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Elphinstone in South Asia: Pioneer of British Colonial Rule Shah Mahmoud Hanif, ed. Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia: Pioneer of British Colonial Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Illustrations. 424 pp. $60.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-091440-0. Reviewed by Amar Farooqui (University of Delhi) Published on H-Asia (August, 2020) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Elphinstone in South Asia Mountstuart Elphinstone belonged to the “first Hanifi has brought together fourteen essays generation” of colonial administrators who played on the broad theme of Elphinstone and his era. Al‐ an important role in British imperial expansion most ten of these focus on the Kingdom of Caubul and consolidation in India in the early nineteenth and its afterlife. Two contributions deal with the century. During the latter phase of his career, he Bombay presidency and the history of the was instrumental in bringing about the downfall Marathas. Lynn Zastoupil’s essay is a reappraisal of the Maratha ruler Baji Rao II and ensuring colo‐ of some of the educational initiatives of Elphin‐ nial ascendancy in western India. This is the role stone in western India. He argues that the impact for which he is better known. There is a brief of Romantic trends in German thought and Scot‐ episode that belongs to the earlier phase of his ca‐ tish cultural nationalism on his ideas might per‐ reer—an errand that took him to Peshawar to seek haps explain the benign nature of his endeavors in an audience with Shah Shuja. One outcome of the this field. It would have been worthwhile to have trip was his first major published work, An Account considered the long-term implications that his of the Kingdom of Caubul (1815), which was to es‐ stress on cultural nationalism had on the articula‐ tablish his reputation as a serious observer of ori‐ tion of nationalist ideologies in Maharashtra. ental societies. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi notes that Spencer Leonard brings out the contradictions in‐ this work “has received far less scholarly attention herent in James Grant Duff’s “historiographical and interrogation” than many of the “other textu‐ enterprise,” History of the Mahrattas (1826), which al products of his [East India] Company service in failed “not because the work was frankly liberal ... India” (p. 5). but because it was insufficiently so” since it could H-Net Reviews not have possibly criticized the policies of the East sions, which, though ostensibly of a diplomatic India Company (EIC) (p. 201). character, were meant to gather information The revival, since the 1970s, of interest in El‐ about the lands to which the respective missions phinstone’s account of the Kabul kingdom, its an‐ were dispatched. Elphinstone was sent to the thropological aspects in particular, reflected West‐ “Kingdom of Kabul (Caubul),” Charles Metcalfe to ern political concerns about the leftward shift in Panjab, and John Malcolm to Iran (on his third Afghanistan. Louis Dupree, “the leading American mission to the Qajar court). In the words of Victor authority on Afghanistan during the Cold War,” Kiernan, “Men who had been in India longer than commented around that time that “writers on Lord Minto (governor-general, 1807-10) may have Afghanistan have either copied Elphinstone or guessed that sending out diplomats would lead to copied those who have copied Elphinstone” (p. 8). sending out armies.”[1] We may well lament this state of affairs in Western It is well known that colonial ethnographic scholarship on a country that has known few mo‐ classifications played havoc with the societies on ments of peace in the past two centuries and that which these were imposed. Thus, “Afghan” became is allegedly unable to escape ethnic strife. Timothy an umbrella term for the diverse ethnic groups in‐ Nunan’s incisive “The Soviet Elphinstone” makes habiting the truncated Durrani kingdom, which out a strong case for using the valuable insights of was labeled “Afghaunistaun”/Afghanistan. This ap‐ Soviet scholarship which showed an awareness pellation has survived. Mahmoud Hanifi, Jamil that “state power in Afghanistan can only be un‐ Hanifi, Jonathan Lee, and Elisabeth Leake have in derstood imperfectly through the lens of ethnicity” their essays underlined the problem of extending (p. 297). the term to denote inhabitants of the entire king‐ As the EIC settled down to govern territories it dom. After all, Elphistone’s own familiarity was had conquered in eastern and southern India it confined to southeastern Afghanistan. Additional‐ harnessed the energies of young civil and military ly, the Afghan-Pathan elision, which Lease draws officials to put in place a mechanism to gather and attention to, remains an unresolved question for process information that would allow it to com‐ various reasons. prehend the society it was claiming to govern. The We need to make a distinction between west‐ emergence of the company as a major, if not yet ern and eastern Afghans. The latter were/are fre‐ the preeminent, power in the subcontinent after quently referred to as Pathans. In late colonial the final defeat of Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore in classification, Pathans were subdivided into high‐ 1799, propelled its aggressive expansionist drive in land Pathans of the inaccessible (and presumably the subsequent decades. A necessary precondition ungovernable) Sulaiman Mountains and Pathans for furthering its agenda was the acquisition of ad‐ of Peshawar and its countryside. The problem of equate knowledge of regions in the vicinity of the nomenclature was further compounded by the de‐ EIC’s domain, especially to gauge their vulnerabili‐ mand, after 1947, for a separate “Pakhtunistan,” ty. Following the establishment of British authority which would be the homeland of the Pashto-speak‐ over Delhi and its environs in 1803, the city could ing eastern Afghans, living east of the Durand Line. be used as an intelligence outpost. This is when the It should be borne in mind that Peshawar, the win‐ systematic flow of information about Panjab and ter capital of the Kabul kingdom, was lost to the the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent Sikh kingdom ruled by Ranjit Singh, and would commenced. Exaggerated fears of a possible never again be part of Afghanistan. French (or even Russian) foray into this quarter Elphinstone’s references to Ahmad Shah Dur‐ provided the pretext for launching full-fledged mis‐ rani’s diwan (collected poems) comprising his 2 H-Net Reviews Pashto verses were intended to highlight the im‐ in Kingdom of Caubul, remarks that “virtually all portance of the language as a marker of Afghan the ethnographic information received by Elphin‐ identity as symbolized by the Durrani rulers. On stone was through Persian linguistic filters” (p. 56). the other hand, the archival material that formed Incidentally, Shah Shuja himself did not speak the basis of Kingdom of Caubul, and that has been Pashto. It would have been easy to overlook the consulted by Mahmoud Hanifi, would suggest that older Turco-Mongolian roots of the courtly eti‐ Elphinstone was not entirely convinced of the au‐ quette of the Kabul kingdom. This is the dimension thenticity of the diwan. Colonial officials of the emphasized by Lee: “Ahmad Shah’s administration twentieth century, such as Olaf Caroe, observed and court protocols were all derived from previous that “many Durranis do not even speak or under‐ Turco-Mongolian models and as late as 1808/9 stand Pashto” (p. 316). In all fairness to Elphin‐ most of Shah Shuja’s officials still bore the same stone, given his extremely superficial interaction Turkic titles used in the Mughal, Safavid and with Shah Shuja’s courtiers, most of whom were Bukharan courts” (p. 79). pursuing the interests of their own factions in rep‐ Other officers, contemporaries or near-con‐ resenting or misrepresenting the kingdom to the temporaries of Elphinstone, who provided the ear‐ British, the ambiguities of the two labels, Afghan liest concrete inputs to the EIC about Afghan lands and Pathan, should not surprise us. and the northwestern areas of the Indian subcon‐ Lee’s essay explores the largely ignored Turkic tinent also have essays devoted to aspects of their elements of the Durrani state. He traces these to careers: George Forster and Charles Masson (by the historical connections that the Durrani (the Senzil Nawid), Charles Metcalfe (by Robert name adopted by Ahmad Shah for his tribe, Abdali) Nichols), and Henry Pottinger (by Brian Spooner). had with the Safavid dynasty of Iran. The rise of The volume presents an opportunity for a sober re‐ the Saddozai clan, to which Ahmad Shah belonged, flection on the historical legacies of Elphinstone to preeminence may be attributed to this connec‐ and his fellow travelers. tion. Even more relevant is the place occupied by Note the Shi‘a Qizilbash in the Durrani state: the Qizil‐ [1]. Victor Kiernan, Metcalfe’s Mission to La‐ bash were of Turkic origin. They were the mainstay hore, 1808-1809 (1943; repr., Patiala: Languages De‐ of its military power and also constituted the core partment—Punjab, 1971), 6. of its bureaucratic apparatus. The sidelining of Durrani chiefs and the appointment of Abu’l Hasan Khan Qizilbash (referred to as Meer Abool Hussun Khaun) as mehmandar (official deputed to attend on a guest) to the Elphinstone mission re‐ sulted in much resentment. This was a very high honor, and the nuances of the factional tussles it caused were not grasped by members of the dele‐ gation. Elphinstone mistook the Qizilbash to be “Per‐ sians.” The confusion is likely to have resulted from the Persian influences that he discerned in his conversations with Shah Shuja’s entourage. Jamil Hanifi, whose essay looks at how these influ‐ ences shaped the ethnographic material available 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-asia Citation: Amar Farooqui.
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