AFGHANISTAN: ATRIBAL CONFEDERATION TO MODERN STATE SOCIAL RESPONSES TO MODERNITY

The modern state system was evolved in Europe in the mid of seventeenth century, whereas the same system progressed to the rest of the world under colonial and international pressures of the 19th and 20th centuries. Afghanistan emerged as a tribal confederation in the middle of the eighteenth century based upon relational contracts, traditional order, local allegiances and social norms. The tribal heads enjoyed substantial autonomy through Loya Jargah* as a consultative mechanism to bestow authority on leaders and their policies. In the last quarter of nineteenth century when Russia and Britain advanced through Central Asia and India, Afghanistan managed to keep itself away from the influences of either of the two powers. Both the powerful states wished to establish an indirect hold on Afghan affairs rather than direct presence. After two AngloAfghan wars the British were, however, able to get control over Afghanistan’s foreign policy. British subsidies in cash and weapons enabled Afghan Amirs to modernize their backward tribal state. In Afghan society tribal authority and religious influence remained a dominant feature and whenever these two factors were ignored by the state in its quest of modernization, the social response was beyond their expectations.