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October 19, 2003
Review: Mission to Kabul
EMPIRES have a historically useful function. When one group of people gains a momentary advantage over others in organization and technology, it uses the resulting strength to bring the others under control to obtain their natural and human resources. But the empires also diffuse their civilizational achievements among the backward. Well, to some extent.
Does this apply to neo-colonialism too? It does. But the exact relationship between domination and tribute in it has hitherto been worked upon by Marxists only. It is not generally accepted by others. It appears that the western scholars are shy to accept the full implications of unequal exchange. They would analyze scientifically the nature of territorial empires only by reducing it to anthropology. This, first of all, requires putting exploitation in the category of old-style robbery. So the discourse is something like this:
“That was a stage of man’s development. Well, perhaps it was not a terribly nice way to treat the niggers. But, after all, colonialism had its positive aspects. Don’t we see the Pakis and niggers speak English and behave like the civilized? Anyway, it is now done and finished with. Now a Third World country trades with the industrialized ones only if it wishes to. No compulsion. As to terms of trade, they are determined by the market forces, you know supply and demand. If the Arabs do not wish to sell their petroleum, there is no compulsion. They can keep it underground and go back to riding camels and eating lizards. Voila la liberte partout”.
Burnes was both an empire-builder and what came to be known as an “Orientalist”. He was a top-notch diplomat of the East India Company, who had, by the age of thirty, accumulated important experience in the field. This qualified him to be sent by the governor general to make an economic survey of the Indus River region and lay the basis for the Company’s strategic policy in Afghanistan and beyond.
The Company had, by now, established a position of force on the Indus, as both Sindh and Punjab, which including the present day NWFP were its protectorates. The next step was to ensure its supremacy in Afghanistan, which it regarded as part of India’s glacis in the face of Russian expansionism.
Burnes’ team studied the navigability of the Indus right up to Attock and the mineral resources on its banks. They were also interested in markets as Britain had passed the stage where it had been primarily a buyer of South Asian goods. Now it was looking for markets for its own products. But, above all, they wanted to see how far Indus could be used for “rapid deployment” of British forces in Afghanistan.
The mission’s interest in Afghanistan was primarily strategic. And Britain’s supremacy and military prestige was such in the region that Kabul and the northern statelets opened their territories happily to survey and study by the mission. Any individual paid by the British was prepared to become their spy. A Russian agent visited Kabul when Burnes was there and met him. But, apparently, there were no immediate Russian designs on Afghanistan, though it did not prevent the British from invading Afghanistan three years later on the suspicion that Kabul may be leaning away from them.
What strikes one about Burnes’ narrative is the absence of any doubt among the British officials about the propriety of conquering or dominating other countries. Britian was the first among the great powers and it was going to secure its interests and its sphere of influence. There was no need yet for ideological justifications for imperialism, like the “white man’s burden.” That came later, when the empires weakened. Secondly, the staticity of the “Orient” was never questioned, although the British conquest itself was changing it in many ways.
Burnes’ study is about how the societies were organized, not about how they could change. It was this relationship between the vibrant, rising capitalist societies and what were perceived to be unmoving social organisms of pre-capitalism, that lent romance to the activities of these adventurers.
There is nothing anthropological about territorial colonialism. It put in place the social and material bases of unequal exchange. The neo-colonial system has only taken it over.
Cabool: Being a Personal Narrative of a Journey To and Residence in that City in the Years 1836, 7, 8
By Lt Col. Sir Alexander
Burnes (1842)
National College of Arts. Available with Ferozsons, 60 Shahrah-i-Quaid-i-Azam, Lahore. Tel: 042-6301196-8 277 Peshawar Road, Rawalpindi Tel: 051-5563503 Mehran Heights, Main Clifton Road, Karachi
Tel: 021-5830467 UAN 111-62-62-62
ISBN 969-8623-02-7
398pp. Rs350
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