The Pashtun Tribes in Afghanistan: Wolves Among Men by Ben Acheson

Author:Ben Acheson
Format: epub

The Iron Emir’s transfer of the tribes

Born in the 1840s, Abdur Rahman was the grandson of Dost Mohammad Khan – founder of the Second Durrani Dynasty. He spent most of his teens and early twenties embroiled in the fratricidal power struggles that led to his being exiled to Central Asia in 1869.

It was a full decade before Abdur Rahman returned. Described as ‘a tall, well-built man, with a large head, and a marked Afghan, almost Jewish, face’,⁴ he is celebrated in many stories as a patriot who crossed the Oxus River (now the Amu Darya) and marched on Kabul to save Afghanistan from the incompetent leaders who had led the country into the Second Anglo-Afghan War of 1878–1880.⁵ But another, more accurate, narrative is that British officials had identified Abdur Rahman as a man malleable enough to be their client in Kabul.⁶ They thrashed out a deal to back his claim to the throne, end the war and withdraw their troops, provided that he relinquished control of foreign policy to them.⁷ Abdur Rahman agreed and was officially recognized as Emir in July 1880, starting a twenty-one-year reign that changed Afghanistan forever.

Abdur Rahman was a dynamic ruler. He modernized government and established the first official judicial system.⁸ He used his new bureaucracy to hire rivals who agreed not to rebel against him, and he marginalized others whom he saw as a threat.⁹ In his quest to centralize power in Kabul he also split the country’s provinces into smaller units, so that they could never be large enough to serve as a base for revolt.¹⁰ This obsession with centralizing power made Afghanistan into a nation state, but it came at the expense of the position of provincial leaders – particularly tribal chiefs.

While Abdur Rahman’s predecessor, Sher Ali, is credited with creating the national army, it was Abdur Rahman who turned it into an effective force. Unlike previous Durrani leaders who relied on tribal lashkars to enforce authority, he used British subsidies to make the army the main instrument of state power. This also fostered resentment among tribal chiefs who perceived it as a challenge to their influence. To placate them, Abdur Rahman created a system of conscription that gave tribal leaders the authority to choose tribesmen who would serve in state forces. It was called Hasht Nafari and allowed village elders and maliks to choose one man from every eight households to serve in the army. The other seven households were taxed to provide financial support.

Yet Abdur Rahman’s initial reputation as a unifier did not last long. His ‘internal imperialism’ and the brutal methods he used to try to consolidate his grip over all of Afghanistan soon stoked resentment.¹¹ Stories circulated about his men cutting off the hands of warlords and criminals, then dipping the spurting stumps into hot tar. His forces cruelly suppressed insurrections and crushed revolts with savage executions. One favourite method was to bend the tops of two young trees towards each other, fixing them to the ground. The

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