Return of a King: The Battle For Afghanistan (45 page)

But, whatever feelings Shah Shuja might have for the young Queen, he was daily feeling less and less affection for her servants in Kabul, despite describing Macnaghten in his letter as ‘the high and exalted in rank, the resting place of excellence and valour, the germ of wisdom and discretion, the lofty in worth, the high in place, the distinguished and honourable councillor’. Instead the Shah, ‘regarding his position as more secure than hitherto, and feeling himself less dependent on us to maintain him in it, began to evince some impatience at our presence’, as Macnaghten’s Military Secretary George Lawrence noted. ‘He showed how irksome he felt the restraint, necessarily imposed by the Envoy, on the full exercise of his authority . . . and showed how gladly he would be free of the Envoy’s controlling supervision.’
41

At the same time, Burnes was winning the argument within the British administration over the need to increase control over Shuja by replacing the loyal and influential Mullah Shakur with a more pliantly pro-British alternative. Interference in Shuja’s administration had been steadily growing for two years, and with the decision now taken to sack Mullah Shakur the real government of Afghanistan was finally taken entirely into British hands.
42
Burnes, wrote Mohammad Husain Herati, favoured Mullah Shakur’s rival, ‘Uthman Khan, who had previously been known as a Barakzai loyalist. ‘This man out of mere self-interest had thrown his lot in with the English and in no way supported His Majesty – so inevitably the flames of discord rose higher. His father before him had been minister to [Shuja’s brother] Shah Zaman and, by his hostility to the Durrani khans, had contributed to the downfall of that monarch. But Macnaghten insisted on giving him the position, because it had been his father’s, without trying the aptitude or character of the candidate.’ He continued:

At the time, Mirza Imamverdi, one of the intimates of Dost Muhammad Khan, notorious for dissimulation and manipulation, who had escaped from Bukhara by pretending to be mad and tearing at his own flesh with his teeth, arrived back in Kabul. He saw no likelihood of success in joining Mullah Shakur’s establishment, but contacted ‘Uthman Khan who was working at a low level in His Majesty’s establishment and within a few days had mounted a propaganda and defamation campaign against Mullah Shakur, so effective that all the Durrani khans and common people repeated the complaints to His Majesty, and Macnaghten and Burnes pronounced: ‘The Mullah’s not up to the job – he must go!’ However much His Majesty countered that Mullah Shakur was a pious, upright and selfless man, and that a better governor could hardly be found, yet it was to no effect. So ‘Uthman Khan was appointed and awarded the title and position of Nizam al-Daula, the chief minister, with authority to decide matters throughout the kingdom. Mullah Shakur was dismissed and put under strict house arrest.

Blind to ‘the inner rottenness’ of Nizam al-Daula, Macnaghten favoured him so excessively that within months ‘he became inflated with self-conceit and began to behave towards great men and small with overbearing rudeness’. Added Herati, ‘Even in the presence of His Majesty, he failed to observe proper decorum. He undermined the older-established, respectable courtiers, both Durrani and non-Durrani, by bringing unfavourable reports about them to Macnaghten, and then determining to reduce or stop their pensions. However much they protested, and however much His Majesty supported their protests, it was all to no avail.’
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As Nizam al-Daula did not get on with Shuja, and was entirely dependent on the British for his position, even the most pro-Sadozai nobles took this as final confirmation of all they suspected: that Shah Shuja was no longer in charge of his own government, and that the British were now holding all the reins of real power. As Fayz Mohammad later put it, ‘Without the Nizam al-Daula’s consent, the Shah’s wishes would go for naught and if a soldier or peasant who had been wronged or oppressed came to the Shah and asked for justice, without Nizam al-Daula’s say-so he would receive nothing but words. This became another bit of evidence for the Barakzais who would say to people, “Aside from his title, the Shah has no say in the affairs of state.”’
44

For Shah Shuja, it marked a new level of public humiliation. Continually aware of his debt to the British, he wished to show gratitude and be a loyal ally, but was far too proud a man to accept being reduced to an impotent puppet. ‘I was again called by the King this afternoon,’ wrote Burnes soon after the deposition of Mullah Shakur. It was clear, he noted, that the Shah had ‘a deep-rooted jealousy against the [new] Wazir’.

The King gave me at great length his feelings and his sufferings. He said he had not a trustworthy man in his country; that all were engaged in setting him against us, and us against him – that his enemies were allowed to continue in power – that the portion of his revenue set aside for him was not collected and paid – that his adherents were discontented – that he was kept under by us in all things, yet that they had not gone right; that a pilgrimage to Mecca was his only alternative [in other words, that he should abdicate], and that at Ludhiana he had much power as compared with this part of his reign.
45

But Burnes had never taken to Shuja, or rated his abilities, and was in no mood to begin feeling sympathy now. Moreover, his boss was belatedly coming to agree. ‘An expression from Macnaghten today that Shah Shuja was an old woman, not fit to rule this people, with divers other condemnations,’ wrote Burnes in one letter. ‘Ay – see my
Travels
[
into Bokara
], and as far back as 1831, ten years ago. Still, I look upon his fitness or unfitness as very immaterial; we are here to govern for him, and govern we must.’
46

Just how badly Nizam al-Daula handled the Afghan nobility became apparent shortly afterwards. At the end of August 1841, Macnaghten received a despatch from Auckland telling him that the financial breaking point had now been reached: the Company had been forced to take out a £5 million loan from Indian merchants at exorbitant rates of interest just to continue paying salaries.
47
Macnaghten was ordered to make extensive and immediate cuts to expenditure. Moreover, in London a Tory government had just come to power by one vote, and the new Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, showed no wish to continue financing what he and his colleagues regarded as one of Lord Palmerston’s expensive and unnecessary Whig wars.
48
Auckland, a Whig political appointee, was now seriously considering his resignation. Macnaghten was aghast: ‘If they – the Tories – deprive the Shah altogether of our support I have no hesitation of saying they will commit an unparalleled political atrocity.’ It would not only be a breach of a treaty but a ‘cheat of the first magnitude’.
49

To Auckland, Macnaghten wrote in a rare protest: ‘I cannot help feeling some surprise at these repeated communications [asking for more cuts] after the many expositions I have given of the wretched state of the finances of this country and of the numerous and complicated difficulties I have had to contend with . . . I cannot do more than I have done.’ He went on to outline the trouble he was having managing the increasingly distraught Shuja. ‘Of late I have had several most distressing interviews with His Majesty, and I may safely say that the efforts I have been making towards the reduction of the public expenditure have not only been the cause of much mental distress to His Majesty, but have secured for us the hostility of all the men of influence in the country.’ In the end, however, Macnaghten as the good civil servant realised he must bow to the inevitable. ‘Your Lordship’s perpetual exhortations left me no alternative but to counsel unsparing retrenchment. The enormous expenditure already incurred I am aware necessitates the strictest economy. But what can be done with a Kingdom whose net revenues are only fifteen Lakhs [1,500,000] of Rupees per annum?’
50

Macnaghten decided to leave Shuja’s already reduced household budget more or less intact and not to touch the expenditure committed to the new, reformed regiments of the Shah’s Afghan national army. Instead he chose to aim the cuts at the extremities rather than the centre. He called the Ghilzai and Khyber chieftains to a durbar in Kabul. There he told them that their subsidies were to be reduced by £8,000, with the worst reductions falling on the eastern Ghilzais and their leader Mohammad Shah Khan, the father-in-law of Akbar Khan, who had been awarded the daunting title of ‘Chief Executioner’ when he came over and joined the service of Shah Shuja. To Macnaghten it made perfect sense: he believed that the days of the old nobility, as in India, were numbered. He was merely hastening the inevitable demise of the feudal system and calling the bluff of the more barbaric nomad tribes who had done little to deserve the protection money the Kabul government was in the habit of lavishing upon them.

In the event, however, it proved to be the single biggest misjudgement of his entire career and within weeks it had brought the entire edifice of the occupation crashing down. For as far as the Ghilzais were concerned, they had worked hard for their subsidy and believed they were being called to Kabul to be rewarded for their support of the Shah’s regime. ‘They had prevented even a finger from being raised against our posts, couriers and weak detachments,’ wrote Henry Havelock. ‘Convoys of all descriptions had passed through these terrific defiles, the strongest mountain barriers in the world, with little or no interruption from these predatory tribes. The transmission of letters to our own provinces was as regular as between Calcutta and any station in Bengal.’ Colin Mackenzie agreed, and emphasised the degree to which the Ghilzai saw it as an outright betrayal: ‘Sir William reported that the Chiefs “acquiesced in the justice of the reduction”; but on the contrary they considered it a direct break of faith. The whole deficiency amounted only to Rs 40,000, and this attempt at economy was the main cause of the outbreak and all its subsequent horrors.’
51
Mohan Lal was more succinct: ‘For the deductions of a few lakhs of rupees, we raised the whole country against us.’
52

Part of the problem was that by the autumn of 1841 the chiefs and their dependants simply could not afford the cuts. The military reforms had already eaten into their incomes, the real value of which was fast falling due to hyperinflation: the 4,500 troops and 11,500 camp followers who were resident in Kabul had put a huge burden on the poorly integrated Afghan economy and the effect of the sudden flood of silver rupees and letters of credit into the country was a sharp rise in commodity prices: by June 1841, according to Macnaghten, some basic products had risen by 500 per cent.
53
x
This was especially so of grain, driving the Afghan poor to the edge of starvation. Mohan Lal realised this, and tried to warn Burnes of the consequences. ‘The purchase made by our Commissariat officers of grain raised the price too high and placed it utterly beyond the reach of the population in general,’ he wrote. ‘Grass for cattle, meat and vegetables, and in short all the necessities of life, rose to a considerable price. The cry of starvation was universal, and there were very many hardly able to procure a piece of bread even by begging in the streets, while everything would have been in abundance but for our purchases.’
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To make matters worse, the exact details of the cuts and how to implement them were left by Macnaghten to the tactless and unpopular Nizam al-Daula to work out. Not only did he reduce the allowances in a manner which insulted many of the most loyal followers of Shah Shuja, on 1 September he forced even the most senior to reapply for their military posts and re-swear their oath of allegiance to the Shah. When the nobles all refused to do so, saying this was unprecedented and beneath their honour, ‘that it was not the custom of kings to mistrust their servants, and to demand a paper bond of this nature from them’, they were all summarily threatened with exile.
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It was at the next durbar that the first serious opposition showed itself. Mohammad Husain Herati was in the Bala Hisar at the time. ‘One day,’ he recalled,

when all the courtiers were present in the royal audience hall, each according to his rank, Samad Khan, the grandson of Zal Beg Khan Durrani Baduzai, petitioned that ‘My pension is not being paid.’ His Majesty signalled to the Nizam al-Daula to make an answer, but he merely replied: ‘You lie!’ Samad Khan answered back: ‘It is you who lie! You have humiliated all those who love and are loyal to the royal family.’ Nizam al-Daula, hearing these truthful words, lost his temper and shouted: ‘I’ll have your eyes put out!’ Hearing this boorishness in the royal presence, Samad Khan replied: ‘Were it not that we are in the presence of His Majesty, I would slit your tongue out of your mouth with my sword! We have both lived in this country long enough before the return of His Majesty, and all well know that, while my family have enjoyed high and honourable positions in the state without interruption, you were merely fetching and carrying Mohammad Zaman Khan Barakzai’s pisspot!’

At this point, continued Herati, the Shah rose and left the audience hall, recognising that Samad Khan was indeed one of the highest-born of the Durranis. Nizam al-Daula ‘slunk off to tell his version of events to Macnaghten, who promptly wrote to His Majesty that “Samad Khan is unworthy to remain at court – he must go.” His Majesty considered every order of the English as a command from heaven, and therefore dismissed Samad Khan from court. Consternation covered the Durranis, while the Barakzais crowed in triumph’, exulting in this display of the Shah’s impotence.