‘The Great Game’
Indians had already started going to Afghanistan before Mujtaba Ali’s arrival in 1927. Afroz says: “The first Indians who arrived in Afghanistan were Sikhs and Hindus, possibly with Ahmad Shah Abdali, and controlled business and banking. The second category was the Muslims who left India in 1921 because they did not want to live in a country governed by the British, who had abolished the Caliphate in Turkey. There was a third category of a few hundred teachers like Mujtaba Ali.”

Mujtaba Ali was aware of these historical links, and therefore disappointed with the lack of Indian interest and writing on Afghanistan. He observed:

Some scholars in India had been sifting through the material from this country – through the lives of Mahmud or Babur – to write the history of the Pathan-Turk-Mughal era. But not a single Indian historian had yet travelled to Kabul, Hindukush, Badakshan, Balkh, Maimana or Herat to trace Babur’s life. They were not interested in writing the history of Afghanistan. Yet there was hardly any doubt that you could not complete India’s history without linking it with the history of Afghanistan.

Afroz claims that the lack of interest in Afghanistan on India’s part persists even today. “Mujtaba Ali felt this in the 1920s and it holds true even now.  If the Taliban had not blasted the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001, we would not have known about the imprint of Buddhism in Afghanistan,” he says.

Since Afghanistan was located on the Silk Route, it attracted people from all over the world. Mujtaba Ali wrote that people of at least 25 nationalities came to trade in Kabul’s bazaar. Afroz explains: “Afghanistan was located at strategic geographic crossroads between Europe, South Asia and West Asia and has been an important trade route since the time of Alexander. India was a major reason why the main powers established base in Afghanistan, and because of which the latter had to face invasions by Alexander, the Mongols, the Huns and the Sakas.”

One of the major conflicts that were unfolding in Afghanistan was the ‘Great Game’ between Russia and Britain with India as the prize. The showdown of strength between Tsarist Russia and imperial Britain happened in Afghanistan as it was perceived to be the no man’s land that had to be crossed in order to reach India.

Though Mujtaba Ali does not use the phrase ‘Great Game’ in his book, he mentions a reference from an Afghan military officer:

I hear that Kabul is full of new green grass. But there is the British ram on this side and the Russian goat on the other. Both will overgraze the hills of Kabul if they get an opportunity… if the goat acts funny, the ram bleats to alert the whole world that the goat not only wants to overrun Afghanistan but the rice fields of India, China and Iran too.

Amanullah’s modernising reforms
Mujtaba Ali also documents the dynamics of internal political changes. Afghanistan, a British protectorate from 1881, became independent under King Amanullah in 1919. Amanullah’s rule is credited with initiating the first modernising reforms in Afghanistan, which Mujtaba Ali personally witnessed.  

Amanullah had been to Turkey and was greatly impressed by the reforms undertaken by its ruler Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In his turn, Ataturk had been influenced by Europe. Since Turkey was a Muslim majority state, Amanullah felt he could apply Turkey’s experiences to Afghanistan. Like Ataturk, who banned the traditional fez topi in Turkey, Amanullah too banned the traditional Afghan shalwar and insisted that all men wear the dereshi (derived from the English word ‘dress’) – hat, tie and trousers.

He also strove to diminish the influence of religious leaders in the Afghan military. Mujtaba Ali ponders over and reacts to these reforms. On the law enforcing dereshi, he writes: 

I was incapable of describing the dereshis worn by the people on the streets. Kabul city teemed with men wearing all manner of torn, dirty, oversized and small jackets, trousers, plus-fours and breeches… the Europeans were out to see the fun. I was so ashamed to witness that; I had never considered Afghanistan a foreign country.

The new policies for women and the myriad reactions to them were also captured by the writer with poignancy. Amanullah established schools for girls and sent them to study medicine in Turkey. In Kabul, about 2000 girls had started attending schools wearing the burqa where they even started playing basketball and volleyball. Mujtaba Ali’s friend Saiful Alam remarks: “I don’t mind if they don’t learn anything; at least they have come out of the closed confines of the harem into the open air and are running around joyfully. Isn’t that enough?”

Amanullah’s wife, Queen Soraya, was the driving force behind the education of girls in Afghanistan. King Amanullah’s mother is also described as a strong character who helped him come to power through her machinations. However, many women in Kabul chose to stay behind the veil.

When Amanullah gave Afghan women the choice to leave the burqa, Mir Aslam, another friend of Mujtaba Ali, recounts a conversation with his wife: “I told my wife, ‘This is your chance to go out with kohl in your eyes and make a round of the streets of Kabul without the veil.’ But brother, you wouldn’t believe it! She threw the big metal pot at me.”

In response, Mujtaba Ali says: “Amanullah has done the right thing by cutting the shackles. A wife is to be tied down with love and heart.”

His friend counters: “The purpose of the heart and love is a matter for the youth. Can a sixty-year-old tie a sixteen-year-old with his love and his heart? For them there’s only the nikahnamah the burqa and the tail of the turban.”

Afroz observes, “What Mujtaba Ali does not mention is that Amanullah wrote a constitution for Afghanistan in 1923. It was an eight-page written document and is considered one of the best written constitutions. It provided for equal rights for minorities and women. Education was mentioned as a fundamental right.”

When Bacha-e-Saqao invaded Kabul, the religious leaders saw their opportunity, denounced Amanullah as ‘kafir’ and gave Bacha the crown. In Deshe Bideshe, Mujtaba Ali voices doubts about the part played by the British in the insurrection against Amanullah. He also points out that when Bacha-e-Saqao and his men attacked Kabul the British legation was left unharmed. Intrigued by similar other observations, Afroz explored the matter further. As a part of his research, Afroz accessed the telegrams sent by Humphrys in Kabul to Whitehall and noted that the British were evidently unhappy with King Amanullah getting close to the newly-formed USSR and accepting military assistance from them.

In the telegram sent on 14 January 1929 to London where Humphrys writes:  “I am taking special precaution tonight. The Hazrat Sahib of Shor Bazaar and Muhammad Usman Khan, ex-Governor of Kandahar… have sent me a message that they will remain to protect us against chance thieves on a night when excesses may be expected.”

This leads Afroz to the logical question: why would the rebels take personal charge to save the British legation, who were the sworn enemies of the Afghans just a decade before.

This and other telegrams, coupled with Mujtaba Ali’s doubts about Bacha-e-Saqao’s easy entry into Kabul, make Afroz conclude:  “It only deepens the doubt of a possible British role in the rebellion through some of the important religious leaders who were instrumental in inciting the tribes against King Amanullah.”

Besides unravelling history, one more challenge for Afroz was to retain Mujtaba Ali’s linguistic style and keep the wit intact during the translation. Retaining the Afghan and Bengali flavours too proved to be quite a task.

In a writing career spanning almost a quarter of a century, Mujtaba Ali wrote novels and short stories till his death in 1974. His works continue to be widely read and translated. Even as In a Land far From Home – A Bengali in Afghanistan has been published, a collection of his short stories titled Chacha Kahini, based on his time in Germany, is in the process of being translated. While translations of his ramya rachana (anecdotal story-telling) are bound to attract book-lovers, academics and researchers stand to benefit from them too.

~Urvashi Sarkar is a freelance journalist and currently works in the development sector. She can be found on Twitter @storyandworse