afghanistanThe Musahiban Dynasty and Pushtun nationalismThe assassination of Muhammad ‘Aziz Khan took place only a few months
after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Initially his government
supported the reinstatement of ’Aman Allah Khan, but ‘Abd al-Majid
Zabuli, who led the influential pro-German faction at court, which
included ‘Aziz Khan’s two sons, Muhammad Da’ud and Muhammad Na‘im,
actively promoted closer ties with the Third Reich. Sympathy with Hitler’s
Germany and National Socialism ran deep within the ruling elite, due in
part to the government’s active promotion of Pushtun nationalism, which
was increasingly conflated with ideas of racial and cultural superiority and
Aryanism. One reason for the adoption of this more hard-edged version
of Tarzi’s Afghaniyya was an attempt by the Musahiban to appeal to its
primary support base, the Pushtun tribes of the Afghan–Indian frontier.
One of the foremost advocates of this state-sponsored ethno -nationalism
in the first decades of Musahiban rule was Wazir Muhammad Gul Khan
Mohmand. 25 Despite his aristocratic Mohmand ancestry, Gul Khan was
brought up in an urban, Persian-speaking milieu and only began to learn
Pushtu when a student at Kabul’s Military Academy, where it was a compul-
sory subject. Subsequently he was sent to Turkey for military training
where he fell under the influence of the ethnocentric nationalism of the
Young Turks. During the reign of Amir ’Aman Allah Khan, Gul Khan
Mohmand became a founder member of the Pushtu Maraka, the Pushtu
Society, and following the Amir’s fall he played a major role in Nadir Khan’s
campaign against Habib Allah Kalakani, conducting military operations
in Nangahar and the Logar and publishing a Pushtu broadsheet, Da Kor
Gham, which promoted the Musahiban cause.
After Nadir Shah became king, Muhammad Gul Khan Mohmand
was appointed as Minister of the Interior and Ra’is-i Tanzim, or Minister
Plenipotentiary, and was entrusted with the task of bringing the country
back under central authority, which he did with ruthless efficiency. He
also used his position of influence to promote the state’s romanticized and
idealized vision of Pushtun identity. In 1932 Gul Khan Mohmand merged
all of Kandahar’s literary societies into a single, state-funded body, Da
Pakhtu ‘Adabi Anjuman, whose president was appointed by the governor of
Kandahar. Five years later he incorpor ated this, and all other Pushtu liter-
ary societies, into the state-run Pushtu Tolana, or Pushtu Academy, which
was an arm of the Ministry of Higher Education, in effect nationalizing the
Pushtu literary revival and co-opting it to serve dynastic ends. Under Gul
Mohmand’s influence, the Pushtu Academy began to purge Pushtu of its