AfghanistanAdnan Naseemullah

The Issues

The nature of state-building in a fragmented society; the formation of national identity

Modernization and its discontents

Great Power conflict

Causes of civil war

State Building

European experience: war-making, state-making, extraction, protection (Tilly 1982)

State Building

In European state-building, ‘states’ fight with other ‘states’ to increase their territory: external war-making

And they fight with recalcitrant nobles, villages, etc. to tax and homogenize governance over new territory: internal state-making

State Building

European experience: war-making, state-making, extraction, protection (Tilly 1982)

After initial formation of nation-states, a series of processes that built ‘infrastructural capacity’:RailroadsNational army Education systemsThe welfare state

State-building in Colonial India

The state-building experience is different:Mughal Empire: early modern stateBritish Empire: focused on extraction, defence, expansion, not so much on building up state institutions: POLITICAL ACCOUNTANCYSo, we see variation in state presence across territory.BUT also: law, legitimacy, liberalism, nationalism and post-colonial state-building.

State-building in Afghanistan?

What does state and nation mean in Afghanistan?

Pre-Durrani period: frontiers of the Safavid Empire, the Mughal Empire and the Khanates of Central Asia; authority petered out.

Provincial governorates at Herat, Balkh, Kandahar, and Kabul.

Central Afghanistan and the tribal hinterland ungoverned.

Identities in Afghanistan

Pashtun (Durrani, Ghilzai) – 40% - eastern and southern Afghanistan, Pushto-speaking, tribal structuresTajik – 30% - non-tribal, Persian-speaking Sunni Muslims in the west (Herat), north (Mazar) and northeast (Panjshir valley), and urban centers. Hazara – 15% - Shi’a Mongol descendants from Hindu Kush / central AfghanistanUzbek and Turkmen – 10% - Turkic Persian speakers in the North

Durrani Empire

As the Mughal and Safavid Empires, declined successor states were established.

Ahmad Shah Durrani (1722-1772). Abdali Pashtun -- founded Durrani Empire in 1747.

Defeated Mughals and Marathas, came to dominate Afghanistan, easternIran and northwestern India.

First Anglo-Afghan War

Timur Shah dies in 1793; empire falls apart.

Conflict between Shuja Shah (Sadozai) and Dost Muhammed (Muhammadzai Barakzai); DM declares himself Amir of Kabul in 1826.

1839: Lord Auckland orders ‘the Army of the Indus’ to intervene and return Shuja to the throne, to create Afghan client state.

First Anglo-Afghan War

British forces occupy Kandahar and Kabul, Dost Muhammad surrenders and Shuja declared king.

British restructuring of taxation and tribal autonomy, inflation creates oppositon; Ghilzai chiefs declare jihad in 1841. Burnes and Macnaghten murdered.

Jan 1842: disastrous retreat of British forces to Jalalabad; Dost Muhammad returns.

Concept of jihad and national rebellion.

‘The Great Game’

Afghanistan situated between two expanding empires, neither with resources to fully occupy Afghanistan

Agreement on Oxus River demarcation in 1873

Kabul balances autonomy with support from British, flirtation with the Russians

Second Anglo-Afghan War

Sher Ali (1863) – administrative and military reform.

British annex Quetta in 1876; Kaufman, Russian governor at Tashkent, sends diplomatic mission in 1878; Lytton ultimatum. Sher Ali expects Russian support.

British invade; treaty of Gandamak with Yaqub Khan in 1879.

Second Anglo-Afghan War

1879: Louis Cavagnari heads Afghan mission; murdered by unpaid soldiers from Herat. Roberts invades Kabul. Revolts from Ghilzai and Kohistan.

Abdur Rahman raised army in Turkistan in 1880.

ARK reaffirms Gandamak and accepts Emirate of ‘northern Afghanistan’ from the British; Roberts defeats Ayub Khan at Kandahar in Sept 1880.

Abdur Rahman

Afghan state-builder, autocrat.

Reclaimed Kandahar in 1881; internal wars against Ghilzai (1886-8), war against the governor of Turkistan (1884).

Integrated Hazarajat and Kafiristan after rebellion; migration of Pashtuns into Turkistan and Hazarajat.

Abdur Rahman

Established new systems of direct taxation, decreased the autonomy of provinces, tribes and religious authority. Concentrated power in Kabul.

No investment or modernization; Autarkic policies.

Received payments in cash andarms from the British; AfghanistanIs buffer state.

Durand Line

1893: British established a line of influence separating Pashtun tribes in NWFP from those under Afghan control.

Abdur Rahman refuses, but is placed under economic embargo while fightingHazaras.

Habibullah & Amanullah

Habibullah: suppression of nascent jihadi and nationalist movements, Afghan neutrality in WWI. Murdered in 1919.

Amanullah: Third Anglo-Afghan War, incited tribes east of Durand to jihad. Unsuccessful, but Treaty of Rawalpindi in 1919 recognizes Afghanistan as sovereign state.

Great Game Redux: diplomatic relations and aid from Soviet Union, return of payments from Britain

Amanullah and Modernization

Social reforms: constitutional changes, taxes in cash, conscription, education for women, uniform code of family law, secularization.

Khost Rebellion of 1924: local clergy, Pashtun tribes, Abdul Karim Khan returned from India.

World Tour and revolutionary modernization

Civil War of 1928

Musahiban Dynasty

Kalakani loses legitimacy, Nadir Shah defeats him and takes power.

1933: Nadir Shah is killed, Zahir Shah ascends throne; uncles and cousin rule.

Education and infrastructure development, but aimed at stability. elimination of rural taxation; stillsubsistence agriculture.Kabul vs. rest of country.

Daud Khan

Premier (1953-1963), Zahir Shah dismisses him and rules under Constitution, overthrows the Shah and rules as President in 1973 until killed in 1978.

Pashtunistan Policy and border closure 1961.

Soviet alliance and cold war development.

Modernization: Two Five Year Plans,Rights for women.

Modernization in Afghanistan?

National non-integration; using the power of the state to change society.

Success of Abdur Rahman, failure of Amanullah

‘Westernizing reforms’ = tribal revolt

What’s different in Afghanistan?

PNPA and Afghan intervention

Both Islamists and Communists in and around Kabul University. PDPA: formed in 1965, split into Khalq (Ghilzai Pashtun) and Parcham factions.

Daud: alliance with leftist, educated urbanites: Parcham supported 1973 coup. Start of rebellions.

1978 Saur Revolution: Khalq overthrows Daud, sets up PDPA government. Instability and rebellion: USSR intervenes in Dec 1979 to install Percham.

The Mujahiddin insurgency

Soviet control of cities, supporting PDPA govt

Islamist groups start organizing militias in Pakistan, funded by the US and Saudi Arabia ($1 billion per year by mid-1980s); recruiting from refugee camps (4 million refugees)

No coordination between groups: Hizb-i-Islami (Hekmatyar), Jamiat-i-Islami (Rabbani, Masud, Ismail Khan), Hiz-i-Wahdat (Ali Mazari, Khalili), Ittehad-i-Islami (Sayyaf)

Mujahiddin Civil War

Soviets withdraw in 1989; Najibullah turns from Communist to Nationalist; decentralization, patronage, absorption of 60% of mujahiddin.

1991: USSR dissolves, no more aid. Thus, regime dissolves.

1992-1995: reorganization of warlord factions, conflict between different militias and the shelling of Kabul

The Rise of the Taliban

Militia of émigré clerics and seminarians from JUI schools in Pakistan; trained by ISI.

1994: entered Kandahar, defeats the mujahiddin factions in conflict in southern Afghanistan, often through surrender.

Entered Kabul in 1996, declares Islamic Emirate.

Assorted allies.

The Fall of Taliban

Reactionary social and religious policies provoked backlash, alienated domestically and internationally.

Resources limited: only Pakistan giving support, plus UN humanitarian aid.

1998: al Qaeda establishes bases in Afghanistan; after 2001, US requires immediate handing over of bin Laden.

Causes of Civil War

How do we explain the emergence and persistence of civil war in Afghanistan?- Greed and Grievance- Failures in State-building- Modernization and Social Reform?- Destruction of Tribal Structures- Loss of Legitimacy- External Powers

Political Order and Disorder in Pakistan’s Northwest

Establishment of ‘hybrid governance’ in the Tribal Agencies in 19th centuries

Relationship between maliks and political agents persists in independent Pakistan

Breaks apart when the military takes over civilian administration, insurgents attack tribal leaders after 2001

Conclusions

Afghanistan: was a state built? A nation built?

Modernization and its Discontents

The Great Game: still being played?

Can history teach us anything about policy?