Daily Times

The current sharpness in the ethnonationalist trend in the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan is not new. The affiliation with the ideals of Pashtun nationalism was there since decades, but there have been vicissitudes in the intensity of attachment with the cause.

The state’s policy of absorbing more and more Pashtuns into its fold–intake in civil and military bureaucracy; share in federal ministries; participation in sports at the national level; extension of provincial autonomy under constitutional clauses like the 18th amendment–considerably toned down the sharp hue of the nationalistic approach. As a result, political parties, with a predominantly federating colour, penetrated the Pashtun belts and brought them to the national embrace.

The state does not have any problem with the bend towards nationalism until its ideals are exploited by some external factors from across the Durand Line with the connivance of other stakeholders in the region.

Let us travel down to the history lane to trace out the ethnonationalistic tendency in the Pashtun terrain of Pakistan and ascertain what conduct it has been taking up over the decades.

Before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, the Khudai Khidmatgar or Surkh Posh or Red Shirts (formed by Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a politician from Charsadda) was the movement that united and organised the Pashtuns of erstwhile NWFP and infused in them the ideals of Pashtun nationalism.

Khan had a great affiliation with Gandhi and his party, Indian National Congress. He knew that the Pathans of NWFP would never go for this alliance. So, the idea of anti-imperialism – independence from the British Raj – was handsomely used to make Pashtuns pro-Congress with the idea that Congress also wanted independence.

He worked laboriously to carve out in-roads for Congress into the Pashtun areas. Due to his ardent support and tireless efforts, Congress was able to secure 17 out of 50 seats in 1937 and 30 out of 50 seats in the 1946 elections from NWFP.

But the winds started veering its directions when the Pashtuns sensed that Congress was planning to replace the British Raj with the Hindu Raj in NWFP. The conspicuous slogans of Muslim League like “No Hindu Raj” and “Muslim Unity” attracted the Pashtuns and weaned them off the crafts of Congress. By December 1946, the Muslim League had emerged as a potent political force in NWFP and the adjoining tribal areas.

This disappointed Khan, who had worked for Congress for more than a decade, planned a visit of Pandit Jawahar Lal to the tribal belt to dispel the impressions created by the Muslim League.

On October 20, 1946, Khan was in the tribal areas along with Nehru, when their motorcade was attacked by the locals who did not have a soft heart for the latter and his kind of politics.

At the time of partition, he boycotted the referendum based on “Pakistan or India.”

Instead, he demanded a referendum based on “Pashtunistan or Pakistan.”

Some NAP nationalists found it quite convenient to flee into Afghanistan to resuscitate the Pashtunistan issue

The situation became all the more complex when Afghanistan, too, jumped in to fish out of the troubled waters and claimed that the territories lying between Durand Line and the Indus River belonged to Afghanistan, and the tribes of these areas should be given an option to re-join Afghanistan.

From here starts a series of hostile episodes initiated by Afghanistan to support insurgencies on the western bordering areas of Pakistan.

On August 12, 1949, some locals of the Afridi tribe met at Tirah, issued a declaration of independence and sent that to the Pashtun organisations and parties in Pakistan, abroad and the UN. The declaration was hailed by Afghanistan with great verve. Kabul radio also broadcasted heated debates on it.

Other notable Pashtun nationalists, Mirzali Khan and Malik Wali Khan Kuki Khel, in alliance with Khudai Khidmatgars, refused to recognise Pakistan and started guerrilla warfare with the nascent state through the clandestine support of Afghanistan. Khel led two attacks on Pakistan’s territories from Kabul in January 1952. In 1959, he was pardoned and allowed to come back and settle in Pakistan as a part of the policy of integrating disgruntled Pashtuns into the folds of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, the elder brother of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, was made the Chief Minister of West Pakistan. The trend was followed by other Pashtun nationalists, too, who started taking part in the centre-oriented politics of Pakistan.

Important developments happened in the 1970s; igniting once again the embers of Pashtun nationalism. By then, Khudai Khidmatgars had turned into National Awami Party (NAP); participating in the parliamentary electoral process. But the leadership, at the helms of affairs in Pakistan, was piqued at the NAP chapter of East Pakistan for its support to the cause of Bangladesh there. In 1973, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, dismissed the NAP government in Balochistan resulting in the resignation of NAP government of NWFP as a protest.

This was a time when Sardar Daud Khan was in power in Afghanistan. He was an ardent supporter of Pashtun nationalism in Pakistan and also earlier led the Afghan army into Pakistan’s Bajaur region in 1960. However, he was repulsed by the military government of Pakistan. Some NAP nationalists, such as Ajmal Khattak, found it quite convenient to flee into Afghanistan to resuscitate the Pashtunistan issue.

During Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law, Pashtun nationalists under the NAP joined the anti-Bhutto campaign of Pakistan National Alliance (PNA). Later, Talibanisation shifted their attention to a bigger dilemma, thus, landing them in an eerie ilk of quicksand, which gripped them for quite a while. Yet, they are now remarkably out as a result of relentless military operations.

But the irony is that despite paying gratitude to the state’s policy to clean the tribal areas off Taliban, some politicians of the soil have again started raising ethnonationalism with ever more vim and angst, and again in complicity with other players from across the Durand Line. So, we again stand the same ground with the same realities jeering at us.

The writer is an educationist and historian