The recent Pashtun appraisal is one of the important moments of Pashtun national history. For the first time in their history, they have woken after the ravages of proxy wars in their lands which demolished their social, cultural, political and economic ingenuities.
It speaks incredibly sad stories and cries of the people who were kept in dread of bumping and dumping for many years in FATA and nearest belts including settled areas of Pakhtunkhwa, particularly North and South Waziristan which was portrayed and referred to by President Obama as ‘the most dangerous place in the world’.
How these areas were converted to hellholes is an important question in the upcoming phase of Pashtun history. However, the expectancy of life plummeted to trajectory low, not by natural death but by violence, predatory, torture, widespread devastation, scare and dramatic mental health consequences.
Living in such despotic way is self-immolation for oneself again and again. This realisation of the Pashtun resistance has been constructed and preoccupied in their common cognition and mind due to the series and unprecedented decades’ long imposed proxy wars, genocide, repression, harsh human rights abuses, economic deprivation, stifling of their political dissent and racial profiling with different meanings and interests of exterior and interior regimes. Fear makes them turn their backs on death or denying the life. Everything became alienated, remote and strange to them.
The heartfelt voice they had dreaded hearing to the world can be guessed in the following couplet of Manzoor Pashteen of South Waziristan who leads the current Pashtun uprising.
Har Cha Pa Zarha Ke De Satali Grana
‘Everyone had encaged the wrath in bosom’
Sok Na Manni Ao Cha Mannali Grana
‘Oh Beloved! Someone doesn’t accept and someone accepts this’
Pashtun Ehsas Che Rana Khawre Na Ki
‘It may not put our Pashtun sprite of elation in the ground’
Nor Kho Me Har Sa De Belali Grana
‘Oh Beloved! Otherwise, we have already lost everything in life’
The genesis of this awakening of Pashtun in Pakistan can’t be bent with the single murder of innocent young Pashtun boy Naqeeb Mehsud who was killed in a fake encounter in an extra-judicial killing in Karachi last month. However the death of Naqeeb Mehsud is triggering and locomotive response of historical baggage of the land which faced mayhems, atrocities, holy wars, ferocious laws and deprivations imposed on Pashtun by the Pakistani state.
Courtesy, this resistance doesn’t demand complete disintegration of the state, independence or civil disobedience but simply wants the life to live, dignity as a human being which Pakistani state deliberately prevented from coming into mainstream consideration. If social contract is disrupted or ignored by either side, the abyss is ultimately offered to disorder and chaos in the system and one of them will be going out.
Unfortunately, this principle, pillar, constitution, of the state is always being abolished, violated and ridiculed by Pakistani establishment, military elites and its intelligence agencies, in the federating system from the very existence of state through direct and indirect interventions. In actuality, this constitution is the only repository instrument which unites the different ethnic groups in Pakistan otherwise there is no any logical fact which attracts them jointly.
Such fatal slip was tested and known how on December 16, 1971, when majority population of Bengal went away from this system. Parallel reservations still are not addressed in this federation of Punjab, Pashtun, Sindh and Baloch and over and over again those mistakes have recurred.
I don’t know which unit now drives out because the Baloch already considers itself here as the victim of marginalisation and an anti-state struggle continues in the province for full freedom. Although Pashtun parallel goes through the same antagonism and doubt due to ambiguous policies towards them, God forbid it may night force them to an armed struggle that would be impossible for Pakistani state to bear and restraint.
Still, they just demand to reassess state policies of intervention in domestic politics and neighbourhoods which effectively dooms their lives and properties into perdition. Pakistan military must stay away from FATA anymore which they once used and still uses it as a launching pad for the Islamist terrorism against Afghanistan during cold war and after 9/11 where all international terrorists including Uzbek, Tajik, Chechens and Arabs were resettled and facilitated in their areas including nitrous Al-Qaeda and Haqqani Network and FATA was altered to international hub of terrorist groups for the safeguard of Pakistan military’s doctrine of strategic depth. More suffering on FATA was added when international pressures increased on Pakistan, the military launched façade operations on terrorists and left them escape peacefully in advance but the punishment was given to common scared people of the areas which already were the victims of terrorists in the areas.
The residents of these areas of FATA, tortured and excruciated from both sides. Thousands of Pashtun people of North and South were displaced and after returning they found nothing of their homes either it was demolished in Pakistani jets bombardments or looted by army or terrorists according to them. In the non-Pashtun settled areas of Pakistan these people are always being prosecuted, satirized, punished and portrayed as terrorists.
This resistance doesn’t demand complete disintegration of the state, independence or civil disobedience, but simply demands the right to live, dignity as a human being which Pakistani state deliberately prevented from coming into mainstream consideration. If social contracts are disrupted or ignored by either side, it will lead to an abyss of disorder
These grievances, at last, compelled them to launch mass mobilization of the concerned ethnic Pashtun which they named it Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), Pashtun protection movement. According to PTM leader Manzoor Pashteen that when we stage our peaceful protests for the safety of our lives, properties and human rights the Pakistan army and intelligence personals says that don’t protest it lowers our morale. Actually, do they need our blood for their morale? Our fellow men lives are ending. I am talking about our people lives and you’re talking about your morale. So what kind of morale is this that needs our blood and humiliation? PTM just demands human and citizenship rights for their Pashtun people within the state which is guaranteed under the constitution of Pakistan.
In this regard, PTM staged huge public gatherings in Islamabad, Zhob, Qilla Saifullah, Khanozai and Quetta and addressed their years of injustice to the people they faced in FATA. Pakistani mainstream both electronic and print media has ignored them and were completely black-out from the PTM’s huge mass gatherings which censorship of media effectively left deep and bad perception and insightful about the army and the state as a whole.
Rather listen and address the concerned issues people demand, in Zhob and other areas where the PTM staged public gatherings, the administrative authorities have registered FIR against the leadership of PTM and declared these protests as anti-state and traitorous One gets surprised what kind of the state is this which could be disintegrated and its army’s morale could be decreased by simple peaceful and non-violent protests for the demands of their due constitutional rights under the state constitution blame? Is constitution of Pakistan itself anti-state or something suspicious? Whither define the constitution in its true sense or clarify the state of Pakistan to the people that aren’t only for army elites, intelligence directorate and their puppets. Otherwise, the state can’t be run through the disguise and treacherous rules anymore in this 21st century’s civilized world.
The writer is studying in International Relations at QAU, Islamabad
Published in Daily Times, March 17th 2018.