A boundary beyond debate

Since the formation of Pakistan, Afghanistan has nurtured an irredentist claim to the lands west of the Indus, a misplaced dream rooted more in myth than in history. From the Treaty of Gandamak (1879) to the Durand Agreement (1893), every major accord had already delimited Afghanistan’s authority long before Pakistan was born. By the mid-19th century, Afghan rule had receded from Punjab and Peshawar; by the Treaty of Gandamak, it had surrendered control of its remaining frontier regions to the British, a concession that reshaped the political map of the region. Modern Afghanistan itself had taken form only in the mid-18th century under Ahmad Shah Durrani, whose brief empire stretched from Mashhad to Multan before fragmenting under the weight of tribal rivalries and imperial pressures.

The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) stands as one such defining moment in South Asian history. On 26 May 1879, Emir Mohammad Yaqub Khan and Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon Cavagnari, representing the British Raj, met in Gandamak, a village near Jalalabad in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, to conclude an accord that would determine Afghanistan’s fate for generations. The Treaty of Gandamak ended hostilities and formalized new arrangements between Kabul and Calcutta. Under its terms, key frontier regions including the Kurram Valley, the Khyber Pass, and adjoining tribal territories from Haft Chah to Landi Kotal came under British control.

Yet, history holds its ironies. The very frontier that once offered Afghans sanctuary in their darkest hours, sheltering millions who fled war, famine, and foreign occupation is the same line they now hesitate to acknowledge. Borders, however, are not erased by sentiment or silence; they endure through law, history, and lived reality. The Durand Line, drawn in ink more than a century ago and sealed by time, remains not just a border but a testament to the region’s enduring struggle between geography, power and pride

In return, Afghanistan was recognized as a British protectorate; its foreign relations were placed under the supervision of the Government of India. A permanent British mission was stationed in Kabul, and the Emir was granted an annual allowance of Rs 600,000, a gesture that symbolized subordination more than partnership, marking Afghanistan’s entry into the Great Game of empires.

The peace that followed the Treaty of Gandamak proved fleeting. Afghanistan, restless by temperament and circumstance, soon slipped back into turmoil. On 3 September 1879, the newly established British mission in Kabul was attacked, and every member of the delegation was killed, an incident that stunned the empire and shattered the fragile calm that had only just been achieved. The British response was immediate and forceful; the conflict reignited, and by 1880, after a hard-fought campaign, Afghanistan once again came under British influence. In the settlement that followed, Abdur Rahman Khan ascended the throne, a strong ruler navigating within the limits set by imperial power. Thus unfolded one of the most consequential chapters of the 19th century’s Great Game, the enduring rivalry between Britain and Russia for mastery over Central Asia’s passes, peoples, and prestige.

By this time, Afghanistan’s borders were taking shape through a series of imperial bargains. In the north, the 1873 Anglo-Russian agreement established the Amu Darya River as the boundary, though Russia’s steady expansion led to further adjustments in 1888 when it occupied the Panjdeh Oasis. Britain eventually conceded that territory, securing a promise from Russia not to advance further south.

To the west, the border with Iran was settled under the 1857 Treaty of Paris, with Britain acting as arbitrator between the two sides. From 1872 to 1935, British commissions delineated the Afghan-Iranian border with remarkable precision.

The most consequential of these demarcations, however, was the one to the east, the Durand Line. In 1893, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan met with Sir Mortimer Durand, the British Indian Foreign Secretary, to define the frontier between Afghanistan and British India. The agreement, known as the Durand Line Treaty, established a border that has since stood as one of the most debated lines in modern history. Successive Afghan rulers, including Habibullah Khan (1905), King Nadir Shah (1930), and later King Zahir Shah (1949) reaffirmed the treaty, recognizing it as the official boundary between Afghanistan and India. Indeed, of all Afghanistan’s borders, this was the only one concluded directly with its ruler as a sovereign party and ratified multiple times.

Curiously, Afghanistan never questioned its other frontiers, not the northern line drawn with Tsarist Russia, nor the western border fixed with Iran, even though those treaties were negotiated without Afghanistan’s direct participation. Yet, it has persistently contested the Durand Line, the only border it helped define. The Durand Agreement contained no expiration clause, no provision limiting its validity to British rule, and no condition that it would lapse upon Afghanistan’s independence. If that logic were applied, then following the fall of Tsarist Russia, Kabul should have sought new border treaties with the USSR, and again after its collapse with the newly independent republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. But history shows no such attempt, only selective outrage toward one boundary.

When Pakistan emerged as an independent state in 1947, the Durand Line naturally assumed the status of an international frontier under established principles of international law. The United Nations recognized it as such, and its legitimacy was reaffirmed through diplomatic and legal precedent. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when Soviet aircraft crossed this boundary, the incursions were condemned in the United Nations as violations of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty.

Yet, history holds its ironies. The very frontier that once offered Afghans sanctuary in their darkest hours, sheltering millions who fled war, famine, and foreign occupation is the same line they now hesitate to acknowledge. Borders, however, are not erased by sentiment or silence; they endure through law, history, and lived reality. The Durand Line, drawn in ink more than a century ago and sealed by time, remains not just a border but a testament to the region’s enduring struggle between geography, power and pride.