It will be interesting what stand future govts. in afghanistan take on this issue. as far as i know, taliban do not accept durand line.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Focus on Durand Line
Brig. (Retd) A.R. Siddiqi
The Durand Line is, once again, in the limelight. It remains a subject of detailed discussions at high level meetings in Islamabad. The need for greater vigilance on the border with Afghanistan is stressed to prevent the illegal cross-border movement of goods and people. Islamabad plans to 'impress upon' the Taliban the urgent need and importance of effective measures against the fresh influx of Afghan refugees through the 'porous' Durand Line.
Last week (January 11) the Area Study Centre for Central Asia and Russia of the Peshawar University organised a colloquium for a scholarly discussion of the geostrategic importance of the Durand Line. The various presentations made revolved round a definitive study of the Durand Line, its history and role, as a 'razor edge' frontier by Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan, the centre's director.
Dr. Azmat Hayat quotes Lord Curzon to differentiate between an established international border and a frontier, or a frontier state. 'Frontiers,' said Lord Curzon, 'are indeed the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life and death to the nations'. The western frontier of Pakistan, comments Azmat, is indeed a 'razor's edge,' frontier on which hangs the future of Southern Asia. And Afghanistan stays as the hub or the pivotal country, west of the Durand Line, of South-Asian peace, in its all-embracing continental context. The British realised that, and, through a judicious blend of war and peace, threat and persuasion, manipulation of dynastic and tribal rivalries, above all outright bribery, drew Afghanistan firmly into their strategic dragnet.
Surprisingly, and, no less painfully, the Durand Line, which should have been a frontier of peace and tranquility between the two fraternal Islamic neighbours, turned into a zone of conflict and confrontation. The Afghan monarchy challenged the relevance and status of the Durand Line after the British left India. The Afghan challenge to the continuing relevance of the Durand Line was rooted mainly in their reduced one-party (ex parte) perception of the Line after the disappearance of the British. That left Afghanistan as the only other signatory to the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1893 to end its bilateral status.
Named after its principal author, Sir Mortimar Durand, the Line was drawn on November 12, 1893 and demarcated on the ground through the next three or four years. It was ratified and confirmed by the successive Afghan governments and has since stayed as the established boundary between British India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan.
The Line begins at the Sarikol range of the Pamirs in the north, and runs south-west all the way up to the Iranian border in the rocky area of Kohi Malik Siah, the inhospitable desert regions beyond the Helmand river.
Azmat projects the Durand Line as a major strand in the intricate web of moves and countermoves in the Anglo-Russian Great Game through the second half of the 19th century. In his own words: 'The history of the 19th century is consequently a history of moves and countermoves on the part of Russia and British which finally resulted in the emergence of Afghanistan as a buffer state in the demarcation of frontiers'.
More than a buffer state or a terminus between British India (subsequently Pakistan) and Czarist Russia (subsequently the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation) Afghanistan was first exposed to creeping communist infiltration followed by naked military aggression in December 1979. The resulting nine-year long war and military occupation led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the entrapment of Afghanistan in the on-going bitter civil war.
The Durand Agreement of 1893 was reaffirmed by the Anglo-Afghan treaties of August 1919, November 22, 1927 and of 1930. Professor Rizvi in his Frontiers of Pakistan throws much useful light on the unquestionable legal status of the Durand Line. He goes on to quote Sir Olaf Caroe to the effect that these two documents 'only recognised the legitimate Afghan interest in British dealings with the tribes on the common frontier', and did not say a word about the Afghans' rights on the British side of the Durand Line. (Sir Olaf Caroe in his article 'North West Frontier: A Bone of Contention' — The London Times, February 1, 1968)
The Government of India Act 1935, formally defined India as including the area known as Tribal Territory, in accordance with its delineation on official maps. With the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to Pakistan the res transit cum suo oneri treaties of the extinct state concerning boundary lines...remain valid and all rights and duties arising from such treaties of the extinct state devolve on the absorbing state.
There had been considerable confusion over the definition of term Pakhtoonistan — whether it meant the creation of an independent Pathan state within or outside Pakistan as a part of Afghanistan or involved a mere change of name. In Afghanistan itself the matter aroused a considerable amount of controversy even at the official level. On June 13, 1948, Shah Wali Khan, the Afghan envoy to Pakistan, at a party in his honour by the Aligarh Old Boys' Association, categorically declared: 'Our King has already stated, and I, as the representative of Afghanistan, declare that Afghanistan has no claims on frontier territory, and even if there were any, they have been given up in favour of Pakistan. Anything contrary to this which may have appeared in the Press in the past or may appear in the future should not be given credence at all and should be considered just a canard.'
About the same time, the official Kabul daily, Anis, supported by Kabul Radio, demanded that the territory between the Durand Line and the Indus River should be amalgamated with Afghanistan. However, writes Rizvi, a statement supporting the views expressed by his Ambassador was soon issued by the Counsellor of the Afghan Embassy in Karachi. This led to an unusual situation in which Kabul Radio challenged the authority of the Afghan envoy to speak for his own government. These contradictions not only created an awkward position for the envoy, but also proved to be detrimental to Pak-Afghan relations.
In July 1949, the Afghan Parliament declared that "it does not recognise the imaginary Durand or any similar Line". Kabul Radio and the Afghan Press intensified their propaganda, inciting the tribesmen living on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line to revolt in the name of 'Pakhtoonistan'.
In Pakistan also the definition of Pakhtoonistan remained as confused and obscure. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the principal exponent of Pakhtoonistan, stated in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1948 that he simply wanted "the renaming of his province as Pakhtoonistan. Like Sindh, Punjab, etc." But on October 2, 1949, while visiting India, he was reported to have expressed confidence that a separate state of 'Pakhtoonistan' comprising north-western areas of Pakistan would soon be formed.
The raging controversy led to a series of grave crises between the two countries including 'severance' of diplomatic relations in 1955 and military operation around Bajaur in 1961. Amusingly enough, the chain of grave crises was relieved by such essentially utopian and patently unworkable ideas about the formation of a triangular Afghan-Pakistan-Iran confederation. It had all along been a somewhat ambivalent relationship torn between two equitable pulls — the Afghan irredentism on one side and Pakistan's quest for strategic depth on the other.
The Durand Line, whether as an inviolable international boundry drawn by an imperialist power, or as a relatively permeable Pak-Afghan frontier, remains as active factor as ever in Central South Asian geopolitics. In fact, its importance, in view of the raging volitality across the Taliban Afghanistan and the instability in the Central Asian Republics, has inestimably increased.
It is here that Russia, Central and South Asia, inclusive of India, would meet to extend its influence right up to Eastern Europe. The road to Vienna and Paris, said Lenin, lay through Afghanistan and Delhi (Islamabad). The formulation is no longer just an empty dream, but a tangibly material prospect waiting to crystalise. How long might it take for the dream to become a reality would depend on how soon the regional players — mainly India and Pakistan on the one hand the CARs and Russia on the other — are able to join forces in joint ventures for collective good and development of their vast resources, abounding in natural gas and oil.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Focus on Durand Line
Brig. (Retd) A.R. Siddiqi
The Durand Line is, once again, in the limelight. It remains a subject of detailed discussions at high level meetings in Islamabad. The need for greater vigilance on the border with Afghanistan is stressed to prevent the illegal cross-border movement of goods and people. Islamabad plans to 'impress upon' the Taliban the urgent need and importance of effective measures against the fresh influx of Afghan refugees through the 'porous' Durand Line.
Last week (January 11) the Area Study Centre for Central Asia and Russia of the Peshawar University organised a colloquium for a scholarly discussion of the geostrategic importance of the Durand Line. The various presentations made revolved round a definitive study of the Durand Line, its history and role, as a 'razor edge' frontier by Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan, the centre's director.
Dr. Azmat Hayat quotes Lord Curzon to differentiate between an established international border and a frontier, or a frontier state. 'Frontiers,' said Lord Curzon, 'are indeed the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life and death to the nations'. The western frontier of Pakistan, comments Azmat, is indeed a 'razor's edge,' frontier on which hangs the future of Southern Asia. And Afghanistan stays as the hub or the pivotal country, west of the Durand Line, of South-Asian peace, in its all-embracing continental context. The British realised that, and, through a judicious blend of war and peace, threat and persuasion, manipulation of dynastic and tribal rivalries, above all outright bribery, drew Afghanistan firmly into their strategic dragnet.
Surprisingly, and, no less painfully, the Durand Line, which should have been a frontier of peace and tranquility between the two fraternal Islamic neighbours, turned into a zone of conflict and confrontation. The Afghan monarchy challenged the relevance and status of the Durand Line after the British left India. The Afghan challenge to the continuing relevance of the Durand Line was rooted mainly in their reduced one-party (ex parte) perception of the Line after the disappearance of the British. That left Afghanistan as the only other signatory to the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1893 to end its bilateral status.
Named after its principal author, Sir Mortimar Durand, the Line was drawn on November 12, 1893 and demarcated on the ground through the next three or four years. It was ratified and confirmed by the successive Afghan governments and has since stayed as the established boundary between British India (now Pakistan) and Afghanistan.
The Line begins at the Sarikol range of the Pamirs in the north, and runs south-west all the way up to the Iranian border in the rocky area of Kohi Malik Siah, the inhospitable desert regions beyond the Helmand river.
Azmat projects the Durand Line as a major strand in the intricate web of moves and countermoves in the Anglo-Russian Great Game through the second half of the 19th century. In his own words: 'The history of the 19th century is consequently a history of moves and countermoves on the part of Russia and British which finally resulted in the emergence of Afghanistan as a buffer state in the demarcation of frontiers'.
More than a buffer state or a terminus between British India (subsequently Pakistan) and Czarist Russia (subsequently the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation) Afghanistan was first exposed to creeping communist infiltration followed by naked military aggression in December 1979. The resulting nine-year long war and military occupation led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the entrapment of Afghanistan in the on-going bitter civil war.
The Durand Agreement of 1893 was reaffirmed by the Anglo-Afghan treaties of August 1919, November 22, 1927 and of 1930. Professor Rizvi in his Frontiers of Pakistan throws much useful light on the unquestionable legal status of the Durand Line. He goes on to quote Sir Olaf Caroe to the effect that these two documents 'only recognised the legitimate Afghan interest in British dealings with the tribes on the common frontier', and did not say a word about the Afghans' rights on the British side of the Durand Line. (Sir Olaf Caroe in his article 'North West Frontier: A Bone of Contention' — The London Times, February 1, 1968)
The Government of India Act 1935, formally defined India as including the area known as Tribal Territory, in accordance with its delineation on official maps. With the transfer of sovereignty from Britain to Pakistan the res transit cum suo oneri treaties of the extinct state concerning boundary lines...remain valid and all rights and duties arising from such treaties of the extinct state devolve on the absorbing state.
There had been considerable confusion over the definition of term Pakhtoonistan — whether it meant the creation of an independent Pathan state within or outside Pakistan as a part of Afghanistan or involved a mere change of name. In Afghanistan itself the matter aroused a considerable amount of controversy even at the official level. On June 13, 1948, Shah Wali Khan, the Afghan envoy to Pakistan, at a party in his honour by the Aligarh Old Boys' Association, categorically declared: 'Our King has already stated, and I, as the representative of Afghanistan, declare that Afghanistan has no claims on frontier territory, and even if there were any, they have been given up in favour of Pakistan. Anything contrary to this which may have appeared in the Press in the past or may appear in the future should not be given credence at all and should be considered just a canard.'
About the same time, the official Kabul daily, Anis, supported by Kabul Radio, demanded that the territory between the Durand Line and the Indus River should be amalgamated with Afghanistan. However, writes Rizvi, a statement supporting the views expressed by his Ambassador was soon issued by the Counsellor of the Afghan Embassy in Karachi. This led to an unusual situation in which Kabul Radio challenged the authority of the Afghan envoy to speak for his own government. These contradictions not only created an awkward position for the envoy, but also proved to be detrimental to Pak-Afghan relations.
In July 1949, the Afghan Parliament declared that "it does not recognise the imaginary Durand or any similar Line". Kabul Radio and the Afghan Press intensified their propaganda, inciting the tribesmen living on the Pakistan side of the Durand Line to revolt in the name of 'Pakhtoonistan'.
In Pakistan also the definition of Pakhtoonistan remained as confused and obscure. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the principal exponent of Pakhtoonistan, stated in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly in 1948 that he simply wanted "the renaming of his province as Pakhtoonistan. Like Sindh, Punjab, etc." But on October 2, 1949, while visiting India, he was reported to have expressed confidence that a separate state of 'Pakhtoonistan' comprising north-western areas of Pakistan would soon be formed.
The raging controversy led to a series of grave crises between the two countries including 'severance' of diplomatic relations in 1955 and military operation around Bajaur in 1961. Amusingly enough, the chain of grave crises was relieved by such essentially utopian and patently unworkable ideas about the formation of a triangular Afghan-Pakistan-Iran confederation. It had all along been a somewhat ambivalent relationship torn between two equitable pulls — the Afghan irredentism on one side and Pakistan's quest for strategic depth on the other.
The Durand Line, whether as an inviolable international boundry drawn by an imperialist power, or as a relatively permeable Pak-Afghan frontier, remains as active factor as ever in Central South Asian geopolitics. In fact, its importance, in view of the raging volitality across the Taliban Afghanistan and the instability in the Central Asian Republics, has inestimably increased.
It is here that Russia, Central and South Asia, inclusive of India, would meet to extend its influence right up to Eastern Europe. The road to Vienna and Paris, said Lenin, lay through Afghanistan and Delhi (Islamabad). The formulation is no longer just an empty dream, but a tangibly material prospect waiting to crystalise. How long might it take for the dream to become a reality would depend on how soon the regional players — mainly India and Pakistan on the one hand the CARs and Russia on the other — are able to join forces in joint ventures for collective good and development of their vast resources, abounding in natural gas and oil.
Comment