afghanistan
Britain was indifferent to the social impact of Afghanization and many
saw it as a good thing that Pushtu tribes were located on the vulner able
Murghab and Maimana frontier. What was important for Britain was
the signing of the boundary agreements in the summer of 1887. Lord
Salisbury, now Prime Minister, privately confessed that he did not think
the frontier convention would stand the test of time and this seemed to
be the case when Lieutenant Tarnovsky, the Russian officer in charge of
Panjdeh, briefly occupied Qal‘a-yi Nau in 1892 in the name of the Tsar.
War with Britain was averted, however, after the Russian Foreign Ministry
denounced Tarnovsky as a ‘madman’ and recalled him to St Petersburg,
where he was ‘broken’ and disgraced. Even so, Afghanistan’s northern and
northwestern frontier proved to be far more stable than its one with India
and far less subject to dispute.
The demarcation, however, created great social upheaval in a region
that had been plagued with unrest, war and economic decline. Panjdeh
ended up on the Russian side of the frontier and in return Russia made
territorial concessions further north, but the frontier was artificial and cut
through customary water and grazing rights as well as split populations.
When the boundary agreement was finally signed, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan
closed the frontier to all traffic, a decision that was an economic disaster
for Maimana, Andkhui and Bala Murghab, which traditionally traded with
Merv, Khiva and Bukhara. These regions were now relegated to backwaters
and went into steep economic decline.
The revolt of Sardar Muhammad Ishaq KhanThe Amir’s policies increasingly alienated Sardar Ishaq Khan, governor
of Turkistan, for he had to manage the many social upheavals created by
the Afghanization programme and the new frontier, as well as a declining
economy and simmering unrest among the indigenous population. Ishaq
Khan proved to be a popular governor. His administration of justice was
mild and he defied orders from the Amir that he deemed unjust or unjus-
tified. His popularity was increased by his affiliation to the Central Asian
tariqa of Naqshbandiyya Sufism, which was, and still is, the dominant
Order in the region, and his devotion to the shine of Shah-i Mardan.
Tensions between Ishaq Khan and the Amir first emerged during
the Ghilzai revolt when he refused to send additional Uzbek conscripts
for the war, or more of the province’s revenue to pay for the campaign.
When the Amir exiled a number of political dissidents to the region, Ishaq
released them, claiming there was no evidence of their guilt. By early 1888