afghanistanthrown into the fires. McCaskill then pushed on to Charikar, dealing out
death and destruction as he went, but failed to kill or capture any of the
rebel leaders and he was eventually recalled to Kabul.
Pollock too dealt out retribution, but since he was unable to punish the
leaders of the revolt or the assassins of Burnes, Macnaghten and Trevor, he
vented the collective wrath of Britain on the chieftains’ qal‘as and the Old
City. Pollock was determined to destroy at least one major monument in
the capital as a permanent reminder of the dire consequences of daring to
challenge British military might. Initially he wanted to level the Bala Hisar,
but changed his mind when it was pointed out that this was the residence
of Shah Shuja‘ and the Saddozai monarchs, the dynasty on whose behalf
Britain had gone to war in the first place. Instead, Pollock ordered the
destruction of the Chahar Chatta, or Grand Bazaar, justifying his action
on the grounds that it was in this chauk that the bodies of Macnaghten
and Trevor had been put on public display.
His decision was an act of petty-minded vindictiveness. None of the
occupants of the Chahar Chatta had had any hand in the uprising, nor
had they played any part in the deaths of any British officer. Indeed, most
of the residents and shopkeepers of the bazaar were Shikapuri baniyas,
Hindus who were citizens of India and not Afghan Muslims. They had
remained in Kabul since Pollock had assured them that they and their
property would be protected. During the occupation they had advanced
Macnaghten millions of rupees and honoured letters of credit made out to
the Calcutta treasury, yet now it was these Hindus, and their homes and
livelihoods, that were to suffer for the sins of others. Forced from their
homes and shops at bayonet point, they were given no time to remove
their goods and chattels; indeed anyone who showed the slightest signs
of resistance risked being shot or bayoneted. Once the bazaar was empty,
the Royal Engineers tried to pull the bazaar down, but it was so well built
that they had to resort to gunpowder.
The destruction of the Chahar Chatta was an act of unwarranted
cultural vandalism, for the bazaar, which Atkinson declared to be ‘a gem
amidst the edifices of mud by which it is surrounded’, was the finest ex -
ample of Mughal architecture north of the Khyber Pass. 41 Commissioned
by ‘Ali Mardan Khan, it was some 200 metres (650 ft) in length and flanked
by two-storey buildings. At either end were two ornamented, octagonal
chauks, or courtyards, flanked by imposing arches, and in the centre of
each was a fountain and cistern lined with white marble. The walls were
adorned with naturalistic paintings of trees, fruit, birds, animals as well as
mirrors, and there was at least one congregational mosque. Tragically, no