September 21st, 2001
Afghanistan is attracting the attention of the world as never before. This is because it is deemed to be the source of the attack on the manifest symbols of the military and economic power of the only superpower left in the world. The alleged mastermind Osama bin Laden and the actual hijackers of the planes which became firebombs may not be Afghan but they are said to have been provided a safe haven by the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.
Thus we have, by a supreme irony of history, a small underpopulated country devastated by drought famine and war pitted against the mightiest power the world has ever known.
As in the Semitic myth common to Jews Christians and Muslims we have a David pitted against a Goliath.
Western media ignores history prior to the advent of colonialism. It remembers a major British disaster of the 19th Century. On 13th January 1847 some sixteen thousand soldiers and camp followers of the British force retreating from Kabul were slaughtered almost to the last man while trying to cross the Khyber Pass.
In the twentieth century the mighty Soviets were humbled in their attempt to conquer Afghanistan and lost some fifteen thousand young soldiers. The collapse of the USSR as an entity and a superpower are dated to this catastrophe. The conclusion drawn is that the Afghans are impossible to conquer or govern.
Indian History over the last two thousand five hundred years records empires which included Afghanistan in their fold. The Emperor Ashoka who succeeded his father Bimbisaar in 269 B.C. was the governor of the North West before he became Emperor in Pataliputra (Patna). One of his inscriptions was found in Afghanistan and the tallest Buddhas were there in Bamiyan till they were destroyed by the Taliban. Someone will one day draw a parallel between two Buddhas and two towers!
Another Emperor of India, Zaheeruddeen Muhammad ‘Babur’ born 14th February 1483 succeeded his father as ruler of Ferghana on 11th June 1483. After many vicissitudes Babur became ruler of Kabul around 1500 A.D. and assumed the title Padishah or Badshah. He wrested North India from a ruler of Afghan descent, Ibrahim Lodhi by winning the battle of Panipat on 22nd March 1526.
The Mughal Empire founded by the Emperor Babur lasted de facto and de jure until 1857. Kabul in Afghanistan was a governor’s posting until 1739 which was well into the period of the Empire’s decline. In 1739 the ruler was Muhammad Shah. He had succeeded to the Peacock throne in 1719, a year which saw some four Emperors strike coin in their names. Despite this weakness at the centre Kabul did not break away.
In 1739 the Mughal lost the battle of Karnal to Tahmasp Quli a soldier of fortune of Turki tribal origin. He had earlier usurped the throne of Persia (Iran) and assumed the title ‘Nadir Shah’. He took away untold wealth as loot and annexed Kabul to his empire in Iran.
Under the Mughals Afghanistan enjoyed peace and prosperity. The Emperor Babur loved Kabul enough to people it with gardens and he himself was buried in one such paradise. The prince Khurram, later Shah Jahan redesigned some pavilions and gardens in Kabul and won praise and admiration from his father the connoisseur Emperor Jahangir. A magnificent Imperial Mughal painting in the British library shows the prince being weighed against precious objects which would be given away in charity for the price to earn grace. The venue is Kabul.
The links of India to Afghanistan are intricate and extend over its history and geography.
Amir Subuktagin defeated the Raja Jaipal on 27th November 1001 A.D. He was ransomed by his son Anandpal. The second defeat saw Jaipal shave his head and immolate himself.
Subuktagin’s son Mahmoud of Ghazni, born 15th July 989 raided India assisted by Indian troops and even a Brahmin interpreter become general so often as to become a legend. Mahmoud made Ghazni into the most prosperous city of its time. He patronised some two hundred poets and one of them, Firdausi wrote the epic Shahnama which helped make Persian into a great language. We have it as the language of commerce and culture from Sinkiang to Turkey
The Nobel Laureate Mahfouz in his novel the Harafish has each chapter end with the quotation of a verse in Persian, The great Sufi poet Maulana Jalaaluddin Rumi born 1207 in Balkh died 1273,in Qonya, Turkey founder of the order called the Mevlevi and author of one of the fundamental works of Sufiism the Masnavi was an Afghan. Afghans from Roh settled in Western U. P. And their chief Najibuddowlah was representative of the Abdalis in India, The Nawabs of Rampur are Rohillas. An administrative divisiopn of the U.P. is called Rohilkhand.
Thus over the millennia Afghans and Indians have intermingled and been one at many crucial junctures of history.
The Afghans are no more difficult than the Marathas the Sikhs and the Bengalis. They prosper when their trade and movement into India is unrestricted, when they are part of a larger entity and when they are administered fairly and with justice and a Rule of Law prevails as it did under the Mauryas and the Mughals.
Perhaps after the present crisis is resolved attention will be paid to making these small principalities into a larger whole so that the Baluchis and the Afghans can have peace with honour and justice.