundly thrashed the recalcitrant Afghan potentates on each such occasion and, thereafter, successfully enjoined them to desist from embracing the Russian bear! At the end of the 19th century, Amir Abdur Rehman was inveigled in 1893 to cede Afghanistan's perhaps most fertile arable lands to British India. Huge tracts east of the Sufed Koh mountain range all the way eastwards upto Attock on the Indus, were given away by the Afghans. The infamous Durand Line, in the result, ran through the middle of the lands of the most important eastern Afghan Pashtun tribes; and, since then, even vis-a-vis the successor state of Pakistan, these eastern Pashtuns, have resolutely refused to recognise the 1893 division or the Durand Line (Any wonder, then, that Pakistan's preferred Pashtuns are the Kandahari south-eastern ones, who are fewer and had not suffered at all from the 1893 sundering?).
It needs to be mentioned that no Afghan regime after 1893, even the Taliban, has accepted the validity of the Durand Line, and, all of them in varying intensities prior to 1996 have voiced the demand for a ``Pashutunistan'' from the ``Oxus to the Indus''. Indeed, with what is being widely perceived by most Pashtuns now as Pakistan's perfidy (i.e. after September 11, 2001), Pashtun irredentism could rear its head again and this time more enduringly and menancingly.
In point of fact, it is this spectre of Pashtun irredentism that has propelled Pakistan all along from the earliest days to want to influence if not control events in Afghanistan. Pakistan's actions in this regard have thus absolutely nothing to do with ``strategic depth'', or whatever else is trotted out from time to time; though, its Taliban misadventure during 1996-2001, in theoretical terms at least, gave Pakistan that `depth' (of despair as it turned out) it is supposed to have wanted!
In short, Pakistan's direct and blatant creation of the Taliban was nothing but its simple-minded soldiery's attempt to, first, seek to permanently neutralise any danger of Pashtun irredentism; and second, to obviate any prospect of an Indo-Afghan pincer against Pakistan.
A brief flashback now to an earlier period. Afghanistan's first moderniser was King Amanullah (1919-1929), whose model was Kemal Ataturk of Turkey. But Kemalism lapping against Britain's brightest jewel, and Amanullah's strident forays to establish relations with the new Bolshvik regime in Russia, was anathema to Britain. And so, with the aid and wiles of that provacaeur-in-chief T. E. Lawrence, Amanullah was chased out of power in 1929. After a nine-month-long Taliban-like mayhem in Kabul in 1929, the British Government got hold of a peripheral Mohammadzai named Gen. Nadir Khan and installed him as king. After his assassination in 1933, the British ensured the succession of his 17-year-old son, Zahir Shah.
Zahir Shah's reign was idyllic for Kabul's infinitesimal affluent elite, but largely wretched for the rest of the country. During this entire period, thanks to the rudiments of education, industry and services, a new urban middle class gradually emerged. This process was galvanised and accelerated under the country's second moderniser Daoud Khan, during his Prime Ministership in 1953-1963. He was the King's first cousin and brother-in-law. He was dictatorial by nature, and more of a republican. By 1963, after a war scare vis-a-vis Pakistan, Zahir Shah sacked Daoud Khan and assumed the mantle of a hands-on monarch. But the King was weak and vacillating, and the state went from bad to worse.
Zahir Shah had deployed his Mohammadzai kin in all important civil and military posts. Daoud Khan, who in the meanwhile, was chafing at his oblivion, covertly enlisted the civil and military cadres of the Peoples Democratic Party (i.e. Khalq largely mainstream Pashtun and Parcham - largely Tajik but greatly more representative - so-called communists both) and ousted the King in a bloodless coup in July 1973. He abolished the monarchy and proclaimed himself as President of the Republic. But Daoud Khan was a veritable lame-duck ab initio. He was trapped in the Khalq and Parcham vice; and when he sought to wriggle free commencing 1976, the PDP had resolved to remove him, the only question remaining when and how.
Apart from Daoud Khan's predicament, the PDP had something else going for it - a supportive external dimension. In Iran, the Shah was tottering and the U.S. was beefing its presence in the Gulf region. At the same time, the U.S. had advanced a good deal in its playing of the `China card' vis-a-vis the USSR. Finally, at the U.S. behest and because Daoud Khan had so pleaded, Kuwait, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia commenced significant aid and intelligence support programmes. From the perspective of the USSR, all this suggested an envelopment of its soft Islamic underbelly. It could not thus `lose' Afghanistan (having `won' it commencing 1954 when, because Pakistan had just became an ally, the U.S. rebuffed Daoud's request for economic and military aid). The immediate provocation was Afghan Foreign Minister Waheed Abdullah (a bit of a loose canon) having decided to wrench Afghanistan rightwards at the NAM Bureau meeting that was scheduled to be held in Kabul on May 4-6, 1978. The USSR thus sensed mortal danger. The PDP was accordingly instructed to prepare for a coup d'etat.
The PDP commenced preparation in December, 1977. There were hitches. The Pashtuns of the Khalq, particularly Hafizullah Amin, were pushy and impatient. The predominant Tajiks-Uzbeks of the Parcham counselled caution. Finally, on April 10, 1978, Kabul was jolted by the assassination of Mir Akhbar Khybar, a top Parcham leader. Daoud Khan flailed and floundered seeking the assassin. Little did he, or all others at the time know that Amin, having caused Khybar's elimination, thus ensured the transfer of Parcham's military cadres to Amin's tutelage. Finally, on the morning of April 27, 1978, in what was nothing but a straight-forward military coup d'etat (but the event called ``Saur (April) Revolution''), the PDP seized power and proclaimed the People's Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The USSR's support for the Revolution, while total and decisive, nevertheless remained remarkably discreet.
(The writer is a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.)
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