The Imperial
and
Asiatic Quarterly
Review
And
Oriental and Colonial Record.
New series— Volume VII. Nos. 13 & 14.
January and April Numbers, 1894.
(For the Half-Year: October, 1893, to end of March, 1894.)
The Oriental University Institute.
PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN By John A. Gray, Late Surgeon to His Highness,
the Amir. That Afghanistan, has during the last ten years, made considerable
strides towards civilization, there can, I think, be no doubt in the minds
of those who have had the opportunity of collecting sufficient facts upon
which to base an opinion. And that this progress has been entirely due
to that remarkable Prince who is now occupying the throne of Afghanistan—
Amir Abdurrahman— requires but little proof.
We have only to compare the condition of the country and the "bent" of
the people at the present time with their condition a few years back, to
bring out, in a very clear light, the civilizing effect of a far-seeing,
strong man's personality.
Amir Abdurrahman is absolute autocrat of Afghanistan. His is now the only
influence that has any lasting effect upon the people. There is no Press
to guide public opinion. The influence and power of the Priests has been
enormously curtailed. The chief Priest— the Khani Mullah Khan, himself—
though treated with respect by His Highness the Amir, has scarcely more
power, nor does he receive a greater share of attention, than one of the
minor civil magistrates. The opinion of the Amir, delivered in open durbar,
is the key-note from which all the tunes are played. It is caught up by
the Chamberlains, the court officials and pages; it reaches the Bazaars;
and soon the people join in the chorus. It is woe to the man who utters
a discordant note: people look at him bewildered and draw out of his neighborhood.
Attention is directed to him and unless he alter his note he is— dismissed
from the choir.
The Amir is chief of the powerful Durani tribe. This tribe has been from
time immemorial more tolerant and more civilized than any of the other
tribes of Afghanistan; and from it the native rulers of the country have
been invariably drawn. When we consider the Amir's marvellous personal
influence, we can but see it is a happy thing that his leaning is towards
civilization and justice. That it is so, can be shown.
What was the condition of the country, no further back than the time of
this grandfather, Amir Dost Muhammad the great Amir— "Amir-i-Kabir"— as
the Afghans called him? Dost Muhammad was Amir of the Kabul province; Heart
was held independently by Shah Muhmúd, brother of Shah Shujah; and Kandahar
by Ramdil, brother of Dost Muhammad. This was in 1835. These chiefs were
constantly intriguing with Persia and Russia; and their conflicting interests
and personal jealousies brought the country into a condition so unsettled
as to be little better than Anarchy. War, and, in its train, robbery and
murder were so constantly carried on, that it was most unsafe for even
Afghans, and quite impossible for foreigners, to travel from one city to
another. So suddenly did fighting break out, that when travelling one found
oneself in danger of falling into the thick of it. Caravans— such as ventured
to start— made long the wearisome detours to avoid battlefields. The more
savage of the Afghan tribes delighted in nothing more than the chances
thus offered of unpunished highway robbery and murder.
About the year 1850, Dost Muhammad succeeded in annexing Turkistan; and
in 1854, he managed to evict Ramdil from Kandahar. Meanwhile, in Herat,
Shah Kamran succeeded his father Mahmúd; and at his death came his minister
Yar Muhammad. The Persians at once advanced and took Herat; and this, Herat
being the "Key of India," necessitated British interference. Sultan Jan,
brother of Dost Muhammad was put in possession. He died in 1862; and there
were many claimants, each of who appealed to Persia. Dost Muhammad therefore
advanced with an army, besieged and took Herat. This was his last act,
for he died in his camp a few days after. While Dost Muhammad was on the
throne it was allowable in Kabul to revile and curse the British openly;
and though as a successful warrior, with bluff, hearty manners and a free
accessibility to his people, he was a popular monarch, nevertheless there
was not a single act he did which in any way increased the material prosperity
of his people. To use the words of a skilled and indefatigable observer
of facts, Dr. Bellew, of who one still hears much in Kabul:— "Dost Muhammad,
during his long reign, did nothing to improve the condition or advance
the domestic welfare of his people; nor did he introduce a single measure
of general benefit to his country. He kept it a close borough of Islam,
stationary in the ignorance of the middle ages, and pervaded with the religious
bigotry of that period; and, to the close of his life, he defended that
policy as the only one whereby to maintain the independence of the county.
His great merit is that he had the sense to perceive his own interest in
the British alliance; and he reaped the fruits of his good judgment, in
the ultimate consolidation of his kingdom. But he was a barbarian nevertheless."
Attention has been drawn to a certain resemblance existing between Amir
Abdurrahman and Dost Muhammad. The Hon. G. N. Curzon, speaking at the Society
of Arts on Feb. 15th, remarked that the Amir seemed to possess some of
the strongest characteristics of his grandfather, Dost Muhammad. Without
doubt this is so; and one may add that, too the strong character of Dost
Muhammad, Amir Abdurrahman unites a high degree of education and considerable
stores of information,— scientific, artistic, and general,— acquired from
books, from conversation and from observation during his travels. To the
simple manners and free hospitality of Dost Muhammad he adds a dignity
and a kindly courtesy of manner most remarkable in a man of his strong
passions and in one who is constantly surrounded with adulation and flattery.
He is readily accessibly to his people; and even when suffering from the
pangs of gout, he will listen patiently to the petitions of the poorest
of his subjects, and give rapid though just judgment in the cases brought
before him.
And now as to the measures he has taken to civilize his people and advance
them in prosperity:—
Highway-robbery and murder are no longer common in the country; nor is
murder or theft in the towns. English-men— Feringhis— have been,
for the last six or seven years, travelling constantly between Kabul and
Peshawur; and never has there been the slightest attempt to injure or annoy
them. Indeed for myself I may say that at every halting-place the villagers
brought their sick for me to attend to; and I went among them freely, unarmed
and unguarded. That the Amir should have used drastic measures to bring
the diseased state of the country in to a condition nearer approaching
health was without doubt necessary; mild measures would have been misunderstood,
and completely disregarded. The savage tribe who haunted certain parts
of the highways and gave rise to such bywords as the "the valley of death"—the
name given to a certain dip in the road between Task Kurghan and Mazar-i-Sherif
in Turkestan- were either killed by the Amir's troops, captured and executed,
or dispersed. I remember when I was in Mazar-i-Sherif, in 1890, it was
necessary to send to Kabul for two extra compounders or dispensers; and
the two men— one a Kabuli and the other a Hindostani— rode unattended the
whole distance in safety. They had but one pistol between them, and that
was unloaded:— they had no powder.
Again, should a Kabuli which to start business for himself and not have
sufficient money, he has but to apply to the Amir, who will, for a certain
number of years, lend him a sum sufficient for his purposes, and this without
interest. One day having occasion to visit His Highness I found him in
the west gardens of the Erg Palace. He was seated in an arm-chair under
a somewhat gorgeous awning; officers and pages were grouped round him;
and, away out in the garden, there were drawn up several companies of soldiers,
young men and lads, perhaps 300 in number. After I was seated and the usual
salutations had passed, His Highness called my attention to the lines of
men. He said, "These men are to be soldiers in my army. They are all sons
of gentlemen— men of position and wealth; and such is the condition of
Afghanistan that there is no one of them who can read or write. I am educating
them so that at least they shall be able to do this. Fighting they will
not need to learn."
The educational influence on the Afghans, of the Amir's Kabul workshops
must be and is immense:— and that it is chiefly for this reason that the
Amir has started the shops, seems to me clear. They cost him vast sums
of money, far in excess of the return; indeed I have heard him say that
the only department that paid him was the mint. He knows perfectly that
he can buy war material at a far less cost and of better quality that he
can produce it in his shops; and he knows better than anyone that Afghanistan
never was and never can be self-supporting. It must always depend more
or less upon one of its powerful neighbors; so that although he may have
the machinery and the workmen to produce rifles, cartridges, shells and
guns, he must get the material of which these are made, or money to pay
his way, from England or Russia. He cold not hope to be independent of
both. And yet it has been, for years, his desire to start a workshop in
Kabul. Obviously therefore his only reason for building the workshops and
buying costly machinery must be for the moral effect it has upon his people.
The natives work in great numbers in the shops, being taught by the English
engineers who have, from time to time, been in the service of his Highness,
and by the Hindostani mistris who have been introduced from Lahore
and Bengal. Not only is war material produced in the workshops but various
handicrafts are practiced there. One body of men are doing leather-work.—
copying English and Russian boots of various kinds, making saddles and
bridles, belts and cartridge-pouches, portmanteaux and mule-trunks. Then
there are the workers in wood,— from those who manage the steam-saws to
those who produce beautiful carved work for cabinets and chairs. There
are workers in brass,— making vases, candelabra, door-handles, lamps, and
many other things, both useful and ornamental. There is another department
where they produce tin-ware— pots, pans and cans. The most artistic are
perhaps the workers in silver. They make for the Amir or the Sultana very
beautiful things,— cups, beakers, beautifully-embossed tea-pots, dagger
and sword handles, and scabbards. Their work, however, is at present rarely
original. The Amir shows them a drawing, or give them a good English model
to copy from. Everything European is fashionable now in Kabul, and European
clothing has become more universally worn by the Kabulis than it used to
be even at the time I entered the service of the Amir, some five years
ago. His Highness, therefore, finding that his tailors, though they understood
the shape of Europeans garments, had not mastered the difficulties of "fit,"
sent for an English tailor to teach them. Classes were held on the subject
in the workshops and demonstrations given, with the result that such of
the Kabuli tailors who attended greatly improved in their system of "cutting"
and obtained much better prices in the Bazaars. One day the Amir desired
me to start an Art class in Kabul, and for my first, pupils he sent the
five chief artists of the country. They, at first, drew in the usual cramped
native style; but soon they acquired a freer and more correct manner of
drawing. One of the men showed talent as a draughtsman of no mean order,
and I hope one day to have the opportunity of publishing some of his work.
It would be impossible for me to enumerate all the different kinds of work
carried on in the shops; but I think I have said enough to show that the
educational effects of the workshops must be immense. They are some thousand
or fifteen hundred men at work in them; they of course scatter to their
homes at night and carry the wonderful stories of all they see and do to
their friends. In fact the most popular song of the day is one depicting
the life of a lad in the shops. It is supposed to be sung by the mother;
it ends, however, somewhat significantly by the workman being caught in
the machinery and killed. One must remember that this educational system
of civilizing is being carried on among a race of men who have been known
hitherto simply as fighters, robbers, semi-savages, and who, unlike so
many of the races of India, have shown but little if any sign that they
were capable of being converted into useful producers. When I say finally
that the Amir offers prizes, and of considerable value, for the best or
most original work, produced either in the shops or else where, it will
be easily understood how much he has at heart the desire to advance his
people in knowledge and civilization.
* The above article was compiled by David Straub (davidstraub@geocities)
and posted at the Tajikistan Update (www.angelfire.com/sd/tajikistanupdate)on
September 06, 1998.
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