Daily Times

As so often happens on the frontier, I was thrown into a risky situation not of my choosing in which failure or success would determine my reputation. The question was how to proceed when the effectiveness of a political officer was defined by factors outside his control. I decided to send messages to Safar Khan in Afghanistan through the Wazir, a tribe whose members lived on both sides of the international border and were harbouring him. I had won over the Wazir only a few months earlier when I had made a dramatic and risky visit to the grave of their ancestor, Musa Nikka at Birmal, along the lawless and un-demarcated international border, often referred to as the Durand Line. No government official, British or Pakistani, until that time had ever visited this dangerous area before.

The tribesmen, alienated by the previous administration, saw the visit as a gesture of respect for their ancestor. At the same time, I contacted the outlaw Nemat through Abdul Maalik, a prominent Mahsud elder of the Shabi Khel clan, who was hostile to the administration until I appealed to his sense of honor and earned his loyalty. After lengthy negotiations, Safar was promised a fair trial by jirga in Balochistan, where his crimes were committed, if he surrendered to me. I assured him that I would also speak with the Political Agent in Zhob to request that he be treated fairly under tribal custom, but I could only do this if he came to me unconditionally. The exchanges were thick with the words ‘trust’ and ‘honour’. Safar agreed.

In January 1980, accompanied by the leading Wazir and Mahsud maliks (elders), Safar formally surrendered to me along with Nemat, who swore loyalty to Pakistan. Safar was brought to the Political Agent’s bungalow in Tank, South Waziristan, and in the photograph taken on the occasion — of him, myself, and the elders — he is crouched sullenly at our feet while the rest of us are standing. The picture, can be found in my book Resistance and Control in Pakistan, it illustrates not only the unity between the elders and the Political Agent regarding Safar but also the reality that like many men with a fearsome reputation, he was rather unimpressive in person.

After I had detailed conversations with senior officials in Balochistan, the jirga travelled to Balochistan like a victory procession with Safar Khan as their prize. The Zhob Militia escorted him from the border. Safar’s traditional rivals suspended their animosity and held a dinner for the jirga, in keeping with Pashtunwali, or the honour code of the Pashtun, to indicate their desire for peace and a healing of past wounds.

The jirga, after concluding its often tense proceedings, announced a settlement of the original land dispute that was largely satisfactory to both parties involved, binding them to sureties worth 200,000 rupees each. Moreover, the jirga ensured Safar’s future good behaviour. From my opening moves to reach Safar to the tribal jirga in Balochistan, the long months were filled with intense negotiations, lengthy meetings, favours called in, theatrical flourishes that conveyed threats and promises, and the determination to persevere with the patience of a saint.

The above example shows that impartiality, honesty, and culturally sensitive administration working with tribal elders will not only ensure the successful maintenance of law and order, but will also be widely accepted in tribal society. If the military had resorted to bombing the area where Safar Khan was, for example, the community would have turned against the government

The slightest thing, even an imagined insult, could have caused the entire proceedings to unravel. By working within traditional tribal structures based on codes of honour and negotiating with various clans, particularly the fearsome Shabi Khel — from which would later emerge the most notorious of the Taliban mutations, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — I was able to ‘bag my man’ without bloodshed.

The above example shows that impartiality, honesty, and culturally sensitive administration working with tribal elders will not only ensure the successful maintenance of law and order, but will also be widely accepted in tribal society. If the military had resorted to bombing the area where Safar Khan was, for example, the community would have turned against the government. This is not to say that the use of force is unwarranted or unwise — on the contrary it is an essential tool of the government. But it must be used judiciously, sparingly and only after other methods have failed.

“I will not hesitate to say,” the Colonel of the Zhob Militia wrote to me on behalf of his unit, “that where all possible force failed to achieve desired results your political manoeuvre was unique for unconditional and prompt recovery of the individual Ferari. I must appreciate that this is such a precedence which has never been set by any civil administration, particularly in the agency area in the past.” The Governor of Balochistan, in a rare gesture of appreciation crossing provincial boundaries, wrote to Governor KP requesting him “to convey his appreciation” to Political Agent, South Waziristan Agency: ‘The Governor of Balochistan has conveyed that but for your resolute efforts and skilful handling the surrender of Safar Khan Mando khel of Zhob would not have been possible.”

Today in the era of the war on terror the opposite seems to be happening. The use of military force seems to be the first rather than the last option and we have seen how difficult counterinsurgency campaigns can be in Muslim tribal regions, bogging down governments in conflicts which can seem interminable. However, if the approach I am discussing here is conducted in the correct way and with understanding, no problem in the field is too great to resolve.

In conclusion, in my earlier book on Waziristan, Resistance and Control in Pakistan, I had pointed to its “speculative and exploratory nature” and expressed the hope that the study “has indicated areas for future research.” Much work still remains to be done in this field.

The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC, and author of Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity

Published in Daily Times, December 9^th 2018.