As Afghanistan warmed up to India in the late 1940s, strains with Pakistan began to emerge

In November 1949, India’s ambassador to Afghanistan sent a letter to the foreign secretary, celebrating the positive shifts in the chilly relations between the two nations.

“As you are aware, the Indian consulates both at Kandahar and Jalalabad have started functioning,” Ambassador Rup Chand wrote. “I have received reports from the respective Vice-Consuls and it is apparent that the prestige of India has gone high in the eyes of Afghans.”

The thaw in the relations began after India became free. Until then, many Afghans had viewed India with hostility owing to the participation of British-Indian forces in the three Anglo-Afghan Wars. In the second of these conflicts, lasting from 1878 to 1880, Afghanistan lost control of the Khyber Pass and many Pashtun areas, which were handed to undivided India.

India’s independence and partition changed two things. It dehyphenated India from Britain. And it transferred the areas seized in the Second Anglo-Afghan War from India to Pakistan, changing the object of Afghans’ animosity.

So bitter were Afghans over Pakistan’s control of the North West Frontier Province, which is dominated by Pathans, that they tried to keep the country out of the United Nations.

“Afghanistan cast the only vote against Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations and Pakistan’s leaders are inclined to...

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