The Durand Line

On 17 October 2026 Pakistani forces and the Afghan Taliban exchanged fire along their border, in a year of repeated clashes. This film explains the history of that border, the Durand Line: the Great Game between the British and Russian empires, the Anglo-Afghan wars, the 1893 agreement between Mortimer Durand and Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, the survey along mountain watersheds, the Pashtun and Baloch peoples it divided, Partition in 1947 and the Pashtunistan dispute, border closures, Pakistan's fence, and how each government sees the line today. Draw the line, follow the watershed, close the border and build the fence.

A line across the mountains

Where did this border come from?

Between two empires

Russia from the north, Britain from the south.

Wars over Kabul

Britain invades twice.

Two signatures

A line on a map, agreed in Kabul.

Marking the mountains

Where the rain divides.

Across the valleys

Families on both sides.

Afghanistan’s own foreign policy

Independence, and the line confirmed.

A new country inherits the line

And a new question is asked.

Inheriting a border

One principle, two readings.

Trucks at the gate

A landlocked country and its routes to the sea.

Building a barrier

Steel along the mountains.

The line today

Each side’s account, in its own terms.

A line with two meanings

A frontier for one, a wound for the other.

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