Despite pressure from his superiors, Burnes declined a military escort on his journey up the Indus, fearing their presence would cause the native population to conclude the British intended to mount an invasion.

His immense skills in diplomacy and knowledge of local customs and rites of flattery enabled him to travel through areas of the Indus previously closed to Europeans, including Thatta, Hyderabad, Bukkur, and Shujabad, among others.

In October 1831, Burnes coordinated the first meeting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh with a sitting commander of British forces in India, Governor General Lord William Bentinck.

In the following years, in company with Mohan Lal, his travels continued through Afghanistan across the Hindu Kush to Bukhara (in what is modern Uzbekistan) and Persia.

Soon after his return to India in 1835 he was appointed to the court of Sindh to secure a treaty for the navigation of the Indus and in 1836 he undertook a political mission to Dost Mohammed Khan at Kabul.

He advised Lord Auckland to support Dost Mohammed on the throne of Kabul, but the viceroy preferred to follow the opinion of Sir William Hay Macnaghten and reinstated Shah Shuja, thus leading to the outbreak of the First Anglo-Afghan War.

[10] He was knighted by Queen Victoria on 6 August 1838, while serving in the 21st India Native Infantry on a mission in Afghanistan,[11][12] and remained there until his assassination in 1841, during an insurrection in which his younger brother, Charles, was also killed.

The calmness with which he continued at his post despite the threat to his life, and after the death of his political assistant Major William Broadfoot,[13] won him a heroic reputation.

It came to light in 1860 that some of Burnes's dispatches from Kabul in 1839 had been altered to convey opinions that had not been his, but Lord Palmerston refused after so long to grant the inquiry demanded in the House of Commons.

Burnes, having long considered Shujah unfit to rule, had implored then Governor General Lord Auckland to endorse Dost Mohammad Khan to accede to the throne.

Shuja announced that he considered his own people to be "dogs" who needed to be taught to be obedient to their master, and spent his time exacting bloody vengeance on those Afghans who he felt had betrayed him.

[16] At the same time, large numbers of British officers, their wives, children, and staff, had relocated to Kabul for the favourable temperatures, having previously been stationed in the hot, dry plains of Hindustan.

They managed to swell their numbers by spreading the message that the building adjacent to Burnes's house was used as the garrison treasury, holding pay for the entire British forces in Kabul.

Now assured that there was no longer a chance for rescue, Charles Burnes exited, armed, into the courtyard, reportedly killing six men before being hacked to death.