Some things change, some don’t
The incumbent Afghan President Ashraf Ghani admitted in a recent interview to the BBC that ruling Afghanistan “is the worst job on Earth.” His rule is not an exception as all Afghan rulers in near and distant past would have said the same thing about Afghanistan. Flashbacks from Amir Habibullah’s and his father Amir Abdur Rehman’s reigns testify the truthfulness of President Ghani’s assertion.
President Ghani has sent a three-star general behind the bars for involvement in the theft of fuel because he thinks that “whoever engages in corruption regardless of affiliation, relationship, etc, must be subject to the same law.” Ghani lets the law takes its course whereas the Amirs Habibullah and Abdur Rehman were the law. Once a man was brought to the palace of Amir Habibullah on being caught red-handed for stealing money from a blind beggar-woman just near his palace gardens. After hearing the charge, he mused, “Three rupees!” And then ordered the cutting off of three fingers of the culprit. When the accused was being taken away; as an afterthought, he enquired “Which hand did you steal with?” “Sahib, my left hand,” came the reply. “Very well, chop off the left hand, so that he may never steal with it again.”
President Ghani is tired of the endemic corruption and plans to overhaul the system. No one knows what ideas the Afghan president has and how much time those ideas would take to root out this menace whereas Amir Habibullah had instant remedies for this “disease.” If the head-baker was found behind hand with his supplies, he was thrashed to death and if meat got in short supply or was found to be of poor quality, the butcher was nailed by his ears to his own shop door for the people to see what kind of punishment they should expect for such crimes.
In Ghani’s Afghanistan, it is the corrupt and the criminals who strike terror in the hearts of the people, it was the other way round in the time of Amir Abdur Rehman Khan. Once a baker was brought in his court on the charge of selling short-weighted bread and happened to be lucky because the Amir was in an amiable mood so he dismissed the accused by saying, “No man can prosper if he is not honest. Go away, work as your Quran teaches you.” After some time the same man was caught again for the same crime. When he was brought before the Amir, Abdur Rehman said, “You are not only a fool, but a rogue. I fine you 3,000 rupees, 3,000 annas, 3,000 pice. You will now be thrashed and then as long as you grow hair upon your body, never come before me again.” Some months later, the same “devil” was caught the third time for the same offence. The Amir said to him, “Let me see, I think you are a baker, aren’t you?” “Yes, sahib.” “And your breads are not quite the proper size?” “No sahib!” “Well, then, there must be some spare room in your oven.” In a burst of fury, he ordered, “Take him away, and bake him in his own oven.” And so he was.
President Ghani has shown considerable concern about the lawlessness in his country because according to one estimate about one-tenth of the Afghan security forces lost their lives at the hands of the offenders, just last year. It was not so in the times of the two aforementioned Amirs. To punish the robbers who dared to rob the caravans on the highways, Amir Abdur Rehman had built a cage that looked like a beehive of iron. Once, when a robber was caught, he asked him as to why did he steal, to which the robber replied, “Sahib, I was hungry, and stole that I might eat.” Realising the poor condition of the robber, the Amir gave him an employment in his garden for Rs20 per month. However, after some time, the robber not only ran away from his employment but was caught again for stealing and murder. This time the Amir ordered the making of an iron cage and after putting the robber inside the cage, ordered, “Now, take him to the very spot where he committed the crimes, and set him up upon a pole to starve there, as a warning to all robbers, for I will not have my caravans molested and poor travelers robbed in my country.” Later on, his son, Amir Habibullah had another such iron cage made that could contain two robbers at a time. One such pair of robbers that had murdered a man and two women was punished in the suspended cage in which they took a week to die of starvation.
Equally stern were the punishments for those who broke the fast during the holy month of Ramzan. Except for illness or on a journey, if any violator was caught, he was not only fined but also fastened on a donkey’s back facing its tail and driven through the bazar in Kabul with people at full liberty to throw anything they chose till he was thrown into the river. One the second violation, half of the property of the violator was confiscated and he was put in jail for some years and on the third offence he was awarded death penalty.
These are a century-old flashbacks from Afghanistan. The nature of crimes and their punishments have changed over time but not the elements of ferocity and brutality.