dreams melted into air, 1919–29beyond the Amu Darya would inevitably lead to similar demands from the
Turkic and Persian-speaking populations of northern Afghanistan. 29 The
presence of 300,000 Central Asia refugees, including thousands of heavily
armed mujahidin in the northern provinces, added impetus to secession-
ism, tilted the region’s ethnic balance back in favour of the non-Pushtun
population and overstretched the nation’s resources. 30 The prospect of an
uprising in northern Afghanistan was as much of a nightmare scenario for
the Kabul government as the threat of a Russian invasion, for while pan -
Islamism and pan-Afghanism may have been an acceptable government
policy, pan-Turkism could not to be tolerated under any circumstances.
The failure of the basmachi revolt meant that most of the refugees from
Central Asia never returned to their homeland. Instead, they were resettled
in dozens of towns and villages in northern Afghanistan, from Maimana
to Qunduz. The Afghan government’s betrayal of their cause, however,
was not forgotten. Basmachi resistance fighters passed on stories of their
struggle against Communism, Russian occupation and the Red Army to
their children and children’s children, who continued to foster the dream
of an independent Turkistan. Their presence led to the rise of an under-
ground Turco-Tajik nationalist, or Turkistanian, movement in northern
Afghanistan, which successive governments ruthlessly suppressed.
Amir ’Aman Allah Khan’s administrationThe influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees from India and Central
Asia, the military and economic fallout from defeat at the hands of Britain,
the loss of the British subsidy and military assistance, not to mention the
threat posed by the Soviet army to Afghanistan’s northern provinces, were
more than enough for the Afghan administration to handle. Yet ’Aman
Allah Khan proceeded to destabilize the country further by a programme
of sweeping social and legal reforms, which were aimed at transforming
Afghanistan into a modern, Europeanized nation.
One pressing issue was the need for additional revenues to cover the
loss of the British subsidy, so the Amir increased taxes. Agricultural taxes,
traditionally paid in kind, now had to be paid only in cash, while taxes on
livestock, grazing, irrigated land and agricultural yields were increased. An
income tax was introduced that was deducted at source from the salaries of
civil servants, soldiers and students – in effect a pay cut. Conscription was
reintroduced, and the customary exemption of the Durrani tribes and reli-
gious elites from military service abolished. The government introduced a
new, standard measurement of land, the jerib, undertook a cadastral survey