afghanistanas Mahmud Tarzi and ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan, for Bray was convinced these
individuals had been the real instigators of the war. On the other hand,
the Viceroy and Dobbs, India’s Foreign Secretary, were more conciliatory
and calculated that the Amir would adopt a more moderate tone in the
wake of his defeat. The two sides eventually met in Rawalpindi on 26 July
1919 with the Afghan delegation headed by Loynab ‘Ali Ahmad Khan, a
somewhat curious choice given that a few months earlier he had supported
Nasr Allah Khan’s bid for power. ‘Ali Ahmad was also conducting a clan-
destine, extramarital affair with Sahira Begum, the Amir’s half-sister, a
liaison that was exposed a few months later and led to ‘Ali Ahmad Khan
being condemned to death, though his sentence was commuted to house
arrest after he agreed to marry the princess and pay a huge indemnity. The
Afghan delegation included two Indian citizens: Dr Ghani, the former
headmaster of Habibiyya College, now finally released from prison, and
Diwan Narinjan Das, the Hindu banker who had been Amir Habib Allah
Khan’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of all the Afghan officials sent to
Rawalpindi, only Mullah Ghulam Muhammad, the Minister of Commerce,
represented the war party. ‘Abd al-Quddus Khan, Mahmud Tarzi and Nadir
Khan were all conspicuous by their absence.
Despite Dobbs’s hope that the Afghans would be conciliatory, Loynab
‘Ali Ahmad took an uncompromising approach, demanding the restoration
of the Amir’s subsidy, the payment of a war indemnity and recognition
of Afghanistan’s sovereignty over the whole of the Tribal Territory. Sir
Alfred Grant, Britain’s chief negotiator, rejected these demands and bluntly
informed the delegates that the draft treaty placed on the table by Britain
was the ‘utmost to which his Majesty’s Government is prepared to go, all
we require is your acceptance or rejection’. 18 Loynab ‘Ali Ahmad, however,
insisted that Britain give ‘some definite assurances in writing... as regards
independence of our foreign relations’. Behind the scenes Chelmsford
pleaded with London to compromise on the independence issue, arguing
that an independent Afghanistan still left the country economically and
militarily reliant on Britain: ‘If we now surrender our hold on the shadow,’ he
wrote, ‘we may hereafter secure the substance of real control.’ 19 Eventually
the Cabinet reluctantly accepted indirect recognition of Afghanistan’s inde-
pendence and the agreement included the phrase ‘Independent Afghan
Government’ in the title. However, there was no mention of Afghanistan
as an ‘independent’ or ‘free’ nation in the actual clauses. Instead Grant
wrote a personal letter to the Amir in which he stated that the agreement
‘contains nothing that interfered with the complete liberty of Afghanistan
in internal and external matters... the said treaty and this letter leaves