Nations, if there is really such a category of human groupings in the world, are generally incapable, like individuals, of identifying their shortcomings and therefore mistakes. Their cultures, invariably, ‘protect’ them from becoming wise. Then, playing victim is perhaps a universal trait of cultures. Even imperialisms at the summit of their power have behaved the same way. Is it not like snatching away the victimhood from the real victims? Therefore, when dealing with affairs of nations, one cannot always join in whatever their cultures perceive to be right or wrong in the world. The question is how a nation’s normally sleeping and dormant humanity is awakened and encouraged to make that nation embark upon the right path. And if a nation is unlucky not to have a party of such men and women to guide it, to lead it, it will suffer.
In this respect Afghanistan and Pakistan are not dissimilar. The realization of one simple fact that all borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan except the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir are British made should lead us to identify our shortcomings. It is now more than one and half century that Afghans became victims of British manipulation, which culminated ultimately, in reality, in the loss of their independence. The irony is that those who snatched Afghan independence also made famous that Afghans were very freedom loving people, that they were the ‘Spaniards of Asia’ etc. Perhaps this worked like ‘opium’ for Afghan intellectuals on whose shoulders fell the responsibility to build instruments within Afghan society, through social change, to protect them from foreigners.
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the present American-led Western occupation are, in a way, the continuation of how the British imperialism treated Afghanistan. The other side of the story is that there is the perennial vacuum in Afghan society, which sucks in outsiders. That even Soviet ‘socialism’ on its deathbed dared to invade Afghanistan clearly illustrates this point. And as if that was not enough, when the American Jewish-Christian neocons planned to re-conquer the Muslim world, their choice, to start with, fell on Afghanistan. And now, even if the West withdraws from Afghanistan, it will not be the beginning of Afghan independence.
Afghan independence will come when Afghans recognize what is that which time and again has brought them into such situations. To come face to face with reality, they have to abandon so many myths which have been interwoven into their culture and to which, perhaps, the British have contributed more than they themselves. And I must add that whatever the adversity, playing victim and doing nothing right, like Jews, will never be of help.
With this state of mind when I look back into the history of Afghanistan and Pakistan borders, I feel that if the “warning voices of Russian threat to India” had first been raised in the late 1820s, to interfere in Afghanistan was a forgone conclusion by the middle of 1830s, if not earlier. It was argued that if “Russia could alarm the British by moves in Persia, why should not the British in India alarm the Russians by moves in Afghanistan?”
Therefore, from the time this mindset of the empire, which came into existence without a real Russian threat, I believe, Afghanistan, had lost its independence. The struggle of Amirs of Afghanistan who defied the British imperialism to remain independent, therefore, ended finally in Afghanistan becoming a British ‘protectorate’. This is best illustrated by how the present Afghanistan borders came into being.
Four arbitral awards, three British and one Turkish — Goldsmid 1872, McMahon 1905, MacLean 1888-1891 and Fahreddin Altay 1934-35 — established the present boundary between Afghanistan and Iran. The presence of British arbitration, delimitation and demarcation commissions along this boundary stems from the provisions of the 1857 Treaty of Paris whereby the British Government agreed to arbitrate all conflicts between Persia and Afghanistan: “His Majesty (the Shah) further engages to abstain hereafter from all interference with the internal affairs of Afghanistan. His Majesty promises to recognize the independence of Herat and of the whole of Afghanistan, and never to attempt to interfere with the independence of those States. In case of differences arising between the Government of Persia and the countries of Herat and Afghanistan the Persian Government engages to refer them for adjustment to the friendly offices of the British Government, and not to take up arms
unless those friendly offices fail of effect.” [1]
“Under pressure, Abdur Rahman agreed in 1893 to accept a mission headed by the British Indian foreign secretary, Sir Mortimer Durand, to delineate the limits of British and Afghan control in the Pashtun areas. … Boundary limitations were agreed upon between Durand and Abdur Rahman before the end of 1893, … The amir’s reluctant agreement to the Durand Line was only achieved with an increase of his subsidy from the British government and quiet threats by Durand.”
In 1891 the Russians began to explore the Wakhan area all the way to the Amu Darya. The British reacted and “insisted that Abdur Rahman accept sovereignty over the Wakhan Corridor. … In 1895 and 1896 another joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission agreed on the frontier to the far northeast of Afghanistan, reaching to Chinese territory (although the Chinese did not formally agree on a border with Afghanistan until 1964).”
“There were conflicting claims to the Panjdeh Oasis, but the Russians were keen to take over all the Turkomen domains of this area before a planned Russian-British border commission could meet to decide on the border. … Without Afghan participation the British and the Russians agreed that the latter would give up the area that was the farthest point of their advance but keep Panjdeh. After much disagreement over previous agreements and demarcations, the joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission of 1886 finally agreed on a boundary along the Amu Darya. The Russian-British agreement on these sections of the border achieved a permanent northern frontier for Afghanistan but the loss of much territory, especially around Panjdeh.” [2]
Coming to Pakistan, the present border between Iran and Pakistan was settled by two British officers Major-General Fredrick John Goldsmid and Colonel T. Hangerford Holdich. Goldsmid (also on Afghanistan Iran border) was the chief British Commissioner on the Baluchistan (Makrān) Boundary Commission of 1870-71. The Holdich Arbitration of 1896 and Agreement of 1905 settled the boundary between Iran and northern Baluchistan.
And at the time of partition of India, two boundary commissions were constituted for the partitions of Punjab and Bengal. Mountbatten persuaded Jinnah to accept the English lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe as the chairman of both the boundary commissions who would have the power to make the awards. Each commission had two members representing India and two representing Pakistan. The commissions were constituted before the arrival of Radcilffe on July 8, 1947. Each commission was “instructed to demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab/Bengal on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will also take into account other factors.” “As expected, neither commission could reach agreement. … The awards for both the Punjab and Bengal were thus made by Radcliffe alone.”
A note on Baluchistan will be of help here. Historically, much of Baluchistan “belonged to or owed allegiance to rulers of Afghanistan. However, it always played an important logistical role for British expeditions in Afghanistan. Various parts were occupied from 1839 until 1842 during the First Afghan War. The independent princely state of Kalat in Baluchistan first came under some semblance of British control in 1854 following a treaty negotiated by Gen. John Jacob of Jacobabad in Upper Sindh. British political agents were assigned to the state until 1873. In 1874 and 1875 internecine warfare broke out in Kalat between the ruler, Mir Khudadad Khan, who had assumed the title as a mere boy in 1857, and some of his chiefs.” [3]
The British tried to intervene, but shortly after one mission in 1875, the mir again killed many of his challengers. The British returned with “a large escort” under the leadership of Robert Sandeman. “As agent to the Governor-General for Baluchistan from 1877 to 1892, he ‘initiated a new frontier policy of influence rather than of non-interference.’ … The treaty of Mastung, signed in July 1875, forced the mir to lease Quetta district to the British, while keeping control of Kalat and their other lands but under the supervision of a British minister. However, trouble again rose and in 1876 the British launched an assault against the fortress of Kalat and Mir Khudadad Khan. The mir was forced to sign a treaty in December 1876 that recognized the British rule.” Nonetheless, the treaty still left him in power as one of many rulers of princely states in India. [4] ■