Return of a King: The Battle For Afghanistan (30 page)

They sat locked up behind the gates of the fort

Their hearts broken from this turn of fortune

When they saw the division in their own ranks

Particularly in the Shah’s tribe of Popalzai

They did not see any other way

But to remove themselves to another country

By night they took their near and dear

And set off on the road to Iran . . .

Meanwhile the heart of Shah Shuja rejoiced to see the devilish Haji

And became free from any fear of the enemy

He showered upon Haji the Sinistrous so many riches

It seemed as if he was stoning him with gold.
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Five days later, on 25 April 1839, Haji Khan was on the left side of Shah Shuja as he rode in triumph through fields of ripe wheat and barley, and the rich belt of walled gardens and orchards that still surround the outskirts of Kandahar. On the way, he received delegation after delegation of townspeople coming out to welcome him. ‘The poor crowded around him,’ wrote Burnes, ‘making offerings of flowers and strewing the road he was to pass with roses. Every person, high and low, strove to see how they could most show their devotion and their delight at the return of a Sadozai to power.’
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Followed by Burnes and Macnaghten and only a small escort of close supporters, Shah Shuja rode unprotected through the open gates and streets of Kandahar, the city that had successfully defied him only five years earlier.

Kandahar’s ancient fortunes had been revived by the Shah’s grandfather, Ahmad Shah Abdali. He laid out the new town after the old one had been burned and destroyed by Nadir Shah in 1738, and Abdali had chosen to be buried in a delicate Mughal-inspired tomb in its heart. Shuja’s first action was to make his way to the tomb garden, take off his riding boots and enter the dome chamber alone. Having prayed at the grave, and asked for his grandfather’s
barakat
[blessing] he then went to the building next door. This was the shrine built by Abdali for Afghanistan’s most sacred relic, the woollen
khirqa
or mantle said to have belonged to the Prophet Mohammad. This Shuja took in his hands and hugged to his chest, tears streaming down his face.

Three years earlier Dost Mohammad had come here when he wished to declare a jihad against the Sikhs and receive the title Amir al-Muminin, the Commander of the Faithful. One hundred and fifty years later in 1996, Mullah Omar would come too when he was awarded the same title by the Pashtun ‘ulema and here he too would swathe himself in the Prophet’s cloak to give him the religious authority to bring all the people of Afghanistan under Taliban control. Now Shuja wrapped himself in the same cloth as a symbol of the legitimacy of his return as the king to the dynastic throne of his brother, father and grandfather. He had lost that throne over thirty years earlier when he was defeated at the Battle of Nimla. But he had never lost faith and, though it had taken four attempts, he was now back in his country and on the verge of defeating his lifelong Barakzai enemies.

‘This is a very delightful place,’ wrote Thomas Gaisford in a letter the following week.

The scenery is most romantic, the climate fine and the fruit such as you cannot conceive in abundance, quality and price. The finest peaches – some measuring 9½ and 10½ inches round – are to be had at 6 a penny! Rosy cheeked apples for half a penny. The dried peaches, apricots, raisins, plums and mulberries are in profusion – sherbet iced, kabobs, bread, sweetmeats and other dainties are sold at every corner dirt cheap. Never was such a place for a half-starved army to refresh in. But what have we gone through to get here! Our advance into Kandahar over the last two or three hundred miles can be compared to nothing but the retreat of the French from Moscow.
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The Army of the Indus had made it against the odds as far as Kandahar, and through good luck and exaggerated reports of their might and numbers had sufficiently unnerved their enemies to capture the ancient capital of southern Afghanistan without firing a shot. Macnaghten in particular was elated. He had faced down his critics, and the reception of Shah Shuja was to him proof of the popularity of the man he had been championing ever since he joined the Governor General’s staff five years earlier. Macnaghten believed it showed that he was right and that Burnes had always been wrong: Shuja was legitimate and popular, and the Barakzai were hated usurpers. From the palace of Kandahar he wrote to Auckland in triumph, declaring that it was as if the army had suddenly ‘dropped into paradise . . . I am happy to be able to report that the town and territory of Kandahar are in a state of profound tranquillity. It is really wonderful that, with such a dense and motley population in the town, some serious disturbance should not have occurred. The Shah’s authority is being gradually established over all the country.’

He added that Shuja had begun to thaw a little, and was behaving in a more relaxed and less imperious manner. ‘I am now happy at being able to state that an experience of the conduct of the Shah for a period of between four and five months has led me to form a most favourable opinion of His Majesty’s character,’ he wrote.

The repeated reverses which His Majesty had sustained in his efforts to recover his Kingdom have had the effect of inducing many to suppose either that his cause was unpopular, or that he was deficient in spirit or ability; but such persons make no allowances for the arduous circumstances under which those efforts were made. Few men would have attempted the enterprises in which His Majesty failed . . . The Shah is at least not deficient in energy or resolution. From my observation of his character, I should pronounce him to be a mild, humane, intelligent, just and firm man. His faults are those of pride and parsimony. The former defect appears to the Chiefs in a more glaring light from its contrast with the behaviour of the Barakzai usurpers, who in order to preserve their power were compelled to place themselves more on a level with their adherents.

Macnaghten said he had reason to hope that ‘His Majesty will gradually assume a less condescending demeanour, or at all events that his subjects will become more reconciled to the distant formalities of their Sovereign’. As for his parsimony, ‘it is certainly misplaced at the present crisis, though there is much to be urged in defence of it. His means are very limited, and the claims upon his liberality are very numerous.’
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Ten days later, on 8 May, just after the last troops of the rearguard of the Bombay column had finally limped into the camp outside the city, Macnaghten organised a grand durbar for Shuja. This was intended as a public declaration of the resumption of his rule and as an opportunity for the people of Kandahar to pledge their formal allegiance. A magnificently canopied throne was raised on a small platform of mud at the Id Gah outside the city walls. It looked on to the Camel’s Back where the mud ruins of the old city of Kandahar lay scattered beneath the Forty Steps and the Cave of Babur – the exact site of the Shah’s defeat five years earlier. Shuja was led from the Timurid arcades of the great palace in the citadel by Macnaghten, who had taken the opportunity to dress up for the first time in his new viceregal regalia: ‘full court dress such as is usually worn by officials at her Majesty’s levees in England’, noted one officer.

Sir Alexander Burnes followed in a plain suit, surrounded by the Afghan chiefs, with whom he appeared to be in close and friendly converse. The winning smile, and frank and courteous manner of the latter gentleman appeared to have gained for him a degree of consideration which no other European could boast of . . . Nothing could exceed the splendour of the costumes in which the chiefs were clad, their turbans and weapons being studded with diamonds and other precious stones, whilst the horses on which they were mounted were perfect specimens of beauty.
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Haji Khan Kakar and the other chiefs who had declared for Shuja were followed by Keane, Cotton, Nott and the various British army commanders. They passed out of the Herat Gate and through an avenue formed by the tattered troopers of Shah Shuja’s Contingent. To the sound of an Indian regimental brass band playing an English anthem – God Save the King – Shuja was ceremonially enthroned as King of Afghanistan, while the Army of the Indus marched past in all its ragged glory. Cannon fired a 101-gun salute and bags of Indian rupees were thrown into the disappointingly small crowd of Afghans who had assembled to watch the spectacle. ‘Everyone became rich!’ wrote Mohammad Husain, a merchant of Herat who was one of Shuja’s more enthusiastic followers, and his first posthumous biographer.

His Majesty ordered two lakhs of rupees to be given out for relief of the poor. Those who, in the time of the Barakzais, were too poor to be able even to tie a donkey in their own backyards, now were able to afford luxury saddles for horses and camels; their purses were full of silver coins, their hearts free of care.
Indeed, money was so common that little children played with gold and silver coins in the alleys. Such was the benevolence of His Majesty and the English towards the soldiery and peasantry!
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Yet, for all this optimism among the Shah’s supporters, an event took place immediately after this durbar that is not referred to in a single British source, but which according to all the Afghan accounts was crucial in beginning the process of discrediting Shah Shuja in the eyes of his new subjects. Mohammad Husain Herati gives the earliest as well as the fullest account of what happened. ‘At this time, an unfortunate incident occurred,’ he wrote.

A girl from a good family was going about her business when an inebriated foreign soldier crossed her path, grabbed her and dragged her into a near-by water-channel where he took her virginity. The girl’s shrieks alerted passers-by to her unhappy fate, and they ran to inform her family: a large crowd gathered, including sayyids and clerics, and went to demand justice from His Majesty. Even though apologies were offered and regrets expressed, the Afghans, who are most sensitive on these points of honour, were bitter in their hearts, saying: ‘If, at the beginning of this foreign occupation, such an outrage to a girl of noble lineage can be countenanced, and if the current state of affairs continues, then no one’s honour will be safe! It is becoming clear that His Majesty is a mere puppet and a king in name only!’

Herati went on to explain that:

The people of Kandahar have always taken pride in their valour and self-respect, and regarded this incident as too serious to be dismissed with just an apology. Though the girl’s family and supporters were bullied into silence by the display of British power, the Durrani clan was seething with anger because their pride and honour had been compromised, and their blood was boiling in their veins. Shame and embarrassment was visible on their faces. Even loyal allies among the Durrani khans, such as Haji Khan Kakar, showed that the insult to the tribe rankled with them, and although they contained their anger, their disaffection showed in their behaviour.
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The
Siraj ul-Tawarikh
put it more succinctly: ‘The seeds of revenge had been planted in the fertile breasts of honour-conscious Afghans, and they eventually bore terrible fruit. The tribal leaders started thinking that the Padishah only wanted wine from the cup of authority, with no regard for his own good name. The Durrani khans were alienated from the Shah by this incident and secretly nursed their grievances until an opportune moment should arrive.’
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One who did exactly this was a leading landowner named Aminullah Khan Logari. Aminullah was an elderly Yusufzai Pathan of relatively humble origins – his father had been assistant to the Governor of Kashmir at the time of Timur Shah – and he had risen in the service of the Sadozais. Like many then present in Kandahar he had no objection to the return of the King, but he was horrified that he had done so on the back of an army of foreign infidels. After the incident of the rape, he made his way to Kabul, where he based himself in the Nawab Bagh and ‘sought opportunities to foster a coalition with like-minded Mujehedin to oust the British from the country’.
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The first acts of resistance to the British soon began to take place. Two officers of the 16th Lancers who had gone off fishing along the banks of the Arghandab were set upon by a crowd of Durranis as they made their way home; one was stabbed and later died. Attacks on British pickets along the road to the Khojak Pass increased, as did attacks on mail runners and messengers. Two hundred camp followers who attempted to make their way back to India ‘were betrayed, disarmed and butchered to a man. Every convoy of treasure, ammunition and stores was compelled to fight its way through the passes, and suffered much loss, both in life and baggage.’
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The sepoy Sita Ram felt the atmosphere change radically during the two months that the army stayed resting at Kandahar. ‘At first people seemed pleased at the Shah’s return,’ he recalled.

But it was said that they despised him in their hearts and were offended that he had returned with a foreign army. They said he had shown the English the way into their country, and that shortly they would take possession of it. They would use it as they had done all Hindustan and introduce their detested rules and laws. It was this that enraged them. They said that if the Shah had come with his own army alone, all would have been well, but their anger grew when they saw the English army was not returning to Hindustan . . . Although they were repeatedly told that the British had not come to take their country away from them, they could not forget the history of Hindustan.
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