backs to the future, 1929–33centres with more than 10,000 residents elected their own ra’is, or mayor,
and town councillors, but the governor had the last word when it came
to these appointments. Each provincial centre also had a military head,
who commanded a large garrison of front-line troops. Most of these new
provincial officials and military commanders were southern Pushtuns;
local people were only employed in the lower grades of the civil service.
When it came to organizing a new administration, Nadir Shah
appointed his brother, Muhammad Hashim, as prime minster, while
Shah Mahmud became commander-in-chief of the army and Minister
of Defence. Shah Wali Khan, who had a far better claim to command the
army, was marginalized and sent to London as ambassador, while Nadir’s
eldest brother, Muhammad ‘Aziz Khan, was packed off to Moscow and
later Berlin. Since the national army had virtually ceased to exist, the king
initially relied on tribal levies, mostly Waziris, Mangals and Mohmands,
who were then merged into a new national army. Nadir Shah did away
with the traditional one-in-eight system of conscription and required every
adult male to do national service for two years, although among Pushtuns
it was left to the khans and jirgas to select the cadets due for conscription,
rather than government officials. The government also encouraged volun-
tary enlistment, and improved pay and conditions of service. In 1933 Nadir
Shah opened a new military college for secondary students. Several officers
were also sent to Germany and France for military training. With the help
of Britain, Germany and Russia the army was re-equipped and within
the space of just three years the Afghan army numbered between 40,000
and 70,000 men, with a core fighting force of 12,000, mostly Pushtuns,
though there were also two Hazara regiments. Nadir Shah also established
Afghanistan’s first modern police force.
The distribution of army ranks and civilian positions among the king’s
Pushtun tribal supporters led to an influx of new and often semi-literate
officials with little military training and who were ignorant of Afghanistan’s
bureaucratic system. The swath of new appointments caused resentment
among the older generation of government servants and many found them-
selves out of a job. These appointments also changed the ethnolinguistic
balance, particularly within the military, for most of the new recruits and
their officers spoke Pushtu as their mother tongue and had little or no
working knowledge of Persian. In areas where Pushtu was not spoken,
some officials resorted to employing translators in order to communicate
with the local populace.
Another priority for the new dynasty was to distance itself from the
radical and unpopular reforms of ’Aman Allah Khan’s reign. To do this