During the 1920 Mussoorie conference between Sir Henry Dobbs, the British Chief Representative, and Mehmud Tarzi, the Afghan Foreign Minister and its team, the issue of Hazaras enlisting in the British Army was heavily debated. The terms and conditions of Afghan independence were a subject of debate between the two parties.
There were several hundred Hazaras enlisted in the Indian Army in British Baluchistan. They were mainly enlisted in the 124th and 126th Baluchistan Infantry. Later on, these Hazaras were brought under the banner of the 106th Hazara Pioneers, raised in 1904 and disbanded in 1933. Amir Abdur Rahman Khan and Amir Habibullah Khan have both been compliant on several occasions with the Indian Government over enlisting Hazaras in the Indian Army. Hazara fled to neighbouring countries like India, Persia, and Russia after the 1891–93 war of independence. Hazaras were enlisted in the said countries’ armed forces, respectively. Afghans have always shown anxiety over the Hazaras’ enlistment in this country as Afghan subjects. This issue was also raised during the Mussoorie conference in 1920, where Afghan and British delegates led by Mehmud Tarzi (the Afghan Foreign Minister) and Sir Henry Dobbs (the Chief British Representatives) eventually reached a treaty, and Afghanistan gained independence from British influence. It is worth mentioning Hazara issues raised by Afghan delegates during the conference held at the Savoy Hotel on June 24th, 1920. The Hazara issues came up while frontier affairs were under discussion, and Afghan representatives accused the British government of instigating the Afghan tribes, the Mangals, the Mohmands of Lalpura, the Hazaras, and others, against the Amir. Discussion goes as below:
Nazir of Commerce. -You enlist our Hazaras in your army.
Mr. Dobbs. -Then, with regard to Hazara regiments and your allegations that we intrigue among the Hazaras against you, you know that for about 15 years we have been recruiting Hazaras quite openly. I think there was a good deal of correspondence with the late Amir Abdur Rahman about it.
Sardar-i-Ala. (Mehmud Tarzi, Afghan Foreign Minister)-What was the nature of the discussions about the enlistment of Hazaras with the late Amir?
Mr. Dobbs. -The Hazaras have for many years come into India for work and a great many of them fled to this country and became domiciled there when the late Amir Abdur Rahman suppressed
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the Hazara rebellion.The great number of the Hazara sepoys are recruited from those people.
We have, I think, had some fresh recruits from the Hazara country but not many.
Sardar-i-Ala. – This also (recruiting from our country) is a kind of intrigue and instigation. It damages us. All this causes trouble and is not proper on your side in times of peace when no such irritation should be caused by one side to the other.
Mr. Dobbs. -One of my Kafilabashi, who was with me when I was travelling in Afghanistan, I remember told me that he had brought down hundreds of Hazara women after the rebellion and sold them to people in India for a rupees a head. Immense numbers of Hazaras fled to India in those days. We did not invite them. It was from these refugees that the bulk of our Hazaras were recruited.
Sardar-i-Ala.-Such things, e.g., enslavement, &c. have happened in even civilised countries, but improvement goes on gradually. Since the present Amir came to the throne he has issued orders for the freedom of household slaves from Kafiristan even to the extent of sending those from the Haramsarai back to Kafiristan. He has also given orders for the liberal treatment of the Hazaras. Our attitude towards them is now quite different. One result of this improvement is that we now find ourselves face to face at this table. Towards Meshed there are Hazaras and Jamshedis. You have been exercising influence over these and estranging them from us.
Mr. Dobbs. -You mean we encourage them to come to Meshed?
Abdul Hadi. -Yes, your people there try to persuade them to leave Afghanistan and settle in Persia.
Mr. Dobbs. -A number of Hazaras have in the past migrated to Persia from Afghanistan and we have quite lately enlisted a number of them in the Persian Frontier Levies.
Sardar-i-Ala.-I know many Hazaras have taken refuge in Persia.
Mr. Dobbs. -You know that there are many robbers on the Perso-Afghan frontier. These Hazara refugees were enlisted together with a number of Persian tribesmen to keep the peace.
Colonel Pir Muhammad. -We have letters showing you have invited these people. That is a different thing to their going of their own accord.
Abdul Hadi Khan. -One day while we were sitting at the Foreign Office in Kabul a Hazara brought an apple and offered it to me. The way in which he offered it to me boldly made me suspicious. I did not know how he had arrived there, so I ordered him to be arrested and searched and we found many incriminating documents on his person.
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Mr. Dobbs. -Documents from the British?
Abdul Hadi Khan. -They were documents certifying to his trustworthiness and respectability from other Hazaras in British employ and not from the British.
Mr. Dobbs. -There was also something said just now about our intrigues with Jamshedis.
Sardar-i-Ala.-Did you not before the war intrigue with the Hazaras and Jamshedis, Meshed way, outside our borders?
Mr. Dobbs. -A great number of people were at one time employed by the British in Central Asia to bring us news of the doings of the Bolshevists. We may have employed Jamshedis and Hazaras amongst them. I do not know about all the people who were employed. It is quite likely that the British may have employed Jamshedis and Hazaras in carrying messages into Central Asia and Trans-Caspian, but these people were employed against the Bolshevists and not against Afghanistan.
Sardar-i-Ala.-I am referring to a time long before the Bolshevist question. The Jamshedis who had fled from Afghanistan during Abdur Rahman’s time showed signs of a desire to return to their country during the European war, but just then the Hazaras developed a violent quarrel with the Jamshedis.
Mr. Dobbs. -But the only Hazaras in contact with the Jamshedis are the Hazaras of Kala-i-Nau. They are very small tribe, and too weak to trouble the Jamshedis. They are Sunni in religion and quite a different tribe from the Hazaras of Hazarajat, who are hundreds of miles distant from the Jamshedis. I think there must have been some confusion in your news. I know about the Jamshedis. They showed themselves to be partisans of the Russians in 1885 at the time of Panjdeh business. Many of them fled to Russian territory at that time. The Amir Abdur Rahman arrested their chief and kept him prisoner in Kabul until he died; and the greater part of the tribe was by his orders removed from Russian frontier round Bala Murghab and that neighbourhood and kept in the interior of the Herat Province. Then about 1904, when I was up there, they were allowed to return to their own land on the frontier, and shortly afterwards, about 1908, they fled over into Russian territory. The late Amir was very much concerned about it and there was a good deal of correspondence between the British and Russian Governments. Some of them returned after that. But I understand many are still refugees in Russian territory and are troubling the Herat authorities. Now let me hear what the allegation against us is. Do you say that we instigated from Meshed the Hazaras of Kala-i-Nau, north of Herat, to make trouble between the Afghans and the Jamshedis?
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Sardar-i-Ala.-I suspect that the British from Meshed incited the Hazaras to prevent the Jamshedis from returning. I have this from reliable sources. (Gulzari, 2018, pp.131-133).
By: Mohammed J Gulzari
SOURCE:
The above information has extracted from the book:
The Hazara persecution during the Reign of Amir Abdurrahman Khan (1880-1901) Vol. 1.
These works are in three volumes.
- The Hazara persecution during the Reign of Amir Abdurrahman Khan (1880-1901) Vol. 1.
- The Hazara persecution during the Reign of Amir Habibullah Khan (1901-1918) Vol. 2.
- The Hazara War: In the Eyes of the British Newspapers and Timeline of the War (1880-1900). Vol. 3.
