Peshawar’s last sentinel

The grand old man of Peshawar, Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, recently announced his retirement from parliamentary politics. At 84, Haji Bilour is the oldest surviving member of the Bilour family, which has been associated with the Awami National Party (ANP) for three generations. 

The Bilours, ANP, and Peshawar are inextricably linked – their bonds forged by legendary loyalty, resilience, and sacrifice. Over the decades, the Bilour family has endured tremendous loss, giving their lives, homes, and businesses to the city they call home.

The Bilours truly mirror Peshawar’s grandeur and sorrow. For centuries, Peshawar was a thriving trade hub, a focal point of cultural exchange, and a place of vibrant diversity. The city was home to artisans and handicrafts that served the agricultural communities of the Peshawar valley, and its inner city held treasures cherished by generations of Hindko-speaking families. However, post-9/11, the city’s epic has taken a tragic turn.

During the turbulent years before and after 2010, the Bilour family stood out for their sacrifices, paying in blood for their loyalty to Peshawar. As the cultural capital of the Pashtuns, the ANP held the city’s interests close, with the Bilours, bearing the party’s flag in Peshawar, ensuring it flew high despite the loss of many of their brightest members. The Bilours were not the only family targeted for their ANP affiliation; many others in the party lost their lives, including city presidents and workers, from Mian Mushtaq in 2014 to Sartaj Khan in 2019. But the Bilour family’s fate was uniquely tragic, as they faced losses across multiple generations.

Haji Bilour, a devoted follower of Bacha Khan and a confidant of Wali Khan, has remained steadfast with the party through thick and thin, along with his family. “In religion and politics, once we took a position, we stood there, no matter what came”, he once said. Ghulam Ahmed Bilour entered politics in the 1970s, and during his career, he was imprisoned over five times, including in the Hyderabad Conspiracy Case alongside Khan Abdul Wali Khan, Ghous Bux Bezinjo, and Attaullah Mengal. In 1975, all four Bilour brothers were behind bars simultaneously, a testament to their shared dedication.

The years of violence that engulfed (now former) Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between 2007 and 2016 saw the dawn of a new era in Pashtun nationalist politics. Hundreds of the ANP’s cadre and leaders sacrificed their lives in the struggle against terrorism, and among them, the Bilours suffered grievously. The family’s most revered public figure, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, was the first significant loss. Younger than Haji Bilour, Bashir had served twice as the ANP’s acting central president and twice as the provincial president.

Bashir, then the parliamentary leader of ANP in the provincial assembly and a senior minister, was always the first to reach any explosion site – a time when bomb blasts in Peshawar city were frequent, often occurring at least weekly. Unapologetically, he openly challenged the Taliban’s narrative. “Terrorists can run out of suicide jackets, but our chests [laid on for the defence of our homeland] will not”, he famously declared.

One of the first vocal critics of Osama Bin Laden, his rhetoric was neither empty nor strategic but a heartfelt and bold call for peace. For this, he became a target of numerous assassination attempts, ultimately losing his life at 69 in December 2012, during a suicide bombing at Qissakhwani Bazaar. It was the fifth attempt on his life.

Bashir was neither the first Bilour nor the last to sacrifice his life for the people. Haji Bilour’s son Shabbir was killed in a polling booth shooting during the 1997 NA-1 by-election. In 2018, Bashir’s son, Barrister Haroon Bilour, a promising young leader widely seen as his father’s political heir, was killed in a suicide bombing that also took the lives of several party workers. Haroon’s widow, Samar Bilour, courageously took up the mantle, becoming a strong and eloquent voice for the ANP in the national media.

With Haroon’s death, two generations of Bilours had been claimed by terrorism, leaving only the bereaved Haji Ghulam Bilour to carry forward the family’s legacy. Despite his immense loss, Haji Bilour maintained his commitment to Peshawar, often seen at party protests, rallies, and demonstrations. He even participated in a hunger strike during an ANP protest against inflation. Haji Bilour represents a rare breed of politician for whom politics is a lifelong commitment to the people.

For any party seeking legitimacy in Peshawar or among Pashtuns, the Bilours would be a prized association. It’s likely Haji Bilour has received many lucrative offers from other parties, yet he has remained loyal to the ANP, a testament to his ideological convictions. Still, one might wonder if Peshawar has reciprocated the Bilour family’s dedication.

In the last three elections, Haji Bilour faced significant losses, losing by large margins. In a recent interview, he suggested that certain “quarters” did not want him in the public eye, orchestrating his repeated defeats. There is truth in Haji Bilour’s claim, though it may not be the full story. After his 2018 loss, he remarked, “if that’s what they [the people] want, let it be”, lamenting that despite all his family had done for Peshawar, his opponents were chosen instead.

It is undeniable that some forces oppose Haji Bilour and other ANP leaders. Yet, if the people themselves did not support their opponents, the engineered losses would not be as straightforward as they appear. Today’s political climate is indeed driven by sensation rather than logic, and the people of Peshawar continue to vote for the PTI, only to leave Peshawar for better living conditions elsewhere in Pakistan, in cities like Islamabad and Lahore.

Occasionally, social media highlights how Islamabad is becoming predominantly Pashtun. Some young Pashtun nationalists celebrate this as progress, though they rarely consider why Pashtuns are moving en masse to the capital in the first place. Upward mobility and middle-class aspirations aside, this trend largely stems from the military operations in ex-Fata and deteriorating law and order in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which led to the first major exodus to Islamabad and Punjab in the early 2010s. More recently, since around 2015, people have been leaving Peshawar due to its declining livability, exacerbated by over a decade of PTI rule.

Those who could afford to leave Peshawar have done so, often only returning to vote for the PTI. It’s a bitter irony that Peshawar’s residents abandoned the Bilours, supported the PTI, and are now leaving the city due to the very conditions that PTI governance has fostered. In this light, Haji Bilour’s own possible relocation to Islamabad would be a fitting rebuke to Peshawar’s political consciousness.

In the same interview where he announced his retirement from parliamentary politics, Haji Bilour expressed his sadness: “People make [fortunes] in politics; we have lost both lives and wealth. First, Bashir Bilour’s house was sold, and now I am also thinking of selling mine”.

What better illustrates the fading glory of Peshawar than the fact that its most loyal sons are selling their ancestral homes? The Bilours, the vanguards of progressive ideals in the city, are leaving. Yet, one doubts if most of Peshawar’s residents realise the deep wound this departure will inflict. It is almost as if the city’s political soul is being stripped away. But why would Peshawar care? Its educated and affluent residents have already left.

For the grieving Haji Bilour, it may be some small comfort to know that his loss is not his alone but Peshawar’s loss as well.

The writer is a researcher currently affiliated with the University of Loralai, Balochistan. He tweets/posts @zabulistan_ and can be reached at: bakhtnuur@gmail.com