BritishForwardPolicy2

Documents included

• • The Modified Forward Policy, Andrew M. Roe, Waging War in Waziristan,University Press of Kansas, 2010

  • The Afghan Revolution, Arnold Fletcher, Afghanistan Highway of Conquest, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 1965

  • Fire in Afghanistan 1914-1929, Rhea Talley Stewart, New York: Doubleday, 1973

  • Relations with Britain, Leon B. Poullada, Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929, Cornell University Press, 1973

  • Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty, Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850, Routledge, 2001

  • Wartime Politics, 1939-1945, Stephen Alan Rittenburg, Ethnicity, Nationalism and The Pakhtuns, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1988

  • Politics during the War Years, Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah, Ethnicity, Islam and Nationalism, Oxford University Press, 2000

  • The Diaries of George Cunningham, Wali Khan, Facts are Facts, http://www.awaminationalparty.org/books/factsarefacts.pdf

Comment

The first part of this series of excerpts on the British Forward Policy is here: FowardPolicy1.

The episodes covered on this page are the fall of Amir Amanullah in Afghanistan in 1928-1929, and the propaganda in the North West Frontier Province during World War II.

In hindsight, the choice of the British not to support Afghan King Amir Amanullah Khan and his modernizing reforms in 1928-1929 seems emblematic of British policy at its most cynical and unenlightened. The extent of British involvement in Amanullah's downfall is examined in detail by the authors excerpted here.

Leon Poudalla writes:

"One looks hopefully but in vain among the many hundreds of reports from Humphrys [the British Minister in Kabul] to his government for some words of understanding, sympathy, or encouragement for the valiant experiment and bold effort which Amanullah was making to improve his country. One would expected from the representative of one of the most enlightened and civilized countries in the world some indication that the Afghan nation and its king should receive some aid or at least moral support from Britain."

The authors also each did considerable research into the possible involvement of T. E. Lawrence in the religious uprisings which precipitated the events in that period. All agree that with or without an official British conspiracy against Amanullah, British assertions of 'neutrality' and their various unsympathetic and biased actions ensured his downfall anyway.

During the war years 1939-1946, George Cunningham was the Governor of the North West Frontier Province. He recorded in his diaries how, to keep the Russians (and later the Germans and Japanese) at bay, a phalanx of mullahs, private individuals and newspapers were paid off by the British Indian government to incite religious feeling against the enemies of the British, both foreign and Indian.

Waging War in Waziristan, Andrew M. Roe, University Press of Kansas, 2010

The Modified Forward Policy

On 6 January 1899, a thirty-nine-year-old Irishman, George Nathaniel Curzon, was appointed viceroy of India. .. ."I am never so happy as when on the Frontier. I know these men and how to handle them. They are brave as lions, wild as cats, docile as children. You have to be very frank, very conciliatory, very firm, very generous, very fearless," wrote Curzon to St. John Broderick, the undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, in April 1900.[The cursed anthropological approach rearing its head, it seems to me - blogger].

At a time when the government was assimilating the lessons of the 1897 Pathan revolt and trying to ascertain what went wrong, Curzon was determined to make a decision regarding the means by which the frontier could be controlled...

Curzon's policy was based on four tenets: the withdrawal of British soldiers from forward positions; the employment of tribal forces to defend tribal territory; the concentration of British forces in British territory as a cohesive reserve in a state of high readiness; and the improvement of lines of communication in the rear. Curzon's reforms only affected military dispositions.. In essence, the forward policy of the 1890s was to be replaced by one of noninterference.

Curzon also established the North-West Frontier Province on 9 November 1901, directly under the government of India... The province consisted of five districts: Hazara, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan. It also included the political agencies of Dir, Swat, and Chitral, the Khyber, Kurram, Tochi, and Wana... Local militias were built up again by turning the kassadars into uniformed, disciplined and highly mobile militias.

..

Curzon's management of the North-West Frontier Province achieved mixed results..the province remained generally peaceful.. Many commentators suggested that Curzon had made great strides in bringing the tribesmen closer to India's "socio-political-economic mainstream.". Likewise, his militia initiative proved effective, with limited expenditure achieving satisfactory results... Much to his acclaim, there were no major expeditions during Curzon's term of office(with the exception of two short expeditions known as Wilcox's Weekend Wars in 1908) and "he took credit to himself for the fact that he had only spent £ 248,000 on punitive measures during his viceroyalty."

..

Curzon's policy held until 1919, being displaced by a series of Afghan incursions into British territory and the strain of the Third Afghan War. Under pretext of border security, the new amir, Amanullah, rushed troops to the region in a show of support to Indians following anti-British riots in the Punjab. Afghan occupation of Indian villages in the Khyber Pass led to a month-long British counter-invasion known as the Third Afghan War. Despite ejecting Afghan troops from British territory, the Third Afghan War sparked the mutiny of the tribal militias that policed the North-West Frontier, the famous Khyber Rifles deserted, and the force disbanded. Other militias followed suit. In Waziristan, large numbers of Mahsuds and Wazirs deserted from the militias with their rifles and ammunition. The South Waziristan Militia mutinied, as did the Afridi and Waziri elements of the North Waziristan Militia. Both turned against their British officers. A revolt by the Tochi Wazirs compounded these revolts and the British consequently lost control of Waziristan. Only the Kurra[m] Militia remain unaffected.

During 1919 and 1920, tribesmen launched 600 raids on Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, resulting in nearly 300 deaths, 400 wounded and 436 kidnappings of British subjects. In Waziristan over the same period, there were 611 raids, with 293 British subjects killed, 392 wounded, 461 kidnapped, and property valued at approximately £200,000 looted. Wishing to avoid a series of costly campaigns and due to the limited availability of troops due to demobilization after the Great War, the British government offered generous terms to the tribes, these were rejected outright. To reestablish order, the tribes were punished heavily "by a campaign of extreme severity," and their territory occupied in force... The uprising provoked a complete reversal of Lord Curzon's policy. After years of hesitancy, a policy of "control from within" was adopted.

The Reintroduction of a Forward Policy

From 1923 until independence in 1947, the British adopted a forward policy. .. Troop movements became routine, which caused resentment among the tribes. Captain M.C.T. Gompertz, Indian army, notes that roads were built as a means of assisting military operations, "not of promoting the peaceful penetration of a country.". Moreover the tribesmen viewed their construction as a form of deception, a means by which to contain the tribes and restrict their liberty.

(end quotes)

Comment

As can be seen from the preceding, the British fought the Third Anglo-Afghan war with Amanullah Khan in 1919-1920 and subsequently suffered enduring trouble in the frontier areas, necessitating a change of policy.

In 1929, Amanullah Khan lost his throne to another tribal uprising in the frontier areas and in adjoining Afghanistan. Whether the British were involved in toppling Amanullah has been a matter of conjecture. When Amanullah found himself in difficulties in his efforts to modernize Afghanistan, educate Afghan girls and institute democratic reforms, the British while officially asserting "neutrality", actually sought to undermine him and contributed to his downfall. As with Ranjit Singh 100 years before, the fighters who 'happened' to aid British aims were religiously-inspired jihadists.

(end comment)

Amanullah Khan, Bacha Saquo and T. E. Lawrence 1928-1929

Afghanistan Highway of Conquest, Arnold Fletcher, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 1965

[Amanullah Khan paid a six-month long visit to Europe in 1928]

Shortly after his return, at the festival of Istiqlal, the celebration of Afghan independence, Amanullah summoned a Loe Jirga("great council") of Afghan maliks and chiefs, such as was called only in times of national emergency. To these notables, many of whom were uneasy in the Western dress they had been asked to don for the occasion, the king delivered a long speech outlining his program of political and social reform. A legislative assembly of 150 members was to be elected by the vote of all literate male Afghan adults; hereditary rank was to be abolished; and military service was to be extended to three years. These proposals met with general approval; but when Amanullah announced that he intended to eliminate the veil, establish compulsory female education, and required that all government employees content themselves with one wife, the delegates sat silent.

Nevertheless, for a time these startling changes went unchallenged; indeed, many of the young urban Afghans greeted them with approval. When Queen Souriya, ...dramatically threw off her veil at a public meeting in Kabul, her example was quickly followed by many of the ladies of the city; and even those of more conservative tendencies discarded the tentlike birqa for a half veil.

Then suddenly this parade of progress was halted by a roadblock which indicated that the old Afghanistan had not quite forsaken its ways. Apparently(the evidence is contradictory and scanty) in November 1928 a caravan of Suleiman Khel Ghilzai on their winter migration to India met a band of Shinwaris whom they mistook for(or perhaps recognized as) bandits. The Suleiman Khel resisted, and several of the Shinwaris were killed before a company of soldiers arrived and arrested the Ghilzai nomads. They were able, however, either to convince the local commandment of their innocence or to satisfy his avarice, and were released.

Soon after the Sangu Khel clan of the Shinwaris, to which the dead men had belonged, rose in revolt and captured the military posts of Achin and Kai. These successes brought out other Shinwari clans, and the rebels seized the forts of Torkham and Dakka, capturing large stores of military equipment and meeting little resistance. The Khugianis and Sadia, .. now joined in the rising, and a lashkar containing several thousand tribesmen moved against the city of Jalalabad.

The Afghan government showed little concern at the news, since tribal risings were nothing new, and since the Shinwaris were not on friendly terms with their more powerful Afridi and Mohmand neighbors. The only action taken was to dispatch five hundred soldiers from the Kabul garrison..The arrival of these troops and negotiations by Shir Ahmed Khan, the governor of Jalalabad, left the Shinwaris still unimpressed, and still encamped outside of the city. The Afghan government now realized belatedly that this was a serious revolt, and sent most of the Kabul garrison to the east along with Amanullah's cousin Ali Ahmed Jan, who had influence with the eastern tribesmen.

Fire in Afghanistan 1914-1929, Rhea Talley Stewart, New York: Doubleday, 1973

[Amanullah] knew in detail what the Eastern tribes were demanding as the price of ceasing their fight. Ghulam Siddiq had returned to Kabul with the ultimatum and the tribes had agreed, although no one trusted the agreement very much, to cease firing until they could get a reply.

The tribes insisted that Amanullah:

1. Divorce Queen Souraya

2. Banish the Tarzi family from Afghanistan, with the exception of Mahmud Tarzi whom they wished to imprison[former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan and father of Queen Souraya].

3. Close all schools for girls.

4. Recall all the Afghan girls who had been sent to Turkey.

5. Abolish all foreign legations except the British.

6. Abolish the new code of laws, the Nizamnamas.

7. Reduce taxes

8. Abolish the laws pertaining to European dress

9. Restore purdah in its previous form

10. Make Islamic law the law of the land

11. Give the mullahs a place in the Government

..Even while Amanullah studied this list of demands, the Chaknawar Mullah was sending word to mullahs in Kabul that nothing would really satisfy the tribes except the departure of Amanullah.

Afghanistan Highway of Conquest, Arnold Fletcher, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 1965

At the same time the government issued a call for tribal assistance.. Unfortunately, the cold Afghan winter had set in, and the tribesmen showed no eagerness to collect the rifles and ammunition they had been offered for service against the Shinwaris in a campaign that promised little booty and considerable bloodshed. Gaus-ud-din Khan, a chief of the Ahmedzai Gilzai near Gardez, did appear to collect the rifles, whereupon instead of proceeding to Jalalabad he went back home. The only other applicant was an improbable figure who was to prove Amanullah's nemesis.

The mountainous district of Kohistan, directly north of Kabul, was the home of the Kohistani Tadjiks, whose belligerence is a marked exception to the usually placid Tadjik temperament. Here, in the little village of Kala Khan, about twenty miles north of Kabul, lived the notorious bandit Habibullah, popularly known as Bacha-i-Saqao ("child of the water carrier") from the occupation of his father. While serving in the Afghan army the Bacha had been sentenced to jail for striking an officer, but had escaped to Peshawar, where he operated a teahouse as a front for smuggling, disposing of stolen property, and a variety of other, equally illegal activities. Returning to Afghanistan in 1928, he gathered a band of followers who were impressed by his enormous strength, his skill with a rifle, and the cruelty of his disposition, and became the scourge of the caravan routes across the Hindu Kush.

Upon hearing of Amanullah's call for tribal aid and the promise of free pardon that accompanied it, the bandit came to Kabul, where he was given rifles and a general's commission in the Afghan army. After noting the defenseless condition of the Afghan capital, he returned to Kohistan, gathered his robber band and a number of new adherents, and launched a surprise attack on the city. Although his total force numbered only three hundred men, the audacity of the move was such that only swift action by Abdul Aziz, the minister of war, and a determined stand by the cadets of the military school, kept it from succeeding. After twelve days of fighting, the Bacha, slightly wounded by shrapnel, withdrew his men to Kohistan.

During the growing confusion the government of India managed the evacuation of the foreign colony from Kabul, in which a total of 586 persons were flown to safety- a remarkable demonstration of skill considering the altitude, the season and the nature of the aircraft..

Fire in Afghanistan 1914-1929, Rhea Talley Stewart,New York: Doubleday, 1973

Bacha Sacao himself was at the gate of the British Legation. He spoke with passion to Humphrys [the British Minister to Afghanistan], telling him that King Amanullah was an infidel and that he intended to kill him and set up an administration of his own.

"This is the British Legation and we are the guests of your country." Humphrys spoke to Bacha Sacao exactly as the British Consul in Jalalabad had spoken to the Shinwaris there. But Bacha Sacao's reply was different from the Shinwaris'. "I have no quarrel with you," he said. Humphrys warned Bacha Sacao that he must respect all Legations, and Bacha Sacao repeated this order to his men. He forbade them to loot..

Afghanistan Highway of Conquest, Arnold Fletcher, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 1965

But now the defenders of Kabul, in the overconfidence of victory, made the mistake of pursuing the Bacha into his snow-covered homeland. Here they found thousands of Kohistanis flocking to join the local hero, and after a week of fighting they were surrounded by overwhelming numbers and were forced to surrender. This left Kabul undefended; and on January 14, 1929, the Bacha and his men were back. This time the capital was captured almost without resistance while Amanullah and the remnants of the royal guard barricaded themselves in the royal palace.

At this juncture all Amanullah's customary optimism deserted him. After a family meeting he abdicated in favor of his older brother Inayatullah Khan, and fled the city in the Rolls Royce he had brought from Europe, hotly pursued by the Bacha's horsemen. He had a close call when his car stalled in a snowdrift, but he worked it free just in time to arrive ahead of his pursuers in Kandahar...

Inayatullah was not the one to save the situation, if indeed it could have been saved at all. After three days of negotiations with the Bacha he followed his brother in flight, and the bandit leader made a triumphant entry into the royal palace. Here on January 27 he assumed the crown as Amir Habibullah Ghazi and began to organize a government- a difficult task since the royal treasury had departed with Amanullah and Souriya. But his bandit background had given Bacha practice in the use of threats and torture, and by such means he was able to wring a considerable sum from the unhappy citizens of Kabul.

Difficult though it is to understand how such a transfer of authority could have taken place, it should be remembered that the Afghanistan of the time was almost entirely an agricultural and pastoral country with a subsistence economy. Many of the provincial and local officials simply continued to carry out instructions from Kabul, without regard to who issued them. Some of Amanullah's aides, especially those in what remained of the Afghan army, consented to serve the Bacha in return for lavish financial rewards and the promise of future favors. But the civil government was so depleted that only two of the Bacha's cabinet were able to read; the bandit Amir himself was totally illiterate.

Meanwhile Amanullah had been received with little cordiality by the people of Kandahar. But irritation at the thought of a Tadjik on the Afghan throne, together with the influence of Amanullah's mother began to gain him support from the Durranis, and he encouraged it still further by taking the cloak of Mohammed from its shrine and showing it to the populace. At last, with a lashkar of five thousand Durrani tribesmen, Amanullah moved north on the road toward Kabul.

This attempt had every possibility of success. Only a small garrison at Ghazni barred to road to Kabul; the Hazaras and the Wardaks had joining the fight against the Bacha; moreover, Ghulam Nabi Charkhi, the son of Ghulam Hyder Charkhi, Abdur Rahman's commander in chief, had raised the standard of Amanullah in the north, and with an army largely recruited in the Soviet Union had occupied Mazar-i-Sharif. But at this moment, on April 26 1929, for reasons that have never been adequately explained, Amanullah Khan abandoned his advance and ordered a retreat to Kandahar. There were rumors that Amanullah had been informed that some of his associates were plotting his assassination, or that the powerful Ghilzai-through whose territory the lashkar was passing- were preparing to join the Bacha. At any rate, instead of re-entering Kandahar, where his Durrani kinsmen were thoroughly disgusted, Amanullah halted outside the city, collected his family and the remnants of the royal treasury, and left Afghanistan forever.

The king's flight made it much easier for the Bacha to extend his control over the country. In the north, Ghulam Nabi heard the news and withdrew into the Soviet Union. In Kabul the bandit raised a motley army of ten thousand men, mostly from Kohistan, whom he paid with money extorted from Kabul merchants and equipped with the stores in the government arsenal. All possible rivals were eliminated through execution, including ..[two]half brothers of Amanullah; and Amanullah's cousin Ali Ahmed Jan, who while attempting to organize resistance in Kandahar was captured and murdered with extreme cruelty.

But the authority of the bandit Amir was mostly an illusion. It was only because the region was so decentralized, and the cities were so few and scattered, that an individual even with the Bacha's drive and courage was able to seize control of Kabul and Kandahar, and by the use of extorted funds to recruit an army of assorted malefactors eager for loot and excitement.

There was little to enable the Bacha to consolidate his rule. He had no standing whatsoever among the Pushtoon tribes, which up to this time had taken no part in the fighting but waited aloof for the inevitable agents of the Bacha's downfall to to their work and indeed that work had already begun.

...Nadir Khan[an exiled Durrani Mohammadzai clansman of Amanullah] gathered a lashkar made up of Mangals and .. advanced toward Kabul, only to be forced to retreat when fighting broke out among hostile clans in his forces. The tribesmens' usual difficulty in forgetting ancient enmities was exploited by agents of the Bacha. Another advance by Nadir Khan broke down for the same reason.

Fortunately for Afghanistan, Nadir Khan was a man of iron will. Again he gathered a lashkar of Mangals, Jajis and Jadrans, along with sections of the Ahmedzai and Tota Khel Waziris. To these a welcome addition was a contingent of about one thousand Darwesh Khel Waziris from across the Durand Line, who were probably the most skillful warriors of all the Pushtoons.

This time the advance was successful. After defeating the troops of the Bacha in several battles, the tribesmen reached Kabul on October 9, with the Waziris, under the chief, Allah Nawaz Khan, leading the van. ...The Waziris had been promised "golden shoes" for their part in the affair, and in default of the promised footwear they took whatever else was of value. The citizens of Kabul, numbed by catastrophe, did not resist the plundering, and there was little rape or bloodshed.

On October 16,[1929] Nadir Khan entered the city to the cheers of tribesmen and townsmen, the former satiated and the latter ruined by anarchy. At a great Jirga on the following day the tribesmen and such notables as remained in Kabul offered the throne to Nadir Khan, who accepted. A few days later the Bacha surrendered himself on the promise of a pardon. The promise was broken, and the bandit was publicly executed-through no fault of the new king, who was unable to restrain the tribesmen or to resist their demands for the death of the bandit.

Thus the Afghan revolution ended..Many of the young urban populace believed that Nadir Shah had "put his beard in the hands of the mullahs," and chafed at the reversal of the reforms of Amanullah. Still others believed that the Yahya Khel had been tools of the British in an attempt to oust the Anglophobe Amanullah.

As a result the new rulers moved with care..But although progress had received a serious check, not all of the gains of the past were lost. Foreign visitors and workers soon returned to the Afghan capital, the schools closed by the Bacha were reopened, and bright students were sent abroad for advanced training. The new rulers, indeed, were as eager as Amanullah had been to develop the country; but since their position was precarious, stability came first.

(end quotes)

On whether the British had incited the revolt, and on the involvement of T. E. Lawrence, the famous British spy in toppling Amanullah Khan

Of the three writers quoted here, Arnold Fletcher thinks that the British might well have been involved in the revolt, even if not T. E. Lawrence directly. Rhea Stewart appears to have similar suspicions. Leon B. Poullada dismisses the possibility of direct British involvement but says the British were instrumental in Amanullah's downfall anyway.

Afghanistan Highway of Conquest, Arnold Fletcher, Cornell University Press, Ithaca,New York, 1965

The revolt had captured the attention of many Western observers, most of whom placed the blame on the turbaned heads of the mullahs... The Afghans themselves scorn this point of view, still maintaining stoutly that the revolution was set on foot by the British secret service for the purpose of overthrowing a king who was too friendly with the Soviet Union for their comfort. They agree that such leading mullahs as the Hazrat Sahib of Shore-Bazaar and Sher Agha of Jalalabad were important contributors to Amanullah's defeat, through the influence they exerted in preventing powerful tribes like the Ghilzai from coming to his assistance; but they scoff at the suggestion that these men were the prime movers of the affair.

It must not be forgotten that the Afghans still cherish their Anglo-phobia [written in 1965-blogger], and are fond of blaming past and present ills upon the British. On the other hand, this bias does not eliminate the possibility that the British did have a hand in the matter; indeed, a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence exists to support the Afghan charge. There is no question that the British leaders, particularly those in India, were concerned about Amanullah's support of the Red Shirts on the frontier and his cooperation with the U.S.S.R., or that they disliked him personally for his role in the Anglo-Afghan War and for his activities in India on his way to Europe [Amanullah made a multi-city tour of India with rousing receptions from the Indian public-blogger].

Officially the government of India maintained strict neutrality throughout the revolution, permitting no aid to either side. On the frontier, British officials were 'taxed to the utmost to keep the tribes from headstrong action" - boon to the Bacha, since Amanullah was more popular among the tribes on the British side of the Durand Line, particularly the Afridis and Orakzais, than he was with those in Afghanistan; what the British referred to as "headstrong action" was the readiness of the tribes to come to Amanullah's aid. Indeed, the Afridis and Orakzais had already decided to ignore British orders and enter Afghanistan, when their plans were disrupted by the outbreak of fighting between Shia and Sunni Orakzais; and the Turis helped their coreligionists. Some of the Afridis maintain that this inter-tribal fighting was stimulated by the British to prevent aid from reaching Amanullah, pointing out that a leading instigator, Mullah Mahmund Aklundzada, was generally considered a British agent in the border.

Whatever the truth of the matter, there was no doubt that the British action in preventing aid from reaching Amanullah was disastrous for the Afghan king. Within India there was considerable agitation as the result of this decision- mass meetings in many cities, "Amanullah days" in Bombay and Lahore, and a number of petitions asking the government for permission to take part. In January 7, 1929, the government finally invoked its police powers to prevent any accusations of complicity from appearing in the Indian papers.

Foreign correspondents were less hampered. On January 14 Pravda and Izvestia accused the British, as might have been expected; on the same day Deutsche Tagezeitung also carried the charge, and the Journal De Debats did so on the day following. Part of the this exceptional unanimity was caused by the discovery that Colonel T.E.Lawrence was just then stationed at the fort of Wana in Waziristan. The official insistence that this most famous of British agents was serving as a "typist in the office" was hard to swallow, since although Lawrence was then posing as "Aircraftsman Shaw," British officials were aware of his true identity.

The Afghans had no doubt of his mission. They still assert that he wandered throughout Afghanistan disguised as a holy man mounted on a white mule, to organize opposition to Amanullah Khan. The same report was also current in India, where on unfortunate mullah, Syed Pir Karam Shah, was mobbed in Lahore by a crowd convinced he was Lawrence in disguise. On January 2, 1929, Amanullah's tottering government gave official credence to this rumor by offering a reward for the capture of the "arch spy of the universe, Colonel T.E.Lawrence."

The truth will probably remain unknown. The publication of Revolt in the Desert had made Lawrence famous, and his eccentric behaviour added to that fame. Fantasy thrives in Asia and the story of Lawrence's purported activity has long since passed irretrievably into legend. Years after his death he was solemnly reported to have intrigued in Urumchi; and still later, during the Donetz sabotage trial in the Soviet Union, the accused testified that they had been working for Colonel Lawrence- a statement such as abounded during the Stalinist purges.

But the Afghans' accusations against the British rest on more solid foundations that the presence of Lawrence, who was hostile toward the Conservative government of Great Britain and who, moreover, had little knowledge of Persian or Pushto. The revolt is often described as a widespread tribal rising; but in fact only the Shinwaris rose in strength, although they were later joined by the Khugiani, by some of the Ghilzai, and by outlaws from all areas. The revolt began with the Sangu Khel, the most easterly section of the Shinwari tribe, and on that would have been in direct contact with British frontier officials. These Shinwaris declared their action to have been caused by the social reforms of Amanullah, particularly his attempt to abolish the veil-an odd rationalization, since Shinwari women, along with those of most of the tribes, are usually unveiled.

One development that stirred up resentment among the tribes was the circulation on the frontier of thousands of pictures with the face of Queen Souriya adroitly superimposed upon the body of a naked woman surrounded by men in foreign clothes. There is no evidence to connect these pictures with the British secret service, except that the technical means for producing them were probably beyond the ability of any Afghan at the time, and that forgeries of this sort have been commonly used among the credulous and uneducated tribesmen. Not many years later thousands of pamphlets were scattered from British planes in an attempt to discredit the Red Shirt movement. These messages from above contained the statement that departed saints had appeared to the signatories- a group of fictitious mullahs- to report that the Red Shirts were looked upon with disfavor by Allah and should be shunned by true believers.

There can also be no question that the Bacha had spent much time in British territory, some of it in a British jail. He had returned to Afghanistan from Parachinar shortly before the Shinwari outbreak, and he came well equipped; the .303 rifles with which his followers were armed were far better than the weapons of the Afghans troops. During the Bacha's attack on Kabul, in which most of the fighting took place around the grounds of the British Embassy, the bandit, despite his assumed title of "Ghazi" was most circumspect with the infidel. The Embassy, which was hit by hundreds of bullets, found itself in more danger from the royal troops than from the bandits.

The Afghans do not deny that part of the success of the revolt must be ascribed to influential mullahs who feared the threat of reform to their own positions. Rumors swept Afghanistan at the time that Afghan girls sent to Turkey supposedly to be educated had in fact been given to lustful Germans; these, no less than the assertion that the Afghan schools were producing infidels, and that Amanullah secretly worshiped an idol, were no doubt spread by the mullahs and believed by those of a piously salacious turn of mind. It should be noted, however, that the people of Kabul took no part in the rising, that the schools were promptly reopened by Nadir Shah, and that Amanullah's dress reforms, which are given such priority by Toynbee and others, only applied to the royal gardens at Paghman. Indeed, Afghans are far from wedded to their turbans or native dress; influential, educated, and well-to-do Afghans preferred karakul or Western hats and Western tailoring long before Amanullah, and continue to do so to this day.

Fire in Afghanistan 1914-1929, Rhea Talley Stewart, New York: Doubleday, 1973

[The author's foreword says "Every thing in this book is fact. Every statement, every quoted remark can be documented and, with a few exceptions listed in my chapter notes, all is from primary sources." ]

[on December 30, 1928, the British Minister in Kabul] Humphrys heard another piece of news which provoked him to exclaim that anyone who believed it must be out of his mind.. The rumor that the British had engineered the Shinwari rebellion was already old, but now it included the name of a man supposed to have managed it all: Lawrence of Arabia.

Since May 26[1928] Lawrence had been living ten miles from the Afghan-Indian frontier at the R.A.F post of Miranshah.

Thomas E. Lawrence was not one of the bright, eager young officers of the North-West Frontier Province whom some journalists suspected of enterprise on their own "which would have caused the hair of their superiors to stand on end." Lawrence was forty years old and tired. At Miranshah he was Aircraftman T.E.Shaw, although the other twenty-four Britons there knew his true identity. Shaw was his name legally, but he had entered the Royal Air Force in August 1922 under a third name which was assumed, and his admission had been imposed by the R.A.F. directors, who had to try several doctors before finding one who would approve of him on physical grounds. This was not for any good that he could do the service but for his own benefit, to give him "an asylum in the R.A.F."

Lawrence told his friends he wanted a "brain sleep." His brain and body had worked strenuously during the Great War, when he was ostensibly a Colonel but actually a member of the British Foreign Service, an agent who stirred the Arab Revolt with promises of independence after the war. He did not do this in good faith, as would be believed for many years. In the first draft of his story of that period, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, he wrote, "Better win and break our word than lose" but deleted this at the suggestion of his good friend George Bernard Shaw, after who he had named himself. What distressed Lawrence was the way the world was arranged after the war; he resented the position of the French, this helped account for the fascination of the French Legation in Kabul at all stories of his activity and for the articles that kept appearing in French newspapers about Lawrence, Afghanistan and for 'les cavaliers de St. Georges,' referring to the symbol on British gold sovereigns, which were credited with buying almost anything.

The R.A.F was uncongenial for Lawrence-Shaw, who was such a misfit in it; but he remained an aircraftman and in December 1926, four years after he had begun his "brain sleep," he was transferred to Karachi in India. But his brain was not totally asleep; in June 1927 he wrote a friends from Karachi, "Do you know, if I'ld known as much about the British Government in 1917 as I do now, I could have got enough of them behind me to have radically changed the face of Asia?" and in the same letter:

"We can only get at Russia here through Turkey or Persia or Afghanistan or China, and I fancy the Red Army is probably good enough to turn any of those into a bit of herself, as the Germans did Romania..

"The most dangerous point is Afghanistan. Do you know I nearly went there last week? The British Attache' at Kabul in entitled to an airman clerk and the depot would have put my name forward if I'd been a lot nippier on a typewriter.I'll have to mug up typing; for from '14 to '18 I served a decent apprenticeship in semi-secret service work, and Russia interests me greatly. The clash is bound to come, I think, It's quite in the cards Russia may have her go in our time."

Russia as a threat was greatly on the mind of the British Empire in regard to Afghanistan at the time of Lawrence's transfer to India. Amanullah was on his way to Russia, the possibility of closer relations between Russia and Afghanistan was strong, and many see the connection between British unease and this transfer of an apparently useless enlisted man.

On May 2, 1928, the day before Amanullah left Poland for Moscow, Lawrence wrote to his brother, "I am leaving Karachi for some squadron upcountry." He told his brother what solicitors had his will, how he wished his estate divided, and that he had an unpublished manuscript, "The Mint,". "I am not conscious of dying, but while I'm informing you of the existence of "The Mint,", I'ld better put you informed of the other arrangements. Handy-like to have it in a nut-shell." He told Sir Hugh Trenchard, who headed the Royal Air Force, that he asked for the transfer to get away from an officer who threatened to beat him up.

"Here they employ me mainly in the office," he wrote a friend on June 30 from Miranshah. "I am the only airman who can work a typewriter." The skill in a typewriter of this Oxford graduate who had shaken nations, and written a famous book, and was a trained intelligence operative, was often an issue in his letters. He described himself to George Bernard Shaw as "typist and in charge of the file and duty rolls." but added, "I'm not much good as a clerk though I type better than this in the daylight.. It's awfully hard to make up a sensible letter on a typewriter." And to E.M. Forster, the novelist, he wrote another indictment of the Air Force's training for typists: "Do not swoon with the eccentricity of this typing. I am doing it in the dark and there is not a bell to ring at the end of lines... and I cannot fell with my fingertips exactly where I am striking the keys." Touch-typing had evidently not been in his curriculum.

One subject on which he was silent was the landscape surrounding him. "We live behind barbed wire," he wrote, but he who had described the Arabian Desert so vividly had nothing to say about the jagged peaks of Waziristan.

"What is your game, really?" George Bernard Shaw wrote to him once at Miranshah, and his reply was, "Do you never do something because you know you must?"

One of Humphrys' last message from Kabul before Bacha Sacao's attack was, "I should like to be informed by telegram of Lawrence's whereabouts and to be authorized to give absolute denial to statement that he is in neighbourhood of frontier or that he has visited Afghanistan." At the same time the North-West Frontier Province was reporting "Photo of European has been sent to Sarhaddar of Dakka from Kabul with orders to arrest him if found. Photo is said to have been supplied from India and is supposed to be of Lawrence."

Humphrys was told that Lawrence had been transferred recently to Peshawar, but he had not been; he was still at Miranshah.

One of the legends of Afghanistan would tell of a pir who appears in its eastern hills during the rebellion and then disappeared, and had never been known there before or after. His name was given sometimes as Pir Karam Shah and sometimes as Pir Munshi Shah, and the belief that he was Lawrence. Blue eyes would not have disqualified Lawrence for the role since many Pathans have bright blue eyes. Ineptitude in Pushtu would have, and Lawrence with all his Arab experience had never spoken Arabic so perfectly as to pass for an Arab when he had to talk. Four mysterious pirs actually were walking through the Afghan hills, agents sent to contact the Kabul Legation, and they were Indian Moslems who could have passed.

In Lahore an authentic pir was set upon by angry Indians who thought he was Lawrence and almost killed him. A man in Afghanistan was identified by the British to their own satisfaction as the object of some rumors: "I hear that the European who was recently arrested at Matun wearing a false beard, " Humphrys wired, "may be a German called Sparling. Spare built, sand complexion, above medium height, age about 27, wild-looking. He disappeared from Kabul some weeks ago. Sparling has embraced Islam and has been mixed up in some exceedingly shady financial transactions with the Afghan Government... Suggest that if individual turns out to be Sparling endeavours should be made to apprehend him. This is the European whom Afghans suspect to be Lawrence." In London a sigh went up in a Foreign Office Minute Paper: "It looks as though the production of Sparling.. might do much to scratch the Lawrence myth. But his capture at Matun would perhaps be difficult to arrange with our tribes without involving ourselves in somewhat unneutral proceedings."

Later, however, when public speculation on Lawrence as a kingmaker was forcing some kind of explanation, there was a suggestion in London for "the issue of a chronological statement regarding Shaw's[Lawrence's] service in India and -if possible- a categorical exposition of the way in which he spent his leave period, if any. The assertion-if true-that his is still ignorant of Pushtu might be useful."

The reply displayed misgivings about "free-lance" provocation during leave periods. "It is proposed to say (on information supplied us by Air Ministry) that we understand that Aircraftman Shaw had not been granted any leave in India up to January 1 last. It is possible, however, that he may have had a few odd periods of local leave which would not be reported to us by Air Ministry; and even if we obtained the full dossier suggested, we should almost certainly not be able to say exactly how he had spend any such periods. Unless we know in advance that we can make out a water-tight case, I think it would be inadvisable to attempt to prove by records that Aircraftman Shaw could never at any time have had any opportunity of crossing the frontier and creating trouble."

And the Under-Secretary of State for India, Sir Arthur Hirtzel, in the middle of negotiations with the Air Ministry, would wire to the Government of India: "It might be well that Government of India should have [Lawrence-Shaw] watched closely lest when confronted with departure from India he would bolt." Hirtzel added: "If both he and Omar disappeared, it would be very awkward." Thus Omar and his disappearance from India provoked Ghulam Siddiq, who had returned from Kandahar, to tell Humphrys: "...I shrink from contemplating the cost to Afghanistan if Omar, a far more dangerous individual than Abdul Karim[who escaped from India and incited a rebellion in 1924], succeeds in reviving a revolt which at last seems to be subsiding."

At every crisis in Afghanistan the British doubled their surveillance on the royal persons in India whom they continued to call "refugees" although some had been born in India and never known any other home. Sardar Ayub had gone to India in 1888 with three thousand relatives and partisans whom the Government of India supported. By 1928 support was being given to only nineteen of his descendants..Before these precautions were taken, the next-to-youngest son of the late Ayub, by name Omar, escaped to Afghanistan. .. Humphrys' wired "If Omar proclaims himself Amir, Afghanistan will regard this as definite proof of British intrigue." .. Meanwhile British intelligence linked Omar's escape with two persons: the Tagao Mullah, who had been the link also between Bacha Sacao and the Shinwari rebels, and Abdul Wahid Shinwari alias Mr Wade Australian[an Afghan who had migrated to Australia], the man-of-the-world who had made a fortune in Australia and visited Nadir[Khan] in Paris..

..Amanullah issued a formal proclamation that there would be no more education for girls and to prove the finality of this decision he had the furniture of the school auctioned off..He announced that the girls who had been sent to Turkey would be recalled, that the wearing of a veil would be compulsory for all Afghan women including the Queen and Princesses, that all regulations on the wearing of European dress were canceled, that any mullah might teach without certificate to guarantee his skill, that foreign mullahs including those from Deoband in India were permitted, that any soldier might be the disciple of a pir, that there would be not hasht nifari conscription, that Friday instead of Thursday would again be the holiday.

Amanullah abolished also his entire Nizamnamas, his code of laws and announced that mullahs would "look after the religious law of the State and bring it to accord with the requirements of the time and see that there is no extreme action in the policy of the State." As a final concession to religious scruples, Amanullah said he would appoint an official to see that no one drank wine.

Almost a decade of loving work vanished in this announcement. It was such as loss to Amanullah that in the streets of Kabul and Kandahar people were advising each other not to take him seriously because in better times he would return to the same old progressive ways.

..

"It would be hard to conceive a more inconvenient season in which to be asked by the Amir to make good our promise to present him with arms," G of I wired to H.M.G on January 3[1929]" ... refusal to do so would deepen the suspicions of our bad faith.. On the other hand, compliance could hardly fail to associate us definitely in the tribal mind with his repressive measures..

[In its reply] H.M.G commented also:

"However strongly we may desire to see a central government emerge successful from its conflict with internal disorder in Afghanistan, we cannot afford to risk antagonizing the tribal belt as a whole for the 'beaux yeux' of King Amanullah, especially if he goes under after all. Nor would it be well lightly to lose our present good reputation with the mullahs thanks to not being identified with anti-Islamic reforms."

(end quotes)

Ms. Stewart writes that in the India Office Library in London she found no direct or explicit documentary evidence of British complicity the downfall of Amir Amanullah.

"Lawrence of Arabia is still an enigma; the things we are asked to believe about him, if he had no role in Afghan affairs, are improbable and at the same time there was suspicion even within the British Government.."

Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan, 1919-1929, Leon B. Poullada, Cornell University Press, 1973

..The documentary record which is now available clearly establishes that Humphrys' total lack of sympathy for Amanullah and his policies had an important effect in the progressive deterioration of Anglo-Afghan relations. So marked was Humphry's animus against Amanullah and so much did he out-Herod Herod that in several important cases the Government of India and the British government in London had to put their foot down and veto Humphrys' Draconian proposals against Amanullah. The documented instances of Humphrys' bias and anti-Afghan attitudes are so numerous that it was difficult to ecompass them in this short review. Yet the following few examples from the latter period of his tenure will establish the point.

Humphrys was unhappy about Amanullah's royal visit to Europe and tried to arrange his passage through India in a way that would put Amanullah in his place. When Amanullah balked at the arrangements, Humphrys' recommended petty reprisals that amounted to punishing Amanullah as though he were a spoiled child.

When he learned that the Government of India and London favored the railroad project for Afghanistan sponsored by Clemenceau, Humprhys did his best to discourage it and to arouse British government opposition to it.

When Amanullah returned from England and his foreign Minister, Ghulam Siddiq, tried to initiate follow-up conversations on the discussions that had taken place in London concerning British aid, Humphrys coldly rebugged Siddiq's advances and reported to London that Siddiq was motivated by a desire for personal profit from the aid projects. "The Afghans, both by temperament and hibit, possesses a capacity for the unprofitable absorption of gold to an unlimited extent. What he entirely lacks is the aptitute for organization or the honest application of funds," he reported. He also refused even to consider Siddiq's request for negotiation of a new and more friendly treaty.

Humphrys reported to London that Siddiq was Britain's "most implacable enemy" and that he was "confused, ill-balanced and bombastic." Humphrys had no use either for Mahmud Tarzi, Amanullah's other principal foreign adviser. He even strongly recommended that Tarzi be denied a transit visa on his way to Afghanistan when the rebellion broke out.

When Kabul was invested by Saqaoist forces, Humphrys arbitrarily and without consulting the Amanullah government caused British Air Force planes to violate Afghan airspace, fly over Kabul, and distribute pamphlets uncomplimentary to the Amanullah regime. This brought on a bitter exchange of notes between the Afghan FOreign Office and Humphrys in which the latter simply brushed off Afghan complaints by interposing his claim of superior right to maintain communications with his government.

Humphrys kept badgering Amanullah to cancel his reforms and give in to the demands of the mullahs and the most reactionary elements of Afghan society.

Soon after Amanullah's abdication in favor of Inayatullah, which Humphrys characterized as "a hoax and a Cox and a Box affair," he decided to withdraw the British mission from Kabul, and he also used this as an instrument for eliminating the influence of other friendly foreign governments. Since he controlled the only means of evacuation(the airlift) to India, he persuaded the British government to put pressure on other governments to evacuate their missions and nationals. They were not allowed to remain in India, however, but had to be evacuated all the way to their homelands. By removing diplomatic representation from the capital, Humphrys made it clear that the race for the throne was open to all claimants. This was an advantage to Nadir Khan, whom Humphrys personally favored.

In his reports to London on the rebellion Humphrys consistently wrote off Amanullah's chances to retain his throne. "Amanullah's cause is dead," he declared and then suggested that Nadir was the best alternative candidate. He recommended that Nadir be given every facility to come to Afghanistan and when the Bacha sent emissaries to persuade Nadir to come back, Humphrys was so pleased that he recommended to the Government of India that the emissaries be given every facility for transiting through India and even that funds be advanced secretly to them for rail and steamship passage. As for Amanullah, Humphrys cabled his government that the "king and his entire family should retire to Switzerland."

To such lengths did Humphrys seek to carry his vendetta that on at least three occasions his superiors in New Delhi and in London found it necessary to overrule his recommendations. In the first case Humphrys suggested that the diplomatic pouch sent by Amanullah's envoy in London should be divered to the Bacha's rebel government on the grounds that it was addressed to the "Foreign Office, Kabul." The British government, to its credit, refused to go along with this petty sophistry. In the second instance Humphrys recommended reprisals and deprivation of recognized privileges for Afghan officials in India because they allegedly were engaged in pro-Amanullah propaganda. Both the Government of India and London felt this was going too far and that such measures would simply increase pro-Amanullah agitation in India, where, as we have seen, Amanullah was very popular. In the third case Humphrys recommended that if Amanullah received Soviet representatives in Kandahar, a long list of sanctions should be invoked against him including closing the Indo-Afghan border at Chaman(entry point for Kandahar), withdrawal of the British consul at Kandahar, cancellation of customs exemptions(which were guaranteed by the 1921 treaty), and an arms embargo enforced at Chaman. Both New Delhi and London considered this demand for virtual blockade beyond reason and likely to result in serious repurcussions in both India and the USSR. They overruled Humphrys.

When Amanullah was preparing his comeback from Kandahar and overcame his anti-British bias to the extent of requesting British aid, particularly arms. Humphrys opposed the request with all the vigor at his command, insisting that Amanullah was no longer king in view of his abdication, that Amanullah's retraction of the abdiction should not be recognized by the British government, and that in any case to help Amanullah would be to back the wrong horse.

One looks hopefully but in vain among the many hundreds of reports from Humphrys to his government for some words of understanding, sympathy, or encouragement for the valiant experiment and bold effort which Amanullah was making to improve his country. One would expected from the representative of one of the most enlightened and civilised countries in the world some indication that the Afghan nation and its king should receive some aid or at least moral support from Britain.

Many British officials of that period certainly had such sympathy and understanding for the Afghan nation and its first halting steps on the road to modernity. It was one of Amanullah's misfortunes that the great British Empire did not send as its first envoy to his court a man who had the necesssary humility, compassion and vision..

In spite of many point of conflict and personality clashes, there were periods of relaxation and even friendliness in Anglo-Afghan relations during Amanullah's reign. Amanullah's sojourn in England, for example, was characterized by courtesy, good feelings and high hopes for future relations. But on the whole relations during the Amanullah period were highly satisfactory. It is only natural, then, that when the rebellion broke out in 1928 most observers suspected British instigation. Most Afghans, of course, even highly sophisticated ones, believed and still believe that the British engineering the rebellion. A good portion of the British press and most of the foreign press of the period echoed this belief. The Soviet, French, and German press were particularly accusatory. The leftist press in most countries followed the Soviet line.

British ambassadors in Constantinople, Rome, and Berlin peppered their Foreign Office in London with summaries of press accusations and of private conversations in which British instigation of the Afghan rebellion figured prominently either explicitly or implicity. Even the American press got into the act with articles hinting at dark British plots. Only a few lonely voices were raised in defence of Britain. The Morning Post took indignant exception to insinuations published by the Daily Mail and the American reporter Larry Rue wrote in his series of articles for the Chicago Daily Tribune that the British had had no part in the rebellion. A good deal of the suspicion of British intrigue focused on the presence in the Indian tribal area of Col. T.E. Lawrence("Lawrence of Arabia") who at that time was serving under the alias of Aircraftsman Shaw. This natually caught the imagination of the press and of the romanticizers both of Lawrence and of the Afghan frontier.

Considering Britain's many reason to be dissatisfied with Amanullah and his policies and all the suspicious circumstances that surrounded the outbreak and progress of the rebellion, it is perhaps anticlimatic to conclude that the British were not secretly behind it, but that is where the documentary evidence, now for the first time available, inevitably leads any impartial and serious scholarly inquiry. This does not mean that British policy and actions did not influence the outbreak and outcome of the rebellion, but there was nothing covert about such policies and actions and they were of a kind which any government might be lawfully entitled to adopt toward a regime with which it was not on especially friendly terms. There can be no doubt, of course, that unsatisfactory Anglo-Afghan relations affected the rebellion in a number of ways. The tribes, for examples, were well aware of the bite of British power and would have hesitated to attack an Afghan king who might call for and receive assistance from the British.

There was little risk, however, that Britain would actively help Amanullah. Urged on by unsympathetic reports from Humphrys, the British government assumed what it chose to call a rigorously "neutral" attitude. It did so for a number of reasons. It did not have cordial relations with the Amanullah regime and therefore saw no special reason to go out of its way to support it. Its situation in India was still precarious with regard to the increasingly active independence movement and its probably rightly felt that involvement in the internal quarrels of Afghanistan would further weaken its position in India[ Yeah right. This rings false-blogger].

Finally it did not want to give the USSR any excuse for interfering in Afghanistan and provoking a confrontation which might undo the patient diplomacy that had been working toward an Anglo-Soviet accomodation. Amanullah unwittingly and unwisely played into the British hand by his precipitate abdication. The British at once seized on this fact to justify their nonsupport for all parties to the internal struggle in Afghanistan. On January 30, 1929, the following exchange took place in the House of Commons:

Mr Thomas(by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make regarding the attitude which His Majesty's Government propose to adopt in relation to the present disturbances in Afghanistan?

Sir A. Chamberlain:His Majesty's Government have no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan by supporting or assisting any of the parties at present contending for power in that country...King Amanullah has formally announced his abdication to His Majesty's Government, and consequently, until it is clear that in spite of this abdication he is regarded as their King by the people of Afghanistan generally, His Majesty's Government are unable to regard his Government as the rightful Afghan Government.'

This declaration of "neutrality" actually operated unfavorably against Amanullah in a number of ways. First, it told the world that the British had publicly written him off as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan. This point was not lost on the rebellious tribes. Second, it placed Amanullah on the same basis as any other rebel or pretender such as the Bacha-i-Saqao, Ali Ahmad Jan, Ghaus-ud-din, Muhammed Umar, and Nadir Kahan, all of whom were contending for the throne. In other words it reduced Amanullah's legitimacy to the level of that of a pretender and this, as we will recall, was already a weak point in his internal political position. Finally, it deprived him of the advantageous position of a legitimate government to command foreign credits, arms, logistical supplies, and other forms of assistance. For example, when Amanullah, after having rescinded his abdication in Kandahar, was in desperate need of arms, the British coldly replies that they did not recognize the cancellation of his abdication, that in their view Amanullah was just another contender for power in an internal struggle, and that British neutrality prevented helping any of the parties to the rebellion.

It is evident, then that the British were very influential in the outcome of the rebellion that cost Amanullah his throne...

(end quotes)

[Mr. Poullada goes on to discuss how declassified documents do not reveal directly any secret British plans to overthrow Amanullah, and how this lack makes the existence of such a plan unlikely.]

Ayesha Jalal, 'Self and Sovereignty, Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850', Routledge, 2001

The Nehru Report had come out in 1928 and Indian Muslims were divided on whether to support it or not. The opponents of the Congress party claimed it was against the principles of Islam.

"For instance in Amritsar city, internal rivalries resulted in two different Khilafat committees. The immediate reason for the break was Bacha-i-Saquo's revolt against Amanullah in Afghanistan. Many Punjabi Muslims suspected a British hand in Saquo's fitna, who in turn was believed to be influenced by Pir Karam Dad. Sheikh Hissamuddin, [a] future Ahrar leader, told the meeting of the old Khilafat committee that the new Khilafat Committee was a creature of the pir who was 'neither Muhammedan nor Indian' but of 'Lawrence of Arabia fame'. Backed by the British, he had worked to heighten divisions in Afghanistan, especially among Shias and Sunnis. Not to be done in by this low-lyi ng attack, the new Khilafat Committee passed a resolution supporting Amanullah's restoration to the throne. Sayyid Habib of the Siyasat defended the new khilafat committee in the city on the grounds that the old one 'had supported the Congress and not followed the principles of Islam'."

(end quote)

Another round of bait and switch between the British and religious inciters in the North West Frontier region happened in the 1939-1945 period during the Second World War.

Ethnicity, Nationalism and The Pakhtuns, Stephen Alan Rittenburg, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina, 1988

The government helped foster the Frontier's positive attitude on the war by secretly enlisting on its side influential mullahs, maulanas, and sajjada nishins in both the settled districts and tribal area.[1] Few men of any religious consequence stood aloof. The Faqir of Ipi was a major exception, but some of his lieutenants took up war propaganda as did many other men who were publicly perceived as anti-British. In return for liberal subsidies, religious figures preached that Great Britain's enemies were also the enemies of Islam. Similar propaganda was disseminated by the province's press, which was also heavily subsidized.[2] Two parallel networks were used to recruit the religious leaders. Khan Bahadur Quli Khan started the first in August 1939 on the request of Sir Arthur Parsons, the acting governor. His primary success was in convincing the members of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Sarhad, who were almost professionally anti-British, to preach that the interests of Islam and Great Britain were identical. Cunningham directed the second network himself until August 1941 when he turned it over to military intelligence. He worked primarily through the Deputy Commissioners and Political Agents who, in turn, employed influential and largely apolitical, private citizens.

A rare unanimity was created in religious circles which gave the war a powerful sanction. Religious figures initially concentrated their attacks on the "bolsheviks" who had long been held in disfavor in the Frontier for their atheism and their treatment of Central Asian Muslims. The Germans were denounced first for their association with the Russians and then for being anti-religious themselves. When the alignments in the war changed, the propaganda was suitably redirected. Italians were condemned as no longer ahl-i-kitab and the Japanese as but parast(idol-worshippers). The Russians' religious attitudes were played down, and the English alliance with them was justified as expedient politics.[4]

It required little prompting to turn these polemics against the Congress. Frontier Congressmen encountered a barrage of denunciations which described them as actively in league with the anti-religious Fascists or simply labeled them as kafirs for opposing a war in which Islam had a stake. The more actively the Congress engaged in anti-war work, the heavier the propaganda against it became. Months before the Quit India Movement opened, religious figures throughout the Frontier started to sharpen their attacks. Once the agitation began, a spate of fatwas were issued condemning it; the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-Sarhad disseminated tracts which Cunningham called 'all good anti-Congress, anti-Japanese and [anti-]Axis stuff," and the Muslim press almost universally denounced the Congress for trying to create a Hindu Raj in collusion with the Axis powers.[5]

[1] See Cunningham Papers/3 for a detailed description of how this was done.

[2] Cunningham Papers/3a, p. 4

[3] Cunningham Papers/3b

[4] Cunningham Diary 7/1/41

[5] Cunningham Papers/3c and Fortnightly Adminitration Reports, Government of India Archives

Ethnicity, Islam and Nationalism, Sayed Wiqar Ali Shah, Oxford University Press, 2000

There were also other reasons which contributed to the ability of the authorities to deal with the [Quit India] movement. .. The FPML[Frontier Province Muslim League], waiting for such an occasion since the resignation of Dr Khan Sahib's Ministry, considered it as the best opportunity to move close to Cunningham. They were very helpful to the Government in making 'the right sort of propaganda'. Then there were several maulvis who had been working for the British interest for a long time, and 'have come out with strong anti-Congress speeches in mosques'.[1] The first noted contact with the maulvis of Jamiatul Ulema-i-Sarhad (JUS) was made through Khan Bahadur Kuli Khan.

On 5 August 1939, Cunningham summoned Kuli Khan and urged him to convince the maulvis of JUS to emphasize that British interests were almost identical with that of Islam's, which he duly didi. Cunningham continued with his modified plan. A network was established through the Deputy Commissioners and Political Agents, and, in addition some prominent private individuals were employed to work for the Crown. Initially, the attention of the subsidised clergy was divered towards the 'atheist Bolsheviks', with particular reference to their treatment of Muslims in Central Asia. The Germans were denounced as the collaborators of the Russians. But, with the Russian entry into the war on the Allied side, the whole situation changed. 'Mullahs have been sending me questions through Kuli Khan', reported Cunningham, 'as to what propaganda they should now do..This is not too easy, as up to June last year I was encouraging them to preach anti-Bolshevism more than anti-Nazism. Most people seem to take it for granted that, although we don't particularly like Bolsheviks, we are only too glad to have them killing the Germans'. Cunningham felt puzzled when asked whether they were really helping their old enemies, the Russians. His reply was simple: that for the common purpose of the destruction of Nazism, they could co-operate with the Russians, without accepting the ideas of Communism or the Soviet system.

The government succeeded in switching over the propaganda from the Bolsheviks to the Germans and the 'Mullahs seems to look quite naturally to the Nazis as being the principal enemy of Islam and Britain alike'.[2] It was not very difficult for the authorities to direct their propaganda against the Congress. The Congress were denounced as the collaborators of fascism, who were trying to drag Islam into a war which was none of its concern. The services of the JUS were always at the disposal of the government, fatwas were issued against the Khudai Khidmatgars for their close association with the Hindu Congress, and, in particular, the Khan Brothers were criticized for their friendship with Gandhi.

[1] A very interesting and detailed account of the cordial relationship between the British and several prominent and influential clerics and other notables, along with the subsidy list they were getting from the Government in lieu of their services to the Crown, can be seen in Cunningham's Correspondence with the External Affairs Department regarding Propaganda through Mullahs in Cunningham Collection.

[2]Cunningham narrated how at a big Jirga in the Kurram Agency, the Turis-'the most rabid of all our Shias'-asked him whether it was true that they were helping their old enemy, the Russians. Cunningham replied that 'if a mad dog got loose in the Parachinar Bazar, Shias and Sunnis would combine to shoot it'. 'This remark', noted Cunningham, 'has been repeated along the border and is accepted as a reasonable statement of the case'.

Wali Khan, Facts are Facts, http://www.awaminationalparty.org/books/factsarefacts.pdf

An interesting incident occurred when, after the outbreak of the war in Europe, the British tried to persuade the Afghans to throw out the Germans. To pressurize the Afghans,they invited Shami Pir to the tribal territory, instructing him to incite the people against the royal family of Afghanistan. When the British were satisfied that the task had been successfully completed, they called Shami Pir to the Wana cantonment in Waziristan. They settled with him for £25,000. Shami Pir performed a disappearing trick! Having seen this task successfully completed the Secretary of State for India was thrilled. He asked the Viceroy to make a similar deal with Faqir. The Viceroy's reply is

dated 14 July 1938. "There is, I fear, no possible chance in dealing with him on the same basis as Shami Pir. He is not only implacable, but also completely incorruptible. Who would rid me of this turbulent priest?"