Internal Imperialism in Afghanistan
The despotic reign of Abdur Rahman Khan between 1880-1901 resonates in today's Afghanistan.
The despotic rule of Abdur Rahman Khan from 1880-1901 was a watershed period in Afghanistan’s history. It transformed a land of loosely configured autonomous regions to a centralized “modern” state which, for better or for worse, is the current political and governmental structure in the country, at least on paper. Abdur Rahman’s alliance with the British formed a unique type of imperialistic structure, termed as internal imperialism by historian Thomas Barfield. This post will examine how the British learned from their failures in Afghanistan and changed their imperial strategy to use an amenable Abdur Rahman to serve their geopolitical interests. Abdur Rahman’s methods of executing on the internal imperialism strategy will also be examined, and the post will conclude with how the events of the time shape present day Afghanistan.
Having been annihilated in the first Anglo-Afghan war in 1842 where a lone soldier survived the retreat from Kabul to the eastern city of Jalalabad, the second British invasion in 1878 was far more successful. The usual succession wars that followed the death of Dost Mohammad Khan in 1863 led to his son, Sher Ali Khan, being in power only to be ousted by another brother, leading to years of internecine warfare. Sensing an opportunity, the British invaded from India in 1878 and by 1880 had won a comprehensive military victory against a divided and decentralized Afghanistan. Having an opportunity to rule Afghanistan much like they did India through a viceroy, the British chose an alternate approach.
In India, the British had profit objectives which meant controlling the country’s production and exports, which in turn meant ensuring stability in the region so that industry would function. The East India Company is the most relevant example of an entity that exercised military power while also providing administrative functions. There needed to be tight integration between the imperial power and the subjects to execute on the British strategy of driving value through exports. This would be analogous to a modern day acquisition of a company, where the one being bought needed to integrate with the parent company to drive efficiencies through the use of the parent company’s more modern technology and processes.
In Afghanistan, there was no such financial motive and having learned the lessons of the first Anglo-Afghan war, even less desire to administer the country. British interest in the region was due to its proximity to Russia. As part of the maneuvering in the Great Game, i.e., the Cold War between the British and Russian empires in the 19th century, Britain saw Afghanistan as a buffer state between the prize of India and Russian lands to the north. Britain’s interests were to control Afghanistan's foreign policy, notably its relationship with Russia, who through General Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann had occupied the Khanate of Kokand to the north in 1876. This most recent incursion was a topic of great concern for the British who were wary of how the border regions were demarcated and controlled. They cared little for Afghanistan’s industries, internal development, as long as they were in control of foreign policy.
The feasibility of creating a buffer state by tightly ruling and administering Afghanistan was low. History had taught the British that due to the terrain, cultural and ethnic heterogeneity, a decentralized society and a valid fear of the foreign, ruling Afghanistan was a difficult proposition. The constant threat of rebellion across the land introduced a level of unpredictability that was difficult to plan for and respond to. Even in financial and economic terms, controlling Afghanistan from tight quarters was not worth what the country produced. For example, the lack of transport infrastructure made any national industry costly and unfeasible to operate.
Having won the second Anglo-Afghan war, the British chose Abdur Rahman Khan to run the country. Puppet central governments were something that Afghanistan was used to and almost to be expected. Since Afghanistan was organized in a highly decentralized tribal system, it mattered little who was in charge of the central provinces or in Kabul. In that sense, the appointment of Abdur Rahman followed in line with previous rulers of the Mohammadzai or Barakzai regimes. The difference was that Abdur Rahman, unlike previous rulers, had a deep desire for centralization and an authoritarian mindset which the British recognized as a valuable tool to control the country and dictate foreign policy.
The biggest change that Abdur Rahman introduced was to have a permanent military force rather than one assembled on demand during wartime. This was a model more familiar to the British. To raise money to build the military, Abdur Rahman imposed heavy taxes on income and wealth of all sorts, and frequently confiscated property in the name of military service. The purpose of this military was not to protect Afghanistan from foreign interference, but to quell the possibility of any rural uprising. Between 1881-1888, Abdur Rahman waged wars against a variety of ethnic groups including the Pashtuns and Hazaras, dismantling their ability to organize themselves into any resistance movement. These attacks were surprising to the people on the margins because central governments had previously left disparate regions to their own devices, but the fear of rebellion against despotic rule was so great in Abdur Rahman’s mind, that he needed to crush rebellion before it started.
The British heavily subsidized Abdur Rahman’s economy to the point where it was entirely dependent on British imports from India, especially raw materials to make weapons. The primary, and arguably the only, industry under Abdur Rahman’s rule was the military with most factories servicing the complex. Once while he was extinguishing a rebellion to the north, the British made sure to convey just how dependent Abdur Rahman was by squeezing imports, with the effects felt immediately. The dependence on British imports to sustain the only functioning industry resulted in the creation of a pseudo-welfare state, where self-sustenance had been systematically thwarted by the country’s own military through economic starvation of other industries and backbreaking taxes.
The increased revenue the state collected was not reinvested into society so output remained the same except that the government was taking more of people’s money, leading to destitution. Abdur Rahman’s ridiculous rationale for not reinvesting was that building such infrastructure would invite foreign interference leading to security threats (the hypocrisy of working with the British was lost in the mix). For example, building a transport system would allow foreign invaders to reach hitherto unreachable lands. The lack of transport infrastructure also meant that any surpluses the agricultural system generated were not profitable, let alone exportable. This thinking came at a time where other parts of the region were getting more sophisticated in technologies such as rail, steam engines and telegraph, while Afghanistan’s prospects remained stunted and paralyzed. Much of the effects of this period’s stagnation can be felt even in today’s Afghanistan.
Despite continually calling Afghanistan a secular state, Abdur Rahman reached into the clerical system which made Afghans acquiesce to his demands. The religious ethos that had helped serve as the underpinning of tribal harmony was dismantled, thus weakening the tribal system and making them even less likely to resist. This was done in two main ways.
First, the fear of foreign invasion was distilled with Abdur Rahman portraying himself as the only one who could keep Afghanistan safe. It is not surprising that the term jihad was thrown around quite loosely. Once again, the hypocrisy of him being in bed with the British was lost on a mostly uneducated public, who were now being ruled by a despot whose military they were funding entirely. Having taken the authority to protect, Abdur Rahman silenced or killed any cleric that would go against his word. For example, when one cleric suggested that Christians should not be persecuted because the Quran states that they are “people of the book”, he was killed despite the minority in a court finding him guilty.
Now having religious justification for his actions, Abdur Rahman only needed to standardize them. This was done using his second tactic: equating Afghan tribal customs to Islamic belief. As Barfield notes1:
The tautology was that since all true Afghans were debout Muslims then all their customs must be Islamic as well, otherwise they could not be good Muslims (which they were by definition). Anyone proposing to change tradition could therefore be accusing of attacking Islam itself.
After hollowing out the tribal system through military might, Abdur Rahman dared the tribes to change anything, knowing that they would not want to go against what he had defined as Islam. Much like how the rest of the world was advancing in infrastructure and technology while Afghanistan stayed behind, the Muslim world was seeing religious reforms while Afghanistan remained stuck with a medieval and flawed view of the religion. Religion was weaponized and went from being a common foundation of brotherhood and dispute resolution, to a tool for reinforcing Abdur Rahman’s authority.
Today’s Afghanistan is structured in the mold of the centralized state that Abdur Rahman introduced. Peeking beneath the structure we find the same tribal system, except that it is devoid of the economic resources, resilience and strength through interconnection it once had. It is a hollow state whose nature is to function in a decentralized autonomous way, but is forced to comply with the whims of a central government that does not have the capacity to understand, communicate or rule effectively. This has been true for most regimes since Abdur Rahman’s time because not only did he centralize power, he gutted the natural capacity of how Afghanistan’s rural population had self-sustained themselves through the centuries.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7718203-afghanistan