Wesh Zalmiyan, the Awakened Youth: Afghanistan's reform movement of 1947-1952

At a glance

• Wesh Zalmiyan ("Awakened Youth", also spelled Wikh Zalmaiyan) was a brotherhood of Pashtun writers, clerks, teachers and clergy that wanted a constitutional monarchy, free elections and an end to forced labour. Dupree and Adamec date it to 1947, and Adamec places its founding in Kandahar. [1, 5]

• Its members included Abdul Rauf Benawa, Gul Pacha Ulfat, Abdul Hai Habibi, Faiz Muhammad Angar and Nur Muhammad Taraki. Gankovsky's Soviet history puts the whole membership at under a hundred. [2, 3, 5]

• Its paper Angar and its deputies shaped the "liberal parliament" of 1949, the first freely elected assembly under the constitution of 1931, in Kakar's words. [1, 2, 4]

• In 1952, after an election its members say was rigged, the government broke up the opposition: papers banned, leaders jailed or sent abroad. [1–3]

A brotherhood from Kandahar

Writers disagree on where and when the group began. Dupree gives 1947 and says the movement began in Kandahar, where the name is Wesh Zalmiyan in the soft Kandahari dialect and Wikh Zalmaiyan elsewhere. [1] Adamec's dictionary also says 1947 in Kandahar, "by writers and Pashtun nationalists". [5] Emadi has 1947 too and names its head as Mohammad Rasoul, a landowner from Kandahar. [3] Gankovsky calls the leader Muhammad Rasul Khan Pushtun, a small landowner from Kandahar. [2] M. Hassan Kakar, an Afghan historian, instead says it was founded in 1945 in Kabul, and lists as founders Qazi Bahram, Abdul Hadi Tokhay, Mohammad Rasul Pashtun, Faiz Muhammad Angar, Gul Pacha Ulfat, Qiamuddin Khadem, Ghulam Hassan Safay, Ghulam Mohayuddin Zurmulwal, Benawa and Taraki. [4] The two dates and the two cities stay unreconciled in the sources. Emadi, Gankovsky and Kakar name Rasul, and Kakar, Adamec and Emadi name Angar.

The members came from many walks of life. Gankovsky counts "the petty bourgeoisie, clerks, intellectuals and Muslim clergy" and puts Taraki at the head of a radical left wing, with Benawa, Habibi and Ulfat among the most active. [2] Emadi adds Abdul Hai Aziz, Mir Ghulam Muhammad Ghobar, Shams al-Din Majrooh and Angar, and says the group held regular meetings and had members in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Farah. [3] Adamec says it aimed at education, an end to corruption and national welfare, and calls it one of the earliest political groups in Afghanistan. [5]

Why a group could meet at all

In 1946 Shah Mahmud Khan, another uncle of King Zahir, replaced his brother Hashim as prime minister. Dupree says that, encouraged by Western-educated young Afghans, he made modest attempts to bring about freer elections than before. [1] Kakar adds that Shah Mahmud's first act was to release long-held political prisoners, that mayors were chosen by secret ballot after a law of 1947, and that in 1949 the government "refrained almost completely from interfering" in the parliamentary elections. [4] Emadi calls these "cosmetic reforms from the top" that helped only a small educated class, and says the Wishzalmayan grew from them. [3] The ruling brothers are in Hashim Khan and Shah Mahmud Khan, and the king in Mohammad Zahir Shah.

What the group asked for

Its newspaper was Angar ("Ember"), named after its owner and editor, Faiz Muhammad Angar. Gankovsky calls him an official of the Ministry of Economics and Adamec a Kandahar businessman. Gankovsky dates the first issue to 1 March 1950 and describes it as "a national, literary, social, and political newspaper". [2] Adamec dates Angar to 1951 and says it was banned after a few months. [5] The first editorial promised to serve the people and help them overcome their old backwardness with the help of "educated individuals sympathetic to the people and the awakened youth". [2] The first issue carried a piece by Taraki, "The Wish of the People. What Do We Want?", asking for bread, clothes, work and equal social services. [2] Adamec reports that Taraki later claimed an article of that title had been censored and had brought the paper down. [5]

Gankovsky lists the paper's aims as awakening and uniting the nation, a constitutional monarchy, a national government answerable to parliament, and a place for every class in public affairs. [2] It also attacked forced labour (begar), and one writer proposed cutting luxury imports and moving to planned development. [2] Emadi's summary is shorter: constitutional monarchy, free and democratic elections, civil liberties. [3] Gankovsky observes that the economic programme was mostly criticism without clear proposals. [2]

The movement hoped the king would side with it. Gankovsky quotes Benawa in Angar: "The only hope of the people is the beloved and democratic king." The same article, in Gankovsky's translation, mocks officials "used to sitting in a walnut chair and looking at the world through the windows of their cars" who do not know that the people go barefoot because they are poor. [2]

The liberal parliament of 1949

The National Assembly elected in 1949 was the seventh since the constitution of 1931. Dupree says that of its 120 members a hard core of 40 to 50 took their duties seriously and questioned ministers about their budgets, and that several ministers refused to answer, citing articles of the 1931 constitution. [1] Kakar describes an assembly "dominated by liberal democrats who stood for constitutional monarchy", with stormy sessions against pro-government conservatives. [4] Emadi is more cautious: the liberals were a minority, and the government made sure that its candidate, not theirs, became speaker. [3]

Gankovsky names the opposition deputies of that Assembly. Ulfat, Habibi and Angar spoke for the Angar group, Ghobar for Watan and Abdul Rahman Mahmudi for Nida-yi Khalq, all formally united in a "National Front". [2] Their sharpest fight was over the compulsory purchase of grain at low prices, which the deputies voted to reject while the government went on demanding it, and over begar in building and roads. Mahmudi also said the agreement with the American Morrison-Knudsen company, which built the Helmand dams, had done the people and the economy great harm. [2] Emadi lists the Assembly's gains as a more open state budget, an end to forced labour and illegal taxes, and the press law. [3]

The press law brought out the independent papers. Dupree names the three he thought most important: Watan (Ghubar, in Persian), Angar (Persian and Pashto) and Nida-yi Khalq ("Voice of the People"), each selling about 1,500 copies. [1] Gankovsky and Emadi both add Wulus ("People"), the paper of Ulfat, and Gankovsky dates the press law to January 1951. [2, 3] Emadi says people around Nida-yi Khalq formed a small party, Khalq, in 1951 and that Ghubar and his circle formed Hizb-e-Watan, the Homeland Party. Gankovsky says Khalq ceased to exist in the spring of 1952. [2, 3] Dupree says a National Democratic Party was founded with the dissidents as its core, and that attacks on conservative religious leaders filled the free press. [1]

The student side matters too. Kabul University students formed a union in 1950, Gankovsky and Emadi agree, and Dupree describes a small group of twenty or thirty who debated everything from communism to the place of religion in a Muslim state. [1–3]

The quarrel over Pashtun nationalism

Emadi says that a year after it began the group split. The hardliners backed the Red Shirt movement of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, which wanted autonomy for the Pashtuns of Pakistan's tribal belt, and Ghubar, Mahmudi and Mohammad Siddiq Farhang left, charging the group with a pro-government line and a "narrow Pashtun nationalism". [3] Adamec says the group "subsequently divided on the issue of Pashtun nationalism" and that the nationalists supported the Red Shirts. [5] Dupree calls Angar a noted Kandahari advocate of "Pushtunistan", the Afghan name for a Pashtun homeland on the Pakistani side of the frontier. [1] The background is in Bacha Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar, the Durand Line and Pashtunkhwa.

1952: the election and the arrests

Elections for the eighth Assembly came in April 1952. Gankovsky says not one opposition candidate was returned. [2] Emadi says that Mahmudi and Ghobar among others lost through government interference and vote rigging, and that they led a demonstration against the result. [3] Gankovsky says Babrak Karmal, then a law student, led students who joined it, and that troops dispersed the crowd. [2] Emadi says the state used force and arrested the leaders the next day. [3]

Dupree, an American anthropologist, wrote that after the "liberals" were rebuffed on press freedom, parliamentary checks, parties and scrutiny of ministers' budgets they took a more bitter tone, that the press printed more and more personal attacks on the ruling clique and on powerful religious leaders, and that students acted plays that insulted the royal family and Islam. [1] In 1951 the government dissolved the student union, some of whose leaders fled to Pakistan, killing a border guard on the way. Before the 1952 elections it closed all non-government papers and arrested about twenty-five liberal leaders. [1] Kakar says that by means of the press the reformist deputies became so outspoken "that the government felt it could no longer govern democratically", that before the next election the former deputies had no immunity and "they and scores of other dissidents were arrested", and that the younger men of the royal family concluded a strong government was needed. [4] Dupree adds that the government "refused to believe that the 'liberals' merely wanted to liberalize the existing government, and looked on all opposition as preparation for overthrow". [1]

What happened next depends on the person.

• Ghobar was sentenced to four years in prison, Adamec dating his imprisonment 1952 to 1956. [2, 3, 5]

• Mahmudi was sentenced to nine years and released in 1962. Gankovsky says he died soon after of tuberculosis, Emadi says a few days later and notes the suggestion that he was poisoned in jail, and Dupree says three months. [1–3]

• Habibi left the country for Pakistan before the arrests and published Azad Afghanistan ("Free Afghanistan"), which Gankovsky says criticised the royal regime and Adamec says argued for a republic. Adamec says he was allowed back in 1961. [2, 5]

• Taraki went to Washington as press attaché. Benawa went to India, "deported" in Gankovsky's word and appointed in Kakar's, who says he and Taraki had left the group fearing arrest and were rewarded with the posts. [2, 4]

• About half of those jailed agreed to give up opposition, Dupree writes, and several later held high posts under Daoud, while others died in prison. The survivors were freed in 1963. [1]

Dupree, writing in 1973, judged that "the new day did not dawn". He gave as causes: the opposition faced an independent state, not a colonial power; a freer society would have cost many people their graft; civil servants held back for fear of reprisal; mass illiteracy kept the press from reaching beyond its circle; and attacks on the royal family and religious leaders put off the undecided. [1] Emadi says Shah Mahmud's policies were meant to broaden the social base of the monarchy, and that the opposition kept pressing for wider reform. [3]

Later readings

After 1978 the movement was read through the people who had once belonged to it. Gankovsky, a Soviet history, finds in the Awakened Youth the seed of the later left: Taraki "headed its radical left wing", and the slogan "bread, clothes, housing" became "the chief slogan of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan". [2] Kakar, writing in the 1990s, notes that the PDPA's first name was the Association of National Democrats, that it tied itself to Pashtun issues, and that Taraki had been a founding member of a group of "national democrats". [4] Taraki's own part is disputed in the article on him: his official biography claimed he founded the movement and Angar, which, Bradsher says there, Faiz Muhammad Angar in fact published.

The movement's Pashto-writing members went in other directions. Benawa became minister of information and culture in 1967, Ulfat minister for tribal affairs in 1963 and later headed the Pashto Academy, and Habibi came back to teach at Kabul University and later led the Afghan Historical Society, according to Adamec. [5] Their lives are told in Abdul Rauf Benawa and Gul Pacha Ulfat. The wider history of Pashto writing in the capital is in Pashto literature and oral poetry.

Historians therefore read the group in two ways that the sources do not settle. One sees a short-lived democratic and Pashto-nationalist brotherhood that wanted a constitutional monarchy answerable to parliament. The other sees the first political school of Afghan Marxism. Both agree on what it asked for in print and on what the government did in 1952.