Nationalism in Afghanistan

129 Pages·2016·2.01 MB·English

James Madison University
JMU Scholarly Commons
Masters Theses The Graduate School
Spring 2012
Nationalism in Afghanistan: Colonial knowledge,
education, symbols, and the World Tour of
Amanullah Khan, 1901-1929
Jawan Shir
James Madison University
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Recommended Citation
Shir, Jawan, "Nationalism in Afghanistan: Colonial knowledge, education, symbols, and the World Tour of Amanullah Khan,
1901-1929" (2012).Masters Theses. 324.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/324
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Nationalism in Afghanistan: Colonial Knowledge, Education, Symbols, and the World
Tour of Amanullah Khan, 1901-1929
Jawan Shir

A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of

JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY

In

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the degree of

Master of Arts

History

May 2012
Dedication

To Afghanistan’s mountains, rivers, trees, and animals; whose existence is more
Afghan, whatever ‘Afghan’ means, and more human than nationalism

ii
Acknowledgements
I owe thanks and appreciation to a number of people that provided me helpful and
critical support in making this thesis possible. I am grateful for the support and questions
of the History Department faculty members and my graduate classmate colleagues. I owe
much, intellectually and professionally, to my thesis director, Professor Shah Mahmoud
Hanifi. Without Professor Hanifi, I would have never written this thesis (and perhaps
would have never tried to know about its subject). My Thesis Committee Members were
Professors David Owusu-Ansah and Timothy J. Fitzgerald. Their questions and notes
have improved significantly this work. I am thankful to Professor Steven Reich, the
coordinator for the Graduate Program. He has been supportive throughout my stay as a
graduate student. I would like to also thank Dr. David Jeffery, Dean of the College of
Arts and Letters; Dr. Lee Sternberger, Executive Director of the Office of International
Programs; and Ms. Pamela Hamilton, the Coordinator of the Adult Degree Program.
They all made it financially possible for me to complete my graduate studies at James
Madison University. I am also thankful to Hirad Dinavari, the Reference Librarian of the
Iranian World at the Library of Congress where he helped me to find Afghanistan’s
sources that are not yet catalogued, unfortunately.
Although I discussed my thesis throughout the process with my father and I
received important intellectual support from him, I am thankful to all of my family
members whose distance from me like all distances of Afghanistan was part of what I
tried to understand and write in this thesis.

iii
Table of Contents

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………..ii

Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iii

List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….v

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………..vi

I. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….1
- The Argument…………………………………………………………………3
- Defining Nationalism in Afghanistan…………………………………………4
- The Organization……………………………………………………………...7
- Theorizing Nationalism……………………………………………………….8

II. Chapter I: Colonialism and Nationalism in Afghanistan………………………...15
- The Origins of Nationalism in Afghanistan: Colonial Knowledge………….15
- Mountstuart Elphinstone: Baba-ye Afghan Invented ...................................22

III. Chapter II: Studies of Nationalism in Afghanistan………………………………31
- Habibullah Khan, 1901-1919………………………………………………...31
- Amanullah Khan, 1919-1929………………………………………………...41
- The Problems of Studies of Nationalism in Afghanistan…………………….45

IV. Chapter III: Reforms in Education……………………………………………….48
- Conceptualizing Modernity…………………………………………..……...49
- Mohammad Abid: The Indian Muslim Spy, Traveler, Teacher………….…..50
- The Importance of Education…………………………………………….…..55
- Habibya College, 1904……………………………………………………….57
- Curriculum…………………………………………………………...58
- Organization………………………………………………………….69
- Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...76

V. Chapter IV: Symbolizing Afghanistan, 1919-1929……………………….……..78
- Internally Symbolized Afghanistan……………………………………….…79
- Externally Symbolized Afghanistan: ………………………………...……...86
- Amanullah Khan’s World Tour: India, Egypt, and Europe……........89

VI. Conclusion: Nationalism in Afghanistan; A Colonial , and Elite Idea………....112

VII. Bibliography……………………………………………………………………116

iv
List of Figures
Afghanistan’s and its Surrounding Countries Political Map……………………………...1
Afghanistan’s Current Administrative Divisions………………………………………….2
Habibullah Khan’s Personal Vehicle…………………………………………………….34
Map of Asia, Used in Education System in Afghanistan, 1915-1929…………………...66
Map of Africa, Used in Education System in Afghanistan, 1915-1929…………………67
Map of Europe, Used in Education System in Afghanistan, 1915-1929………………...68
Awards’ Chart for Primary Education………………………………………………...…74
Neshans or Medals……………………………………………………………………….81
Afghanistan’s Flag, 1919-1926…………………………………………………………..83
Afghanistan’s Flag, 1926-1929…………………………………………………………..84
Amanullah Khan’s Approximate Trip Routes, 1927-1928………………………………86
Amanullah Khan Speaking in Jashan-e Isteqlal 1928 in Paghman……………………..110
Amanullah’s Khan Brother, Enyayatullah Khan……………………………………….111

v
Abstract
Nationalism in Afghanistan has not received attention from the scholars of the
country despite its significance, at least locally. Using a post-modernist analysis of
nationalism, this thesis will study nationalism in Afghanistan in the context of colonial
knowledge, class, and cultural institutions between 1901 and 1929. Chapter one is about
colonialism and its impact on nationalism in Afghanistan. In the nineteenth century,
colonial activities constructed the political, epistemological, and territorial foundation of
Afghan nation. Chapter two shows how previous studies of nationalism in Afghanistan
have explained nationalism in the country. As the review of the previous studies of
nationalism in Afghanistan will show, the previous explanation is hegemonic and state-
centric. Chapter three, the primary findings of this thesis, is a study of the reforms in
education and its relationship to development of nationalism in Afghanistan. As a result
of the reforms in education, the Afghan state was able to produce and patronize a well-
composed class of roshanfekran or elites in Kabul. Chapter four is about the symbols and
Amanullah Khan’s eight month world tour that became useful tools of the Afghan state
and the nationalists to legitimate their nationalistic programs inside and outside
Afghanistan. In the conclusion, the thesis draws attention to its findings, and suggests that
further studies of nationalism in Afghanistan will be useful; especially studies that will
address the relationships between class, ethnicity, and language and nationalism in
Afghanistan.

vi
Introduction

(Figure 1)
Afghanistan’s and its Surrounding Countries Political Map

1

1 "Afghanistan Maps - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - UT Library Online." University
of Texas Libraries. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/afghanistan.html (accessed February 22,
2012).
2

(Figure, 2)
Afghanistan’s Current Administrative Divisions

2

2 Ibid
3

The Argument

This thesis’s argument is twofold. One is that nationalism in Afghanistan was a
colonial idea, though the Afghan state and nationalists adopted it locally as an Afghan
idea. The creation of an Afghan nation was more a British, Russian, and Persian
consensus than an Afghan one. Throughout the nineteenth century and long afterwards, it
was these colonial powers, particularly the British, who arranged among themselves to
create an Afghanistan. Indeed, the area that is “now known as Afghanistan,” as one study
wrote, “had no previous existence as a united, independent political unit” before the
beginning of the twentieth century.3 Another study has also concluded that “Afghanistan
is in fact a colonial construct in political, economic, and intellectual terms, at least.”4A
last but not least argument is made by a scholar of the country that the very labels
“Afghan” and “Afghanistan” are constructed by the foreigners, not the Afghans
themselves.5 However, Afghan nationalists rejected the argument that Afghanistan was
constructed colonially. They claimed that Afghanistan existed as a nation not only in the
nineteenth century but also since “man came down from the caves and hills to the fertile
banks of rivers and civilized valleys, which the soil of Ariana, the ancient Afghanistan,
was one of these valleys.”6 The second part of this thesis’s argument is that nationalism

3 Benjamin D. Hopkins, The making of modern Afghanistan (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008), 11-13.
4 Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and
State Formation in a Colonial Frontier (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
5 Mohammad J. Hanifi, “Editing the Past: Colonial Production of Hegemony Through
“Loya Jerga” in Afghanistan,” Iranian Studies. 37, no. 2 (2004), 322
6 Ahmad Ali Kohzad, Tarikh-e Afghanistan: The History of Afghanistan (Kabul: Matb-e
Maiwand, 2008), 12. For a similar and more specific assertion by the Afghan nationalists see Mir
Ghulam Mohammad Ghobar’s Afghanistan Dar Masir Tarikh: Afghanistan in the Course of