King Muhammad Zahir Shah, 1933-73

Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, was a patient man. For 30 of his 40 years on the throne he accepted the tutelege of powerful advisers in the royal family-his uncles for the first 20 years and his cousin, Mohammad Daoud Khan, for another 10 years. Only in the last decade of his reign did Zahir Shah rule as well as reign.

Zahir Shah and his Uncles, 1933-53

Three of the Musahiban brothers were still alive after Nadir Shah's death, and they exercised decisive influence over decisionmaking during the first 20 years of Zahir Shah's reign.

The eldest, Muhammad Hashim, who had been prime minister under the late king, retained that post until 1946, when he was replaced by the youngest of the Musahiban brothers, Shah Mahmud.

Hashim is described by Fraser-Tytler as a statesman of great administrative ability and high personal integrity who devoted all of his energy to his country. In the months immediately following Nadir Shah's assassination, while the tribes remained quiet and the followers of ex-king Amanullah remained disorganized and impotent, Hashim began to put into practice the policies already planned by the Musahiban brothers. Internal objectives of the new Afghan government, up to the outbreak of World War II, were focused on improving the army and developing the economy (including transport and communications). Both goals, however, required external assistance. Seeking to avoid involvement with the Soviet Union and Britain, Hashim turned to a far-off nation that had both the interest and the technical expertise required-Germany. By 1935 the Afghan government had invited German experts and businessmen to help set up factories and build hydroelectric projects. Lesser amounts of aid were also accepted from Italy and Japan, but these two countries did not achieve Germany's level of prominence in Afghanistan's foreign relations. By the beginning of the 1940s Germany was Afghanistan's most important foreign friend.

Afghanistan joined the League of Nations in 1934, the same year that the United States accorded Afghanistan official recognition. Regional ties to nearby Islamic states were reinforced by the conclusion in 1937 of friendship and nonaggression pacts with Turkey and Iran. Although never implemented because World War II intervened, Dupree notes that the pacts laid the groundwork for coordination among the three states in later periods. The relationship with Turkey was especially close.

A few relatively minor uprisings along the Afghan border, including one on behalf of ex-king Amanullah, occurred late in the 1930s, but these were overshadowed by the outbreak of World War II. The king issued a proclamation of Afghan neutrality on August 17, 1940, but the Allies were unhappy with the presence of a large group of German nondiplomatic personnel. In October the British and Soviet governments demanded that Afghanistan expel all nondiplomatic personnel from the Axis nations. The Afghan government considered this an insulting and illegitimate demand, but it undoubtedly found instructive the example of Iran, which Britain and the Soviet Union had invaded and occupied in August 1941 after the Iranian government ignored a similar demand. Zahir Shah and his advisers found a face-saving response, ordering all nondiplomatic personnel from the belligerent countries out of Afghanistan. A Loya Jirgah called by the king at this time supported his policy of absolute neutrality. Although World War II disrupted Afghanistan's incipient foreign relationships and to some extent the government's domestic goals, it also provided larger markets for Afghan agricultural produce (especially in India). By the war's end the government had exchanged official missions with both China and the United States, and the latter had replaced Britain as the major market for Afghanistan's principal export, karakul skins.

Shortly after the end of the war, Shah Mahmud replaced his older brother as prime minister, ushering in a period of great change in both the internal and external politics of Afghanistan. Among other things, the new prime minister presided over the inauguration of the giant Helmand Valley Project (which brought Afghanistan into a closer relationship with the United States) and the beginning of relations with the newly created nation of Pakistan, which inherited the Pashtuns on the side of the Durand Line formerly ruled by Britain. The issue of Pashtunistan (or Pakhtunistan)-agitation for an independent or semi-independent state to include the Pashto and Pakhtu speakers within Pakistan, whether officially joined with Afghanistan or not-would have a resounding impact on Afghanistan politics, as would the political liberalization inaugurated by Shah Mahmud.

The Helmand Valley Project, inaugurated in 1945 with an agreement between the Afghan government and an American company, was designed to harness the irrigation and hydroelectric potential of the Helmand. There were myriad problems with the project, and although parts of it were completed before 1953, it was not until Daoud became prime minister in 1953 that the project began to move toward completion.

The Pashtunistan Issue

In their colonial period, European nations created frontiers throughout Asia and Africa that left legacies of bitterness, and often of war, for the independent nations that emerged from colonial rule. Although it was never colonized, Afghanistan was no exception. The Durand Line had been bitterly resented by Amir Abdur Rahman, and none of his successors gave up the notion of Pashtun unity, even though they cooperated with the British government in other matters. The line dividing the Pashtun people became extremely irksome to the Afghans and the Pakistani government, which inherited the frontier upon the partition of British India in 1947. The fragility of the new nation of Pakistan may have incited the Afghans to reassert the concept of Pashtunistan in 1947.

Although the issue became most vexing at the time of the partition, British policy in the area before 1947 also contributed to the development of the Pashtunistan problem. In 1901 they had created a new administrative area, the NWFP, which they detached from the Punjab, and had divided the new province into Settled Districts and Tribal Agencies, the latter ruled not by the provincial government but by a British political agent who reported directly to Delhi. This separation was reinforced by the fact that the experiments in provincial democracy inaugurated in 1919 were not extended to the NWFP.

In the 1930s Britain extended provincial self-government to the NWFP. By this time the Indian National Congress (Congress), which was largely controlled by Hindus, had extended its activities to the province. The links between the political leaders of the NWFP with the Hindu leaders of Congress was such that a majority in the NWFP cabinet originally voted to go with India in the partition, a decision that might have been rejected by a majority of voters in the province. In July 1947 the British held a referendum in the Settled Districts of the province that offered the population the choice of joining an independent India or a now-inevitable Pakistan. Although local leaders now leaned toward independence, a position officially supported by the Afghan government, this was not an option offered in the vote. Although these leaders advocated a boycott of the referendum, an estimated 56 percent of the eligible voters participated, and of these over 90 percent voted to join Pakistan. In the Tribal Agencies a Loya Jirgah was held. Offered the choice between joining India or Pakistan, the tribes declared their wish for the latter.

Both the Afghan and Indian leaders objected to both procedures, declaring that, because the tribes had the same kind of direct links to the British as the princely states of India, the Pashtun tribes should be treated the same way, i.e., they should be offered a third option of initial independence until they could decide which state to join. The birth, along with India, of the independent nation of Pakistan, accompanied by massive dislocation and bloodshed, was thus further complicated by the agitation for independence or provincial autonomy by a significant minority, and perhaps a majority, of the residents of the NWFP. This issue poisoned relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan for many years. The conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the Pashtunistan issue was manifested not only in bitter denunciations but also by such actions as Afghanistan's casting of the sole negative vote on Pakistan's admission to the United Nations (UN) and Pakistan's meddling with the transit of commodities to its landlocked neighbor.

Although both Afghanistan and Pakistan made conciliatory gestures-including Afghanistan's withdrawal of its negative UN vote and the exchange of ambassadors in February 1948the matter remained unresolved. In June 1949 a Pakistani air force plane bombed a village just across the frontier in one of the government's attempts to suppress tribal uprisings. In response, the Afghan government called into session a Loya Jirgah, which promptly proclaimed that it recognized "neither the imaginary Durand nor any similar Line" and declared void all agreements-From the 1893 Durand agreement onwardrelated to the issue. There was an attempt to set up an independent Pashtun parliament inside the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, which was undoubtedly supported covertly by the Afghan government. Irregular forces led by a local Pashtun leader crossed the border in 1950 and 1951 to back Afghan claims. The Pakistani government did not accept the Afghan government's claim that they had no control over these men, and both nations' ambassadors were withdrawn. Ambassadors were exchanged once again a few months later. In March 1952 the assassination of the Pakistani prime minister by an Afghan citizen living in Pakistan was another irritant in bilateral relations, although the Pakistani government accepted Afghan denials of any involvement on its part.

The Pakistani government, despite its preoccupation with many other problems, adopted from the beginning a very conciliatory attitude toward its Pashtun citizens. The residents of the Tribal Agencies were permitted to retain virtual autonomy, expenditures on health and other services in the NWFP were disproportionately higher than in other areas of the country, and only a few units of a locally recruited Frontier Corps were left in the Tribal Agencies (in contrast with the 48 regular army battalions that had been kept there under British rule). The government also continued to pay subsidies to hundreds of maliks (chiefs or leaders) in the tribal areas. The issue of the international boundary through Pashtun areas was of the greatest possible importance to the policymakers in Kabul, just as it had been in the days of Amir Abdur Rahman. The beginning in recent times of Afghanistan's ties to the Soviet Union grew at least partially from the Pashtunistan and related issues. By the 1950s the United States-which had replaced Britian as the major Western power in the regionhad begun to develop a strong relationship with Pakistan. When in 1950 Pakistan stopped vital transshipments of petroleum to Afghanistan for about three months, presumably to retaliate for the attacks across the border by Afghan tribes, the Afghan government became more interested in offers of aid from the Soviet Union and, in July 1950, signed a major agreement with the Soviet Union.

Early Links with the Soviet Union

Although Afghanistan had established diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in one of its earliest gestures of independence in 1919 and although extensive bilateral trade contacts had come into being by the late 1930s, the cutoff of petroleum by Pakistan over the Pashtunistan issue and the consequent trade agreement between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union were major watersheds in bilateral relations. As Dupree states, the 1950 agreement was far more than a barter agreement to exchange Soviet oil, textiles, and manufactured goods for Afghan wool and cotton; the Soviets offered aid in construction of petroleum storage facilities, oil and gas exploration in northern Afghanistan, and permission for free transit of goods to Afghanistan across Soviet territory. The new relationship was attractive to the Afghans not only because it made it difficult for Pakistan to disrupt the economy with a blockade or a slowdown of transshipped goods but also for a political purpose traditionally dear to Afghan rulers, i.e., it provided a balance to American aid in the Helmand Valley Project. In the years following the 1950 agreement, Soviet-Afghan trade increased sharply, and the Afghan government welcomed a few Soviet technicians and a Soviet trade office.

Experiment with Liberalized Politics

The third major policy focus of the immediate postwar period in Afghanistan was the experiment in political liberalization implemented by Shah Mahmud. Encouraged by young, Western-educated members of the political elite, the prime minister allowed national assembly elections that were distinctly less controlled than ever before, resulting in the "liberal parliament" of 1949. He also relaxed strict press censorship and allowed opposition political groups to come to life. The most important of these groups was Wikh-i-Zalmayan (Awakened Youth), a movement made up of diverse dissident groups founded in Qandahar in 1947. As the new liberal parliament began taking its duties seriously and questioning the king's ministers, students at Kabul University also began to debate political questions. A newly formed student union provided not only a forum for political debate but also produced plays critical of Islam and the monarchy. Newspapers criticized the government, and many groups and individuals began to demand a more open political system.

The liberalization clearly went further than the prime minister had intended. His first reaction was to ride the tide by creating a government party, but when this failed, the government began to crack down on political activity. The Kabul University student union was dissolved in 1951, the newspapers that had criticized the government were closed down, and many of the leaders of the opposition were jailed. The parliament elected in 1952 was a large step backward from the one elected in 1949; the experiment in open politics was over.

The liberal experiment had an important effect on the nation's political future. It provided the breeding ground for the revolutionary movement that would come to power in 1978. Nor Muhammad Taraki, who became president following the 1978 coup d'etat claimed in his official biography to have been the founder of the Wikh-i-Zalmayan and the dissident newspaper, Angar (Burning Embers). Writer Beverley Male notes, however, that the claim appears exaggerated. Babrak Karmal, who became president after the Soviet invasion of December 1979, was active in the Kabul University student union during the liberal period and was imprisoned in 1953 for his political activities. Hafizullah Amin later claimed to have also played a role in the student movement, although his activities were apparently not so noteworthy as to bring about his imprisonment by the government.

The government crackdown in 1951 and 1952 suddenly ended liberalization and alienated many young, reformist Afghans who may have originally hoped only to reform the existing structure rather than radically transform it. As Male suggests, "the disillusionment which accompanied the abrupt termination of the experiment in liberalism was an important factor in the radicalisation of the men who later established the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan."

Daoud as Prime Minister, 1953-63

In the wake of the failed political reforms of the 1949-52 period came a major shakeup within the royal family. FraserTytler notes that since the advent of Nadir Shah to the throne in 1929, Afghanistan had been ruled by the royal family as a united group. By mid-1953, however, the younger members of the royal family (including perhaps the king himself) had challenged the dominance of the king's uncles, and in September 1953 the rift became public when the king's first cousin and brother-in-law, Daoud (son of the third Musahiban brother, Muhammad Aziz, who had been assassinated in Berlin in 1933), became prime minister. The king's uncle, Shah Mahmud, left his post, but he continued to proffer his support and advice to the new leaders. The change occurred peacefully, entirely within-and apparently with the consent of-the royal family.

Prime Minister Daoud was the first of the young, Westerneducated generation of the royal family to wield power in Kabul. If the proponents of the liberal experiment hoped that he would move toward a more open political system, they were disappointed. Daoud was, as Fraser-Tytler puts it, "by temperament and training ...of an authoritarian habit of mind." By all accounts, however, he was a dynamic leader whose accession to power marked major changes in Afghanistan's policies, both domestic and foreign.

Although Daoud was concerned to correct what he perceived as the pro-Western bias of previous governments, his keen interest in modernization manifested itself in continued support of the Helmand Valley project, which was designed to transform life in southwestern Afghanistan. Another area of domestic policy initiative by Daoud included his cautious steps toward emancipation of women. At the fortieth celebration of national independence in 1959, Daoud had the wives of his ministers appear in public unveiled. When religious leaders protested, he challenged them to cite a single verse of the Quran that specifically mandated veiling. When they continued to resist, he jailed them for a week. Daoud also increased control over the tribes, starting with the repression of a tribal war in the contentious Khost area adjacent to Pakistan in September 1959 and the forcible collection of land taxes in Qandahar in December 1959 in the face of antigovernment demonstrations promoted by local religious leaders.

Daoud's social and economic policies within Afghanistan, reformist but cautious, were relatively successful; his foreign policy-which was carried out by his brother, Mohammad Naim-although fruitful in some respects, resulted in severe economic dislocation and, ultimately, his own political eclipse. Two principles guided Daoud's foreign policy: to balance what he regarded as the excessively pro-Western orientation of previous governments by improving relations with the Soviet Union but without sacrificing economic aid from the United States, and to pursue the Pashtunistan issue by every possible means. The two goals were to some extent mutually reinforcing because hostilities with Pakistan caused the Kabul government to fall back on the Soviet Union as its trade and transit link with the rest of the world. Daoud believed that the rivalry between the two superpowers for regional clients or allies created the conditions in which he could play one off against the other in his search for aid and development assistance.

Relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in the 1953-63 period began on a high note with a Soviet development loan equivalent to US$3.5 million in January 1954. Daoud's desire for improved bilateral relations became a necessity when the Pakistani-Afghan border was closed for five months in 1955. When the Iranian and American governments declared that they were unable to create an alternate Afghan trade access route of nearly 5,800 kilometers to the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea, the Afghans had no choice but to request a renewal of the 1950 transit agreement. The renewal was ratified in June 1955 and followed by a new bilateral barter agreement: Soviet petroleum, building materials, and metals in exchange for Afghan raw materials. After a December 1955 visit to Kabul by Soviet leaders Nikolay Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union announced a US$100 million development loan for projects to be mutually agreed upon. Before the end of the year the Afghans also announced a 10-year extension of the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression, originally signed in 1931 by Nadir Shah. Afghan-Soviet ties grew throughout this period, as did Afghan links with the Soviet Union's East European allies, especially Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Despite these strengthened ties to the Soviet Union, the Daoud regime sought to maintain good relations with the United States, which began to be more interested in Afghanistan as a result of the efforts by Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration to solidify an alliance in the "Northern Tier" (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). Adhering to its nonaligned stance, the Afghan government refused to join the American-sponsored Baghdad Pact, although Eisenhower's personal representative was courteously welcomed when he came to discuss regional issues in 1957. These rebuffs did not deter the United States from continuing its relatively low-level aid program in Afghanistan. Its other projects in the 1953-63 period included the Qandahar International Airport (which became obsolete with the advent of jet aircraft), assistance to Ariana Afghan Airlines, and continuation of the Helmand Valley Project.

The United States was reluctant to provide Afghanistan with military aid, and the Daoud government successfully sought it from the Soviet Union and its allies. These nations agreed to provide Afghanistan with the equivalent of US$25 million worth of military materiel in 1955 and also undertook the construction of military airfields in Mazar-a Sharif, Shindand, and Bagrami. Although the United States did provide military training for Afghan officers, it made no attempt to match Soviet arms transfers. Dupree points out that eventually the United States and Soviet aid programs were bound to overlap, and when they did there developed a quiet, de facto cooperation between the two powers.

All other foreign policy issues faded in importance, given Daoud's virtual obsession with the Pashtunistan issue. His policy disrupted Kabul's important relationship with Pakistan and-because Pakistan was landlocked Afghanistan's main trade route-the dispute virtually cut off development aid, except from the Soviet Union, and sharply diminished Afghanistan's external trade for several years.

In 1953 and 1954 Daoud simply applied more of the same techniques used in the past to press the Pashtunistan issue, i.e., hostile propaganda and payments to tribesmen (on both sides of the border) to subvert the Pakistani government. In 1955, however, the situation became more critical from Daoud's point of view. Pakistan, for reasons of internal politics, abolished the four provincial governments of West Pakistan and formed one provincial unit (like East Pakistan). The Afghan government protested the abolition of the NWFP (excluding the Tribal Agencies), and in March 1955 a mob in Kabul attacked the Pakistani embassy and consulate and tore down their flags. Retaliatory mobs attacked the Afghan consulate in Peshawar, and soon both nations recalled their officials from the neighboring state. Despite the failure of mediation by a group of Islamic states, tempers eventually cooled, and flags were rehoisted above the diplomatic establishments in both countries. This incident left great bitterness in Afghanistan, however, where interest in the Pashtunistan issue remained high, and the closure of the border during the spring and fall of 1955 again underlined to the Kabul government the need for good relations with the Soviets to provide assured transit routes for Afghan trade.

Although the Afghan side was not resigned to accepting the status quo on the Pashtunistan issue, the conflict remained dormant for several years, during which relations improved slightly between the two nations. Nor did the 1958 coup that brought General Mohammad Ayub Khan to power in Pakistan bring on any immediate change in the situation. In 1960, however, Daoud sent Afghan troops across the border into Bajaur in an unsuccessful and foolhardy attempt to manipulate events in that area and to press the Pashtunistan issue. The Afghan forces were routed by the Pakistan military, but military skirmishes along the border continued at a low level in 1961, often between Pakistani Pashtun (armed by the Afghans) and Pakistani regular and paramilitary forces. The propaganda war, carried out by radio, was more vicious than ever during this period.

Finally, in August 1961 Pakistan used another weapon on Afghanistan: It informed the Afghan government that its subversion made normal diplomatic relations impossible and that Pakistan was closing its consulates in Afghanistan, requesting that Afghanistan follow suit. The Afghan government, its pride severely stung, responded that the Pakistanis had one week to rescind this policy, or Afghanistan would cut diplomatic relations. When the Pakistanis failed to respond to this, Afghanistan severed relations on September 6, 1961. Traffic between the two countries came to a halt, just as two of Afghanistan's major export crops were ready to be shipped to India. The grape and pomegranate crops, grown in traditionally rebellious areas, were bought by the government to avoid trouble. The Soviet Union stepped in, offering to buy the crops and airlift them from Afghanistan. What the Soviets did not ship, Ariana Afghan Airlines airlifted to India, so that in both 1961 and 1962 the fruit crop was exported successfully. Dupree notes that although the loss of this crop would not have been as disastrous to the average Afghan as observers generally suggest, the situation did provide the opportunity for a fine public relations gesture by the Soviets. At the same time, although the United States attempted to mediate the dispute, it was clearly linked closely to Pakistan.

More than the fruit crop was jeopardized by the closure of Afghanistan's main trade route. Much of the equipment and material provided by foreign aid programs and needed for development projects was held up in Pakistan. Another outgrowth of the dispute was Pakistan's decision to close the border to nomads (members of the Ghilzai, variously known as Powindahs or Suleiman Khel), who had been spending winters in Pakistan and India and summers in Afghanistan as long as anyone could remember. Although the Pakistani government denied that the decision was owing to the impasse with Afghanistan, this claim appeared disingenuous, and the issue added weight to the growing conflict between the two countries. Afghanistan's economic situation continued to deteriorate. The nation was heavily dependent upon customs revenues, which fell dramatically; trade suffered, and foreign exchange reserves were seriously depleted.

It became clear by 1963 that the two stubborn leaders, Daoud of Afghanistan and Ayub Khan of Pakistan, would not yield and that one of them would have to be removed from power to resolve the issue. Despite growing criticism of Ayub among some Pakistanis, his position was strong internally, and it was Afghanistan's economy that was suffering most. In March 1963 King Zahir Shah, with the backing of the royal family, asked Daoud for his resignation on the basis that the country's economy was deteriorating because of Daoud's Pashtunistan policy. During the decade that Daoud was prime minister, the king, who was his peer in age, had become better known by the public and more influential in the royal family and the political elite. Because he controlled the armed forces, Daoud almost certainly had the power to resist the king's request for his resignation, but he did not do so. Daoud bowed out, as did his brother Naim, and Zahir Shah named as the new prime minister Muhammad Yousuf, a non-Pashtun, Germaneducated technocrat who had been serving as the minister of mines and industries.

The King Rules: The Last Decade of Monarchy, 1963-73

The decision to ask Daoud to step down had been reached not only within the royal family but also with the involvement of other members of the Afghan political elite. This set the tone for the 10 years to follow, in which Zahir Shah ruled as well as reigned but with a broad base of support within the political elite. The reaction to the dramatic change in Kabul was subdued. Although some Afghans attributed Daoud's fall to covert American intervention (because of Daoud's friendship with the Soviets), others were delighted that the unnatural strain in relations with Pakistan could be ended. A thriving black market trade had continued across the border, but the hostility had weighed heavily on the daily life of many Afghans especially city dwellers, who had experienced a doubling of prices for many essential commodities since the 1961 border closing. Dupree observes that devout Afghans expected an end to Daoud's secularization, intellectuals anticipated social and political reforms, and the population in general seemed to feel that while Daoud's economic reforms had benefitted the nation, his stubbornness on the Pashtunistan issue made his departure necessary. He notes that only three groups were unhappy over Daoud's resignation: the Pashtunistan fanatics, royal family members who worried about giving nonfamily members any power in decisionmaking, and proSoviet Afghans.

Although it could not provide the immediate transformations the public expected, the new government clearly both represented and sought change. The prime minister and at least one other cabinet member were non-Pashtuns; only four of the new cabinet were Durrani, and none was a member of the royal family. Before the end of May the government had appointed a committee to draft changes in the constitution had ordered an investigation into the abysmal conditions of Afghan prisons, and had reached agreement with Pakistan on the reestablishment of diplomatic and trade relations.

The single greatest achievement of the 1963-73 decade was the 1964 constitution. Only two weeks after the resignation of Daoud, the king appointed a committee to draft a new constitution. By February 1964 a draft document had been written, and within a few months another royal commission, including members of diverse political and ethnic backgrounds had reviewed and revised the draft. In the spring of 1964 the king ordered the convening of a Loya Jirgah-a national gathering that included the members of the National Assembly, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and both constitutional commissions. One hundred seventy-six members were elected by the provinces, and 34 members were appointed directly by the king. As Dupree notes, Afghan monarchs had abused the mechanism of a Loya Jirgah in the past by allowing only their own supporters to attend. Although the assemblage of 452 persons (including six women) that met in September 1964 was composed predominantly of officials who could be expected to support the royal line, the Loya Jirgah also included members elected from the entire nation. Dupree notes that the government did screen out many potential dissidents but concludes that "on the whole. . .delegates to the Loya Jirgah appeared to represent the full range of social, political, and religious opinion."

The 10-day deliberation of the Loya Jirgah produced heated debates and significant changes in the draft constitution. On September 20 the constitution was signed by the 452 members, and on October 1 it was signed by the king and became the constitution of Afghanistan. The constitution-and the deliberations that produced it-demonstrated several interesting changes in political thinking. It barred the royal family, other than the king, from politics and government-a provision that was viewed as being aimed at keeping Daoud out of politics. Individual, as opposed to tribal, rights were strongly championed by provincial delegates, and most conservative religious members were persuaded to accept provisions that they had previously suggested were intolerably secular. The succession issue within the royal family was settled to common satisfaction. The most interesting aspect of this discussion was one delegate's query as to why the throne should not go to the king's eldest daughter if there was no qualified male heir. Although some delegates were horrified and the question was not seriously considered, Dupree notes that the mere fact of its being asked was a sign of growing political sophistication among Afghans. Although there was lengthy debate over the use of the word Afghan to denote all citizens of Afghanistan (many people regarding it as a reference to Pashtuns alone), it was agreed by the Loya Jirgah that this term should refer to all citizens. The constitution provided that state religious rituals be conducted according to the Hanafi rite and identified Islam as "the sacred religion of Afghanistan," but it was still necessary to persuade many conservative religious members of the group that Islam had been enshrined in the constitution. Although Article 64 provided that there be no laws that were "repugnant to the basic principles" of Islam, Article 69 defined laws as resolutions passed by the houses of parliament and signed by the king, with sharia to be used when no such law existed. The constitution's provisions for an independent judiciary gave rise to heated debate among religious leaders, many of whom supported the existing system of religious laws and judges. The new constitution incorporated the religious judges into the judicial system, but it also established the supremacy of secularlaw.

The new constitution provided for a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, but predominant power remained in the hands of the king. Despite the difficulties imposed by widespread illiteracy, low voter turnout, attempts by some government officials (especially in the outlying areas) to influence the results, the lack of political parties, and the fact that Afghanistan was a tribal society with no tradition of national elections, most observers described the 1965 election as remarkably fair. The 216-member Wolesi Jirgah, the lower house of parliament, included representation by not only antiroyalists but also by both the left and right of the political spectrum. It included supporters of the king, Pashtun nationalists, entrepreneurs and industrialists, political liberals, a small leftist group, and conservative Muslim leaders who still opposed secularization. In heated early debates some members castigated the members of Yousuf's transitional cabinet. A student sit-in in the lower house of parliament was followed by demonstrations in which government troops killed three civilians, shocking many Afghans. The king nominated another prime minister, Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal, who quickly established a firm but friendly relationship with the students. There were, of course, rumors in Kabul about outside support for these and subsequent demonstrations. Dupree, who was in Kabul at the time, finds it unlikely that they were the work of outside agitators but rather resulted from "homegrown dissatisfaction with the ministerial clique which had played musical chairs during the Daoud regime and the succeeding interim regime."

On January 1, 1965, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was founded. This was not an orthodox Marxist party but an entity created out of diverse leftist groups that united for the principal purpose of gaining parliamentary seats in the elections. The fact that four PDPA members won parliamentary seats suggests that government efforts to intervene in the balloting to prevent the success of its leftist opponents were halfhearted.

The press was semicontrolled. Starting in 1966, as many as 30 newspapers were established and, although some were short-lived, they provided the focus for the many political groups in Kabul that now began to make their views known. Taraki, one of the four PDPA members elected to parliament in 1965, started the first major leftist newspaper, Khalq (Masses), which lasted little more than a month before being banned by the government.

Student unrest continued and escalated into violence, which included police beatings of student and faculty demonstrators. For a month and a half in 1969 there was a citywide student strike in Kabul, but the government refused to give in to student demands, and the university was peacefully reopened in November.

The Afghan political system remained suspended between democracy and monarchy, though much closer to the latter. Political parties remained banned because the king refused to sign legislation that had passed the parliament allowing parties. The lower house of parliament engaged in free and often insulting criticism of government policies and personnel. Although unorganized as a legislative body, the Wolesi Jirgah was able to exert some influence on the royal administration.

By 1969 the PDPA had already undergone an important split, the faction of Babrak Karmal parting company ideologically with Taraki (see Evolution of the PDPA as a Political Force, ch. 4.) The new group's newspaper, Parcham (Banner), operated from March 1968 until July 1969 when it was closed. It was not long before other divisions within the PDPA began to occur.

The 1969 parliamentary elections (in which voter turnout was not much greater than that of 1965) produced a parliament that was more or less consistent with the real distribution of power and population in the Afghan hinterland; conservative landowners and businessmen predominated, and many more non-Pashtuns were elected than in the previous legislature. Most of the urban liberals and all female delegates lost their seats. There were few leftists in the new parliament, although Karmal and Hafizullah Amin (a mathematics teacher educated in the United States) had been elected from districts in and near Kabul. Former prime minister Maiwandwal, a democratic socialist, lost his seat because of government interference.

The years between 1969 and 1973 saw a critical downturn in Afghan politics. The parliament-on which hopes for democracy in Afghanistan had depended-was lethargic and deadlocked; Griffiths reports that it passed only one minor bill in the 1969-70 session. Public dissatisfaction over the lack of stable government reflected the fact that there were five prime ministers in the decade starting in 1963. There was a growing polarization of politics as the left and the right began to attract more and more members. The king, although still personally popular, came under increasing criticism for not supporting his own prime ministers and for withholding support from legislation passed by the parliament (such as the political parties bill). Some critics of the government blamed not the king but his cousin (and son-in-law) General Abdul Wali, a key military commander, or other members of the royal family. Abdul Wali, commander of the Kabul region and of the palace guard, was especially hated by leftists for having ordered troops to fire on demonstrators in October 1965. Other disruptive elements were two successive years of drought followed by a tragic famine in 1972 in which as many as 100,000 Afghans may have perished. Relief efforts and foreign donations were mishandled, and there were accusations of speculation and hoarding that eroded public confidence in government administration. Finally, the Indo-Pakistani War and the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 was closely watched in Afghanistan, where interest in Pakistani politics was great and where the Pashtunistan issue always lurked near the surface of politics.

It was in this atmosphere of external instability and internal dissatisfaction and polarization that Daoud executed a coup d'etat that he had been planning for more than a year in response to the "anarchy and the anti-national attitude of the regime." While the king was out of the country for medical treatment, Daoud and a small military group took power with strong resistance only from the regent, Abdul Wali. The stability Zahir Shah had sought through limited democracy under a constitution had not been achieved, and there was a generally favorable popular response to the reemergence of Daoud, even though it meant the demise of the monarchy established by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747.

This page maintained by Luke Griffin and last updated on 01/14/2002 .