Anglo-Afghan Relations

Anglo-Afghan relations during the 19th century were dictated by the “Great Game”—the strategic rivalry between the British and Russian Empires for supremacy in Central Asia. British foreign policy alternated between two distinct schools of thought:

• The Forward Policy: Advocated by Governors-General like Lord Auckland and Lord Lytton, this policy aimed at actively counteracting Russian influence by establishing direct British control or a subordinate ruler in Afghanistan.
• Policy of Masterly Inactivity: Championed by Sir John Lawrence (1864–1869), this approach advocated non-interference in Afghan internal affairs, recognizing whoever came to power as long as they remained neutral and did not ally with Russia.

The Strategic Significance of the Frontier

The British East India Company viewed Afghanistan as the ultimate landward shield for their Indian empire. To control Afghanistan, the British had to secure cooperation from or annex three critical intermediate regions: Sindh (for logistical routes via the Bolan Pass), Punjab (for control over the Indus and the core plains), and the North-West Frontier (to dominate strategic mountain passes like the Khyber).

The First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842)

Background and the Tripartite Alliance

In 1836, Dost Mohammad Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan, attempted to recover Peshawar from the Sikh Empire. When the British refused to assist him, he turned to Russia for diplomatic support. This prompted Lord Auckland to sign the Tripartite Treaty of 1838 with Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the exiled Afghan ruler, Shah Shuja, to forcibly replace Dost Mohammad.

Course of the Conflict and the Kabul Disaster

• Logistical Ingress via Sindh: Because Ranjit Singh refused to allow the main British army to cross Punjab, the British violated their treaties with the Amirs of Sindh, marching their forces through Sindhi territory and the Bolan Pass.
• Initial Success: In 1839, British forces captured Kandahar and Kabul. Dost Mohammad surrendered, and Shah Shuja was placed on the throne.
• The Afghan Insurrection: The local population viewed Shah Shuja as a British puppet. In 1841, a massive revolt broke out in Kabul led by Akbar Khan (son of Dost Mohammad).
• The Retreat from Kabul: In January 1842, the British garrison was forced to retreat toward Jalalabad. Out of 16,000 soldiers and camp followers, virtually the entire force was massacred or perished in the harsh winter passes, leaving Dr. William Brydon as one of the sole survivors to reach safety.

Consequent Impact on Sindh and Punjab

• Annexation of Sindh (1843): To recover from the psychological humiliation of the Afghan defeat and to secure a permanent military staging ground on the flank of Afghanistan, Lord Ellenborough ordered the complete annexation of Sindh.
• Annexation of Punjab (1849): The death of Ranjit Singh combined with British vulnerabilities exposed during the Afghan war destabilized Punjab, culminating in the Anglo-Sikh wars and the eventual British annexation of the entire Sikh Empire.

The Period of Masterly Inactivity (1864–1878)

John Lawrence’s Pragmatic Neutrality

Following the annexation of Punjab and the tribal frontier, Sir John Lawrence formulated a policy that rejected the high financial and human costs of the Forward Policy.

• Non-Intervention: The British refused to take sides in the civil war that broke out among Dost Mohammad’s sons after his death in 1863.
• Conditional Recognition: When Sher Ali Khan finally established control over Kabul in 1868, Lawrence immediately recognized him as Amir and provided him with minor financial subsidies, ensuring friendship without formal military entanglement.

The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880)

Lytton’s Aggressive Forward Policy

The policy of neutrality collapsed with the arrival of Lord Lytton as Governor-General in 1876. Lytton, operating under strict instructions from the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, sought to completely eliminate Russian diplomacy from Kabul.

Trigger for War

In 1878, Amir Sher Ali accepted a Russian diplomatic mission led by General Stolietov but refused to admit a comparable British mission under Sir Neville Chamberlain. Lytton viewed this as a direct insult and launched an invasion.

Key Outcomes and Treaties

• Flight of Sher Ali: Sher Ali fled Kabul and died shortly after. His son, Yaqub Khan, signed the Treaty of Gandamak in May 1879.
• The Treaty of Gandamak (1879): The Amir ceded control of Afghanistan’s foreign relations to the British, accepted a permanent British Resident at Kabul, and surrendered strategic frontier districts (including Kurram, Pishin, and Sibi) to British India.
• The Kabul Residency Massacre: History repeated itself when the British Resident, Sir Louis Cavagnari, was murdered by mutinous Afghan troops just months after the treaty, sparking a second phase of the war.

The Settlement under Abdur Rahman

Lord Ripon replaced Lytton in 1880 and moderated the British stance. The British recognized Abdur Rahman Khan (a nephew of Sher Ali) as the new Amir of Kabul.

The Demarcation of the Frontier: The Durand Line (1893)

The Durand Mission

To create a permanent boundary between the newly annexed tribal regions of British India and the Afghan Kingdom, Sir Mortimer Durand was dispatched to Kabul in 1893.

Strategic Ramifications

• The Durand Line: An agreement was signed establishing a 2,640-kilometer border separating Afghanistan from British India.
• Division of the Pashtun Tribes: The line intentionally or unintentionally sliced through the traditional Pashtun tribal homeland, placing regions like Waziristan, Swat, and Chitral under British administrative or political control.
• Creation of the NWFP: This newly secured border tract was later separated from the Punjab province by Lord Curzon in 1901 to form the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), governed directly by a Chief Commissioner to manage the turbulent frontier tribes.

The Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919)

Outbreak and Causes

Following the assassination of Amir Habibullah Khan (who had remained loyal to the British during WWI), his son Amanullah Khan ascended the throne. Seeking absolute independence from British oversight and capitalizing on anti-British nationalist sentiments in India (post-Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre), Amanullah declared war and invaded British India in May 1919.

The Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919)

The conflict was brief. While the British successfully utilized military aircraft for the first time to bomb Kabul and Jalalabad, they were financially exhausted from World War I and sought a swift diplomatic conclusion.

• Recognition of Total Independence: The Treaty of Rawalpindi (also known as the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919) revoked the Treaty of Gandamak. The British officially recognized the complete sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan in both internal and foreign affairs.
• Cessation of Subsidies: The British halted all financial subsidies previously paid to the Afghan Amirs.

Fact File for UPSC Prelims

• The Scientific Frontier: A strategic military concept pursued by British planners aiming for a defensive line along the Hindu Kush mountains rather than the low-lying Indus River line.
• Sindh as a Stepping Stone: The conquest of Sindh in 1843 was explicitly linked to Anglo-Afghan dynamics; it gave the British direct control over the Karachi port and the Bolan Pass route into southern Afghanistan.
• Lord Curzon’s Policy (1899–1905): Curzon withdrew regular British troops from advanced frontier positions in the tribal tracts, replacing them with locally recruited tribal militias (such as the Khyber Rifles), backed by regular troops stationed at base cantonments inside British India. This significantly reduced frontier friction.