THE HAZARAS AND THEIR ROLE IN THE PROCESS OF POLITICAL

Afghanistan is homeland to various ethnic communities, which equally have participated, in the country's political history and economic development: this description is in stark contrast to the word Afghanistan that refers only to the Pashtun (Afghan) ethnic community. Afghanistan's turbulent history is in great part due to the machinations of the machinations of the politically dominant class in the Afghan polity, which pitted one ethnic community against the other in order to maintain its rule and safeguard its class interests. This policy has undermined national unity and hampered sound economic development since the country gained its independence from the British Empire in 1919.

Sectarian differences were one of the major issues that divided the country. Although the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (December 1979-February 1989) relegated the question of ethnicity to a secondary position to that of Islam, with the establishment of an Islamic state in 1992 Islamists of various hues have fought each other trying to establish its domination. Since then the character of the war has been transformed from Islamic radicalism to that of ethnic nationalism, which all sides enticing ethnic communities to rally behind their own chiefs. The focus of this article is to study the political transformation of the Hazara community of Afghanistan and examine how Hazaras began to shift from religious radicalism to Hazara nationalism, questioning the role of Hazaras traditional leaders, the Sadats, and supporting the leadership of those who have risen from within the ranks of their community.

Hazaras are one of the oppressed and dispossessed national minority communities of the country. They reside for the most part in Hazaristan or Hazarajat, which includes several provinces in the central part of Afghanistan. Scholars differ on theories concerning the ethnic origin of the Hazaras. Proponent of Autochthnicity Paradigm J.P. Ferrier maintains that Hazaras have been living in the region from time immemorial. According to him, Hazaras lived in that area evens in the time of Alexander the Great. Based on Hazara tradition and physiognomy, H. W. Bellew postulates that Hazaras are direct descendants of the Mongolian soldiers who came to Afghanistan with Genghis Khan's expeditionist army. The Mongol Descendant Theory has been further supported by scholars such as Burnes, Fraser-Tytler, E.F. Sehurmann argues that Hazaras are a mixture of Mongolians and Turks but who settled in the area during the later half of the 13th century and had gradually been assimilated into the local population. In a similar vein L. Temirkhanov maintains that

The Hazaras are the descendants of the intermarriage of Mongol soldiers and the dominant native groups, the Tajiks, the Turks who had inhabited Afghanistan before the Mongol invasion and to some extent, the Pashtuns or Afghans and possibly Indo-Iranians, through not to the extent of Mongols and Tajiks.

The aforementioned theories suffer conceptual limitations-one- dimensionality. Autochthonicity bases its study on the relationship between sound and words in explaining the subject matter whose conclusion could be misleading. Mongolian Origins Theory has its own Achilles heel as it bases its assumption on the grounds that the history of the Hazaras doesn't predate that of the Mongols. A Mixed Race Theory seems to provide a reasonable understanding of the historical background of the Hazaras, albeit it's conceptual ambiguity and generalization.

The name Hazara has been interpreted differently by different people. The prevailing interpretation is that the word owes its origin to the Persian word, 'Hazar', meaning 'one thousand'. 'Hazar' also signifies the one-time existence of one thousand rivers, creeks and mountains in the Hazarajat. It has also been said to originate from the fact that Hazaras provided one thousand soldiers to central governments of the time instead of paying taxes. Leading Islamic tradition maintains that, prior to the emergence of Islam, there were one thousand statues in the Hazarajat which had been replaced by one thousand mosques after the introduction of Islam and the spread of Islamic precepts in the region.

The overwhelming majority of Hazaras are Shiites who pledge allegiance to Ali, son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, and Ali's descendants. The Shiites split after the death of Imam Jafar Sadiq in 765. Those who followed Jafar's oldest son, Ismail, are known as Ismailis, and adherents of Jafar's other son, Musa al-Kazim, whose line started the 12 Shiite Imam genealogy, are known as Athna Ashari (their last Imam Mahdi disappeared in about 873 and the Shiites entertain the messianic ideal that he will return to rule the earth). As an oppressed minority within the Islamic world the Shiites upheld the belief that justice would prevail if descendants of Prophet Muhammad led the Islamic world. Ismailis maintain that the of the Imamat continues until the present. Karim Aga Khan, a staunch advocate and pracitioner of Third World development, is the present 49th Imam of this sect. Since Ismailis advocated radical transformation of the status quo and practiced a form of Islam which differed from existing Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy they have been regarded as heretics by both the Sunnis and the Shiites. A number of scholars in the Occident characterized Ismailis as assassins and portrayed Hasan Sabah, the founder of the Ismaili state in Iran, as an astute politician who had erected pavilions where runnels flowed with wine, milk, honey and water and a number of beautiful maidens performed dances to seduce their inmates. According to them, in the pavilions and palaces, Hasan used drugs to intoxicate the inmates in order to convince them that they are in Paradise. After drugging them again and taking them out of the palaces the inmates would find themselves back in the real world. Hasan's men would then tell them that if they wish to return to the Paradise they must assassinate enemies of their faith. Such characterizations distort reality, as they are not convincing arguments to explain how a sect would be victorious and rule for so many years purely on the basis of such a methodology of governance. Ismailis adhered to the principle or foundation [assas, a Persian word] of their faith and for this reason; they are duly called 'assassiyuns' or followers of the assas. This mistaken etymology may have led novice scholars to portray Ismailis as assassins. Well-known scholar of Ismailism, Farhad Daftary, who has written two voluminous works on Ismaili history, has also failed to comprehend the very basis of such a mistaken etymology. The failure of Ismaili theorists to counter the barrage of public assault on their faith and the existing Ismaili literature surrounded by layers of myth, hagiography and legend on their leadership have largely contributed to such vagaries of distortion and interpolation of the Ismaili doctrines. A small segment of the Hazara population practices the Sunni doctrine of Islam. Some of these Hazaras had been coerced to convert to Sunnism while others may have willfully or unwillingly accepted it, believing that by their conversion into the dominant faith they would enjoy more security and stability and escape religion-political persecution.

Hazaras have enjoyed independent status since their formation as an ethnic community. They were surrounded by hostile nations trying to subjugate them and incorporate their land into their kingdoms. A number of rulers of the neighboring countries had succeeded in occupying several villages in the periphery of the Hazarajat and compelled the Hazaras to pay taxes. For the most part Hazarajat remained independent until the early 19th century. The total Hazara population is estimated to be between 6 and 7 million. Considering the population figure for 1990 in seven provinces of Afghanistan, the Hazara population is estimated at 2,060,014. Hazaras constitute 20 per cent of the population in Kabul, 18 per cent in Parwan, 40 per cent in Wardak and 80 per cent of the population in the Bamiyan, Ghor, Uruzgan, and Ghazni provinces. Table I shows Hazara populations in seven provinces in Afghanistan in 1990. Table I exclude Hazaras whom has settled in Heart, Qandahar, Balkh, Andarab,

Table 1

Hazaras population ,1990

Khenjan, Taliqan, Nemakab, Nahrin, Tugai, Chashma, Chal Ishkamish, Derain, Teshkan, Shahr-e-Buzurg and Rustag. The total population of the Hazaras may reach between 4 and 5 million.

In the 19th century the Hazara community was made up of landed (feudal) nobility, peasants and artisans. Feudal landowners of various strata were situated at the top of the Hazaras social ladder. The Hazara ruling classes were known by their own titles, such as Mir, Khan and Sultan, which at the same time were chiefs of their tribes. Hazaras lower social classes comprised peasants, artisans, herders and nomads belonging to various tribes and communities. Relationships between the ruling and the ruled social classes were based on ownership of the means of production (animals, land and water).

The Hazara ruling class maintained their titles, which either had been chosen by them or had been, granted them by chiefs of neighboring communities. The title 'Mir', which means chief or leader, was bestowed upon the most important and influential Hazara chiefs of Daizangi, Daikundi and Behsud. Mirs often married several women in order to have more children and consequently gain more social status. A Mir's wife was known by the title, 'Agha' and if she belonged to the same social class as her husband she could play a major role in the sociopolitical affairs of the community. In public she often sat next to her husband, wore men's clothes and carried arms. Tribal affiliation among Hazaras of lower social classes seldom constituted the basis of their social relations because socioeconomic and political changes in the 19th and 20th centuries had greatly affected Hazaras social relations. The Hazaras subsequent migration within and without the country also contributed, to some extent, to the detribalization process of this segment of the community.

Political and military power remained an exclusive monopoly of the Hazara nobility. In 1830 Hazara chiefs had their own regular-armed men. Mir Yazdan Bakhsh of Behsud had 2,000 armed men, Muhammad Mir Daizanjat 1,000, and Mir Sadiq Beg of Sarjangala 900 regular-armed men and 800-foot soldiers. Hazara chiefs in Jaghori could mobilize 5,000-armed men, and those of Sangi Takht and Miran, each having 400 armed men in their service, were able to mobilize 1,000 men. The chiefs collected taxes from the peasantry with the aid of their paramilitary followers. The supremacy of the chiefs had been legitimized by clerics who issued religious edicts in their favor. Most cleric were on the payroll of Hazara chiefs and later become owners of endowed land and received religious taxes. Clerics also occupied important administrative posts or presided over judicial and legal matters. Relations between the Hazara ruling class and Afghan monarchies were based on the principle of mutual cooperation. The Mir was expected to pay annual taxes to the king and to ensure the security of trade routes within his territory. He was also required to send a member of his family to lead a group of armed men to serve the king in times of war and social crises. The king reciprocated by granting Hazara chiefs the right to exercise political power in their respective regions.

Hazaras lost their autonomy when the British-backed King Abd al-Rahman (1880-1901) defeated the Hazara tribes one by one, occupied the whole Hazarajat and incorporated it into the Afghan state in 1893. To protect its interests in the Indian sub-continent the British worked to establish a strong central government in Kabul. For this reason they supported Abd al-Rahman in the subjugation of national communities throughout the country. To mobilize public opinion in support of his war on Hazaras Abd al-Rahman encouraged religious leaders to travel to villages and entice people into a jihad (religious war) against Hazaras. Abd al-Rahman justified his brutal war on Hazaras on the grounds that:

The Hazara people had been for centuries past the terror of the rulers of Kabul, even the great Nadir who conquered Afghanistan, India, and Persia being unable to subdue the turbulent Hazaras. The Hazaras were always molesting travelers in the south, north and western provinces of Afghanistan. They were always ready to join the first foreign aggressor who attacked Afghanistan.

Hazaras did not want to become an easy prey for Abd al-Rahman's mercenary army. However, like other national communities, they were willing to help enemies of the Kabul rulers. Since their defeat in 1893 Hazaras have been enslaved and subjected to much discrimination and oppression.

Abd al-Rahman partitioned Hazarajat into three provinces: Kabul, Bamiyan and Qandahar. In so doing, his main objective was to eliminate once and for all the Hazara's sense of unity and independence and to create division within the Hazara community. By suppressing Hazaras Abd al-Rahman intended to teach a lesson to other ethnic communities that they will experience a similar fate if they attempt to rebel against his rule, and to pave the road for the succession of his son after his death as well as to provide state officials a better means of maintaining state vigilance on Hazaras and to collect taxes from far regions of Hazarajat. For this, Abd al-Rahman reminded his subjects to be thankful to him for enslaving Hazaras otherwise they 'would have had to work like donkeys if it were not that the slaving donkeys of Hazaras do all the work for them'.

By sending Sunni clerics to every village in Hazarajat Abd -al Rahman forced the Shiite Hazaras to attend Sunni mosques and abandon Shiism. He imposed tougher regulations on Hazaras by forcing them to pay heavy taxes. For instance, from 500 families in Ajristan each well-to-do family was forced to pay 40 Sir (6.7 Kg) wheat while the poor ones paid three Afs, each. In Daya Fulad, Zawuli and Sepai districts the state collected Afs. 80,000 and forced the Hazara girls into marriage. In the Shikhali district an estimated 7,000 head of cattle were taken away from Hazaras and 350 men and women of the Jaghori district had been sold at Kabul markets each at the price of 20-21 As. Abd al- Rahman's brutal suppression compelled a large number of Hazaras to seek refuge in Iran. Pakistan and Russia, Abd al-Rehman could only succeed in subjugating Hazaras and conquering their land when he effectively utilized internal differences within the Hazara community, co-opting sold-out Hazara chiefs into his bureaucratic sales of the enslaved Hazara men, women and children in 1897, the Hazaras remained de facto slaves until King Amanullah declared Afghanistan's independence in 1919.

Amanullah was a protagonist of bourgeois development and tried to modernize Afghanistan based on a European model of development. In 1923 he introduced a new constitution which abolished slavery and granted equality to every citizen of the country. When pro-British King Habibullah overthrew Amanullah in 1929. Hazaras supported him and fought to restore him to the throne. After nine months of rule Habibullah was captured by General Muhammad Nadir Shah and executed. Although Nadir promised that he would restore Amanullah to the throne later he declared himself the new king.

Nadir's government appointed Pashtun administrators to Hazarajat and tried to build Pashtun nationalism by promoting the Pashtu language and popularizing its culture in Hazarajat while simultaneously condemning Hazara culture and history. It was forbidden to extol the history of the Hazaras. Policies were designed to expunge historical names from state archives, which had been associated with Hazaras. Nadir murdered, imprisoned and harassed Hazara intellectuals who were articulating Hazara culture and history. Although Hazaras were conscripted into the army and employed in civil service departments, they were not promoted beyond the rank of colonels in the army and directors in public offices. In so doing, Nadir effectively debilitated Hazaras a authority. He also worked to deprive them of their fundamental rights, allowing Pashtun nomads to gradually occupy Hazaras land.

Hazaras had always looked to Hazara intellectuals in the Indian sub-continent as a source of inspiration. To deprive Hazaras of their leadership and prevent their solidarity in the international arena, Nadir attempted to lure Hazara intellectuals into Afghanistan, promising lucrative employment, and then re-stricting their social and political activities. For this reason alone Nadir invited a well-known Hazara army officer, Ali Dost Khan of India, to visit Afghanistan and appointed him an army colonel in the Afghan armed forces. Although Ali Dost was dismayed with Nadir's policy, he could not return to India and so resigned himself to a life in Kabul where he was kept under state surveillance. Nadir's anti-Hazara policy compelled a Hazara intellectual. Abudl Khaliq, to seek an end to Hazaras oppression by assassinating Nadir in 1939. Nadir's successor, Muhammad Zahir Shah, retaliated by torturing Abdul Khaliq to death. His cruel and inhuman method of torture has been described as follows:

He used most brutal method of torturing this young boy, first by cutting off his fingers, pulling off his tongue and eyeballs, and cutting off his ears and hose. After this brutal treatment he was executed.

The Kabul government pursued policies aimed at further Pashtunization of every aspect of life in the country, causing Hazaras to seek rebellion against the state. The ruling class within the state bureaucracy ordered the standing army to crush the rebellion, which led to the arrest and execution of well-known Hazara leaders. Those who lost their lives included Najaf Beg Shiro, Eshaq Doli, Jafar Ali Khan Kajab, Qurban, Zawar, and Mullah Khudadad Lurn. In the late 1950s Hazaras again organized an armed insurrection in opposition to the imposition of heavy taxes. The state pacified the resistance by repealing taxes levied on the Hazaras and imprisoned the leaders of the rebellion, including, Muhammad Ebrahim Beg, known as Bache-e-Gaw Sawar, Khawja Naeem and Sayed Muhammad Esmail Balkhi. Ebrahim, who compromised his principles, was later released from jail while Balkhi remained there until 1964.

To eliminate Hazaras ethnic identity and consolidate Pashtun domination, the ruling circle in the Afghan polity, influenced by the Nazi ideology and the rise of Germany as a major world power, continued the Pashtunization of every aspect of non-Pashtun ethnic communities. They initiated the financing for publication of fictitious historical literature and documents to substantiate the superiority and historicity of the Pashtu language and culture. Hazara scholars maintain that publication of Puta Khana (The Hidden Treasure) in 1960 by a pro-establishment scholar, Abdul Hay Habibi, is a reflection of this policy. Habibi claims that in 1142/1763 King Hussain Shah Hotaki ordered Muhammad Horak to compile a profile of Pashtun heroes and examples of their literary works. Puta Khazana chronicles the life story of Pashtun heroes and their literary works dated a hundred years after the death of Prophet Muhammad.

This trend of development led pro-establishment scholars to postulate that many cities with Hazara names have had their origin in the Pashtu language. For example. Ler Wand, a village in Ghor, originated from the Pashtu words Lar (road) and Wand (block), Similarly, Aspi Buz district in Ghor owes its origin to the Pashtu word, Spin (white) and Buz (goat), and Surkh Ghar (Red Cave) is a transformation of the Pashtu words Ghar (mountain). The process of Pashtunization was vigorously pursued in regions where Hazaras had been settled among other tribes because of the community's greater religious tolerance toward Hazaras. Most Hazaras were wealthy and wielded a certain degree of social power and authority, which made their assimilation much easier. This situation was conducive for Hazara chiefs to marry non-Hazara women, in addition to his one or several Hazara women. Pushtunization policies deprived the Diaspora Hazara of their true ethnicity by registering and associating them with the dominant ethnic group in that community. State coercive policies forced many Hazaras to conceal their identity when they were trying to obtain state identification cards. They believed that their security depended their silence and concealment of their ethnic identity. It is due to this factor that the younger generations of Hazaras, especially those of mixed background, are not aware of their historical and ethnic identity, believing instead in the false notion that they are not Hazaras. State policies of registering Hazaras of mixed background, as non-Hazaras were intended to further decimate Hazaras social and ethnic identity. A Hazara man trying to obtain an identification card for his son stated that:

A state official at the census bureau inquired about my ethnicity. When I replied that I am a Hazara the official looked at me and said. You don't look like a Hazara and you must be a Tajik. I replied that I am a Hazara. The official replied, 'I am doing you a favor and you are not aware of it. It's up to you. I will write whatever you wish but one day you will regret it'.

To marginaliz the Hazaras role in politics the ruling circle partitioned Hazarajat into following provinces. Bamiyan, Ghazni, Ghor, Uruzgan and Wardak. In so doing the state intended to eliminate the collective bargaining power of the community and to emasculate their political strength. By partitioning Hazarajat the state also intended to deprive the region from international aid allocated for its development and also to minimize the number of Hazaras political representation (on the basis of majority of votes) in the Wulusi Jirga (the House of Parliament). For instance Daikundi,

With a population of 240,000 was recognized as a Wuluswali (sub-province). Other Hazara regions in the north, such as Charkent, Kushenda, Sangcharak and Balkhab, each with an estimated 100,000 population, were designated as Alaqadari (district). Suppression of Hazaras went hand-in-hand with the state policy of building Pashtun political domination. To this end the state elevated the Pashtun settled regions in the Shahr-e-Safa district, Qandahar with a population of 3,000, to the status of a sub province, legally qualifying it to send elected representatives to the House of Parliament. Other Pushtun settled areas, such as Alaqa Mizan in Qalat with a population of 3,500, and Haji Maidan and Shajoy each with a population of 3,000,had been named sub-provinces so that the Pushtuns in those regions would not be bereft of political representation and would receive financial support from the central government.

With the consolidation of state hegemony the status of Hazara chiefs had been reduced to that of middleman mediating between state functionaries and the Hazara peasantry. Hazara chiefs used their position to build a system based on economic coercion and made a large segment of the rural population dependent through rental tenancy arrangements, lending and investing money in the local market, and manipulating the rental system and market interests. They also used a good portion of state revenues for consolidating their position and maintaining a new system of clientele. Repression by the Hazaras ruling class and steady economic competition by the Pushtun merchants and traders forced a large number of Hazaras to migrate to major cities inside and outside the country. The underdevelopment of the Hazarajat, its geographical isolation, and government biased development programs claimed the lives of many Hazaras:

When drought struck the remote and mountainous central Afghanistan of Hazarajat in the early 1970, 50,000-100,000 people are thought to have starved to death because emergency supplies were never sent or were unable to get through.

The situations of Hazaras in the post-independent era were characteristic of a pariah position, underprivileged politically, socially, economically and culturally. They were subjected to all kinds of public humiliation and taunted by derogatory terms such as Hazara-e-mushkur (mice-eating Hazaras), bini puchuq (flat-nose), khar-e-barkash (load-carrying donkey), etc.

Modernization and capitalist development, which began in the immediate post World War II period, neither put an end to the country's economic underdevelopment in general, nor did it benefit the Hazarajat. Hazaras continued to take subservient jobs as porters, laborers, butlers, etc. When modern educational institutions were established in the post-independent period the state recruited the sons of tribal chiefs to acquire a modern education with the view to training them as loyal civil administrators. Although a limited number of Hazaras were enrolled in schools, they were not promoted to high positions in the state bureaucracy. Hazaras were not admitted to two secondary boarding schools in Kabul, Rahman Baba and Kushhal Khan (named after two Pushtun poets) and they could not pursue their further studies at the University of Nangarhar where the medium of instruction was Pushtu. Table 2 shows the percentage of Shiite enrolment in Afghanistan's prestigious high schools.

Institutions of higher education were expanded in the 1950s and 1960s. The majority of students who attended these institutions were mainly from upper class families of the dominant Sunnis. Although a limited number of Shiites were admitted to colleges for their further education, after graduation they were not able to secure employment within the state bureaucracy, except a few Hazaras who were hired as professors and staff at the Kabul University. They included Abdul Wahid Sorabi, Muhammad Ismail Muballigh, Muhammad Yaqub Lali, Amir Shah Hasanyar, Shah Ali akbar Shahristani, Dr Zaman Ali and Natiqi. A number of Hazara elite completed their higher studies in Madras's religious schooled in Qum, Iran and Najaf, Iraq. Prominent Hazara religious theologians with the title of Ayatollah were Muhammad Ali Modarassi, Sarwar

Table 2

Estimated percentage of Shiite enrolment in schools

In the early 1960s progressive movements for the restoration of democracy and a constitutional monarchy compelled the ruling class to liberalize state polices. A few individual Hazara elite of upper and middle class families was appointed to cabinet post. However, they did not commit themselves to promote the cause of the Hazaras: instead they used their position to submit the Hazaras to the ruling class. By appointing them to such positions the ruling class intended to portray the state as an institution that reconciles class conflicts, and represents and safeguards the interest of the community as a whole. Hazaras also sent their elected representatives to the House of Parliament and the Senate. Influential Hazara delegates to the House Parliament included Haji Nadir Allahdad, Haji Abdul Razaq, Muhammad Ismail Muballigh, Sheikh Suleiman, Abdul Hussain Maqsudi, and Qurban Ali Razawi. Two prominent Hazara senators were Ali Akbar Nargis and Nadir Ali. Table 4 shows the number of Hazaras in the cabinet positions.

Table 4

Hazaras in State Cabinet, 1967-1992

Source: Interviews with prominent Hazara Intellectuals in exile.

The liberal policies pursued by the state led to the emergence of various political movements. The Hazara movement was divided into three ideological groups: Islamist, Hazara nationalist and Socialist. The first group was composed of social forces that agitated for the establishment of an Islamic state. A number of Hazara intellectuals who advocated radical polities supported the Islamic movement in the 1980s and 1990s and rallied behind the leadership of the Hazara political party of Hizb-e-Wahdat. General Hussain Ali of Kalu district. Bamiyan province: General Khudaidad Hazara: General Akbar Qasimi and General Muhammad Asif are professional Hazara army officers associated with Hizb-e-Wahdat.

The second group included conservative and liberal democratic individuals espousing ethnic equality for the Hazaras. Prominent ideologues of this group were Abdul Raouf Turkmani, editor and publisher of a Persian newspaper, Payam-e-Wijdan (Message of Awareness), Ibrahim Alam Shahi Nuqta, editor of Burhan (Reason), Muhammad Ismail Muballigh, a deputy in the parliament in 1964-73, Haji Nadir Ali Allahdad and a number of other intellectuals. All had been executed between April 1978 and December 1979 except Allahdad, who was kidnapped and executed by supporters of Sazman-e-Nasr (Victory Organization) in the early 1980s.

The third group was made up of intelligentsia espousing either pro-soviet or pro-Beijing ideologies. Leading Hazara intellectuals of this group included Abdul Karim Mesaq, member of the pro-soviet Hizbi Demokratiki Khalqi Afghanistan (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or PDPA) and Minister of Finance in 1978-79 and Sultan Ali Keshtmand, member of the Parcham (Banner) faction of the PDPA. He also served as Minister of Planning (1978-79), and premier (1981-88). They were active in political movements in the 1960s and recruited Hazara youths into their respective parties, which supported the Kabul regime and the Soviet occupation. Leading Hazara intellectuals who advocated revolutionary armed struggle and supported the people's revolution included Akram Yari and Sadiq Yari. Akram was one of the founding members of the pro-Beijing organization of Sazmani Demokratiki Navin-e-Afghanistan or the Neo-Democratic Organization known as Shula-e-Jawid. After the establishment of the pro-Soviet regime in April 1978, Yari and his associates were arrested and executed. Other Hazara elite of the same group included Aziz Tughyan, members of Sazman-e-Azadi Bakhashi Mardum-e-Afghanistan (People's Liberation Organization of Afghanistan), known as SAMA, who was shot to death during a battle with security forces in Kabul, and Nadir Ali Poya, sentenced to death by the Kabul regime in 1982.

In the 1970s the younger generation of Hazaras of Jafari and Ismaili sects espousing anti-establishment political discourse became active in polities in the most underdeveloped region of Hazarajat, Shibar-Shunbul district, Bamiyan province. Prominent among them were Rajab Ali who died in Kabul in the early 1990s, and Abdul Qayum, who was arrested by state security officers while he was a cadet in the military school studying medicine. He was tortured and summarily executed in 1978. General Ghulam Sakhi Azimi, who survived the onslaught of the Kabul regime in the 1980s, serves as a general in the Hizb-e-Wahdat military base in Bamiyan.

As a Hazara of the Ismaili community of Shibar district, Bamiyan, the author had the opportunity to become acquainted with leading Hazara élites of the Ismaili sect who played a significant role in the community's politics. Commander Noor Muhammad was one of the leading Ismailis who got involved in politics in the early 1970s while he was a cadet in a military school. After graduating from the military academy he served as an army officer for several years until he was imprisoned during the reign of President Noor Muhammad Taraki, State security officers tortured him for several weeks in prison in order to extract information about his political affiliation and its activities. Having failed to obtain any information they released him but kept him under strict state surveillance. Noor Muhammad seized this opportunity and escaped to Shibar, where he established his base and organized people to fight the Soviet-backed government. He liberated the region and was in charge of sociopolitical affairs of the region until he was assassinated by a rival Ismaili group in the mid-1980s he was appointed provincial commander of the army and governor of Bamiyan until he was killed during an anti-government armed insurrection in the late 1980s. General Faramurz was killed during a military operation in Kabul in the early 1990s.

The establishment of a pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan in April 1978 and its Soviet-style modernization programs antagonized people throughout the country and caused them to oppose the regime. In March 1979 when weather conditions improved in the Hazarajat, people rallied behind their tribal chiefs and launched a major offensive against government installations. They were armed with sickles, knives and clubs and quickly overpowered the state's military and civilian installations. A quick victory in one village served as a motive for other villages to follow suit, and most areas fell into the hands of the local people within a few days.

On 1 May 1979 approximately 4,000 people organized a rebellion in Bamiyan. Although they were defeated by the state military they soon reorganized themselves and laid siege to the Bamiyan city and cut all communications with it. By the summer of 1979 almost all parts of the Hazarajat had been liberated. In Kabul the Hazaras, armed struggle started on 23 June 1979. Hazaras of Chindawul ghetto planned an organized protest in condemnation of the bombing of areas in Ghazni province by the Afghan air force. The Hazaras armed struggle began with an attack on a police station in Jade-e-Maiwand Street and immolation of government vehicles. The Kabul regime dispatched armored cars and light tanks to the scene to crush the uprising. It is estimated that 100 persons died and 300 men were arrested and sent to Pol-e-Charkhi prison, where they were summarily executed. Hazaras claim that 10,000 people lost their lives during that incident. The next day, government forces began to patrol areas in Kabul inhabited by the Hazaras and arrested numerous people. In order to prevent similar armed uprisings in other areas inhabited by the Hazaras, the Kabul regime began to arrest their community leaders, intellectuals and clerics. The arrest included 360 people in Bamiyan, 570 in Behsud, 1,200 in Jaghuri, 160 in Nawoor, 700 in Turkman and Shikhali regions, and 150 in Shahristan.

Kabul accused Iran of instigating the uprising and warned its residents to beware of Iranian saboteurs who might be hiding in Kabul. Hazaras remained defiant of the Kabul regime but were lacking both the organization and strategic planning needed to coordinate and sustain their armed struggle. The spontaneity of the movement convinced those in leadership positions to develop strategies to unite the Hazara movement. In September 1979 a grand assembly of an estimated 1,200 dignitaries was convened in Panjaw district, Bamiyan. Their objective was to reach a consensus on how Hazarajat should be administered after government forces and state officials were forced to depart the region. The meeting resulted in the creation of Shura-e-Itifaq (Council of the Union); Sayed Ali Behishti was elected to lead the council. Table 5 shows the influential participants in the 1979 assembly.

Landowners and intelligentsia were dominant in the assembly. They had been assisted by the clerics, whose mandate was to issue religious edicts for a popular uprising against the Kabul regime. Although the edicts appealed to Islamic conscience and unity against the regime, in essence it

Table 5.

Influential participants of the grand assembly, 1979

Source: Interviews with prominent Hazara Intellectuals in exile. Also see, Grant M.Farr, "The rise and fall of an indigenous resistance group: the Shura of the Hazarajat" , Afghanistan Studies Journal, Premier issue, Spring 1988, p 54.

Legitimized peasant rebellion under the prevailing patron - client organization. The Shura ruled over the entire Hazarajat by establishing its own administrative apparatus, recruiting conscripts, collecting taxes, issuing identification cards and passports, and establishing offices in Quetta, Pakistan and Tehran, Iran, in an attempt to solicit foreign aid. Hazarajat was divided into 36 civilian and eight military administrative units where civilian and military units were independent of each other. One-year compulsory military service was enforced throughout the region and those unable to serve due to health or family reasons were obliged to pay a fine. In addition to regular armed forces, a volunteer militia unit was formed and Hazaras were obliged to support it by paying 20 per cent of their harvest yield.

After the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in December 1979 Hazaras intensified their struggle against the Soviet army and its puppet regime. A large number of Hazara clerics, who studied theology in Iran's religious centers in the 1960s and 1970s and had become acquainted with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomieni's radical Islamic ideology, joined the resistance. After consolidating their power base the Islamists began to oppose landowners with nationalist proclivities and the intellectuals, many of whom were members of various splinter groups of Shula-e-Jawid. Some clerics succeeded in excluding most landowners from the movement and executed members of the secular upper classes and Hazara clerics espousing the Sunni faith of Islam. This situation forced many landowners and secularly oriented intellectuals to flee to Pakistan. Execution of revolutionary Hazara élites by the government and the inability of the surviving revolutionaries to organize themselves and provide leadership to the Hazara movement enabled the Islamists to seize leadership of the movement.

Hazaras in Kabul defied the Kabul regime and demonstrated their opposition by organizing an uprising in February 1980, known as the insurrection of She-e-Hoot (the third day of the 12th month of Hoot in the Arabic calendar). The uprising originated in several districts, including Qala-e-Shada, Dasht-e-Barchi, and Afshar. Demonstrators marched toward the Soviet embassy and attacked the house of former president Hafizullah Amin (killed by Soviet forces in December 1979) and several police stations, seizing arms and ammunition.

The shura's influence on the resistance movement began to decline as new political organizations espousing radial ideologies effloresced in the Hazarajat. Ideological differences coupled with clashes of personality among their leadership effectively prevented the formation of a single party, which could articulate a consistent political line to guide the Hazaras armed struggle. In 1983 Sazman-e-Nasr and Sepah-e-Pasdaran came into existence and succeeded in driving Sayed Ali Behishi out of his capitulate Waras in Ghor province, thereby consolidating their positions within the Hazarajat by 1984. The Sepah was patterned after Iran's Revolutionary Guard and were more ideologically aligned to the Iranian leadership. These parties supported the establishment of an Islamic state and of a moral economy which rejected any demarcation on the basis of race, nation or state. Table 6 shows the Shiite organizations active in the resistance movement during and after the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Since the Soviet occupation there were approximately two million Afghan refugees in Iran working at various construction sites. The majority of the refugees are Shiite. Iran used its influence to encourage Shiite Hazaras to defend Iran in its war with Iraq, claiming that they will gain experience in the art of warfare which would enable them to effectively light the Soviets and the Kabul regime upon their return home. Prior to sending them to the war fronts the Iranian government pledged to provide them with six months military training inTaibad, Gilan, Qum, Sabzwar, Zahidan, Tehran, Zabul, Turbat-e-Jam, Sirjan and other military centers in Iran. During the first three months the trainees were paid a stipend of 6,000 Rials (Iranian currency) and 20,000 Rials during the remainder of the training period. The Iranian government pledged paying each of those trainees 30,000 Rials. The trainees complained that the Iranian leadership did not pay in full the stipends they were entitled to receive after returning from the Iran-Iraq. A facsimile of a letter by the organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan to the Guards of the Islamic Revolutionary of West Ham, Iran states that:

We should like to inform you that the members of the organization who have fought against the troops of Saddam Hussain, the infidel, have received their salaries (1,5000 Rials per person monthly) although their previous salary per person was estimated at 25,000

Table -6

Afghanistan's major Shiite organization, 1979-1996