SPOTLIGHT
Y E A R S
OF AFGHANISTAN
BY DR. SANTISHREE DHULIPUDI PANDIT *
A
landlocked state is at the mercy of its neighbours and
worse still if it is in a geopolitically important region,
located on the boundaries of South Asia and Central
Asia. Afghanistan is positioned between the energy-rich West
Asia (Middle East), a resource-rich Central Asia and on the
route to South Asia. This makes it all the more a geopolitically
important to an Indo-Pacific superpower USA, a rising
China, dominant Russia that always wanted to control and a
swing state like India. Not to forget the pretender Pakistan
that wants a weak Afghanistan for its strategic depth, hence
is hell-bent on destabilizing it through the export of terror.
Earlier, Afghanistan was a buff er between the great game of
the mighty Russian empire and the British empire. Both these
empires tried desperately to control these freedom-loving
tribes. Added to this it is on the Silk Route which makes the
control of this landmass very vital to all powers in the region.
In the last hundred years of the birth of Free Afghanistan,
one can date the rise of the modern state of Afghanistan
to the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th centuries.
Later it was from the time of independence on 19 August
1919 after the signing of the Treaty of Rawalpindi between
the Amir of Afghanistan and British India. From that time
onwards Afghanistan was ruled by an absolutist monarchy.
The arbitrariness of drawing and redrawing boundaries by
the British in a bid to divide to control them was done in
1893, when Mortimer Durand (1850- 1924), British foreign
secretary of India from 1884 to 1894 made the Amir Abdur
Rahman Khan sign an agreement where ethnic Pashtun and
Balochi territories were divided by the controversial Durand
Line. Even today these two ethnic groups and Afghanistan
have not accepted this line and this is a cause of instability
in the region, greatly aff ecting India’s security and foreign
policy.
Independence in 1919 was at the end of the Third
Anglo-Afghan War when the British realized the futility of
fi ghting the Afghans. On 19 August 1919, King Amanullah
Khan, a great reformer had ended Afghanistan’s isolation by
declaring Afghanistan a sovereign and a fully independent
state. He made primary education compulsory through the
1923 Constitution. He also abolished slavery. His move to
abolish the traditional burqa for women and establish co-
educational schools brought a huge backlash from many tribal
and religious leaders. He abdicated in January 1929 due to
the civil war. He was succeeded by Mohammed Nadir Shah
who abandoned the reforms and took a gradualist approach.
He was assassinated in 1933 whereupon his son and the last
king of Afghanistan Mohammed Zahir Shah took over the
reins until 1973.
King Zahir Shah’s period saw Afghanistan grow as
a modern state, with the creation of a nation, gradual
modernization and development of industry, infrastructure
and education. It remained neutral during World War II and
the Cold war. In 1973 while abroad, his cousin and Prime
Minister Daoud Khan overthrew the King in a bloodless
coup and abolished the monarchy. Daoud Khan became the
fi rst President of Afghanistan. The sudden abolition of the
38 • Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Diplomatist • Vol 7 • Issue 9 • September 2019, Noida