The reign of 19th century Afghan king Shah Shuja Durrani and that of the country’s current president Hamid Karzai were alike in several ways, and so was the geo-political scenario of the country then and now, historian William Dalrymple said during a reading of his latest book The Return of a King: Shah Shuja and the first battle for Afghanistan at the Jaipur Literature festival on Sunday. During the course of the discussion, Mr. Dalrymple noted how the situations that prevailed in the country in the 19th century were being played out all over again in present day Afghanistan. Today, the United States is making the same mistakes that imperial Britain did back then, he noted and the country’s geo-politics was responding in very similar ways. “The same cities are seeing an exact replay of what happened hundreds of years ago,” said Mr. Dalrymple. Despite the striking similarities, one major difference he noted between the two rulers was that, “Hamid Karzai is much more popular than Shah Shuja was.” Mr. Dalrymple said he went on Afghanistan on several extended trips while researching his book, starting 2006, and found a huge body of Afghan material on the Anglo-Afghan wars. “The Anglo-afghan wars are to the Afghans what the freedom struggle is to you guys (Indian people). The first Anglo-Afghan war was the greatest catastrophe suffered by the British army,” he said. In 1837, the British under Lord Wellesley had conquered more of India than Napoleon had of Europe and were looking to move up North while Russians were moving down South; both countries evidently on a collision course, he said.
