afghanistanoffer of a meeting in Peshawar and accused the Amir of ‘hastily rejecting
the hand of friendship held out to you’. He even warned Sher ‘Ali Khan that
if Pelly was not allowed to come to Kabul he would be obliged ‘to regard
Afghanistan as a State which has voluntarily isolated itself from the alliance
and support of the British government’. 39
When Lytton presented this reply to his Council three of its most
senior members refused to endorse its contents, claiming that Sher ‘Ali
was within his rights to refuse the mission on the basis of Mayo’s under-
taking in his aide-memoire. Lytton, however, overruled them and sent the
letter anyway, but he did agree to the meeting with Pelly to take place in
Peshawar. In Kabul, meanwhile, the Viceroy’s threat was seized on by the
Islamic and anti-British party who claimed the mission was a deliberate
provocation intended to give the British an excuse for annexing southern
Afghanistan. When a Russian envoy arrived in Kabul in June 1876 Lytton
saw this not just as further proof of the Amir’s ‘estrangement’, but as a
potential military threat, given that Russia was once more on the brink of
war with Ottoman Turkey in the Balkans.
Sher ‘Ali Khan was now caught in a difficult dilemma, with opponents
of the Anglo-Afghan alliance calling for a jihad against India. In an attempt
to mollify these critics, in August 1876 the Amir called an extraordinary
council of ‘ulama’, chaired by Mushk-i ‘Alam, and laid before them all his
correspondence with Britain and Russia. The Amir then requested them to
decide, on the basis of the shari‘a, whether or not he should agree to Pelly
coming to Kabul. The Council concluded that the Amir had been correct
in not allowing Pelly to enter Afghanistan but it did endorse negotiations
with the British, provided they did not take place on Afghan soil.
The Amir briefed ‘Ata Muhammad Khan, the Kabul wakil, about the
Council’s decision as well as his expectations for his meeting with Pelly. In
October ‘Ata Muhammad travelled to India where he reported that Sher
‘Ali Khan was deeply disillusioned with Britain, in particular at the failure
to secure a treaty in 1873. The wakil then listed the Amir’s expectations in
regard to the meeting with Pelly and how to repair the relationship. They
included an undertaking by Britain that no ‘Englishman’ should reside
in Afghanistan, least of all in Kabul; recognition of ‘Abd Allah Jan as heir
apparent; military support against unprovoked external aggression; and an
annual subsidy. The Amir also wanted a clear statement that Britain would
not interfere in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Lytton agreed, in principle,
to discuss these conditions, but only if the Amir was prepared to accept
a permanent British presence in Herat. He also wanted the Amir to allow
British officers to demarcate Afghanistan’s northern frontier and extend