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The Bazaar, the State, and the Struggle for Public Opinion in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2020

ALI KARIMI
ALI KARIMI*
Affiliation:
McGill [email protected]
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Abstract

Public opinion is formed by the information that the public consumes. The state, whether democratic or authoritarian, employs various media of communication to influence people's opinions and behaviours. In the nineteenth century, Afghan rulers would traditionally use force and religion to gain popular support and strengthen their authority. In the second half of the century, they started to use print technology to build their relationships with the public. The state's print, however, had to compete with the institution of the bazaar that had long served as the central place where information circulated in public. This article, drawing mostly on unexamined Afghan sources, offers an account of how the bazaar operated as a source of information and how the Afghan state tried to suppress it. The history of this information conflict uncovers new aspects in the troublesome relationship between the government and the governed in Afghanistan.

Keywords

Print technologystate control in 19th Century Afghanistantaghallub
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 613 - 633
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2020

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References

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29 Nasser Rabbat, ‘The Arab Revolution Takes Back the Public Space’, Critical Inquiry 39, 1 (2012), pp. 198–199. In Afghanistan, too, one historian suggests, mosques served as sites of exchanging news. Ahang, ‘The Background and Beginning of the Afghan Press System’, p. 71.

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34 Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan to Governor Saʿd al-Din Khan of Herat, Shawwal 1310/April-May 1893, NAA, Farman, No. 4627/80.

35 Faraydun Azhand, ‘Inja Ruznamah ast Khabar-hay-i sar-i Chawk’, Hasht-i Subh, 9 Jaddi 1989/30 December 2010, http://bit.ly/2cxNiXf (accessed 20 December 2019). The expression in Persian: “khabar-hāy-i sar-i chawk”. The word Chawk is Urdu for the town square. There is even a made-for-TV Afghan film called News from the Chawk (dir. Bahram Baryal), where the protagonist is a gossip-monger with the catchphrase “I'm not saying it, news from the Chawk is saying it”, using the Chawk as a stamp of credibility. The film, starring Nabi Tanha, was produced sometime after 2002 by Afghan state television.

36 Ingar, 11 Hamal 1330/1 April 1951, p. 4; Ingar, 14 Hamal 1330/4 April 1951, p. 4.

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41 Ali, In a Land far from Home, p. 118. For recent anthropological studies on the Afghan bazaar, see Coburn, Noah, Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town (Stanford, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Marsden, Magnus, Trading Worlds: Afghan Merchants across Modern Frontiers (Oxford, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 A Nobel laureate economist has recently (2019) published a book on the role of stories and how they shape market events, such as recessions, even in a data-obsessed capitalist society such as the US. See Shiller, Robert J., Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events (Princeton, 2019), pp. 111–113Google Scholar.

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44 Kandahar Newsletters for the Year 1883 (Quetta, 1990), i, p. 51.

45 On print culture in Afghanistan see, Green, Nile and Arbabzadah, Nushin (eds.), Afghanistan in Ink: Literature between Diaspora and Nation (New York, 2013)Google Scholar; Green, Nile (ed.), Afghan History through Afghan Eyes (London, 2015)Google Scholar; Green, Nile, ‘The Trans-Border Traffic of Afghan Modernism: Afghanistan and the Indian “Urdusphere”’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 53, 3 (2011), pp. 479–508CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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48 Qandahari, Guzarish-i Sifarat-i Kabul, pp. 38–42.

49 SN, 15 Ramazan 1290/6 November 1873, p. 14.

50 Noelle, Christine, ‘The Anti-Wahhab? Reaction in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan’, The Muslim World 85, 1–2 (1995), pp. 25, 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman, too, published a book, Taqvim al-Din (1888), with a chapter on refuting Wahhabism, for the same reason. See Noelle, ‘The Anti-Wahhab?’, pp. 25, 48.

51 SN, 15 Ramazan 1290/6 November 1873, p. 16.

52 SN, 1 Shawwal 1290/22 November 1873, pp. 9–10.

53 Ibid., p. 18.

54 His famous story, ‘The Man who would be King’, is partly based on an American who visited Afghanistan in the 1830s. See Macintyre, Ben, The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (New York, 2004), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

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57 SN, 15 Muharram 1291/5 March 1874, p. 16.

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64 Hensman, The Afghan War, p. 226. See also, pp. 294–295.

65 Ibid., p. 272.

66 Fayz Muhammad Katib Hazara, Siraj al-Tawarikh (ST, hereafter) (Tehran, 1391/2012), i and ii, pp. 414–415. A similar instance is reported in Durrani, Sultan Muhammad Khan, Tarikh-i Sultani (Bombay, 1298/1881), pp. 258–259Google Scholar.

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69 The original poem in Persian: “Sikkah zad bar sim va zar, ravshan-tar az khurshid va mah / nur-i chashm-i durr-i durran, Shah Shujaʿ al-Mulk Shah”. The parody in Persian: “Sikkah bar sim va tala zad Shah Shujaʿ-i Armani / Nur-i chashm-i Lard va Birnis, khak-i pay-i Kampani”. See Durrani, Tarikh-i Sultani, p. 273.

70 On Macnaghten's death, see Dalrymple, Return of a King, pp. 351–354.

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73 Dey, The Life and Career of Major Sir Louis Cavagnari, p. 126.

74 The poem in the original Persian: “Mikunam divanagi ta bar saram ghawgha shavad / Sikkah bar zar mizanam ta sahibash payda shavad”. See Kuhzad, ʿAli Ahmad, Maskukat-i Afghanistan dar ʿAsr-i Islam (Kabul, 1316/1937), p. 20Google Scholar.

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79 Great Britain Parliament, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (London, 1881), cclx, pp. 1863–1864.

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81 Ibid., p. 136.

82 Great Britain Parliament, Précis of Official Papers: Session 1880-1881 (London, 1880), p. 304.

83 L'Univers illustré, 21 February 1880, cover.

84 Great Britain Parliament, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (London, 1880), ccl, pp. 579–580. In his letter to Parliament, General Roberts confirmed the burning of dead bodies but assured lawmakers that reports of the shooting of prisoners, with few exceptions, were not true. A journalist in Kabul, however, revealed that the practice was far more common. In one instance, he reported that the army caught five prisoners who were “shot without further parley”. The author then offered more details on the practice: “It is only by such severity, and by taking no prisoners in action, than any impression can be made upon the Afghan mind. Such prisoners as are brought in are tried by a military commission, and the great majority are shot. There is just a fear that too much leniency may be shown, as the work is rather distasteful to British officers; but as we are an ‘avenging army’, scruples must be cast aside.” See Hensman, The Afghan War, p. 49. See also, Great Britain Parliament, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, cclx, pp. 1863–1864.

85 ‘The Occupation of Afghanistan’, Times, 15 December 1879, p. 10.

86 The report is reprinted in Dey, The Life and Career of Major Sir Louis Cavagnari, pp. 166–167. Although the British were not very interested in converting Afghans into Christians, they had translated the Bible into Pashto and some copies had reached Afghanistan. It would be safe, therefore, to assume the bazaar news about the “boxes of bible” was a rumour inspired by a fact. For Pashto Bibles see Gregorian, Vartan, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946 (Stanford, 1969), pp. 68–69Google Scholar.

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89 Hensman, The Afghan War, p. 425.

90 In the following two books, published under the name of the Amir himself, the author encouraged people to obey the Amir and support him in his many holy wars: Khan, Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman, Kalimat-i amir al-Bilad fi al-Targhib ila al-Jihad (Kabul, 1304/1887)Google Scholar; Khan, Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman, Nasayih Namchah (Kabul, 1303/1886)Google Scholar.

91 Kandahar Newsletters, i, p. 2.

92 ST (Tehran, 1391/2012), iii (part one), pp. 627–628.

93 Kandahar Newsletters, i, p. 6.

94 Ibid., i, p. 100. On ʿAbd al-Rahman's manipulation of bazaar news, also see Ahang, Muhammad Asif, Yad-dasht-ha va Bardasht-hay-i az Kabul-i Qadim (Peshawar, 1383/2004), p. 214Google Scholar.

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97 Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan to Governor Saʿd al-Din Khan of Herat, 26 Zi al-Qaʿda 1314/28 April 1897, NAA, Farman, No. 4631/146.

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99 ST (Tehran, 1391/2012), iii (part two), p. 589.

100 Amir ʿAbd al-Rahman Khan to Sardar Habib Allah Khan, 24 Safar 1306/30 October 1888, NAA, Farman, No: 2393/16-17.

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