afghanistanKabul, leaving his younger son, ’Aman Allah Khan, in charge of the capital.
In early January 1919 the Amir went on a hunting trip and in mid -February
he arrived at his hunting lodge at Kalagosh, in Laghman. On the night of
19 February, an unidentified assassin slipped through the cordon of body-
guards and shot the Amir through the ear at point-blank range, killing
him instantly.
Habib Allah Khan’s reign has been overshadowed both by his prede-
cessor, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, and his successor, ’Aman Allah Khan. Yet it
was under Habib Allah Khan that Afghanistan made its first steps towards
independence from Britain with the reception of the German mission.
It was during his reign, too, that the country began to grapple with the
complex issues of reform of the state and education and Afghanistan’s first
underground political party was formed. Under the influence of Mahmud
Tarzi and his circle, Turkish nationalist ideas became embedded in Afghan
nationalist discourse, which contributed significantly to the subsequent rise
of Pushtunism, Aryanism and Pushtunistan. For the first time too, foreign
literary and historical works were translated into Persian.
The Amir’s reform programme, however, was tentative and limited
to the educational field, with no interest in reform of the powers of the
Executive. Afghanistan remained an autocracy and a country where indivi-
duals who challenged the rights and privileges of the Amir, or sought a
more inclusive form of government, risked imprisonment or execution.
Amir Habib Allah Khan’s refusal to contemplate political reform led to the
suppression of the Hizb-i Mashruta, the suspension of the Seraj al-Akhbar,
and the imprisonment and execution of leading reformers. The grow-
ing ideological confrontation between modernizers and reformers, and
conservative Sunnis who opposed any liberalization of education, social
mores or the legal code, was a battle for the soul of the nation and one that
would dominate Afghanistan’s political life for the next century and which
to this day has yet to be resolved.
Modernization under Habib Allah Khan meant primarily civil engin-
eering and technological projects, most of which were for the convenience
of the royal family and included dams, a small hydroelectric power station
and road improvements. Apart from the German-built dam at Band-i
Sultan, near Ghazni, all of these infrastructure projects benefited only the
capital and it was as if the provinces did not exist. Construction of these
civil engineering projects also led to much hardship, for labourers were
forcibly conscripted and land seized without compensation. A clinic run
by a Turkish doctor introduced vaccinations for the first time, but it was a
drop in a very large ocean. Cholera, typhoid and other diseases remained