The Unsolved Pashtun Question in Af-Pak

Divide and Rule of British Implemented since 1857 continue by Inherited sons of Pakistan in Punjab who Plays with Fire by Trying to Enslave Pashtuns whom they consider not to be their Equal and it  Treats Pashtuns and Afghans as their Fifth Province and subjects . 

ANSWERING THE PASHTUN QUESTION

by Myra MacDonald
December 29, 2014 · in Book Reviews on a Book by  Abubakar Siddique, The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan(C. Hurst & Co. 2014)



The “mujahideen” reached Peshawar in the early 19th century, bringing with them a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and the readiness of zealots to use violence – then against the Sikhs. Their leader, Sayyid Ahmed from Rae Bareilly in northern India, who was inspired by the reformist preacher Shah Waliullah, is still celebrated today in the officially sanctioned ideology of Pakistan as a forefather of modern jihad. But local Pashtuns, who disliked his severe interpretation of Islam, rejected him and the Sikhs killed him in 1831. 

The story is significant in showing how in the history of the region, extremism and religiously sanctioned violence was just as likely to move from east to west, from the heartland of undivided British India to Pashtun lands, as it was to move from west to east. It has all the more resonance following this month’s attack by Taliban militants on a school in Peshawar, in which more than 140 people – most of them children – were killed. It is an attack that Pakistan would desperately prefer to blame on an external enemy hiding among the Pashtuns to the northwest than on influences radiating outwards from its heartland.

The narrative that the dangers of extremism would come from predominantly Pashtun lands to the northwest of British India – including large parts of modern-day Afghanistan, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) adjacent to Peshawar – is of British origin. It was a convenient way for colonial functionaries to explain to London their poor judgment, which led to the massacre of a British army on its retreat from Kabul in 1842. 

That retreat took place more than a decade after Sayyid Ahmed died, and yet it is far more frequently cited as a foundational moment for the development of jihad in the region than his arrival in Peshawar from the east. Later, the British would relegate the Pashtun lands to the periphery of the British Raj, happy to avoid the burden of governance provided that Afghanistan accepted British tutelage on foreign policy. 

The British colonial spotlight on the Indian subcontinent meant that the history of Afghanistan was often consigned to the shadows. If there were a grammar of Raj thinking, the Pashtuns would always be the objects of a sentence, never its subjects.

The Pakistani state, the direct inheritor of British colonial power in the lands bordering Afghanistan, has preserved many elements of the Raj view of Pashtuns. Its military continues to see Afghanistan as a country over which it has rightful influence – as it has proved with its enduring support for the Afghan Taliban and other Pashtun groups opposed to the government in Kabul. 

It still governs the Pashtun tribes living in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) through the colonial-era Frontier Crimes Regulation. Since the United States overthrew the Taliban in Kabul in 2001, Pakistan has also been able to rely on an orientalist description of “untameable” Pashtuns to explain resistance to the American presence in Afghanistan.

 This explanation also allows Pakistan to avoid its own active role in Afghanistan’s instability. Some years back, Pakistan’s military establishment, which runs foreign and security policy, even managed to convince many at home and in the West that the Pakistani Taliban were essentially wild tribals riled up by U.S. drone strikes in FATA. 

After the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in Peshawar this month, Pakistan’s attention has again been primarily focused on the northwest. 

The day after the attack, Pakistan Army chief General Raheel Sharif travelled to Kabul to demand its help in hunting down Pakistani Taliban leaders that Pakistan says are based in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Air Force stepped up its attacks on militant targets in FATA – the days of worrying about civilian casualties from air strikes seem to be long gone. Just as the British view had relocated violent Islamist extremism to the northwest from the heartland of undivided India where it found its intellectual roots, Pakistan did the same in its response to the Peshawar attack. 

It is not that there are no Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan or FATA. There are. The point is that the roots of Islamist militancy come from deep within Pakistan; the use of religiously sanctioned violence is integral to its history and ideology. 

Its heartland in Punjab province is home to violent militant groups nurtured for decades by the military to impose its will domestically and to fight India. But this problem in the heartland is all the more easily ignored if attention is focused on what the Raj called its “Northwest Frontier” – on the wild tribal Pashtun of the colonial imagination. The enemy becomes external.

In his book, The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan, journalist Abubakar Siddique – who is from Waziristan in FATA – sets out to show that violent extremism is neither rooted in Pashtun history nor finds willing hosts among its tribes. He highlights how Pashtuns comprised not only “ungoverned” tribes but also conquerors and rulers, like the Lodi dynasty, which ruled in northern India from 1451 to 1526. 

Rather than celebrating bearded, religious extremists, the heroes of Pashtun history are poets, proponents of non-violence, and Sufis. The Pashtun leader Ahmad Shah Abdali of the Durrani tribal confederation fought and won what was one of the world’s most important battles in the 18th century when his forces defeated the Marathas in The Third Battle of Panipat north of Delhi in 1761. 

Tellingly, Pakistan has appropriated this victory in its official histories as one of Muslims over Hindus rather than one of Pashtuns over Marathas; it suppresses Pashtun ethnicity and replaces it with Islamic ideology. This effort to stress Islam over ethnic identity is one that has defined Pakistan’s attitude to its own Pashtuns, and to Afghanistan, for decades.

Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan have been troubled. Afghanistan refused initially even to recognise Pakistan at the United Nations. To this day, it refuses to recognise the colonial-era Durand Line as the official border, instead harbouring claims to Pashtun lands on the Pakistani side as far as the Indus River. Pakistan has also fretted about the Pashtuns on its side of the Durand Line hankering after a separate Pashtunistan, an idea floated in the mid-20th century. 

The Soviet invasion in 1979, and the American and Saudi money provided to fund the Afghan resistance, gave Pakistan the perfect opportunity to exert its influence on Afghanistan while undermining Pashtun nationalism. With its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency running the resistance, Pakistan made sure to encourage distinctly Islamist fighters whose commitment to the “jihad” against the Soviets would override any attachment to the ethnic Pashtun cause. Pakistan’s subsequent support for the Afghan Taliban who took power in 1996, Siddique notes, created a form of “Pashtun Islamism” that bitterly divided Pashtuns in Pakistan between those who supported the Pakistani establishment and secular nationalists, while also alienating many Afghan Pashtuns.

Siddique’s history is followed by detailed accounts of the war in key parts of Afghanistan and FATA after 2001, when Pakistan formally promised to work with the United States against the Taliban. Instead, he writes, Islamabad followed “a classic game of doubletalk, in which it sent out different messages to different audiences in hopes of capitalising on the ignorance of both, and gambling that its deception would not be noticed by anyone in a position to do anything about it.” The Pashtuns, who would become the main tools and victims of the conflict, of course, noticed it.

The book is at its best when Siddique brings his own first-hand knowledge to bear, particularly in a region so hard for foreigners to visit. On a trip to Quetta, capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, he notes for example that, “it was not difficult to find Afghan Taliban fighters in Quetta. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands…” To outsiders they might have seemed indistinguishable from Pakistani Pashtuns, but to Siddique “the way they fastened their turbans, the slight variations of their Pashto dialect, their unkempt long beards and hair, and the way they walked around in packs, distinguished the Afghan Taliban from ordinary residents.”

Given the richness of the material he has collated, the book is, however, surprisingly tame in its conclusions. What Siddique describes as “the unresolved key to the future of Pakistan and Afghanistan” essentially echoes the arguments of the Pakistani military establishment: that violence cannot be ended unless Pakistan’s security concerns are assuaged. 

Thus, he writes that Washington should encourage “Afghanistan and India to effectively address, respectively, Pakistani security concerns related to the Pashtun and Baloch border regions and Kashmir.” He also argues that “true stability will not be possible without a comprehensive settlement between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” which would include an agreement on the Durand Line while also keeping the border open for the movement of people and goods. 

These are arguments which have been made by other analysts groping for a solution to the Afghan war. Yet Pakistan’s problems with Islamist militancy run far deeper than the insecurity of its borders. If its nuclear tests in 1998 could not make it feel secure, Afghanistan’s recognition of the Durand Line is unlikely to make much difference. Moreover, having attempted to establish that violent extremism does not have its roots in Pashtun history or culture, Siddique falls into the trap of seeking solutions from within Pashtun lands rather than at the core of the Pakistani state.

It would have been great to see a much bolder conclusion, one which, rather than continuing the British colonial pattern of trying to impose a settlement on the periphery, looks instead at the problems inherent in the Pakistani heartland and its inability to accommodate ethnic diversity. 

He might have found a need to upend a system that depends on preserving many of the repressive structures of the British security state while stressing the unifying role of Islam to suppress the different ethnic identities of its people. After all, Pakistan already lost more than half its population in 1971, when ethnic Bengalis in East Pakistan broke away, with Indian help, to form Bangladesh. 

Siddique’s book might have opened the way for a leap of imagination that would have addressed the centre far more clearly from the perspective of the Pashtun periphery. Instead, in what appears to be an effort at balance, he ends up repeating the standard security paradigm that Pakistan has somehow imposed on the vast majority of writers and analysts at home and abroad. His book, however, with its wealth of richly footnoted analysis and history, is an essential volume for anyone studying the region or the U.S. war in Afghanistan.


Myra MacDonald is a former Reuters journalist who has reported on Pakistan and India since 2000. She is the author of “Heights of Madness”, a book on the Siachen war fought in the mountains beyond Kashmir on the world’s highest battlefield. She is now working on a book about the relationship between India and Pakistan following their nuclear tests in 1998. She lives in Scotland and can be found on Twitter @myraemacdonald.

source: http://warontherocks.com/2014/12/answering-the-pashtun-question/

Peace Talks: Who speaks for the Pakistani Pakhtuns ?

Authored by Rafiullah Kakar

Criticizing the on-going peace talks with Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), leader of the opposition in the Upper House Senator Aitzaz Ahsan rightly pointed out last Tuesday that the real stakeholders are not a part of the process. The veteran politician also demanded that representatives of women, shia and minorities should also be included in the government negotiation committee.

One of the many ironies confronting Pashtuns is that, despite being the main victims of terrorism, their perspective is conspicuously missing in the national and international discourse about terrorism.

Building on the concerns expressed by the Senator, I wonder if the people of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, who have been affected the most by the erstwhile ‘Afghan Jihad’ and the current ‘War on Terror’, have a meaningful say in the so-called peace talks with the Taliban. According to data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, nearly fifty thousands have been killed in terrorist violence across the country from 2005-2014. Out of these, 31,300 casualties have occurred only in FATA and KPK. This accounts for 63% of the total fatalities, as against only 3% (1602) in Punjab during the same period. It is worth mentioning that the figure of 31,300 does not include pre-2009 data for FATA. In addition, the socio-cultural fabric of the Pakhtun society has been destroyed. More than 700 schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have been either demolished or damaged since 2007. More than 600 tribal elders have been killed, leaving behind a huge social void that is being filled by the militants. Besides, Pakhtun singers, artists and actors have either been killed or forced to flee the country. Shias and non- Muslim minorities who had been living peacefully in the Pakhtun areas for generations have been persecuted. The uniquely pluralistic outlook of Pakhtun society has been demolished.
On one hand, these figures are a shocking reminder of how Pakhtuns, after being used as fodder in a re-gional geo-strategic rivalry, were left to fend for themselves in trying to manage the ugly outcomes of an overly-ambitious Afghan policy. On the other hand, these figures are also a sharp riposte to those who equate Pakhtuns with the Taliban. One of the many ironies confronting Pashtuns is that, despite being the main victims of terrorism, their perspective is conspicuously missing in the national and international discourse about terrorism. Many of the so-called Af-Pak region experts are out of touch with the complex socio-cultural dynamics of Pakhtun society and, therefore, have fostered a stereotypical understanding of the Pakhun society. For instance, there are some distinguished scholars and politicians who would lead one to believe that Taliban represent a tribal Pakhtun resistance movement. There are still others who, perceiving secular Pashtun nationalism to be breathing its last, argue that Pashtun Islamists are gradually absorbing Pashtun ethnic grievances and are becoming the torch-bearers of Pashtun nationalism. Finally, there are those who preposterously trace the radicalization of Pashtun society to what they perceive as the inherently “violence-prone” nature of Pashtun culture.

Pakhtun youth is frustrated by the fact that while the pluralist and progressive voices have been stifled, the radical voices have always found more willing/sympathetic ears in the media, academia and policy-making circles.

In reality, religion has never had much political significance in the Pashtun society, though it has had some social relevance. In contrast, ethnicity, tribalism and Pakhtunwali have historically played a more promi-nent role in shaping the Pakhtun political discourse. This partially explains why the freedom struggle for Pakistan with its heavy Islamic overtones could not significantly fascinate the Pakhtuns. Similarly in the post-colonial Pakistan, the Pakhtuns, concerned about their distinct cultural identity, expressed their un-ease with the over-arching Islamic nationalism of the State and strived for achieving cultural recognition in a more inclusive national narrative. Things began to deteriorate when the State began making concerted efforts to ‘politicize’ religious militancy and exploit Pakhtunwali for achieving its perceived strategic inter-ests. The subsequent tale of the Afghan Jihad and ‘Strategic Depth’ policy is too well-known to merit repetition. Not surprisingly, state patronage of a militant discourse in the Pakhtun land continued even after the chickens started coming home to roost.
Coming back to the on-going peace talks, I cannot agree more with Aitzaz Ahsan when he commented that ‘Taliban are negotiating with the Taliban’. One really wonders if the negotiators are even thinking about considering the Pakhtun perspective. Critics may ask if Pakhtuns are a politically homogenous group. The answer is, of course not. Broadly speaking, they are divided between the left-leaning nationalists and the right-wing Islamists. However, Pakhtun youth is frustrated by the fact that while the pluralist and progressive voices have been stifled, the radical voices have always found more willing/sympathetic ears in the media, academia and policy-making circles. Consequently, a spurious perception has been created that the Pakhtuns, especially the tribesmen, crave for Sharia rule and support Taliban.
While representatives from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (S) are playing leading role in the discourse on peace talks, the Awami National Party (ANP)— which alone has lost more than 800 workers in the fight against the Taliban — is not a part of the process. Similarly, the viewpoint of Pakhtun civil society and intelligentsia has not even surfaced in the increasingly religiously charged debate about dialogue with Taliban. Those wondering about the perspective of Pakhtun civil society need only look at the Peshawar Declaration (2009). Interestingly enough, the people of the war affected areas have a quite different take on the issue of militancy than those living in the mainland Pakistan. The people of the conflict zone are fed up with the Taliban’s barbarianism but they also distrust the military. Most of them believe that the army and the Taliban are not enemies but friends. They cannot understand why the military failed in either killing or capturing the core leadership of the militants in all the previous military operations in FATA? Be it peace deal or military operation, the tribesmen find themselves trapped in a lose-lose situation. Particularly perturbing is the case of the anti-Taliban tribal Lashkars (militia) that have been facing the wrath of Taliban for ‘siding’ with the government? One of the recurrent features of the previous deals was that such anti-Taliban people were left at the mercy of their adversaries in the wake of each deal. Will these peace negotiations be any different? A big ‘No’, at least from the Taliban’s standpoint whose bloodthirsty intent was clearly revealed by their recent killing of the Chief of Mashokhel Quami Lashkar, Pir Israr Shah, along with his 7 relatives.

Those wondering about the perspective of Pakhtun civil society need only look at the Peshawar Declaration (2009). Interestingly enough, the people of the war affected areas have a quite different take on the issue of militancy than those living in the mainland Pakistan. The people of the conflict zone are fed up with the Taliban’s barbarianism but they also distrust the military

For peace talks to succeed, the government must take on board the Pakhtun civil society and tribal elders. The self-delusional distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban must be abolished. Besides, cessation of hostilities against anti-Taliban Lashkars, Shias and other minorities should be made a fundamental part of any would-be agreement. Moreover, Taliban owe an apology to the people of Pakistan in general and to those of FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in particular. For ensuring social harmony in the tribal areas, Taliban, following the Pakhtunwali tradition of NANAWATE, should seek forgiveness of the families of all the tribal people they have ruthlessly killed. Finally, the ruling elites need to take serious practical steps to demonstrate that they care equally for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. Otherwise, the current apathy is likely to have serious implications for the already-fragile national unity.

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Rafiullah Kakar is a Rhodes Scholar currently studying at Oxford University. He hails from Balochistan and can be reached at rafiullah_780@yahoo.com

source: http://www.laaltain.com/peace-talks-who-speaks-for-the-pakistani-pakhtuns/

Bacha Khan, a Forgotten Pashtun Leader

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Written by Spogmay Waziri Kakar

The only great leader whose name stands out in the history of Pashtuns is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as ‘Bacha Khan’, ‘Fakhr-e-Afghan’, and the ‘Frontier Ghandi’. Many Pashtuns observed his 26^th death anniversary on January 20^th–a day that coincided with Martin Luther King (MLK), Jr. Day. In the United States, this is a designated holiday to commemorate and celebrate the contributions of the civil rights champion who fought for the rights of African Americans. A social and political reformer, and a spiritual leader, Bacha Khan was an independence activist known for his non-violent opposition to British India. Both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bacha Khan foughtagainst injustice and inequality through non-violent means, initiating non-violent movements, for their people in their respective regions. But while MLK’s struggles and speeches are kept alive in America 46 years after his death, ironically, Bacha Khan is turning into a forgotten hero in his own land and among the people he spent his entire life struggling for—the Pashtuns.

While Pashtuns are generally highlighted in the history as aggressive people, individuals like Bacha Khan are rarely mentioned. Bacha Khan was a champion of non-violent resistance to injustice and inequality, similar to Mahatama Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. However, today, Bacha Khan’s name is not included in the group of these non-violent resistance gurus. Bacha Khan and Gandhi were close friends, and they both shared similar philosophies and ideas. They both fought against injustice. While Gandhi is a household name and an international icon, Bacha Khan’s contributions are rarely acknowledged.

While Pashtuns on both sides of the border were quick to respond to Nelson Mandela’s death on social media, they were quiet on the death anniversary of Bacha Khan. When Americans marked the 50^th anniversary of MLK’s famous “I have a dream” speech, many Pashtuns wrote about him and his famous quotes were circulated widely on different social media networks. Some of his famous sayings were even translated into Pashto on social media platforms. However, very few people shared Bacha Khan’s quotes.

Will Bacha Khan turn into a fictional character who will only be remembered in stories of those who knew him? Will the future Pashtun generations not know the great Pashtun leader they once had?

To understand why Bacha Khan is turning into a forgotten leader, it is important to know the history of the region he belonged to. In 1946, when the Indian congress accepted the British partition plan, the Khudai Khidmatgar (“Servants of God”), the Pashtun nonviolent resistance movement led by Bacha Khan, demanded inclusion of an option to establish an independent state of Pashtunistan. Yet, in August 1947, only India and Pakistan emerged from the British Indian Empire. Bacha Khan felt betrayed because he wasn’t consulted about the partition plan, which he opposed along religious lines. While Gandhi’s legacy was carried on by his people in his country, Bacha Khan, however, was left stateless, sandwiched between Pakistan on one side and Afghanistan on the other. Since Pashtuns live on both sides of the contentious border, Durand Line, Bacha Khan was forgotten due to the political policies of both countries.

The truth is that Bacha Khan was a stateless leader and a stateless leader is not recognized as a citizen by any country, let alone as a leader. It is the people within a country that make a great leader into a hero and carry on his legacy so that future generations can learn from him. Every single child in India knows about Mahatma Gandhi, just as every child in America knows about Martin Luther King, Jr. Bacha Khan carried out similar struggles against British India and played a critical role in the history of Pashtuns, but he is not mentioned in history books of the region he lived in.

Bacha Khan spent many years in prison first under the British rule as a result of his struggles against their injustices. Later, he spent many years in prison in Pakistan, where he was treated worse than he was in the British-owned prisons. In the early years, it was his educational activities that caught the attention of British who tried to prevent him. He knew education was the key to change the Pashtuns. He was imprisoned and ill-treated but still preached peace and harmony.

Since Bacha Khan was against the partition plan, he is generally viewed in Pakistan as an unpatriotic leader. He, however, changed his stance after the creation of Pakistan and fought against those who deprived Pashtuns from their rights. There was a push in Pakistan after its independence from British India to promote patriotism and any leader who didn’t fit their narrow definition of patriotism was left out, and Bacha Khan was one of them. Pakistan excluded any leader from the history curriculums who was associated with Pashtun nationalism because it feared that a rise in Pashtun nationalism could mean losing a part of the Pakistani land to Afghanistan since the Durand Line cut the Pashtun population in half and no Pashtun leader has officially recognized this border.

On the Afghan side, Bacha Khan is viewed as an outsider among non-Pashtuns. While he was highly respected during the communist regime in Kabul, he was forgotten during King Zahir Shah’s reign and then during the mujahidin and the Taliban era. Bacha Khan is not included in Afghan history books either because many other ethnicities fear it could promote Pashtun nationalism; this is because there is a push on the Afghan side as well to promote national unity among different ethnicities.

Bacha Khan always felt connected to his Pashtun population, no matter which side of the border they lived on. It was his will to be buried in Afghanistan, where he made several visits during his lifetime. Bacha Khan’s non-violent resistance movement offers a lot for Pashtuns to learn from. He suffered brutally in the hands of injustice, but he persevered and remained true to his principles and struggles.

The quotes, speeches, and civil rights struggles of MLK, Jr. and Ghandhi are taught in schools and colleges throughout their countries and abroad, and they are part of the history of their countries. Unfortunately, not even a small chapter is dedicated to Bacha Khan in either Pakistan or Afghanistan—where Pashtuns live. I attended an Afghan school from K-12 and not a single time were we taught about this great Pashtun leader. Instead, we were taught about many Arab heroes, who fought and conquered lands.

Bacha Khan was a man years ahead of his time who thought creating a Pakistan along religious lines might turn out to be problematic and who thought the only way for Pashtuns to succeed was through education. Bacha Khan continued his struggles to his last day through non-violent means. Just as Americans have a day to commemorate MLK, Jr. or Indians have many days to honor Gandhi, Bacha Khan needs to be remembered and honored for many things: for the many years of his life behind bars and still continuing to be non-violent and for all the sacrifices he endured and never turned to violence.

Source: http://www.pashtunwomenvp.com/index.php/2013-01-28-03-21-27/political/406-bacha-khan-a-forgotten-pashtun-leader