nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47for free, failing to realize that by so doing his purchases were indirectly
contributing to the crisis rather than solving it.
Mullah Shakar, the king’s elderly wazir, responded by issuing an order
fixing the price of wheat and bread at a price local people could afford.
The nanbais retaliated by shutting up shop and refused to bake, so Mullah
Shakar sent officials into the bazaar and forced the bakers to make bread,
threatening anyone who failed to open up their shop with fines and impris
onment. The nanbais then complained to Burnes and Macnaghten about
the king’s oppression, but instead of supporting Shah Shuja‘, Burnes took
the bakers’ side, forcing the king to rescind his wazir’s decree and to release
those nanbais who had been imprisoned. The bakers were thus free to charge
whatever price they wanted while Shah Shuja‘ suffered a serious loss of face.
The populace, though, blamed the occupiers. The ‘universal cry throughout
the whole kingdom,’ noted Lal, was ‘that [the British] are killing the people
by starvation... the English enriched the grain and the grass sellers &c.,
whilst they reduced the chiefs to poverty, and killed the poor by starvation.’ 3
Dost Muhammad Khan and the tribal and religious opposition
to the British occupationWhile Macnaghten, Burnes and Shah Shuja‘ undermined their credibility
with ordinary Afghans, resistance to the occupation began to form in the
hinterland of Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul. As a sign of the troubles to
follow, in the autumn of 1839 a Ghilzai raid on the Ghazni–Kabul road
led to the death of Lieutenant Colonel Herring and a punitive expedition
had to be sent against Gul Muhammad Khan Hotaki and ‘Abd alRahman
Khan Tokhi. 4 Beyond the Hindu Kush, Dost Muhammad Khan was given
sanctuary by the Mir Wali of Khulm and sent emissaries throughout the
wilayat of Balkh and to Nasr Allah Khan of Bukhara appealing for them
to join him in a jihad. The risk of local disturbances as well as a possible
attack from the north by an Uzbek army commanded by Dost Muhammad
Khan led to the postponement of the return of the Bengal Army until the
summer of 1840, much to the troops’ disgust.
Dost Muhammad Khan’s appeal for Uzbek support, however, fell on
deaf ears for neither the rulers of Balkh nor the Khan of Bukhara had
any interest in aiding an Amir who only a year earlier had invaded their
country, forced the rulers and governors of Balkh to submit to Afghan
sovereignty and annexed Saighan, Kahmard and Duab. In the winter of
1839 Dost Muhammad Khan, against the advice of Nawab Jabbar Khan,
decided to travel to Bukhara to appeal to Nasr Allah Khan, for the Uzbek