Afghanistan: A lost empire

Afghanistan is one of those civilisations on earth that once stood a stand of time but currently are in the extreme case of anarchy and poverty, majorly due to how the western powers played their cards wrongly. This post shall explore the history of this devastating paradise through various maps sketched by Europeans and how the politics were gambled in these rough and rugged terrains. 

Although Afghanistan as a sovereign state came much later into existence, the Afghans as a tribe existed for a longer period. But millennials before even the birth of Islam, the tribes of Yavana, Saka, Jaguda, Ramatha, Lampaka, Asvaka, Gandhara (stretched throughout the Hindu Kush mountain range) and Somagiri are found mentioned in the Indian mythology Ramayana, which denotes the territory of today's Afghanistan. During the Greek era, just before the time when Alexander the Great was on a spree defeating and conquering the First Persian Empire - the Achaemenid (Achæmenid) Empire - spread all throughout from today's Bulgarian coast to the River Indus, thus covering the Afghan country as well. At that time (6th-4th century BC) names such as Harauvatish (Arachosia), Zaranka (Drangiana), Seistan (Sakastan) and Kapisa would denote the Afghan territory. The Kabul River is mentioned as Kubha that also passed through the ancient Gandhara Kingdom that had important settlements such as Puskaravati (Pushkalavati or Shaikhen Dheri, Charsadda, Pakistan)   and Kaspapuras or Paskapuras (Peshawar, in today's Pakistan). The towns of Ghazni and Kandahar are also mentioned as Gazaca and Arachotus respectively. Arachotus was also one of the settlements renamed by Alexander as part of his conquests, hence the name Alexandropolis or Alexandria Arachosia is also a synonym for the vicinity of modern-day Kandahar.

The River Sarasvati is core to Hindu culture and although an extinct river, it is also the name of the Hindu Goddess of knowledge, music and art. The course of the extinct river is disputed, however, there was once a tributary of archaic Setumanta River that was also known as Sarasvati. Together, the Setumanta and Sarasvati Rivers is what today we know as the Helmand River (or Helmund) that flows between the Sistan area of Iran-Afghanistan in the west and the Pakistani border of the Arghastan-Arghandab river basin in the east. The ancient Indo-Greeks also had their stretches throughout this country with neighbouring territories marked as Margiana (the territory around Merv, Turkmenistan), Bactria (in today's Tajikistan-Uzbekistan areas) and Sindhu (the Sindh or Indus River valley, Pakistan). The settlement of Drapsaka, the first town captured by Alexander after crossing the Anabasis (the Hindu Kush mountain range, northern Afghanistan-Pakistan) is said to be the modern-day Bala Hissar (outside Kabul city). The northwestern region of Afghanistan is denoted by a slightly bigger country (area-wise), known as Aria that finds its mention in both Indian and Greek history as well. 

Another huge empire that spread along these areas was the House of Suren or the Indo-Parthians (19 AD-226 AD) that bordered the Kushanas in the Indian subcontinent, an empire that existed till the 4th century AD. The Kushanas also existed in Afghanistan under King Kanishka, who also finds its place in Indian history. And just before the Islamic conquest of ancient Persia, the Sassanid Empire stretched from Turkey to Afghanistan between 224 AD to 651 AD. 

When the Arabs marched into Sistan in 650 AD, the Afghan kingdoms of Bamiyana and Jaguda were the two Buddhist kingdoms, that were either semi-independent or tributaries of the neighbouring Sindhu Kingdom, which is modern-day Sindh, Pakistan. Jaguda is also a synonym for Zabulistan that corresponds to the modern-day Afghan provinces of Zabul and Ghazni. Among the earliest Islamic kingdoms of Afghanistan, apart from Zabulistan and Bamiyan, there existed a Sijistan (former name for Sistan), Kabulistan and Rukhaj and it was around Zabulistan from were the Ghaznavids arrived that would later change the course of Indian history forever. With the Saffarids knocking at the backdoor, the Ghaznavids were one of the earliest Muslims to establish a regime in the territory of the Indian subcontinent at the beginning of the 7th century. 

In the Sijistan (or Sistan) territory, the Arab governors carried out repeated aggressions against the local rulers on behalf of the Islamic Caliphate between the 8th to 10th centuries. The Arabic power reached throughout the Indian subcontinent passing via Afghanistan between 735 to 740 AD with their entry point at modern-day Herat. This, was the first step of Islam in Afghanistan, after which the country was hammered with numerous dynasties. This was followed by the existence of the following:

• Abbasids (750-1258)
• Tahirids (821-873)
• Samanids (819-999)
• Ghaznavids (977-1186)
• Ghurids (879-1215)
• Khwarazmians (1077-1231)
• The Ilkhanate (Il Khanate) wing of the Mongol Empire (1256-1335)
• Kartids (1244-1381)
• Timurids (1370-1507)
• Safavids (1501-1736) 
• Mughals (1526-1858; the Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Kabul existed under the Mughals till 1709)
• Hotaks (1709-1738)
• Afsharids (1736-1796)
• Durranis (1747-1823; 1839-1842)

In the early part of the 8th to 10th centuries, with the rampant rise of the Arabs in Afghan territory, the Buddhist kingdoms of Bamiyan and others faced extinction. The Afghan territories would now be seen with names such as Sistan, Ghur, Gharjistan, Juzjan, Badghis etc. all under the Khwarazmian Empire at the fall of the Ghurs in the upper middle-ages. With the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent, every ruler of Afghanistan had their eye on the crown of Delhi and Afghanistan itself established some of the strongest strongholds in Asian history - Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar and Herat. 

Another interesting relation of the Afghans with Indians is the territory of Rohilkhand, which is in today's northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The districts of Amroha, Bareilly, Bijnor, Budaun, Moradabad, Pilibhit, Rampur and Shahjahanpur are included in this historic kingdom of Rohilkhand where the rulers had their ancestry as Afghans. Between the 17th to 18th centuries, the Rohillas migrated from Pashtunistan - a large territory covering today's Pakistan and Afghanistan - to northern Gangetic plains. At the collapse of the Mughal Empire in India and the rise of the Marathas, the Rohilla Afghans (or simply, Rohillas) would be like the buffer states between the rising regional powers. Another linkage of Afghans with India would be that of the Bangash settlers in the Farukkhabad district, Uttar Pradesh, a small off-shoot of the predominant ethnic Pashtuns living in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of today's Pakistan. 

The Afghans under the Timurids had their diplomatic missions sent to as far as China, Turkey, Tibet and regional kingdoms of mainland India such as Bijapur and Kalikod (Calicut / Kozhikode) in the 15th century. Kabul, Kandahar (Qandahar) and Sistan became important strategic locations connecting Persia with the Mughal India and opened a passage to the Central Asian kingdoms of Bokhara, Badakhshan and Balkh. It became a bridging gap between the South Asian Muslims and the Central Asian strongholds under the Uzbeks and Turkmens. The entire Afghan territory was clubbed into a single Mughal province of Kabul, and this is when European cartographers started mapping Afghanistan. 

Kabul is now spelt as Cabul on every European map right from the beginning of the 17th century. In the mid-17th century, one could find names such as Candahar (Kandahar), Cabul, Sigistan (Sistan) and Corasan (Khorasan) denoting what today is Afghanistan. In the mid-18th century maps, these territories were predominantly shown as part of the larger Persian, Indian and Central Asian empires. It's only during the early 19th century when European mapmakers would start using the term 'Afganistan', a country landlocked between Beluchistan (Balochistan, in Pakistan) and Sind (Sindh) in the south, Iran or Persia in the west and Hindostan (India) in the east, while the Central Asian powers changed with time. It is during this time when the modern boundaries of Afghanistan would start to take shape slowly. 

During the Durrani reign (18th-19th centuries), the Europeans had surrounded the Indian coasts and were constantly expanding all over. The predominant British waged wars on Indian rulers and annexed territories to expand the boundaries of British India. Sindh, Baluchistan, Punjab and Kashmir marked the western frontiers and although Afghanistan was never formally colonised, the British presence did make a strong impact, both politically and geographically. It was the paranoia of the British that the Russians would attack and take over India that they created a strip of buffer land between the Chinese and Indian territories, known as the Wakhan Corridor in 1893, that separates modern-day Pakistan from Tajikistan. This thin strip of Afghan territory acted like a vanguard connecting Central Asia to India and although the Russians never really attempted an attack, the corridor became the official border of British India, known as the Durand Line. 

The 19th century Afghanistan was at war with the neighbouring countries to establish its borders properly. This was the era where disputed territories sprung up all across the globe with the rampant rise of colonialism and the British would ally up at various battlefields. Territories like Kafiristan, Kataghan, Badakhshan etc. that were earlier dominated by independent nomadic tribes were now annexed to establish a formal Emirate of Afghanistan that extended till 1926, only to be succeeded by the Kingdom of Afghanistan. With Bukhara becoming a Russian protectorate and the formation of the USSR, Afghanistan's boundaries now would touch Persia in the west, India in the south and east and the Soviet Union in the north and a thin strip of Wakhan Corridor touching the Chinese Empire in the far east. The various Anglo-Russian Accords of the late 19th century fixed the boundaries between Afghanistan and the USSR and further adjustments such as the McMahon Award (1903-1905), MacLean Award (1888-1891) and the Turkish Delimitations and Demarcations of 1935 adjusted its western borders after fighting numerous battles, part of the Anglo-Afghan Wars. But despite a final British victory, the Afghans proved to be a much tougher opponent, something totally not anticipated by the British. 

Afghanistan became a British protectorate between 1907 to 1919. After India's independence in 1947, the first Kashmir war was fought between India and Pakistan and although the Gilgit-Baltistan territory touching Afghanistan was one of the battlegrounds of the war, Afghan regions were unaffected overall. However, the demand for a separate Pakhtunistan (or Pashtunistan / Pathanistan) arose around the time of India's independence, but the demand was largely suppressed. As the British left India and Pakistan, in late 1949, Afghanistan declared all treaties made with the British (along with the Durand Line) as null and void. A serious Afghan-Pakistan clash increased the demand of Pakhtunistan that severed diplomatic ties between the two countries. However, the Pakhtunistan topic diminished after 1963 and thereafter, the diplomatic ties were restored as well. 

The official name of Afghanistan changed over the course of the 20th century. From the 'Kingdom of Afghanistan' in 1929 to the Republic of Afghanistan in 1973, changing again to the Republican State of Afghanistan (1976), and finally to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978). The Soviet occupation in Afghanistan existed between 1979 to 1989 and here's where things started getting messy. The Soviet soldiers were enlisted to boost up the pro-Soviet regime of Kabul, but it backfired badly by the regional Mujahideen rebels who protested with the help of foreign aid. China, Pakistan, Iran and the United States funded the rebellion against the Soviets, out of which the Taliban was one of the groups, something that would affect the entire world in the coming decades. Although the Soviets left in 1989, a total of 90,000 Mujahideen fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops and 14,500 Soviet soldiers were killed. This was the second time a European power tried to use Afghan lands as a strategic ground for their own diplomatic needs but failed miserably. 

The third foreign occupation in Afghanistan, as we all know, was by the US forces that existed between 2001 to 2021. The tendency of US and European powers to become a torchbearer in countries waged with internal conflicts has always backfired, be it Afghanistan or Vietnam or Iraq etc. The consequences of such acts have always been the withdrawal of these foreign occupations, leaving the country still in chaos and without a proper solution. The interpretation of regional turbulence as a 'threat' to the community has repeatedly countered with unwanted aggression, an act condemned by even the natives of these torchbearers, resulting in little or no solution at the end. Post-9/11 incident, the US deployed its troops in Afghanistan, not knowing how and where the vulnerability of the situation would unfold, simply because of a varied explanation of an internal conflict.  

If one has to look at Afghanistan's social structure and understand it deeply, one has to look back at the pre-1979 era. Afghanistan during this period of the 60s and 70s was as modern as any other country today. Women had all the freedom to move, dress, get an education and one could easily get a European or an American vibe in any street of Kabul. The hippie culture in the US was as prominent in Afghanistan as anywhere else. Just one night and assassination of the ex-president Mohammed Daoud Khan on 28th April 1978 changed the history of Afghanistan forever. This was followed by the communist takeover with a promise of renovating the country and implementing new reforms; a promise that backfired severely. This takeover met another extremist group which was more of an uncomfortable stir from a modernising Afghanistan. The assassination of the president was a trigger point after which these groups sprung up all over the country, throwing Afghanistan into an endless civil war. These groups that narrowed down their version of Islam as a standard would violently implement a set of rules and principles, that would appear to belong to the Dark Ages. Afghanistan, post-1979, was thrown into the hands of such groups, instigated by western powers, only to see more darkness. Afghanistan was still in its infancy trying to cope with the rapidly modernising 20th century, but these extremist groups forced the country to adhere to their version of society. This version included a ban on the most basic of human rights - especially for women - an event that the US tried to suppress for two decades, but failed in the end. 

One often wonders why such a foreign involvement took place in the first place? Western powers would reply saying that it was their duty to eradicate extremism and communism as much as possible, but unknowingly they would give birth to numerous insurgent groups that would target their own people in the end. That's exactly what happened in Afghanistan. The fervour of removing Russian and later American forces made local Mujahideen groups a permanent ruling body that ultimately resulted in taking over the capital Kabul on 15th August 2021. 

The British, Russians and Americans had tried for years to 'improve and control' the situation, but ultimately left a country that's way out of control and beyond any scope of improvement. Here's a recreated hand-sketched map of Afghanistan of the 1890s, a turbulent state that was yet to see anarchy.