afghanistanwould be mostly a Sikh affair. However, it soon became clear that Ranjit
Singh had no intention of his army becoming embroiled in a potentially
bloody and prolonged conflict beyond the Khyber Pass. In the end, it was
British and Indian troops who bore the brunt of the fighting and made up
the majority of the fighting men. The plan was to march on Afghanistan
on two fronts: the main army would take Kandahar, while the Sikhs and
a much smaller force of mostly Indian troops would open a second front
in Nangahar. On 26 June 1838 the two sides signed the Tripartite Treaty,
an agreement designed to leave Afghanistan a weak and divided kingdom
politically dependent on Britain and the Sikhs. In return for being restored
to the throne, Shah Shuja‘ was required to renounce in perpetuity all claims
to ‘whatever territories lying on either bank of the River Indus that may
be possessed by the Maharaja... as far as the Khyber Pass’, while Herat
would be ruled independently by Shah Shuja‘ alMulk’s cousin and rival,
Shah Kamran. Shah Shuja‘ was also required to pay an annual tribute of two
lakh rupees, a payment thinly disguised as reimbursement for Sikh mili
tary assistance, and undertook not to communicate with foreign powers
without the ‘knowledge and consent’ of both the Sikh and British govern
ments. 60 The king retained the title of shah but to all intents and purposes
he was a vassal of Ranjit Singh; the very scenario that Dost Muhammad
Khan had rejected as too humiliating.
The treaty may have been a tripartite one but Shah Shuja‘ had not
been consulted nor had he been asked to send envoys to participate in the
negotiations. Macnaghten therefore had the awkward task of persuading
the exking to sign an agreement made over his head. It is hardly surpris
ing that Shah Shuja‘ strongly objected to the terms imposed on him. In
particular, he did not wish to seem to be paying money to Ranjit Singh, for
this would be interpreted as tribute. Nor did he want to cede sovereignty
over the key commercial centre of Shikapur. Macnaghten, however, made
it abundantly clear that it was a case of ‘take it or leave it’. All Macnaghten
was prepared to do was give the king his personal assurance that British
officials would not exercise any authority over ‘the people of Afghanistan’
without the king’s consent and agree that, if Shah Shuja‘ decided to annex
Balkh, Sistan, Baluchistan and Kandahar, neither the Sikhs nor the British
would stand in his way. In the end Shah Shuja‘ capitulated: ‘half a loaf
with a good name,’ he quipped, ‘was better than abundance without it.’
On 16 July 1838 he put his seal to the treaty and by so doing signed his
own death warrant.
While plans for the invasion of Afghanistan were underway, in early
June 1838 McNeill informed the Shah that his acceptance of Russian