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Download Thesis This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Imagining Afghanistan British Foreign Policy and the Afghan Polity, 18081878 Bayly, Martin Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 This electronic theses or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Title: Imagining Afghanistan: British Foreign Policy and the Afghan Polity, 1808‐1878 Author: Martin Bayly The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ You are free to: Share: to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Imagining Afghanistan: British Foreign Policy and the Afghan Polity, 1808-1878 Martin J. Bayly Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in International Relations Department of War Studies, King’s College London Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgements............................................................................................................5 Note on Transliterations and Archival References .................................................8 Glossary............................................................................................................................... 10 Chapter One ......................................................................................................................13 Introduction......................................................................................................................13 Imagining Afghanistan: The Lasting Influence of Image, Narrative, and Myth..18 Beyond the ‘Great Game’: Recovering Afghanistan’s Imperial Encounter...........21 Relocating the History.................................................................................................................28 Disciplinary Importance: International Relations, Imperial History and Afghanistan......................................................................................................................................36 Methods and Approaches: An Agnostic Constructivism ..............................................41 KnoWledge........................................................................................................................................43 Policy ..................................................................................................................................................47 Exception ..........................................................................................................................................48 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................50 Chapter Two......................................................................................................................51 Early European Explorers and the Afghanistan Knowledge Community ....51 Part One: Early European Explorers of Afghanistan............................................ 54 Approaches to Colonial KnoWledge ......................................................................................54 The Cultural World of Early Afghanistan Explorers ......................................................57 Intellectual Worlds.......................................................................................................................66 Practical Worlds ............................................................................................................................69 Conclusion: A Knowledge Community?...............................................................................74 Part Two: Knowledge Entrepreneurs ....................................................................... 76 Mountstuart Elphinstone and The ‘Elphinstonian Episteme’....................................76 AleXander Burnes..........................................................................................................................93 Charles Masson ...........................................................................................................................104 Conclusion: ConteXtualizing Early European EXplorers and the Afghanistan ‘KnoWledge Community’.........................................................................................................114 Chapter Three ............................................................................................................... 117 Afghanistan as a Policy Problem: Towards the First Anglo-Afghan War .. 117 Anatomy of a Policy Making Process: The Institutional ConteXt...........................122 The Narrative Form of the Russian Menace ...................................................................125 A Strategy of Influence: Trade and Commerce..............................................................132 Prelude to an Intervention: Shah Shuja and the 1834 Expedition........................138 The Ascendency of Dost Muhammad Khan ....................................................................145 British Perceptions....................................................................................................................148 Policy and Territory: Imagining Afghanistan as a Territorial Unit.......................150 Policy Closure at Simla: The Policy Instantiation of the ‘Idea’ of Afghanistan 163 Conclusion: Afghanistan as a Policy Problem................................................................173 2 Chapter Four.................................................................................................................. 175 The Era of Exception: Anglo-Afghan Relations After the First Anglo- Afghan War..................................................................................................................... 175 Part One - Anglo-Afghan Relations During the Second Reign of Dost Muhammad Khan...........................................................................................................180 The First Anglo-Afghan War and its Aftermath ............................................................180 The Emergence of a Violent Geography ...........................................................................187 Great PoWer Management and Regional Diplomacy ..................................................190 ‘Sullen quiescence’: Anglo-Afghan Relations 1842-52...............................................199 Overcoming EXception 1853-1857.....................................................................................207 Non-Intervention and the BelleW and Lumsden Mission 1857 .............................215 Conclusion: Part I - Anglo-Afghan Relations During the Second Reign of Dost Muhammad Khan.......................................................................................................................222 Part II - The Era of Frontier Management: Towards the Second Anglo-Afghan War, 1857-1878..............................................................................................................224 Sentiment and ‘Science’: The Frontier State of Mind..................................................224 British Frontier Policy During the Afghan Civil War ..................................................231 The Frontier Debate Takes Off, 1874-78
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