reform and repression, 1901–19dissent. In one editorial Tarzi went as far as to claim there was not ‘the
slightest trace of despotism’ in Afghanistan. Tarzi’s monarchical patriotism
even led to him rewriting Afghanistan’s history as dynastic propaganda. For
example, he praised the reign of Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan as a Golden
Age, even though it was this same Amir who had imprisoned and exiled
his family. As for the massacres and religious pogroms of Ahmad Shah
Durrani’s campaigns against the Jats and Sikhs, these were said to have been
conducted in the name of freedom, national integrity and national unity.
In retrospect, Tarzi’s Afghaniyya has been more of a curse than a
blessing, as anyone who has attended conferences on Afghanistan’s polit-
ical future will know. To this day Afghans continue to fight bitterly over
the role of Islamic law, the rights of non-Pushtun minorities, the values
of Republicanism or the restoration of the Durrani monarchy, and the
rights of the Executive and the Legislature. Rather than binding the nation
together, Tarzi’s Afghaniyya divided the kingdom even more against itself.
The Great War and the German Mission to KabulThe outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 created yet another
major crisis for Habib Allah Khan, who came under intense pressure from
both the Young Afghans and the Islamic party to join the war on the side of
Turkey and Germany. Despite these pressures, however, the Amir reassured
Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, of his determination to remain neutral, a prag-
matic decision since there was tribal unrest in southeastern Afghanistan.
Habib Allah Khan’s decision came as a relief to Britain, but it was unpopu-
lar with senior Muhammadzais and the population at large. Tarzi used
the Seraj al-Akhbar to argue for Afghanistan to go to war on Turkey’s side
and to use this as a lever to demand full independence from Britain. The
Seraj al-Akhbar’s increasingly strident anti-British polemic eventually led
to Lord Hardinge complaining to the Amir about the ‘offensive matter’ in
the newspaper and the Amir forced Tarzi to publish an official statement
about Afghanistan’s neutrality. In May 1915 the Viceroy again complained
to Habib Allah Khan about the ‘bigoted editor of the “Siraj-ul-Akhbar”’ and
Tarzi was required to ‘bind himself to abstain hereafter from publishing
such passages... as may lead to an interference of peace on the frontier
or in India’. 25
Tarzi largely ignored this commitment. Following the arrival of
a German mission in September 1915, he stepped up the anti-British
polemic by publishing articles by Barakat Allah and Mahendra Pratap,
Indian revolutionaries who had accompanied the German mission. Later